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Automation used to be about simply replacing physical labour with more automated systems. The problem with your Deans teaching is that it's not not just physic

Automation used to be about simply replacing physical labour with more automated systems. The problem with your Deans teaching is that it's not not just physical labour but intellectual capacity. And so unless you have some other level of complexity that make humans special it is in fact going to be more or less impossible to think of a thing an AI wont be able to do better than humans.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> And so unless you have some other level of complexity that make humans special it is in fact going to be more or less impossible to think of a thing an AI wont be able to do better than humans. If we reach the point where AI can do all human jobs better than humans, that would put us firmly in a post-scarcity world, where humans no longer need to work jobs at all.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  You are looking at this the wrong way. No job require all human skills. Most jobs requires only subsets of human skills.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    I didn't suggest otherwise; however, the comment I replied to said: > it is in fact going to be more or less impossible to think of a thing an AI wont be able to do better than humans But we necessarily can't reach the point where AI can do all human jobs without having completely general human-level (or beyond-human-level) AI. Until then, AI can only replace a subset of human jobs, and I've seen many convincing arguments (including analogies to past advances) that the net gain will provide more (and better) opportunities.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      There is no net gain, the number of jobs have only been growing because the market have been growing, but in the west the number of actual jobs are declining. In the US, 95% of jobs are temp jobs and the definition of when someone is said to have a job have been widened substantially since Bush. The number of new jobs created have gone down decade after decade since ww2
      - icantdrive55 10y ago
        I cringe whenever I hear the low unemployment number. That sector of workers who can work, but just gave up is staggering. I truely believe Trump got elected because he was pretty much the only person who said someting is really wrong with this economy, and it's been wrong for awhile. (I don't like the man, but on the economy I think he's right.)
      - MagnumOpus 10y ago
        > 95% of jobs are temp jobs False. At best 40% are - and given that a full-time worker has only one job and a part-time temp can have half a dozen at a time, even this is an upward distortion. > The definition of when someone is said to have a job have been widened substantially since Bush Also false.
        ThomPete 10y ago
        95% of jobs created since 2008. https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all-job-growth-during-obama-era-part-time,-contract-work-449057 https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all... And yes the definition got widened substantially under bush and Obama kept it. You can see the definition here. It's quite wide. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
    - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
      I don't know how you can come to this conclusion. Machines are even encroaching upon artistic and creative endeavors, territory once taught to be the province of humans. From drawing to composing music to acting (Grand Moff Tarkin, please stand up), they are advancing. Machines unequivocally surpass my abilities in said fields.
      - JoshTriplett 10y ago
        > From drawing to composing music to acting (Grand Moff Tarkin, please stand up), How many people and how many hours do you think it took to bring that character to life? As compared to the time of a human actor? (Not claiming in general that it takes as many people to run a machine as it did to do the job manually, but it almost certainly did in that case.) We're not anywhere near the point where arbitrary creative endeavors can be replaced by AI, rather than supplemented or enhanced by AI. More generally, I wouldn't describe it as AI "encroaching" on human endeavors; I'd describe it as AI freeing up humans to work on other endeavors. There's an endless supply of interesting challenges, and until AI can both dream up and complete those challenges autonomously the way a human can, that will remain the domain of humans. I've seen many cases of the analogy to buggy whips, but for AI, I think the appropriate analogy is to the printing press, or the Internet. The printing press put scribes out of business, but I think it's safe to say it wildly transformed society in beneficial ways. The Internet made many businesses obsolete (some of which have already gone away, while others haven't quite realized it yet), but it's a massive net increase in jobs. People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. I don't think AI will be any different (at least not before it becomes fully general and human-equivalent).
        FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
        > How many people and how many hours do you think it took to bring that character to life? As compared to the time of a human actor? I suggest you take a deep dive into the field of computational creativity. That's the first iteration. The next time, it will be less, and less the time after that. As advances are made, machines will simply have to be trained with the libraries of movies and tv shows of the past. not only that, with all the data it has on us (thanks FB), it will be able to predict what type of performance we would find the most entertaining. I remember one researcher saying that with about 300 Facebook likes, he can create a model of preferences that knows us better than we know ourselves. There are already machines composing music. If you can play piano, try out Google Duet > There's an endless supply of interesting challenges Sure there is. But how many of these new, interesting challenges employ people on a large scale? Contrary to what you believe, there hasn't been an explosion of new job opportunities afforded by technology. At its height, GM employed almost 600,000 people. Facebook, a company with a market cap of nearly $400 billion, has 17,000 employees. These new jobs will not be able to absorb the losses. And how many people in their 40's or above will be successful at retraining or acquiring new skills? > I don't think AI will be any different (at least not before it becomes fully general and human-equivalent). You're missing the point. It doesn't have to be fully general or human equivalent. It just has to be more cost effective. Like a robot can not fully substitute for a human janitor (eg shooting the shit with the employee working late). But if the machine costs less and never takes a vacation or sick day, the job will be replaced. And as any investment professional will tell you, the past does not predict the future. yThe occupations that employ the most people have existed for more or less hundreds, if not thousands of years. Top 5 occupations by # of workers are: Transportation, Retail Sales, 1st line supervisors, cashiers, and secretaries. Collectively, they represent over 15 million people. Cooks, accountants, customer service, paralegals, clerks, bookkeepers, receptionsts, maids, etc are all capable of being done. And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect or even better than a human, just more cost effectively. > People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. The only new occupation that didn't exist hundreds of years ago (programmers) is 33rd on the list of occupations with the most people. These new classes aren't created fast enough to keep up with the number of jobs that will be destroyed. Also, it's a poor argument to look to the past to say why this will be the same. People never went faster than the speed of horse until the steam engine (ppl literally fainted on train rides from the speed). Now, we've clocked speeds at 25000 mph. Man never flew till the early 20th century, now we've reached the moon. The amount of things that people thought would never change that happened in the 20th and 21st century is staggering, and is only accelerating. It only has to happen once to falsify patterns of the past. The internet and printing press are poor analogies, as is any other comparison to a previous technology. As a mental exercise, think about the buggy whip from the point of view of the horse (the actual worker in this case). Hooves, plows, and other technological advances previously made your life easier. The automobile made you obsolete. Sure, we still have uses for horses today, but not like in the past. > massive net increase in jobs. People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. I disagree. The internet has just provided a new medium for exchange. Ebay sellers are just merchants. People on Etsy are craftsmen. Uber and UberEats "contractors" are drivers(transportation). These classes of jobs have existed for THOUSANDS of years. In the case of Uber, a class of jobs, the one that just so happens to employ the most people in the US, more than any other occupation, will soon be obsolete, like the jobs of horses above. Services like Squarespace and Wix are making the job of the strict Web Designer obsolete. If you knew html and CSS, you had a job. Now, with the 3847078103720 JAvascript tools and libraries you have to know, if you can't keep up, you're obsolete. (Learn the fundamentals kids) > I'd describe it as AI freeing up humans to work on other endeavors. It could, and I hope it does. Looking at human social progress doesn't give me much hope for that
- gpawl 10y ago
  unless that AI relies on an energy source that is fenced off by capitalists

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> And so unless you have some other level of complexity that make humans special it is in fact going to be more or less impossible to think of a thing an AI wont be able to do better than humans. If we reach the point where AI can do all human jobs better than humans, that would put us firmly in a post-scarcity world, where humans no longer need to work jobs at all.

ThomPete 10y ago
You are looking at this the wrong way. No job require all human skills. Most jobs requires only subsets of human skills.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  I didn't suggest otherwise; however, the comment I replied to said: > it is in fact going to be more or less impossible to think of a thing an AI wont be able to do better than humans But we necessarily can't reach the point where AI can do all human jobs without having completely general human-level (or beyond-human-level) AI. Until then, AI can only replace a subset of human jobs, and I've seen many convincing arguments (including analogies to past advances) that the net gain will provide more (and better) opportunities.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    There is no net gain, the number of jobs have only been growing because the market have been growing, but in the west the number of actual jobs are declining. In the US, 95% of jobs are temp jobs and the definition of when someone is said to have a job have been widened substantially since Bush. The number of new jobs created have gone down decade after decade since ww2
    - icantdrive55 10y ago
      I cringe whenever I hear the low unemployment number. That sector of workers who can work, but just gave up is staggering. I truely believe Trump got elected because he was pretty much the only person who said someting is really wrong with this economy, and it's been wrong for awhile. (I don't like the man, but on the economy I think he's right.)
    - MagnumOpus 10y ago
      > 95% of jobs are temp jobs False. At best 40% are - and given that a full-time worker has only one job and a part-time temp can have half a dozen at a time, even this is an upward distortion. > The definition of when someone is said to have a job have been widened substantially since Bush Also false.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        95% of jobs created since 2008. https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all-job-growth-during-obama-era-part-time,-contract-work-449057 https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all... And yes the definition got widened substantially under bush and Obama kept it. You can see the definition here. It's quite wide. https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    I don't know how you can come to this conclusion. Machines are even encroaching upon artistic and creative endeavors, territory once taught to be the province of humans. From drawing to composing music to acting (Grand Moff Tarkin, please stand up), they are advancing. Machines unequivocally surpass my abilities in said fields.
