6 ms·

Right, that's historically been true for humans because we are pattern recognition workhorses. We have some other examples worth considering though, like liter

Right, that's historically been true for humans because we are pattern recognition workhorses. We have some other examples worth considering though, like literal workhorses. Once the engine came around, horses became inefficient and were relegated to shows and races. With AI able to do superhuman pattern recognition, it's only a matter of time before humans also become a luxury, as they're no longer needed for traditional work.

HenryKissinger 7y ago
> traditional work In a lot of data science focused places, like mine, people are more or less researchers. There is no repetitive work, and everyone must show creativity and autonomy. You can't automate that.
- potta_coffee 7y ago
  And not everyone is capable of such work. What about average people who don't really have the facility to become data scientists?
  - HenryKissinger 7y ago
    Given the fact that the economy is at full employment and that there are more job openings than people looking for a job, I'm not too worried at the moment.
    - autoexec 7y ago
      > Given the fact that the economy is at full employment The economy might be at full employment, but people are often underemployed, getting few hours, and shit wages. Most people are employed but many don't make enough to support even just themselves on their earnings let alone a family. Real wages have barely increased since the 1970s while costs have risen. We've had the first generations of Americans who are worse off than their parents. I wouldn't say our current situation was at all encouraging.
      - malandrew 7y ago
        > underemployed I don't get why we use this term. You're either employed or you're not. Just because you got an education in something that is no longer valued by society doesn't mean you're entitled to a job doing whatever you're educated to do. Society rewards those that provide some good or service that is wanted/needed. Furthermore, employment by others is not the only option. You can also work for yourself (except when the state forbids it through licensing and permits)
        ajwin 7y ago
        Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't under employed often also refer to when you have part time / casual work but want full time employment? You might not be able to survive of what your earning but your not part of the Unemployment statistics?
        taneq 7y ago
        We have a term, "employed", for people who work and earn a living wage. We have another term, "unemployed", for people who have no work. We need a third term, "underemployed", to describe people in between those two situations, who have some work (so they're not "unemployed") but nonetheless do not earn a living wage (so counting them as "employed" is disingenuous).
      - malandrew 7y ago
        > Real wages have barely increased since the 1970s while costs have risen. "Where has all the income gone" Minneapolis FED research https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where...
    - wavefunction 7y ago
      Seems like a poor way to rationalize avoiding planning ahead. The number of open positions says nothing about the nature of the work. I can open a position for a doctor to work for me for $100 a month and while it's an "open position" it will not be and could never be filled and yet it's still a job opening. In addition some people are working multiple jobs to barely survive so again there is no defined relationship of number of jobs to number of workers or whether that's a good or a bad thing. I would agree with you if wages had risen enough that workers could work one job and have their needs met but that won't happen any time soon, especially with robots on the horizon. The only thing that makes sense is to plan ahead.
    - freeflight 7y ago
      Some people argue there's this thing called "bullshit jobs" [0] making up a substantial part of the modern job economies. [0] https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/
    - rhacker 7y ago
      I don't know, I've never seen this many homeless people in my life.
      - ProZsolt 7y ago
        I think that caused by social separation. Today people have hundreds or even thousands of "facebook friends" but not one where they can sleep on the couch when they are down. Also consumerism. Lots of people have the latest and greatest iPhone and OLED TV but don't have 6 months worth of savings(I think that's the minimum you should have) in the bank. It's a lot harder to find your next job when you stressing because you are going to be evicted.
    - x220 7y ago
      Avoiding the question entirely? I'd expect nothing less from someone who will be the last to suffer the consequences of automation.
    - bavell 7y ago
      > full employment Where are you getting this? From the govt statistics that don't include people who have dropped out of the workforce entirely? The same stats that don't differentiate between a salaried career and scraping by in the transient gig economy? I'm extremely skeptical. Can we afford to just dismiss all these legitimate concerns because, "the govt told me everything is okay"?
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  Uh, yes you can. Robots are already being used for battlefield simulations coming up with moves humans couldn't think of. They beat humans in Go by finding better moves that's entirely creative. They write news articles, paint, create music, and help in diagnosis of disease. Humans are all going to be replaced soon enough. We'll be serving AI masters or wiped out within 50 years tops.
  - ajwin 7y ago
    Why would this comment get down voted?
    - salawat 7y ago
      Likely due to the fact it's bubkus. AI's permutate artwork. They don't feel, they don't assign or derive meaning. They don't feel, they aren't inspired, they aren't moved. They don't derive joy from the beautiful, despair and disgust from the loathsome, awe at the sublime, and dissolution and insignificance in the face of the all encompassing. They don't dance with glee at a bright and bouncy tune, they aren't struck to the edge of tears by the melody of wind through a forest of bottles. They know and can reproduce patterns that are labelled for them, but they don't get it, ya dig? They don't relate or understand the soul of Jazz, the message of Blues/Rock and Roll, the Struggle and perseverance evoked by a good fight song. They can't appreciate the byproducts of their work, or "make 10 more, but different." They can't appreciate, display, or develop technique; they cannot perform. When composing, they generate content based off of higher-dimensional correlations between words as encoded through syntax and grammar, but a poem generated by a machine is not but a permutation of words ejaculated forth, with no rhyme, reason, or correlation to the world at the time; even being removed from the whimsy of it's programmer. Art is a tricky thing. It is what it is because a human found that at that time in their life, in the details of their personal situation was the right time for that work to be born forth into the world, in all it's symbolism, ugliness, beauty, sublimity, and to affect all those who gazed upon it. Think hard about the significance of that. That man's mortality factors into the fruits of his labor; something a machine, deriveable from a prescription can never truly know or imitate. It isn't humanistic chauvinism...merely that as the clock is not the first cause of time, so the AI is not the creator of the Art it produces, if what it produces can even be truly called Art. It may not always remain that way. Right now though, it is. Least that's my guess.

