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>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddite

>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. I guess I also just don't see much difference. All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily automatible ones) to different kinds. I mean, there are all kinds of jobs now that didn't exist 50 years ago (software engineer, social media manager, influencer, etc. etc.)

Sukera 9y ago
Yes, all kinds of jobs - but are there actually a substantial number of people doing those jobs compared to the number of jobs that are easy to automate away?
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  I don't see why it matters. In the end, there won't be massive job loss to automation. Automation right now can eliminate most farm laborers. So why are there still so many farm laborers in the world? Because a) human wages in most of the world are cheaper than expensive machinery b) There isn't a profit motive to automate away jobs that pay so little c) structure of society is such that many technologies take decades upon decades to trickle out to most people in the world (talking the whole world here, not just Euromerica). In addition, the service economy won't be automated away for a long time because human contact is valued by lots of people in that field. Service economy scales with the purchasing power of communities and AI is going to create a consolidation of purchasing power wherever it is introduced.
crc32 9y ago
> didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. this is by definition "increasing productivity" isn't it? > All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily automatible ones) to different kinds. If that's true, then what will the shift be to? These are interesting questions. And how long will the shift take? Because I think there is a general feeling that current levels of inequality - the "hollowing out" of the middle class - are due to trends in automation.
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  If that's what increasing productivity is, then AI will surely increase productivity. I think the shift will probably be towards internet-based jobs. Content creation / software development / content curation (think social media managers) / customer service, the things that it's hard for AI to get right. It will probably take longer and definitely leave some malcontents but, so did the stocking frame.
- petra 9y ago
  What will.the shift be to ? A few possibilities, at least short term: Some manufacturing returns to the US with help of robots. Maybe even as an exportible industry. Maybe it's possible to simplify those complex jobs that more people could do them? It's possible for the some of the new,highly automated industries to be a net job creator. For example one scenario for self-driving is that it will be partly remotely-operated ,i.e. jobs , instead of people driving themselves. Things may become cheaper and people will spend the money left on human based experiences/services ? Or even an whole economy based on human interaction because that's the one thing robots couldn't do? Or like we always did , we'll find some useless thing(like consumerism) that will create jobs and build society around it ?
crdoconnor 9y ago
>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It was largely used to employ cheap labor to produce crap. The luddites produced higher value artisinal goods. The luddites weren't reactionaries intent on destroying technology any more than strikers are protesting against the concept of 'work', they were just saboteurs trying to improve their negotiating position. The whole thing about them being anti-technology is historical revisionism. Similarly, French taxi anti-uber strikers in 2013 were literally depicted by Forbes as being "anti smartphone" - the motive for the lie being the same in both cases. The reason why low wage employment and crap clothes were more economically successful at the time had more to do with the economically hemorrhaging effect of the Napoleonic wars - which led to cheaper, more desperate labor and a demand for cheaper goods. It's a bit like how McDonalds gets a sales boost during recessions while mid range restaurants take a hit.
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.
  - crc32 9y ago
    Well actually, we're not all still here! Those shifts - i.e. the industrial revolution - were enormously disruptive! Assuming that this is happening; or going to happen, how can we smooth it out a bit? And of course; that is on the basis that this is not a science fiction AI special; in which case an even more thoughtful approach might be required to minimise the damage and maximise happiness; or whatever variable you prefer.
    - abusoufiyan 9y ago
      I worry that attempts to smooth it out can actually cause worse disruption. Like, let's say we know factory workers will be laid off, so we need to allocate resources to retrain them. Very likely the resources will not be enough for all the workers. So who gets them and who doesn't will become a political battle, with the left-out group resenting everyone in society and society ignoring their needs because it reminds them that they left them behind. And then you build a society where one group's triumph is based on another's suppression, and you can see where this is going...
jdietrich 9y ago
>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. Mechanisation of the textile industry led to vast increases in the quantity of production. Prior to the industrial revolution, most peasants would have owned only one set of clothes and replaced them only when they were entirely beyond repair. Cheap cloth created demand for wardrobes and dressers, because a lot of people were now in the peculiar position of owning more clothes than they could wear at once. The luddites were ultimately wrong because of Jevons paradox - labour efficiencies in the textile industry vastly increased the demand for their product, and with it their demand for labour. Hand-loom weavers didn't lose their livelihoods to the power loom, they just made ten times as much cloth for twice the wage. Automation and mechanisation in other manufacturing sectors likewise stimulated vastly increased consumer demand, contributing to a virtuous cycle of increasing profit, wages and living standards. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the efficiencies of mass-manufacturing gave ordinary people secure employment and access to a dizzying array of consumer goods. The more stuff we made, the more stuff we could afford to buy. I don't see AI/ML following the same pattern. A lot of tech-heavy businesses seem to be startlingly close to zero-sum. Uber has decimated the taxi industry, but it doesn't seem to have vastly increased overall ridership - the most generous figures I've seen suggest perhaps a 40% increase in some markets. Google and Facebook have become multi-billion dollar companies through advertising revenue, but the overall growth of ad spending across all media has barely outpaced inflation, with the newspaper industry being the most obvious casualty. I can't think of many major tech companies that didn't kill an industry. I'd love to be proven wrong.
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  >I don't see AI/ML following the same pattern. AI/ML which can mine through sports footage to create highlight reels and funny clip collections, etc will create tons of consumer goods (videos) which can all be monetized on Youtube. Just one example. How about Netflix? They use AI/ML quite a bit. It seems to have driven quite a lot more people to watch movies and tv than before. Amazon uses AI/ML in its Echo, which was quite a high-selling consumer good last holiday season.

