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I'm curious as to where this mass automation story originated. I haven't seen any real evidence that anything besides the most basic repetitive tasks will be au

by davemp 9y ago

I'm curious as to where this mass automation story originated. I haven't seen any real evidence that anything besides the most basic repetitive tasks will be automated in the future. This automation would also likely just lead to a new set of low pay, desirable jobs. Sure, Moore's law and advancements in machine learning/vision push to make automation more economically viable for certain areas that were already good candidates. For other areas where human's adaptability is even moderately valuable, technology is a long ways away from coming anywhere close to beating out humans. Technology breaking the chains of toil is a very idealistic thought. I can see technology augmenting more jobs and allowing humans to toil more efficiently, but not total automation.

jrochkind1 9y ago
I guess the question is what portion of the population is employed in these "most basic repetitive tasks", and with those automated, how many people getting paid are actually neccesary for capitalist production? If a lot fewer than the people who exist... what is to become of them? Some tech types say "Universal Basic Income" as an attempt at a solution to that.
jrs95 9y ago
Trucking, fast food, and retail could face huge amounts of automation in the next few decades, and thats a massive amount of low end jobs that could disappear. I think the idea of "fully automated luxury communism" is pretty silly, but there's almost definitely going to be substantial job losses, and I think we're approaching a limit where we don't have good low skill jobs to replace them.
- davemp 9y ago
  I think the problem comes down to simple economic factors. How much will it cost upfront to automate a specific area and how long will it take for such automation to turn a profit vs human alternatives. Right now: - the upfront costs are high - continued maintenance and update costs are uncertain - human are really not that expensive for what they can do My view is that humans are actually a much more valuable resource than most HN/reddit/social media users seem to think. Solutions that fail to account for the __massive__ available decision making and processing power of the ~7 billion existing humans will just not be competitive. Someone will always find a way to harness the human resource and put people to work. I just hope the people get compensated fairly and the work won't be miserable.

by davemp 9y ago

jrochkind1 9y ago

I guess the question is what portion of the population is employed in these "most basic repetitive tasks", and with those automated, how many people getting paid are actually neccesary for capitalist production? If a lot fewer than the people who exist... what is to become of them? Some tech types say "Universal Basic Income" as an attempt at a solution to that.

jrs95 9y ago

Trucking, fast food, and retail could face huge amounts of automation in the next few decades, and thats a massive amount of low end jobs that could disappear. I think the idea of "fully automated luxury communism" is pretty silly, but there's almost definitely going to be substantial job losses, and I think we're approaching a limit where we don't have good low skill jobs to replace them.

davemp 9y ago
I think the problem comes down to simple economic factors. How much will it cost upfront to automate a specific area and how long will it take for such automation to turn a profit vs human alternatives. Right now: - the upfront costs are high - continued maintenance and update costs are uncertain - human are really not that expensive for what they can do My view is that humans are actually a much more valuable resource than most HN/reddit/social media users seem to think. Solutions that fail to account for the __massive__ available decision making and processing power of the ~7 billion existing humans will just not be competitive. Someone will always find a way to harness the human resource and put people to work. I just hope the people get compensated fairly and the work won't be miserable.