4 ms·

we still need to prepare for the future that's coming I disagree, honestly. Not because I don't think all the things you're saying will happen will happen, but

we still need to prepare for the future that's coming I disagree, honestly. Not because I don't think all the things you're saying will happen will happen, but because of all the things that are also going to happen that we're not talking about, because we don't know what they are. Yes, tons of jobs are going away (although I think it'll be 10-20 years for most of these, not 3-5 years like many seem to think), but what new sectors, opportunities, jobs, etc. will be created? I'm an optimist, so I genuinely think we'll adjust and adapt. I think we'll end up with most people doing jobs that don't exist today. I could be wrong though. However, no one knows the future, and the prediction that tech will destroy more jobs than it creates has been made since the start of the industrial revolution. So you basically have to fall back on the claim that "this time it's different". Which has also been made repeatedly during that time period :) But honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter whether we should prepare or not, because we won't. Not in America at least. There is no chance in hell that our political system will get its act together in the next two decades to get ahead of this problem and put policies in place for a bad situation that's coming but hasn't arrived yet. Look at all the problems that we know are problems because we're already living through them that we won't even fix now. We just put patches in place (maybe) and keep kicking the can down the road. Seriously, if half the jobs in America get destroyed in the next 20 years, it'll take us 40 years (or violent revolution) to address it.

ivraatiems 9y ago
I'm confused by the duality in your comment. You say that in 10-20 years, tons of jobs are going away. You say it seems very unlikely the American political system is going to address it without violence in any successful manner. But you also say that you think we will adjust and adapt and thereby keep the work a job, make a living system that we have. I don't see how that optimistic result follows from the pessimistic future you predict. And I think we're talking about the same problem - a period of volatility due to a lack of available work and a refusal to acknowledge the failures of our current system - but looking at different resolutions. I don't accept violence to restore status quo as the only possible solution. This is what I think: Your predictions are relatively spot on, if nothing changes, but we have the opportunity to change them if we act now. If we install a government dedicated to addressing these problems, if we begin to think seriously about solutions rather than spending time repeating the same arguments about whether the problem exists at all, we can fix it. Yes, we've failed to do this on other things (e. g. climate change, North Korea, etc.) until it was more than a little too late, but the fact our society still exists and functions suggests that we must have had some success, too. Remember that it's only in the last couple centuries that we transitioned from most countries being monarchies or what we'd now call dictatorships to most countries being at least some level of democracy. It's only in the last couple centuries we've tried systems of economy and government other than direct rule by a ruling cast. Some of those systems didn't work (full communism, fascism); some have worked out quite well thus far (modern capitalism, democratic socialism a la much of Europe), and of course many are in the middle. We can work out systems which are better still, and we can transition into them without violence or (too much) societal strife, but only if we can at least acknowledge that it's necessary or even just wiser to do so than to try and maintain the system we've got just because it's what we have. TL;DR: You're right that we don't know what's coming, but, in my opinion, it's a mistake to assume we can't decide for ourselves if we move quickly.
- hueving 9y ago
  The part you're missing is that jobs will also be created while others are destroyed. We lost tons of horse caring jobs as we switched to the automobile but it didn't wipe out society.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    The folks who are worried about AI destroying jobs are aware of this cycle, but they think that it's different this time. Specifically, that technology has previously allowed workers to be more productive by shifting away from manual labor and towards cognitive work that requires the human mind. But AI is a unique threat because it can match (and then quickly absolutely dominate) humans for any kind of work that requires cognitive power. It's not a ridiculous argument, but I'm not convinced for several reasons: 1. I'm not convinced that AI can actually achieve something like the general intelligence that's required to perform in rapidly changing and dynamic environments. 2. Even if they can, there are lots of artistic and creative jobs that AI may not be able to do. Maybe we'll all be writers and poets and songwriters and sculptures in the future. 3. Also, doesn't incredibly smart and capable AI that can do any job that humans can do mean that the price of everything should plummet? Maybe post-scarcity will look different than we expect; maybe all the things we need for life will be effectively free, and companies will give them away the way they do with advertising schwag now. 4. If AI gets so cognitively powerful that it puts most of humans out of a job, we'll have either much bigger things to worry about (war with AI), or nothing to worry about (they'll either just squish us quickly or save us from all this).
    - hueving 9y ago
      >But AI is a unique threat because it can match (and then quickly absolutely dominate) humans for any kind of work that requires cognitive power. Only at very specific tasks. As you point out later there is no evidence that AI general intelligence where it needs to be for this actually to be a threat to humans who can adapt to unexpected circumstances.
      - 9y ago
ruytlm 9y ago
> Yes, tons of jobs are going away (although I think it'll be 10-20 years for most of these, not 3-5 years like many seem to think), but what new sectors, opportunities, jobs, etc. will be created? How many of the people whose jobs are destroyed will be able to move into the jobs that are created? In something like 30 states [0] 'truck driver' is the largest single occupation; where would those skills be re-applied? I agree that nothing will be done regardless due to a lack of political will, but I don't share your optimism. I suspect that the change will be gradual to begin with, but that suddenly there will be a whole category of people unable to earn a living with their skills, and unable to afford to re-skill into something that can be used. [0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...
- Trundle 9y ago
  Their skills wont be reapplied, that's not how it works. They'll be valued for something else.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  You may be right, I don't know. I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about this, just that I'm personally skeptical, and not really in favor of restructuring society for a problem that might be coming. If we had done that all those times in the past... To take the truck driver thing, here's a plausible scenario (to me anyway). First of all, "top job in X states" seems like a really weird way to express this. It honestly feels like a way to make it seem as dire as possible. There are something like 3 to 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. That's a lot. However, BLS reports that only about half of these are heavy and tractor trailer truck drivers [1]. So maybe the rest are driving smaller trucks and vehicles around town? Those seem safer from job loss to me, I suspect that any job that requires driving a truck here and there and loading / unloading things will not be replaced by AI as fast. Side note: BLS is predicting 6% growth in this job from 2016 to 2026, which is about average. But let's assume they're wrong. So let's say that 1.8 million are long haul truckers that can be relatively easily replaced by AI. How long will that really take? I know everyone thinks that self-driving cars are around the corner, but I'm really not convinced. We've been hearing that for a few years now, and it seems like lots of teams are hitting some roadblocks (heh) in terms of their ability to solve some of the remaining issues. Just my ambient observations though, I'm no expert. Even if we do get there with some cars in the next 3-5 years, are we really going to be ready to put heavy loads on highways unattended? We're going to handle the technical issues, security issues, legal issues, insurance, in a few years? I'm really skeptical. Maybe we can do point-to-point on highways in 5 years, but then what? Do we have huge lots where these trucks park and then drivers ferry them to local warehouses to be loaded / unloaded? What about fueling these things along the way with no drivers? How do we keep these loads safe from theft? None of these are insurmountable, but are we really going to solve these things in the next few years such that we're ready to start laying people off? I think 10-20 years is much more realistic to put the majority of truckers out of a job. Not all, but the majority. But truckers are already old (49 average) and many will be retiring over that period anyway. Why can't we just not replace them as those jobs dwindle? 1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...
ajmurmann 9y ago
You are totally right. In the very least no politician would be willing and tell people that there no longer is a need for someone with their skill level to participate in the economy and that we are just going to give them money so that we don't have to worry about them.

