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You are missing the point. Machines can perform a greater and greater amount of jobs which normally only were for humans because they achieve higher and higher

You are missing the point. Machines can perform a greater and greater amount of jobs which normally only were for humans because they achieve higher and higher levels of abstraction. Most jobs doesn't require you to be a human they require you to perform a small part of what humans can do. So whats left are things that require an entire human which makes it a commodity.

notahacker 10y ago
No, I'm pointing out that the pattern of machines being able to perform a greater number of jobs previously reserved for humans has been going on for two centuries and no matter what level of abstraction the machines are performing at, the result has consistently been more stuff, not fewer jobs. The real story of China's mobile phone industry isn't one of fractions of jobs being lost to efficiency programmes, it's one of there being millions of jobs created in an industry which barely existed 25 years ago. We haven't reached peak consumption yet. And whilst "smile, pass a Turing test and do something I haven't asked you to do before" might be a very small part of what humans can do, it's something which machines in general available aren't doing a great job of catching up on. There's even a non-trivial proportion of jobs where "be a human" is the main requirement of the job. And even in the subset of tasks where computers have gone far beyond humans' capabilities they're usually better still at those tasks with a person or thousand interfacing with them, usually in jobs that didn't exist in a less technically-enabled age.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  It's not just been going on it have had an actual effect on the number of new jobs created and the kinds of jobs it is (lower paid and temporary). Also the mistake many do when they talk about this is that they look at the global trend which is basically creating more jobs in the developing world and it's doing it at a cost for westerns jobs. The number of new jobs created each decade in the US has gone down since 2nd world war. This is the point that many don't seem to get. Outsourcing is mostly the last step before automation. Here is the reality of what I am talking about. http://www.wsj.com/articles/routine-jobs-are-disappearing-1483455600?mod=e2fb http://www.wsj.com/articles/routine-jobs-are-disappearing-14...
  - notahacker 10y ago
    > The number of new jobs created each decade in the US has gone down since 2nd world war https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Total_private_industries_employment.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Total_private... Trend growth looks pretty steady to me, including when typists and telephone switchboard operators were being replaced at a much faster rate than machine welders. The 2000s was obviously a terrible decade, but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with the global financial crisis than any ~2007 breakthrough in robotics
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      You are looking the wrong places. You are just looking at the aggregate number of jobs. But thats not relevant. What's relevant is how many new jobs are created and those numbers are going down. https://plot.ly/~BethS/8/job-growth-by-decade-in-the-united-states/ https://plot.ly/~BethS/8/job-growth-by-decade-in-the-united-... Also the way jobs are defined is problematic here is how it's defined. "People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Individuals also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were: On vacation Ill Experiencing child care problems On maternity or paternity leave Taking care of some other family or personal obligation Involved in a labor dispute Prevented from working by bad weather These people are counted among the employed and tabulated separately as with a job but not at work, because they have a specific job to which they will return." https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm 95% of the jobs created since 2008 are temp jobs. So no it doesn't look steady once you actually start looking into the details.

notahacker 10y ago

No, I'm pointing out that the pattern of machines being able to perform a greater number of jobs previously reserved for humans has been going on for two centuries and no matter what level of abstraction the machines are performing at, the result has consistently been more stuff, not fewer jobs. The real story of China's mobile phone industry isn't one of fractions of jobs being lost to efficiency programmes, it's one of there being millions of jobs created in an industry which barely existed 25 years ago. We haven't reached peak consumption yet. And whilst "smile, pass a Turing test and do something I haven't asked you to do before" might be a very small part of what humans can do, it's something which machines in general available aren't doing a great job of catching up on. There's even a non-trivial proportion of jobs where "be a human" is the main requirement of the job. And even in the subset of tasks where computers have gone far beyond humans' capabilities they're usually better still at those tasks with a person or thousand interfacing with them, usually in jobs that didn't exist in a less technically-enabled age.

ThomPete 10y ago
It's not just been going on it have had an actual effect on the number of new jobs created and the kinds of jobs it is (lower paid and temporary). Also the mistake many do when they talk about this is that they look at the global trend which is basically creating more jobs in the developing world and it's doing it at a cost for westerns jobs. The number of new jobs created each decade in the US has gone down since 2nd world war. This is the point that many don't seem to get. Outsourcing is mostly the last step before automation. Here is the reality of what I am talking about. http://www.wsj.com/articles/routine-jobs-are-disappearing-1483455600?mod=e2fb http://www.wsj.com/articles/routine-jobs-are-disappearing-14...
- notahacker 10y ago
  > The number of new jobs created each decade in the US has gone down since 2nd world war https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Total_private_industries_employment.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Total_private... Trend growth looks pretty steady to me, including when typists and telephone switchboard operators were being replaced at a much faster rate than machine welders. The 2000s was obviously a terrible decade, but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with the global financial crisis than any ~2007 breakthrough in robotics
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    You are looking the wrong places. You are just looking at the aggregate number of jobs. But thats not relevant. What's relevant is how many new jobs are created and those numbers are going down. https://plot.ly/~BethS/8/job-growth-by-decade-in-the-united-states/ https://plot.ly/~BethS/8/job-growth-by-decade-in-the-united-... Also the way jobs are defined is problematic here is how it's defined. "People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment. Individuals also are counted as employed if they have a job at which they did not work during the survey week, whether they were paid or not, because they were: On vacation Ill Experiencing child care problems On maternity or paternity leave Taking care of some other family or personal obligation Involved in a labor dispute Prevented from working by bad weather These people are counted among the employed and tabulated separately as with a job but not at work, because they have a specific job to which they will return." https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm 95% of the jobs created since 2008 are temp jobs. So no it doesn't look steady once you actually start looking into the details.