Sukera 9y ago

Yes, all kinds of jobs - but are there actually a substantial number of people doing those jobs compared to the number of jobs that are easy to automate away?

abusoufiyan 9y ago
I don't see why it matters. In the end, there won't be massive job loss to automation. Automation right now can eliminate most farm laborers. So why are there still so many farm laborers in the world? Because a) human wages in most of the world are cheaper than expensive machinery b) There isn't a profit motive to automate away jobs that pay so little c) structure of society is such that many technologies take decades upon decades to trickle out to most people in the world (talking the whole world here, not just Euromerica). In addition, the service economy won't be automated away for a long time because human contact is valued by lots of people in that field. Service economy scales with the purchasing power of communities and AI is going to create a consolidation of purchasing power wherever it is introduced.

crc32 9y ago

> didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. this is by definition "increasing productivity" isn't it? > All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily automatible ones) to different kinds. If that's true, then what will the shift be to? These are interesting questions. And how long will the shift take? Because I think there is a general feeling that current levels of inequality - the "hollowing out" of the middle class - are due to trends in automation.

abusoufiyan 9y ago
If that's what increasing productivity is, then AI will surely increase productivity. I think the shift will probably be towards internet-based jobs. Content creation / software development / content curation (think social media managers) / customer service, the things that it's hard for AI to get right. It will probably take longer and definitely leave some malcontents but, so did the stocking frame.
petra 9y ago
What will.the shift be to ? A few possibilities, at least short term: Some manufacturing returns to the US with help of robots. Maybe even as an exportible industry. Maybe it's possible to simplify those complex jobs that more people could do them? It's possible for the some of the new,highly automated industries to be a net job creator. For example one scenario for self-driving is that it will be partly remotely-operated ,i.e. jobs , instead of people driving themselves. Things may become cheaper and people will spend the money left on human based experiences/services ? Or even an whole economy based on human interaction because that's the one thing robots couldn't do? Or like we always did , we'll find some useless thing(like consumerism) that will create jobs and build society around it ?

crdoconnor 9y ago

>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It was largely used to employ cheap labor to produce crap. The luddites produced higher value artisinal goods. The luddites weren't reactionaries intent on destroying technology any more than strikers are protesting against the concept of 'work', they were just saboteurs trying to improve their negotiating position. The whole thing about them being anti-technology is historical revisionism. Similarly, French taxi anti-uber strikers in 2013 were literally depicted by Forbes as being "anti smartphone" - the motive for the lie being the same in both cases. The reason why low wage employment and crap clothes were more economically successful at the time had more to do with the economically hemorrhaging effect of the Napoleonic wars - which led to cheaper, more desperate labor and a demand for cheaper goods. It's a bit like how McDonalds gets a sales boost during recessions while mid range restaurants take a hit.

abusoufiyan 9y ago
Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.
- crc32 9y ago
  Well actually, we're not all still here! Those shifts - i.e. the industrial revolution - were enormously disruptive! Assuming that this is happening; or going to happen, how can we smooth it out a bit? And of course; that is on the basis that this is not a science fiction AI special; in which case an even more thoughtful approach might be required to minimise the damage and maximise happiness; or whatever variable you prefer.
  - abusoufiyan 9y ago
    I worry that attempts to smooth it out can actually cause worse disruption. Like, let's say we know factory workers will be laid off, so we need to allocate resources to retrain them. Very likely the resources will not be enough for all the workers. So who gets them and who doesn't will become a political battle, with the left-out group resenting everyone in society and society ignoring their needs because it reminds them that they left them behind. And then you build a society where one group's triumph is based on another's suppression, and you can see where this is going...

jdietrich 9y ago

>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. Mechanisation of the textile industry led to vast increases in the quantity of production. Prior to the industrial revolution, most peasants would have owned only one set of clothes and replaced them only when they were entirely beyond repair. Cheap cloth created demand for wardrobes and dressers, because a lot of people were now in the peculiar position of owning more clothes than they could wear at once. The luddites were ultimately wrong because of Jevons paradox - labour efficiencies in the textile industry vastly increased the demand for their product, and with it their demand for labour. Hand-loom weavers didn't lose their livelihoods to the power loom, they just made ten times as much cloth for twice the wage. Automation and mechanisation in other manufacturing sectors likewise stimulated vastly increased consumer demand, contributing to a virtuous cycle of increasing profit, wages and living standards. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the efficiencies of mass-manufacturing gave ordinary people secure employment and access to a dizzying array of consumer goods. The more stuff we made, the more stuff we could afford to buy. I don't see AI/ML following the same pattern. A lot of tech-heavy businesses seem to be startlingly close to zero-sum. Uber has decimated the taxi industry, but it doesn't seem to have vastly increased overall ridership - the most generous figures I've seen suggest perhaps a 40% increase in some markets. Google and Facebook have become multi-billion dollar companies through advertising revenue, but the overall growth of ad spending across all media has barely outpaced inflation, with the newspaper industry being the most obvious casualty. I can't think of many major tech companies that didn't kill an industry. I'd love to be proven wrong.

abusoufiyan 9y ago
>I don't see AI/ML following the same pattern. AI/ML which can mine through sports footage to create highlight reels and funny clip collections, etc will create tons of consumer goods (videos) which can all be monetized on Youtube. Just one example. How about Netflix? They use AI/ML quite a bit. It seems to have driven quite a lot more people to watch movies and tv than before. Amazon uses AI/ML in its Echo, which was quite a high-selling consumer good last holiday season.