5 ms·
There is a lot of discussion on HN (in this thread and in many others) about what we will do when technology replaces a significant fraction of our jobs. Peopl
by habosa 10y ago
There is a lot of discussion on HN (in this thread and in many others) about what we will do when technology replaces a significant fraction of our jobs. People are talking about a 10%, 50%, or even 99% reduction in the workforce size due to technological advances (mostly AI).
I totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology. Look at humans throughout history. We have continuously invented ways to automate (or nearly automate) away the labor behind our needs and desires, but people have been working 40+ hour weeks since the industrial revolution. It seems that our wants and needs advance as quickly, or even more quickly, than our ability to meet them with technology.
I think a good analogy (for this crowd) is personal computing. Every year our computers get much faster, yet the overall "speed" of the experience remains about the same. Why? Because as soon as we get our hands on a new CPU we go and write a program that requires more CPU power, rather than simply watching our old programs run faster. I don't think there is anyone out there running Netscape on Windows XP on top of a brand new Intel Processor with 32GB of RAM.
I think we are being a combination of overconfident and unimaginative when we think we are on the brink of a technological utopia where DeepMind AI does our job for us. We are unable to imagine the wants we will have in the future. This is by definition, if we could imagine them we'd have already started working towards them!
I will present a concrete example, one that's overused but still effective. Consider the smartphone. This is a device that is pocketable, affordable to ~50% of the world's population, and can answer nearly any factual query in seconds. I think if you had told someone in the 90s about that they would assume we'd have vastly more leisure time. We'd have fired all the librarians, replaced the teachers with machines, and our children could complete 12 years of education at home in a fraction of the time. But of course this is not what happened. In fact we created more work for ourselves, I bet half the people in this thread are employed by a company that makes software for smartphones. We didn't know we'd want 100 apps and games on each phone, but now that we're here we won't easily give them up.
I don't mean any of the above to sound negative. This is a wonderful thing! This infinite cycle of desire is what has driven us to this point and is what will drive us into the future. But the one negative consequence (in my opinion) is that humans will not soon be a leisurely species. We will keep busy, and we will keep inventing things to busy ourselves with.
- Pamar 10y agoI totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology. Your main point is correct, but take in account this, too: So far technology has replaced or created new jobs requiring not much more in terms of skills. To make a very simple example: cars were not extremely more difficult to drive than a cart. And way easier (less physical strength required, for example) than riding a horse. So if someone was intellectually capable of learning to drive a cart, they could probably manage a truck. People leaving their farm (thanks to increased mechanization of farm labor) could move to the city and work in a plant or in a blue collar job with little training. Of course, advances in science and technology also created whole new jobs that required a lot of study (I dunno... Engineer, Chemist) but it was not like everyone who was made redundant as a cart driver or a farmer would move to the nearest city and become a scientist. So the problem seems to be this: assume that half of the truckers will be made redundant in 10 years. How many of them will succesfully "pivot" in something else, like truck AI programmer? 1 in 1000? Of course, they could become ... truck mechanics... but, wait... we already had mechanics working on human-driven trucks, and the fact that some trucks are now autonomous will not require an large amount of extra repair shops to cater for them. So, what will the not-truck-driver-anymore guys do?
- mncharity 10y agoAlso another factor - the minimum viable skill level rises. In Spain, some years back (6 centuries?), being able to read and write, could get you respect and lifetime employment. Being able to read silently - reputation and awe. Without your lips moving - quiet speculation about deals with the Devil. Now being able to read gets little Casey to middle school. It's not hard to image a few years out, a little Casey with more category theory than almost anyone here, and a better feel for system decomposition and design. Also with more numerate physics than most current physics 4th-year undergraduates, and a better understanding of biology than many current first-tier medical school students. Low bars all. I've seen two threads here today, saying things like 'that new Javascript tooling is bafflingly complex' and 'they wrote something incomprehensible about functors returning monoids'. Welcome to the future. Maybe the future is like immigration - you often lose a generation - one that works really hard, for little joy, so their kids can make it. Only the future really doesn't need or want the work many have to offer. And with wealth and education inequality, their kids may not have much of a chance either. And for high-skill individuals feeling secure and smug, it's amazing what we're starting to be able to do, combining machine learning with human/software hybrid processes, to deskill professional work. ;)