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Please explain how that works. So you've got a completely independent "fully automated" economy of robots creating "goods" (as defined by humans) and exchangin

Please explain how that works. So you've got a completely independent "fully automated" economy of robots creating "goods" (as defined by humans) and exchanging them with one another while humans starve to death watching that?

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Exactly. When robots do the manufacturing and delivery, algorithms do the orders and stock trading, you can imagine the moment when increasing automation will eventually remove humans from the loop. The market can and does get stuck in weird stupid-ass loops. Consider, for instance, the advertising industry. Most of its output is aimed at cancelling itself out (e.g. when you and I compete for the same group of customers, my advertising expenditure goes mostly to cancel out yours, and vice versa). Also in on-line advertising, a lot of money is being moved over nothing - consider, for instance, analytics. Many people in Internet marketing are clueless about statistics, but so are their clients - so as long as they can bullshit the customers that their service is helping (graph is going up!), they get paid, and customers are happy, because they're clueless too and can't verify the effectiveness of the service they paid for. And now for a funny twist - people making those analytics tools know this too, and guess what - they're starting to offer statistically invalid measures that are likely to look like the changes marketing people introduced are working. So those marketing people are being bulshitted by their tools now. It's not a circle per se, but it shows another example of money moving around over no value created.
- davidivadavid 10y ago
  Actually, no, I can't imagine that moment, and that's why I'm asking for someone to come up with a sensical narrative that takes us from here to there. Humans dictate what the "loop" is. They define what gets manufactured, and who it gets delivered to. How do they get out of the loop? I believe the whole idea of humans becoming "useless" or "obsolete" is the biggest piece of nonsense I've come across in the last few years.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Exactly. When robots do the manufacturing and delivery, algorithms do the orders and stock trading, you can imagine the moment when increasing automation will eventually remove humans from the loop. The market can and does get stuck in weird stupid-ass loops. Consider, for instance, the advertising industry. Most of its output is aimed at cancelling itself out (e.g. when you and I compete for the same group of customers, my advertising expenditure goes mostly to cancel out yours, and vice versa). Also in on-line advertising, a lot of money is being moved over nothing - consider, for instance, analytics. Many people in Internet marketing are clueless about statistics, but so are their clients - so as long as they can bullshit the customers that their service is helping (graph is going up!), they get paid, and customers are happy, because they're clueless too and can't verify the effectiveness of the service they paid for. And now for a funny twist - people making those analytics tools know this too, and guess what - they're starting to offer statistically invalid measures that are likely to look like the changes marketing people introduced are working. So those marketing people are being bulshitted by their tools now. It's not a circle per se, but it shows another example of money moving around over no value created.

davidivadavid 10y ago
Actually, no, I can't imagine that moment, and that's why I'm asking for someone to come up with a sensical narrative that takes us from here to there. Humans dictate what the "loop" is. They define what gets manufactured, and who it gets delivered to. How do they get out of the loop? I believe the whole idea of humans becoming "useless" or "obsolete" is the biggest piece of nonsense I've come across in the last few years.