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I've made this same argument myself, but I've come to believe that there is a difference of kind between the two revolutions you cite and the coming of AI: each

by jrlocke 10y ago

I've made this same argument myself, but I've come to believe that there is a difference of kind between the two revolutions you cite and the coming of AI: each of those found a way to replace a large number of human jobs, but humans were able to find refuge in employment at tasks that the new technologies were ill suited for. To you I ask, what is a human able to do that a sufficiently good AI cannot?

monk_e_boy 10y ago
Nothing, C P Grey had this argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU Before the industrial revolution we had lots of horses for horse power. Then we made engines which replaced horses. Horses didn't change jobs, they couldn't.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  The thing that you're missing here is that the "ai revolution" is not going to be the singularity. We're not going to magically, one day, have robots that outperform humans at all tasks. Low hanging fruit here is education, tradespeople (AI will not be repairing your car for a while), managerial and oversight tasks, QA engineers, blah, blah, blah. There are plenty of things that humans will be doing better than AI, and from those we'll probably continue specializing and be more ready to handle when automation of more complex tasks does eventually happen.
internaut 10y ago
> what is a human able to do that a sufficiently good AI cannot? That may not be the right question. There are all kinds of things that theoretically we could replace with bots over humans but we do not because of convention. For example Home Depot or any Home/Shed tool supply store. Let me explain? In Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age there is a class of humans who generate handcrafted items. They have machines that produce anything to molecular perfection and yet humans (due to our nature) seek to distinguish themselves from other groups of humans using objects. In this case flawed objects, but objects they willingly paid for nonetheless. It's all about status! This is not outlandish to me. I want to construct a Tiny House. I know that when I develop the skills and accomplish this task I will place considerable value on my creation. It is extremely likely that this is not optimal because of the division of labour. However I will enjoy my Tiny House regardless. AI can endlessly optimize production but it cannot manufacture personal pride or social class. Human nature creates scarcity naturally even within a state of abundance. We really do like to belong to tribes and be 'self made'.

by jrlocke 10y ago

monk_e_boy 10y ago

Nothing, C P Grey had this argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU Before the industrial revolution we had lots of horses for horse power. Then we made engines which replaced horses. Horses didn't change jobs, they couldn't.

nostrebored 10y ago
The thing that you're missing here is that the "ai revolution" is not going to be the singularity. We're not going to magically, one day, have robots that outperform humans at all tasks. Low hanging fruit here is education, tradespeople (AI will not be repairing your car for a while), managerial and oversight tasks, QA engineers, blah, blah, blah. There are plenty of things that humans will be doing better than AI, and from those we'll probably continue specializing and be more ready to handle when automation of more complex tasks does eventually happen.

internaut 10y ago

> what is a human able to do that a sufficiently good AI cannot? That may not be the right question. There are all kinds of things that theoretically we could replace with bots over humans but we do not because of convention. For example Home Depot or any Home/Shed tool supply store. Let me explain? In Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age there is a class of humans who generate handcrafted items. They have machines that produce anything to molecular perfection and yet humans (due to our nature) seek to distinguish themselves from other groups of humans using objects. In this case flawed objects, but objects they willingly paid for nonetheless. It's all about status! This is not outlandish to me. I want to construct a Tiny House. I know that when I develop the skills and accomplish this task I will place considerable value on my creation. It is extremely likely that this is not optimal because of the division of labour. However I will enjoy my Tiny House regardless. AI can endlessly optimize production but it cannot manufacture personal pride or social class. Human nature creates scarcity naturally even within a state of abundance. We really do like to belong to tribes and be 'self made'.