ivraatiems 9y ago

I'm confused by the duality in your comment. You say that in 10-20 years, tons of jobs are going away. You say it seems very unlikely the American political system is going to address it without violence in any successful manner. But you also say that you think we will adjust and adapt and thereby keep the work a job, make a living system that we have. I don't see how that optimistic result follows from the pessimistic future you predict. And I think we're talking about the same problem - a period of volatility due to a lack of available work and a refusal to acknowledge the failures of our current system - but looking at different resolutions. I don't accept violence to restore status quo as the only possible solution. This is what I think: Your predictions are relatively spot on, if nothing changes, but we have the opportunity to change them if we act now. If we install a government dedicated to addressing these problems, if we begin to think seriously about solutions rather than spending time repeating the same arguments about whether the problem exists at all, we can fix it. Yes, we've failed to do this on other things (e. g. climate change, North Korea, etc.) until it was more than a little too late, but the fact our society still exists and functions suggests that we must have had some success, too. Remember that it's only in the last couple centuries that we transitioned from most countries being monarchies or what we'd now call dictatorships to most countries being at least some level of democracy. It's only in the last couple centuries we've tried systems of economy and government other than direct rule by a ruling cast. Some of those systems didn't work (full communism, fascism); some have worked out quite well thus far (modern capitalism, democratic socialism a la much of Europe), and of course many are in the middle. We can work out systems which are better still, and we can transition into them without violence or (too much) societal strife, but only if we can at least acknowledge that it's necessary or even just wiser to do so than to try and maintain the system we've got just because it's what we have. TL;DR: You're right that we don't know what's coming, but, in my opinion, it's a mistake to assume we can't decide for ourselves if we move quickly.

