5 ms·

If you think about the amount of problems to solve there are infinite employment opportunities. Let alone software, there is an infinite amount of ways how stu

by sek 10y ago

If you think about the amount of problems to solve there are infinite employment opportunities. Let alone software, there is an infinite amount of ways how stuff can be better and more efficient. The same goes for engineering, as long as stuff costs more than the materials it takes to produce them. Let alone new fields like material science (graphene) or space exploration. The demand for those jobs will grow even more to make this robot future happen. The only thing that needs to change is education in those fields. Why can't work the rest of our population in those areas? Just use tools like capital gains tax (the value those robots produce) and direct those funds into education. If you say that's impossible, in theory a person with average intelligence can learn those things by himself with a single computer. Tell me where the big flaw is here?

ThomPete 10y ago
This is were most goes wrong and you fall in the same trap. You seem to assume there are jobs which 1) AI won't be able to do and sooner or later 2) that the things that humans will be able to do for a while yet which AI wont requires specialized education. But thats not how things work. As I mentioned somewhere else. A cleaning lady is going to have her job longer than a radiologist. Everyone can become a cleaning lady and thus there is going to be oversupply of people who can clean.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nashashmi 10y ago
  Robots can do a better job of cleaning.
  - sushid 10y ago
    Perhaps true, but one "robot" can do the job of 1,000,000 radiologists whereas one robot might be able to do the cleaning of 2~3 cleaners at best. It's a software vs. hardware scaling issue.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    No they can't because it requires a surprising number of details to be able to do all the things a cleaning lady actually do. Getting in between the books, under the rug, up on the shelves, cleaning the toilets etc. If a robot could do all that we would basically be close to a general purpose AI. We aren't even close.
  - nradov 10y ago
    And yet my Roomba gets tangled up with the rug fringe and stuck under the coffee table. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/15/pooptastrophe-man-details-night-his-roomba-ran-over-dog-poop/88667704/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/15/poo...
- sek 10y ago
  This is just not true, never did any current "AI" more than the imagination of it's creators. What is this mystical "future AI" that makes every software developer or engineer suddenly obsolete. Maybe creative thought requires a brain and nothing will ever beat human reproduction in producing engineers.
  - rublev 10y ago
    I'm surprised the app dev I do hasn't been automated away already.
    - adzicg 10y ago
      but it has to a large extent. 20 years ago I did linting by hand, efficient memory allocation was a key skill for a developer, and now that's all taken over by computers. Going further back, I used to be able to beat a C compiler in optimising assembly code, which now I wouldn't even know where to start. Even further back, things like compiling and linking were done by hand. Most developers today use automated builds, packaging, test runners, app genertors and so on. Automation in software development is already there, it's been present from almost day 0, but it has so far been aimed at assisting humans, not completely replacing them.
      - majewsky 10y ago
        Of course it's aimed at replacing people. We're just not fast enough compared to how many tasks are being piled on year after year.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    You are missing the point here. Even if humans are better it will require fewer and fewer of them as more and more will be dealt with by sub-algorithms. Also I dont thin you realize little magic there is in imagination. Computers can dream, thats what it requires to imagine. The rest is just about finding proper context that fits humans needs, but even that is learnable by machines. So the question you should be asking is what mystical human ability is imagination that it can't be done by machines. But again even if it was always outside of human abilities it wouldn't require more but less developers over time.
nashashmi 10y ago
Young people's minds explode with ideas and see things out there to solve. The reality is most people don't have so many ideas, or they don't have the patience, or the don't have the hope/time/resource to do so. Robots are the worst nightmare to those very people. Plus, for every great idea somebody has, there is another automation project following right behind. Reminds me of what Fred from AVC said: company A comes out with technology B and it becomes a major success. Then company C makes a cheaper version of B and displaces the billion dollar company A. Then open source group D comes out with open source version of B, and relegates A and C into has-beens. My addition: market collapses, new market with new idea is born on open source technology B. Cycle Repeats. With automation, you have only certain players who will be playing the game.
- nradov 10y ago
  Young people don't have an exclusive claim on ideas; many of the best automation ideas come from older people with deep domain expertise. And there are a huge number of players in the automation space; new companies are being founded and new patents filed every day.
coldtea 10y ago
>If you think about the amount of problems to solve there are infinite employment opportunities. Actually not just finite, but less than the jobs that will be replaced.
Jedd 10y ago
I think there's a couple of problems with this line of reasoning. There's not infinite problems to solve - we live in a finite universe, and once we invent a general AI then that's the last thing (as the saying goes) that you ever need to invent -- consequently, no more problems to solve (other than working out how to survive their revolt etc etc). There's the implication that humans can solve all these infinite employment-providing problems -- clearly plenty of these will be solvable more effectively by AI's (of either variant). Finally, on this point, there's the implied value judgement in there that we want 'infinite employment opportunities' ... where want either means culturally / emotionally, or just that it's an objectively good and worthwhile goal (to have everyone 'employed' -- and I concede I may be misunderstanding your use of that word) and that we all agree that this is the ideal we should be working <haha> towards. Beyond that first sentence ... education in new fields is not guaranteed (and casual observation of the rate of growth of ML / AI suggests it's somewhere between hubris and naivete) to be possible, or worthwhile, for humans to exclusively engage in - at the exclusion of, or even just competition with, ML / AI. Again, extrapolating from what we're seeing happen already, it's likely that we humans will be eclipsed relatively soon in our ability to speculate and investigate these new fields.
- nradov 10y ago
  There is no evidence that building an AGI is actually possible, or that even if it is possible that it will be better than humans at inventing anything. Let me know when AGI researchers build something as smart as a lab mouse. Until then this is just idle speculation and totally useless as an input to setting public policies. Of course limited AI systems (without the "G") will continue to improve and eliminate jobs that don't involve advanced reasoning or creativity.
  - Jedd 10y ago
    I see your point, but I would suggest that human history is full of opportunities to have bemoaned that "There is no evidence we can build X" shortly before someone went and built the first X. Even absent a general AI in the near future, the rapid increases in automation from ML and weak AI that we're already seeing don't look to reduce in pace or sophistication.
skybrian 10y ago
It's all about the funding. There's plenty of work to do in theory, but someone has to pull the trigger.
intended 10y ago
The flaw is, and as rule of thumb with "education" solutions, is neurology and people. Education is hard. Learning is influenced by nutrition levels, base language proficiency, teacher ability, learning style, teacher learning style. Forget other things like bullying, parental education levels, maternal nutrition levels (which affects fetal development), family stability. Forget access to water, security, exercise, social stability, cultural and societal norms, and a whole host of other issues. This is just what affects children. We can afford to send children to school for the entirety of their working day. Children have the luxury of time, years upon years of it. Imagine having to work 2 jobs and get a degree while having to help a family out. And even if you DID have the time, AND the inclination, you will still likely fail, seeing how MOOCs are free, at your convenience, and still have single digit success rates. Tldr; solving by invoking education, are like Hollywood hackers who bring down the CIA with exactly 30 key strokes and a pair of glasses.
intended 10y ago
The flaw is, and as rule of thumb with "education" solutions, is neurology and people. Education is hard. Learning is influenced by nutrition levels, base language proficiency, teacher ability, learning style, teacher learning style. Forget other things like bullying, parental education levels, maternal nutrition levels (which affects fetal development), family stability. Forget access to water, security, exercise, social stability, cultural and societal norms, and a whole host of other issues. This is just what affects children. We can afford to send children to school for the entirety of their working day. Children have the luxury of time, years upon years of it. Imagine having to work 2 jobs and get a degree while having to help a family out. And even if you DID have the time, AND the inclination, you will still likely fail, seeing how MOOCs are free, at your convenience, and still have single digit success rates. Tldr; solving by invoking education, are like Hollywood hackers who bring down the CIA with exactly 30 key strokes and a pair of glasses.

