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I disagree that it's "exactly wrong", though I at the same time agree with the secular stagnation concept. It's important to remember that past revolutions in

I disagree that it's "exactly wrong", though I at the same time agree with the secular stagnation concept. It's important to remember that past revolutions in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another. For example, the industrial revolution destroyed hand and muscle-driven labor and replaced it with factory labor. In the US we then went from an industrial economy driven by factory jobs to a service economy driven by knowledge-based labor. Automation today is now destroying service economy jobs, but it's not clear, at least to me, what new sector is ramping up to pick up the displacement slack. The tech sector isn't going to have enough jobs for everyone getting automated away, and this time around automation is unique in that it's attacking pretty much everything all at once. Human drivers are going to be displaced by autonomous vehicles at the same time as financial advisers are being displaced by wealth allocation algorithms at the same time as warehouse workers are being displaced by picker robots, etc.

roryisok 10y ago
Even jobs in the tech sector are likely under threat. Remember that guy a few weeks ago showing an AI platform be built to design logos for customers? We're not far from having AI build our web pages, and then simple web apps, and then probably native apps, and before long, finding and patching bugs in software, and eventually writing the software itself
- nradov 10y ago
  You don't need much in the way of AI to design and build simple web pages. Existing templates and wizards already do that; those jobs were automated away years ago. Patching all but the simplest software bugs will require real AGI. Understanding a bug and the side effects of a patch goes way beyond current AI technology, and there is still no defined R&D path which is likely to produce an AGI.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Even finance is being upended actively by automation and AI. The narrative will follow the "drug war." When it's the poor people (factory workers::blacks), they're just "losers" who need to try harder or should be locked away for decades. When it's happening in upper middle and middle class suburbia (opioid epidemic::white collar automation), then it's a "public health crisis that commands our empathy!"
- hshhdshdh 10y ago
  We already are automated. It's called C. Python. Java. Go. How many programmers would it take to write Windows in Assembly?
  - roryisok 10y ago
    It's automated to a certain level, sure - but it's silly to assume we've reached maximum amount of automation possible in the space.
jganetsk 10y ago
> It's important to remember that past revolutions in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another. That's exactly right. We've been creating work to keep people busy for 200 years in many more ways than you mention. Consumerism. Marketing. Bureaucracy. We have one industry that makes people sick (food) and another industry that makes people healthy (healthcare). The twin peaks of the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, especially in the USA. We have industries that make plastic casings to wrap goods, just so we can sell goods to consumers, who unwrap and immediately dispose the plastic, so that another industry (sanitation) can take them away. We basically have a society which continuously breaks glass windows and then fixes them. It's all, in some sense, pure dead weight, just to keep people employed. So why should this stop now?
- cylinder 10y ago
  The New Economy: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms-poured-780m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms... Think of the additional economic boost from treating these people in hospitals, or even better, prisons! Countless "jobs" will be created!
- mdorazio 10y ago
  Because we are in the process of automating away all jobs except consumption this time around. In the past as those new "busywork" industries popped up, human workers filled the new roles. But now we're approaching the point where every new busywork job can be filled by machines, which are cheaper than employees. Health and food are actually a great example. We've already automated away most farm jobs (in the US at least) and a lot of the food production & prep jobs for junk food type things. And now we're starting to see in the healthcare space that software can reduce loads on doctors, for example ML-based interpretation of X-rays, automated patient record tracking, etc. Fitbit is the tip of iceberg for what's possible in at-home health monitoring based on software instead of humans. I would argue that while the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, the number of jobs in each cannot.
  - 10y ago

roryisok 10y ago

Even jobs in the tech sector are likely under threat. Remember that guy a few weeks ago showing an AI platform be built to design logos for customers? We're not far from having AI build our web pages, and then simple web apps, and then probably native apps, and before long, finding and patching bugs in software, and eventually writing the software itself

nradov 10y ago
You don't need much in the way of AI to design and build simple web pages. Existing templates and wizards already do that; those jobs were automated away years ago. Patching all but the simplest software bugs will require real AGI. Understanding a bug and the side effects of a patch goes way beyond current AI technology, and there is still no defined R&D path which is likely to produce an AGI.
cylinder 10y ago
Even finance is being upended actively by automation and AI. The narrative will follow the "drug war." When it's the poor people (factory workers::blacks), they're just "losers" who need to try harder or should be locked away for decades. When it's happening in upper middle and middle class suburbia (opioid epidemic::white collar automation), then it's a "public health crisis that commands our empathy!"
hshhdshdh 10y ago
We already are automated. It's called C. Python. Java. Go. How many programmers would it take to write Windows in Assembly?
- roryisok 10y ago
  It's automated to a certain level, sure - but it's silly to assume we've reached maximum amount of automation possible in the space.

jganetsk 10y ago

> It's important to remember that past revolutions in automation have destroyed one field of labor while creating another. That's exactly right. We've been creating work to keep people busy for 200 years in many more ways than you mention. Consumerism. Marketing. Bureaucracy. We have one industry that makes people sick (food) and another industry that makes people healthy (healthcare). The twin peaks of the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, especially in the USA. We have industries that make plastic casings to wrap goods, just so we can sell goods to consumers, who unwrap and immediately dispose the plastic, so that another industry (sanitation) can take them away. We basically have a society which continuously breaks glass windows and then fixes them. It's all, in some sense, pure dead weight, just to keep people employed. So why should this stop now?

cylinder 10y ago
The New Economy: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms-poured-780m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms... Think of the additional economic boost from treating these people in hospitals, or even better, prisons! Countless "jobs" will be created!
mdorazio 10y ago
Because we are in the process of automating away all jobs except consumption this time around. In the past as those new "busywork" industries popped up, human workers filled the new roles. But now we're approaching the point where every new busywork job can be filled by machines, which are cheaper than employees. Health and food are actually a great example. We've already automated away most farm jobs (in the US at least) and a lot of the food production & prep jobs for junk food type things. And now we're starting to see in the healthcare space that software can reduce loads on doctors, for example ML-based interpretation of X-rays, automated patient record tracking, etc. Fitbit is the tip of iceberg for what's possible in at-home health monitoring based on software instead of humans. I would argue that while the sickness and health industries can grow indefinitely, the number of jobs in each cannot.
- 10y ago