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>The problem is you can't really run an economic system where only a very few percent of people take all the gains... I could be wrong here, but I think the co

>The problem is you can't really run an economic system where only a very few percent of people take all the gains... I could be wrong here, but I think the commenter, and the author of the article, are speaking on the bipolar nature of creative jobs like manager, designer, or programmer. The value of different designers and programmers to, say, Apple and Google, is kind of bipolar right now. The concern being that it will be more bipolar in the future. Right now we have the 5 or 6 figure a year sort of "warm body" programmer, and you are correct in asserting that anyone can do that job. But, we also have the 7 figure programmer, and only the very best can do that job. I think their concern is what if the 7 figure Apple designer turns into a high 7 or 8 figure Apple designer, and the "warm body" designers get less and less over time? Kind of like athletes. A few 8 or 9 figure soccer and basketball players, and then all of the others. Most of whom will never be able to make a living at their sport professionally. (Consider: How many young girls did our athletics infrastructure chew through to get Simone Biles? I don't really know? But I'm guessing it was a lot.) I think it's a fair concern. Certainly well within the purview of the sort of concerns we should be war gaming out at the policy making level. All that said, yeah, your world of 20 hours a week sounds pretty sweet to me.

im3w1l 8y ago
With a best of the best system, you've got to work all waking hours to have a chance of being the best. So rather than 20h each, we should see some people working a lot, and then a lot of people realizing they have no chance of making it and dropping out of the system completely.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Yeah. We're at a crossroads. There's different roads we can go down. There's different ways this whole thing can develop. What we look like when we come through this might be pretty ugly? Or not? We don't really know right now? We just have to hope that society's stewards are being responsible and considering these very real mechanisms when settling on plans for our long term future. These forces are not going anywhere. Technology is with us to stay, the only question is how we live with it.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Yes, thank you, that is exactly my point. The nature of creative work (the kind that is least likely to be automated) is that the output can be highly variable (think Botticelli's paintings vs 99% of everyone else), and thus it is impossible with that type of work to create a broad base of jobs where lots of people (percentage-wise) are well compensated. Another way to think of it is not just "repetitive vs non-repetitive" jobs, but "variable vs. well defined output" jobs. It may be currently very difficult to become a radiologist, but at the end of the day a diagnosis is either accurate or it isn't, and those types of "right-or-wrong" jobs are the ones most amenable to automation. So what you're left with are non-automatable jobs where the output can be highly variable, and in those highly-variable output jobs all the gains go to the very best.
- raquo 8y ago
  Creativity in arts and creativity in engineering and other skilled labour are vastly different. You don't need to be a Botticelli programmer to provide value to your employer because being famous or unique is not how programmers provide value. Programmers are paid for solving business problems. The variability of that is not going to dramatically increase due to automation. Even today you can tell that mediocre programmers are earning good wages while mediocre painters / sculptors / actors are starving. It is not because they have been automated.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    > Even today you can tell that mediocre programmers are earning good wages Today mediocre programmers still provide value, that's because there are not yet good enough tools that would make these developers obsolete. These tools are coming within the next 10 years.
    - Supernaut 8y ago
      Speaking as a competent but unexceptional programmer, I find this an alarming claim. Have you any links to worthwhile articles/research on this topic? If I really am going to be thrown on the developer scrapheap, I guess I should start thinking now about how I'm going to keep a roof over my kids' heads.
raquo 8y ago
I don't see why programmers, chemists, researchers, engineers, etc. compensation would follow the way of athletes. Those specialists are paid for skilled use of their time, they are not paid for being famous. If you have more skills, you get paid more, that's ok. Those fancy 10x programmers don't make regular programmers less valuable though. As for the entertainment industry - too many people agree to be underpaid for a chance to become famous one day. A career in those industries is not employment, it's running a personal brand business. No surprise that outcomes are so unequal.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  While it may not be as extreme as athletes or entertainers, you already see tons of evidence of the huge discrepancy in programmer salaries right here on HN. In every thread about programmer salaries, invariably you'll have a comment about "Senior/Staff developers making $300/$400k+", then some comments from folks saying "I've never heard/seen anything close to those numbers", then other comments about "Those numbers are totally doable at FAANG companies." Valued programmers at the best companies already make several multiples of income over 90%+ of the rest.
  - raquo 8y ago
    Sure I see that. What I don't see is how automation will make this variation larger for skilled workers like programmers.
    - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      It has already happened. You absolutely did not see these astronomical programmer salaries 20 years ago (indeed, one reason they've become so astronomical in the past 5 years is equity comp tied to companies that have tripled in value). The reason that top programmers at FAANG companies are able to make so much money is the "automation" of the Internet where you have, for example, a situation where only TWO companies take in nearly 60% of all online digital ad dollars (and that percentage has only recently been falling because Amazon is taking some share). The concentration in market share that the Internet allows also allows for a corresponding concentration in programmer salaries/talent.
p1necone 8y ago
Assuming you're talking about USD: are there really any/many programmers making 7 figures? (Except for those that got lucky with shares)
- hhs 8y ago
  Indeed, this is a good question. Along with 7 figures, what about assets vs liabilities: I'm curious how many programmers think about this part of the equation over their career? Except for shares, as you write, I wonder how many are investing those assets into new ideas - to, in turn, build more valuable assets to grow their wealth?
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  There are certainly not many, but there are definitely some top programmers in the US making 7 figures. This article was widely discussed on HN a year ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-salaries-openai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-int.... And that article only highlights my point. When it comes to AI, the very best solutions will take virtually all of the value. If your autonomous car program only fails .0000001% but another autonomous car program fails even less often at .00000005%, eventually the first program is going to be essentially worthless. Of course programs are not always exactly comparable along a single metric, but my point should be clear.
  - krapht 8y ago
    I don't understand why that would be the case. Unless the autonomous car program is free, there will always be room for a lower-quality, cheaper alternative.
    - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      If one program is provably safer, companies who use the less-safe version could be liable for accidents caused by it. A similar thing happened with "SawStop" technology: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/patent-disputes-stand-in-the-way-of-radically-safer-table-saws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/patent-disputes-...