hueving 9y ago
The part you're missing is that jobs will also be created while others are destroyed. We lost tons of horse caring jobs as we switched to the automobile but it didn't wipe out society.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  The folks who are worried about AI destroying jobs are aware of this cycle, but they think that it's different this time. Specifically, that technology has previously allowed workers to be more productive by shifting away from manual labor and towards cognitive work that requires the human mind. But AI is a unique threat because it can match (and then quickly absolutely dominate) humans for any kind of work that requires cognitive power. It's not a ridiculous argument, but I'm not convinced for several reasons: 1. I'm not convinced that AI can actually achieve something like the general intelligence that's required to perform in rapidly changing and dynamic environments. 2. Even if they can, there are lots of artistic and creative jobs that AI may not be able to do. Maybe we'll all be writers and poets and songwriters and sculptures in the future. 3. Also, doesn't incredibly smart and capable AI that can do any job that humans can do mean that the price of everything should plummet? Maybe post-scarcity will look different than we expect; maybe all the things we need for life will be effectively free, and companies will give them away the way they do with advertising schwag now. 4. If AI gets so cognitively powerful that it puts most of humans out of a job, we'll have either much bigger things to worry about (war with AI), or nothing to worry about (they'll either just squish us quickly or save us from all this).
  - hueving 9y ago
    >But AI is a unique threat because it can match (and then quickly absolutely dominate) humans for any kind of work that requires cognitive power. Only at very specific tasks. As you point out later there is no evidence that AI general intelligence where it needs to be for this actually to be a threat to humans who can adapt to unexpected circumstances.
    - 9y ago

ruytlm 9y ago

> Yes, tons of jobs are going away (although I think it'll be 10-20 years for most of these, not 3-5 years like many seem to think), but what new sectors, opportunities, jobs, etc. will be created? How many of the people whose jobs are destroyed will be able to move into the jobs that are created? In something like 30 states [0] 'truck driver' is the largest single occupation; where would those skills be re-applied? I agree that nothing will be done regardless due to a lack of political will, but I don't share your optimism. I suspect that the change will be gradual to begin with, but that suddenly there will be a whole category of people unable to earn a living with their skills, and unable to afford to re-skill into something that can be used. [0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-the-most-common-job-in-every-state https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...

Trundle 9y ago
Their skills wont be reapplied, that's not how it works. They'll be valued for something else.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
You may be right, I don't know. I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about this, just that I'm personally skeptical, and not really in favor of restructuring society for a problem that might be coming. If we had done that all those times in the past... To take the truck driver thing, here's a plausible scenario (to me anyway). First of all, "top job in X states" seems like a really weird way to express this. It honestly feels like a way to make it seem as dire as possible. There are something like 3 to 3.5 million truck drivers in the US. That's a lot. However, BLS reports that only about half of these are heavy and tractor trailer truck drivers [1]. So maybe the rest are driving smaller trucks and vehicles around town? Those seem safer from job loss to me, I suspect that any job that requires driving a truck here and there and loading / unloading things will not be replaced by AI as fast. Side note: BLS is predicting 6% growth in this job from 2016 to 2026, which is about average. But let's assume they're wrong. So let's say that 1.8 million are long haul truckers that can be relatively easily replaced by AI. How long will that really take? I know everyone thinks that self-driving cars are around the corner, but I'm really not convinced. We've been hearing that for a few years now, and it seems like lots of teams are hitting some roadblocks (heh) in terms of their ability to solve some of the remaining issues. Just my ambient observations though, I'm no expert. Even if we do get there with some cars in the next 3-5 years, are we really going to be ready to put heavy loads on highways unattended? We're going to handle the technical issues, security issues, legal issues, insurance, in a few years? I'm really skeptical. Maybe we can do point-to-point on highways in 5 years, but then what? Do we have huge lots where these trucks park and then drivers ferry them to local warehouses to be loaded / unloaded? What about fueling these things along the way with no drivers? How do we keep these loads safe from theft? None of these are insurmountable, but are we really going to solve these things in the next few years such that we're ready to start laying people off? I think 10-20 years is much more realistic to put the majority of truckers out of a job. Not all, but the majority. But truckers are already old (49 average) and many will be retiring over that period anyway. Why can't we just not replace them as those jobs dwindle? 1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/h...

ajmurmann 9y ago

You are totally right. In the very least no politician would be willing and tell people that there no longer is a need for someone with their skill level to participate in the economy and that we are just going to give them money so that we don't have to worry about them.