    - JoshTriplett 10y ago
      > From drawing to composing music to acting (Grand Moff Tarkin, please stand up), How many people and how many hours do you think it took to bring that character to life? As compared to the time of a human actor? (Not claiming in general that it takes as many people to run a machine as it did to do the job manually, but it almost certainly did in that case.) We're not anywhere near the point where arbitrary creative endeavors can be replaced by AI, rather than supplemented or enhanced by AI. More generally, I wouldn't describe it as AI "encroaching" on human endeavors; I'd describe it as AI freeing up humans to work on other endeavors. There's an endless supply of interesting challenges, and until AI can both dream up and complete those challenges autonomously the way a human can, that will remain the domain of humans. I've seen many cases of the analogy to buggy whips, but for AI, I think the appropriate analogy is to the printing press, or the Internet. The printing press put scribes out of business, but I think it's safe to say it wildly transformed society in beneficial ways. The Internet made many businesses obsolete (some of which have already gone away, while others haven't quite realized it yet), but it's a massive net increase in jobs. People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. I don't think AI will be any different (at least not before it becomes fully general and human-equivalent).
      - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
        > How many people and how many hours do you think it took to bring that character to life? As compared to the time of a human actor? I suggest you take a deep dive into the field of computational creativity. That's the first iteration. The next time, it will be less, and less the time after that. As advances are made, machines will simply have to be trained with the libraries of movies and tv shows of the past. not only that, with all the data it has on us (thanks FB), it will be able to predict what type of performance we would find the most entertaining. I remember one researcher saying that with about 300 Facebook likes, he can create a model of preferences that knows us better than we know ourselves. There are already machines composing music. If you can play piano, try out Google Duet > There's an endless supply of interesting challenges Sure there is. But how many of these new, interesting challenges employ people on a large scale? Contrary to what you believe, there hasn't been an explosion of new job opportunities afforded by technology. At its height, GM employed almost 600,000 people. Facebook, a company with a market cap of nearly $400 billion, has 17,000 employees. These new jobs will not be able to absorb the losses. And how many people in their 40's or above will be successful at retraining or acquiring new skills? > I don't think AI will be any different (at least not before it becomes fully general and human-equivalent). You're missing the point. It doesn't have to be fully general or human equivalent. It just has to be more cost effective. Like a robot can not fully substitute for a human janitor (eg shooting the shit with the employee working late). But if the machine costs less and never takes a vacation or sick day, the job will be replaced. And as any investment professional will tell you, the past does not predict the future. yThe occupations that employ the most people have existed for more or less hundreds, if not thousands of years. Top 5 occupations by # of workers are: Transportation, Retail Sales, 1st line supervisors, cashiers, and secretaries. Collectively, they represent over 15 million people. Cooks, accountants, customer service, paralegals, clerks, bookkeepers, receptionsts, maids, etc are all capable of being done. And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect or even better than a human, just more cost effectively. > People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. The only new occupation that didn't exist hundreds of years ago (programmers) is 33rd on the list of occupations with the most people. These new classes aren't created fast enough to keep up with the number of jobs that will be destroyed. Also, it's a poor argument to look to the past to say why this will be the same. People never went faster than the speed of horse until the steam engine (ppl literally fainted on train rides from the speed). Now, we've clocked speeds at 25000 mph. Man never flew till the early 20th century, now we've reached the moon. The amount of things that people thought would never change that happened in the 20th and 21st century is staggering, and is only accelerating. It only has to happen once to falsify patterns of the past. The internet and printing press are poor analogies, as is any other comparison to a previous technology. As a mental exercise, think about the buggy whip from the point of view of the horse (the actual worker in this case). Hooves, plows, and other technological advances previously made your life easier. The automobile made you obsolete. Sure, we still have uses for horses today, but not like in the past. > massive net increase in jobs. People have invented whole classes of new jobs that didn't exist a few decades ago. I disagree. The internet has just provided a new medium for exchange. Ebay sellers are just merchants. People on Etsy are craftsmen. Uber and UberEats "contractors" are drivers(transportation). These classes of jobs have existed for THOUSANDS of years. In the case of Uber, a class of jobs, the one that just so happens to employ the most people in the US, more than any other occupation, will soon be obsolete, like the jobs of horses above. Services like Squarespace and Wix are making the job of the strict Web Designer obsolete. If you knew html and CSS, you had a job. Now, with the 3847078103720 JAvascript tools and libraries you have to know, if you can't keep up, you're obsolete. (Learn the fundamentals kids) > I'd describe it as AI freeing up humans to work on other endeavors. It could, and I hope it does. Looking at human social progress doesn't give me much hope for that
gpawl 10y ago
unless that AI relies on an energy source that is fenced off by capitalists