im3w1l 8y ago

With a best of the best system, you've got to work all waking hours to have a chance of being the best. So rather than 20h each, we should see some people working a lot, and then a lot of people realizing they have no chance of making it and dropping out of the system completely.

bilbo0s 8y ago
Yeah. We're at a crossroads. There's different roads we can go down. There's different ways this whole thing can develop. What we look like when we come through this might be pretty ugly? Or not? We don't really know right now? We just have to hope that society's stewards are being responsible and considering these very real mechanisms when settling on plans for our long term future. These forces are not going anywhere. Technology is with us to stay, the only question is how we live with it.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

Yes, thank you, that is exactly my point. The nature of creative work (the kind that is least likely to be automated) is that the output can be highly variable (think Botticelli's paintings vs 99% of everyone else), and thus it is impossible with that type of work to create a broad base of jobs where lots of people (percentage-wise) are well compensated. Another way to think of it is not just "repetitive vs non-repetitive" jobs, but "variable vs. well defined output" jobs. It may be currently very difficult to become a radiologist, but at the end of the day a diagnosis is either accurate or it isn't, and those types of "right-or-wrong" jobs are the ones most amenable to automation. So what you're left with are non-automatable jobs where the output can be highly variable, and in those highly-variable output jobs all the gains go to the very best.

raquo 8y ago
Creativity in arts and creativity in engineering and other skilled labour are vastly different. You don't need to be a Botticelli programmer to provide value to your employer because being famous or unique is not how programmers provide value. Programmers are paid for solving business problems. The variability of that is not going to dramatically increase due to automation. Even today you can tell that mediocre programmers are earning good wages while mediocre painters / sculptors / actors are starving. It is not because they have been automated.
- TomMarius 8y ago
  > Even today you can tell that mediocre programmers are earning good wages Today mediocre programmers still provide value, that's because there are not yet good enough tools that would make these developers obsolete. These tools are coming within the next 10 years.
  - Supernaut 8y ago
    Speaking as a competent but unexceptional programmer, I find this an alarming claim. Have you any links to worthwhile articles/research on this topic? If I really am going to be thrown on the developer scrapheap, I guess I should start thinking now about how I'm going to keep a roof over my kids' heads.

raquo 8y ago

I don't see why programmers, chemists, researchers, engineers, etc. compensation would follow the way of athletes. Those specialists are paid for skilled use of their time, they are not paid for being famous. If you have more skills, you get paid more, that's ok. Those fancy 10x programmers don't make regular programmers less valuable though. As for the entertainment industry - too many people agree to be underpaid for a chance to become famous one day. A career in those industries is not employment, it's running a personal brand business. No surprise that outcomes are so unequal.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
While it may not be as extreme as athletes or entertainers, you already see tons of evidence of the huge discrepancy in programmer salaries right here on HN. In every thread about programmer salaries, invariably you'll have a comment about "Senior/Staff developers making $300/$400k+", then some comments from folks saying "I've never heard/seen anything close to those numbers", then other comments about "Those numbers are totally doable at FAANG companies." Valued programmers at the best companies already make several multiples of income over 90%+ of the rest.
- raquo 8y ago
  Sure I see that. What I don't see is how automation will make this variation larger for skilled workers like programmers.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    It has already happened. You absolutely did not see these astronomical programmer salaries 20 years ago (indeed, one reason they've become so astronomical in the past 5 years is equity comp tied to companies that have tripled in value). The reason that top programmers at FAANG companies are able to make so much money is the "automation" of the Internet where you have, for example, a situation where only TWO companies take in nearly 60% of all online digital ad dollars (and that percentage has only recently been falling because Amazon is taking some share). The concentration in market share that the Internet allows also allows for a corresponding concentration in programmer salaries/talent.

p1necone 8y ago

Assuming you're talking about USD: are there really any/many programmers making 7 figures? (Except for those that got lucky with shares)

hhs 8y ago
Indeed, this is a good question. Along with 7 figures, what about assets vs liabilities: I'm curious how many programmers think about this part of the equation over their career? Except for shares, as you write, I wonder how many are investing those assets into new ideas - to, in turn, build more valuable assets to grow their wealth?
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
There are certainly not many, but there are definitely some top programmers in the US making 7 figures. This article was widely discussed on HN a year ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-salaries-openai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-int.... And that article only highlights my point. When it comes to AI, the very best solutions will take virtually all of the value. If your autonomous car program only fails .0000001% but another autonomous car program fails even less often at .00000005%, eventually the first program is going to be essentially worthless. Of course programs are not always exactly comparable along a single metric, but my point should be clear.
- krapht 8y ago
  I don't understand why that would be the case. Unless the autonomous car program is free, there will always be room for a lower-quality, cheaper alternative.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    If one program is provably safer, companies who use the less-safe version could be liable for accidents caused by it. A similar thing happened with "SawStop" technology: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/patent-disputes-stand-in-the-way-of-radically-safer-table-saws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/patent-disputes-...