by sek 10y ago

ThomPete 10y ago

This is were most goes wrong and you fall in the same trap. You seem to assume there are jobs which 1) AI won't be able to do and sooner or later 2) that the things that humans will be able to do for a while yet which AI wont requires specialized education. But thats not how things work. As I mentioned somewhere else. A cleaning lady is going to have her job longer than a radiologist. Everyone can become a cleaning lady and thus there is going to be oversupply of people who can clean.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nashashmi 10y ago
Robots can do a better job of cleaning.
- sushid 10y ago
  Perhaps true, but one "robot" can do the job of 1,000,000 radiologists whereas one robot might be able to do the cleaning of 2~3 cleaners at best. It's a software vs. hardware scaling issue.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  No they can't because it requires a surprising number of details to be able to do all the things a cleaning lady actually do. Getting in between the books, under the rug, up on the shelves, cleaning the toilets etc. If a robot could do all that we would basically be close to a general purpose AI. We aren't even close.
- nradov 10y ago
  And yet my Roomba gets tangled up with the rug fringe and stuck under the coffee table. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/15/pooptastrophe-man-details-night-his-roomba-ran-over-dog-poop/88667704/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/08/15/poo...
sek 10y ago
This is just not true, never did any current "AI" more than the imagination of it's creators. What is this mystical "future AI" that makes every software developer or engineer suddenly obsolete. Maybe creative thought requires a brain and nothing will ever beat human reproduction in producing engineers.
- rublev 10y ago
  I'm surprised the app dev I do hasn't been automated away already.
  - adzicg 10y ago
    but it has to a large extent. 20 years ago I did linting by hand, efficient memory allocation was a key skill for a developer, and now that's all taken over by computers. Going further back, I used to be able to beat a C compiler in optimising assembly code, which now I wouldn't even know where to start. Even further back, things like compiling and linking were done by hand. Most developers today use automated builds, packaging, test runners, app genertors and so on. Automation in software development is already there, it's been present from almost day 0, but it has so far been aimed at assisting humans, not completely replacing them.
    - majewsky 10y ago
      Of course it's aimed at replacing people. We're just not fast enough compared to how many tasks are being piled on year after year.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  You are missing the point here. Even if humans are better it will require fewer and fewer of them as more and more will be dealt with by sub-algorithms. Also I dont thin you realize little magic there is in imagination. Computers can dream, thats what it requires to imagine. The rest is just about finding proper context that fits humans needs, but even that is learnable by machines. So the question you should be asking is what mystical human ability is imagination that it can't be done by machines. But again even if it was always outside of human abilities it wouldn't require more but less developers over time.

