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That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today. We'r
by vegabook 11y ago
That sorting fruit is "hard labour" is actually coincidental. The real skill is pattern recognition and dextrosity. Skills widely deployed by humans today. We're now on the cusp of destroying this, another whole class of human employability. I am not as confident as you that we can simply extrapolate the past ad infinitum (ie: the "we will adapt and flourish" dogma). It seems to me we're reaching some inflection points in the trend where real, painful adjustment will occur. Recall that the 19th century's "innovations" created vast misery then, and war for 50 years 50 years later, before we adjusted. For those of us (un)lucky enough to be alive today, the immediate future seems very bleak indeed. Thanks to thinking machines.
- sliverstorm 11y agoWell, first of all painful adjustment in the immediate future is worth the permanent advancement after the adjustment. Second of all I feel we have every reason to believe advancements like this are inexorable, so I would rather devote my thoughts to how best to handle them rather than how to stop them or to lament how unfortunate it is. I would also argue that the greatest skill humanity possess is not dexterity, pattern matching, or anything else like that. But, rather, adapting.
- vegabook 11y agoThe inevitability assumption. Not borne out by history. There are very long periods of regression if you look at the century-level scale, and it is not unreasonable to contemplate the potential that we might be getting towards "peak tech", right, now. Will technology move upwards? Most likely. Will technology move in an uninterrupted straight line upwards? most unlikely.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoEasy to say, Guy With A Job. Hungry people have other opinions. If we had, say, a Basic Income in place (or other hunger-proof social network) then I'd lean toward a Utopian view of progress as well.