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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 sy

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.
    - NoGravitas 9y ago
      General AI that can totally replace humans in a job isn't really the problem. The real issue is specialized AI that lets one person do work that previously required five or ten, whether because it increases their productivity directly, or the human is working as an AI-minder, letting them do the routine stuff, supervising them for quality, and taking over when they hit unexpected circumstances.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
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. Very fair, I wasn't clear. I don't think this terrible future is coming, but even if it is, and the majority come to agree that it is, we're not going to do anything about it. Even if the number of jobs does plummet and we have record-high unemployment, we still will take forever to do anything about it, assuming anything can be done. It might be that all the ideas we've come up with (which really just seems to be variations on UBI) won't work and are just rearranging the deck chairs again. Except now the AI is Amazon and we're all B&N :) 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 Yeah, I'm not really in favor of that. The arguments are necessary. We shouldn't be putting huge changes in place without even having the argument as to whether it's necessary. I think you're underestimating how destabilizing and destructive these changes are going to be. If AI is going to be as bad for employment as many think, the solution is massive and represents a completely fundamental shift in economy, culture, politics, etc. For example, switching to meaningful UBI would entail huge tax increases, slashing of other benefit programs (and dealing with their supporters), and decades of fighting about the amounts, administration, waste / fraud / abuse, etc. There has never been a coalition in American politics strong enough to get something like this done. The abolition of slavery would be the closest thing, and we had to fight a full-blown bloody civil war to get that done, and we're still dealing with the cultural fallout of that change 150 years later. I also think you're way ahead of the vast majority of Americans as to whether it's as necessary as you claim. To wit: Republicans have exactly zero interest in fixing any of this (or a bunch of other problems) and 18 months ago voters decided they should hold all three branches of government. Yes, popular vote, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc, etc. The point is that it's all well and good to say "enough talk, let's put these solutions in place!", but I don't think you realize how hard the opponents to those solutions are going to fight, and how powerful and entrenched they are.

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.
  - NoGravitas 9y ago
    General AI that can totally replace humans in a job isn't really the problem. The real issue is specialized AI that lets one person do work that previously required five or ten, whether because it increases their productivity directly, or the human is working as an AI-minder, letting them do the routine stuff, supervising them for quality, and taking over when they hit unexpected circumstances.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

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. Very fair, I wasn't clear. I don't think this terrible future is coming, but even if it is, and the majority come to agree that it is, we're not going to do anything about it. Even if the number of jobs does plummet and we have record-high unemployment, we still will take forever to do anything about it, assuming anything can be done. It might be that all the ideas we've come up with (which really just seems to be variations on UBI) won't work and are just rearranging the deck chairs again. Except now the AI is Amazon and we're all B&N :) 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 Yeah, I'm not really in favor of that. The arguments are necessary. We shouldn't be putting huge changes in place without even having the argument as to whether it's necessary. I think you're underestimating how destabilizing and destructive these changes are going to be. If AI is going to be as bad for employment as many think, the solution is massive and represents a completely fundamental shift in economy, culture, politics, etc. For example, switching to meaningful UBI would entail huge tax increases, slashing of other benefit programs (and dealing with their supporters), and decades of fighting about the amounts, administration, waste / fraud / abuse, etc. There has never been a coalition in American politics strong enough to get something like this done. The abolition of slavery would be the closest thing, and we had to fight a full-blown bloody civil war to get that done, and we're still dealing with the cultural fallout of that change 150 years later. I also think you're way ahead of the vast majority of Americans as to whether it's as necessary as you claim. To wit: Republicans have exactly zero interest in fixing any of this (or a bunch of other problems) and 18 months ago voters decided they should hold all three branches of government. Yes, popular vote, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc, etc. The point is that it's all well and good to say "enough talk, let's put these solutions in place!", but I don't think you realize how hard the opponents to those solutions are going to fight, and how powerful and entrenched they are.