nashashmi 10y ago

Young people's minds explode with ideas and see things out there to solve. The reality is most people don't have so many ideas, or they don't have the patience, or the don't have the hope/time/resource to do so. Robots are the worst nightmare to those very people. Plus, for every great idea somebody has, there is another automation project following right behind. Reminds me of what Fred from AVC said: company A comes out with technology B and it becomes a major success. Then company C makes a cheaper version of B and displaces the billion dollar company A. Then open source group D comes out with open source version of B, and relegates A and C into has-beens. My addition: market collapses, new market with new idea is born on open source technology B. Cycle Repeats. With automation, you have only certain players who will be playing the game.

nradov 10y ago
Young people don't have an exclusive claim on ideas; many of the best automation ideas come from older people with deep domain expertise. And there are a huge number of players in the automation space; new companies are being founded and new patents filed every day.

coldtea 10y ago

>If you think about the amount of problems to solve there are infinite employment opportunities. Actually not just finite, but less than the jobs that will be replaced.

Jedd 10y ago

I think there's a couple of problems with this line of reasoning. There's not infinite problems to solve - we live in a finite universe, and once we invent a general AI then that's the last thing (as the saying goes) that you ever need to invent -- consequently, no more problems to solve (other than working out how to survive their revolt etc etc). There's the implication that humans can solve all these infinite employment-providing problems -- clearly plenty of these will be solvable more effectively by AI's (of either variant). Finally, on this point, there's the implied value judgement in there that we want 'infinite employment opportunities' ... where want either means culturally / emotionally, or just that it's an objectively good and worthwhile goal (to have everyone 'employed' -- and I concede I may be misunderstanding your use of that word) and that we all agree that this is the ideal we should be working <haha> towards. Beyond that first sentence ... education in new fields is not guaranteed (and casual observation of the rate of growth of ML / AI suggests it's somewhere between hubris and naivete) to be possible, or worthwhile, for humans to exclusively engage in - at the exclusion of, or even just competition with, ML / AI. Again, extrapolating from what we're seeing happen already, it's likely that we humans will be eclipsed relatively soon in our ability to speculate and investigate these new fields.

nradov 10y ago
There is no evidence that building an AGI is actually possible, or that even if it is possible that it will be better than humans at inventing anything. Let me know when AGI researchers build something as smart as a lab mouse. Until then this is just idle speculation and totally useless as an input to setting public policies. Of course limited AI systems (without the "G") will continue to improve and eliminate jobs that don't involve advanced reasoning or creativity.
- Jedd 10y ago
  I see your point, but I would suggest that human history is full of opportunities to have bemoaned that "There is no evidence we can build X" shortly before someone went and built the first X. Even absent a general AI in the near future, the rapid increases in automation from ML and weak AI that we're already seeing don't look to reduce in pace or sophistication.

skybrian 10y ago

It's all about the funding. There's plenty of work to do in theory, but someone has to pull the trigger.

intended 10y ago

The flaw is, and as rule of thumb with "education" solutions, is neurology and people. Education is hard. Learning is influenced by nutrition levels, base language proficiency, teacher ability, learning style, teacher learning style. Forget other things like bullying, parental education levels, maternal nutrition levels (which affects fetal development), family stability. Forget access to water, security, exercise, social stability, cultural and societal norms, and a whole host of other issues. This is just what affects children. We can afford to send children to school for the entirety of their working day. Children have the luxury of time, years upon years of it. Imagine having to work 2 jobs and get a degree while having to help a family out. And even if you DID have the time, AND the inclination, you will still likely fail, seeing how MOOCs are free, at your convenience, and still have single digit success rates. Tldr; solving by invoking education, are like Hollywood hackers who bring down the CIA with exactly 30 key strokes and a pair of glasses.

intended 10y ago