HenryKissinger 7y ago

> traditional work In a lot of data science focused places, like mine, people are more or less researchers. There is no repetitive work, and everyone must show creativity and autonomy. You can't automate that.

potta_coffee 7y ago
And not everyone is capable of such work. What about average people who don't really have the facility to become data scientists?
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  Given the fact that the economy is at full employment and that there are more job openings than people looking for a job, I'm not too worried at the moment.
  - autoexec 7y ago
    > Given the fact that the economy is at full employment The economy might be at full employment, but people are often underemployed, getting few hours, and shit wages. Most people are employed but many don't make enough to support even just themselves on their earnings let alone a family. Real wages have barely increased since the 1970s while costs have risen. We've had the first generations of Americans who are worse off than their parents. I wouldn't say our current situation was at all encouraging.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      > underemployed I don't get why we use this term. You're either employed or you're not. Just because you got an education in something that is no longer valued by society doesn't mean you're entitled to a job doing whatever you're educated to do. Society rewards those that provide some good or service that is wanted/needed. Furthermore, employment by others is not the only option. You can also work for yourself (except when the state forbids it through licensing and permits)
      - ajwin 7y ago
        Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't under employed often also refer to when you have part time / casual work but want full time employment? You might not be able to survive of what your earning but your not part of the Unemployment statistics?
      - taneq 7y ago
        We have a term, "employed", for people who work and earn a living wage. We have another term, "unemployed", for people who have no work. We need a third term, "underemployed", to describe people in between those two situations, who have some work (so they're not "unemployed") but nonetheless do not earn a living wage (so counting them as "employed" is disingenuous).
    - malandrew 7y ago
      > Real wages have barely increased since the 1970s while costs have risen. "Where has all the income gone" Minneapolis FED research https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where-has-all-the-income-gone https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/where...
  - wavefunction 7y ago
    Seems like a poor way to rationalize avoiding planning ahead. The number of open positions says nothing about the nature of the work. I can open a position for a doctor to work for me for $100 a month and while it's an "open position" it will not be and could never be filled and yet it's still a job opening. In addition some people are working multiple jobs to barely survive so again there is no defined relationship of number of jobs to number of workers or whether that's a good or a bad thing. I would agree with you if wages had risen enough that workers could work one job and have their needs met but that won't happen any time soon, especially with robots on the horizon. The only thing that makes sense is to plan ahead.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    Some people argue there's this thing called "bullshit jobs" [0] making up a substantial part of the modern job economies. [0] https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/ https://www.strike.coop/bullshit-jobs/
  - rhacker 7y ago
    I don't know, I've never seen this many homeless people in my life.
    - ProZsolt 7y ago
      I think that caused by social separation. Today people have hundreds or even thousands of "facebook friends" but not one where they can sleep on the couch when they are down. Also consumerism. Lots of people have the latest and greatest iPhone and OLED TV but don't have 6 months worth of savings(I think that's the minimum you should have) in the bank. It's a lot harder to find your next job when you stressing because you are going to be evicted.
  - x220 7y ago
    Avoiding the question entirely? I'd expect nothing less from someone who will be the last to suffer the consequences of automation.
  - bavell 7y ago
    > full employment Where are you getting this? From the govt statistics that don't include people who have dropped out of the workforce entirely? The same stats that don't differentiate between a salaried career and scraping by in the transient gig economy? I'm extremely skeptical. Can we afford to just dismiss all these legitimate concerns because, "the govt told me everything is okay"?
cannonedhamster 7y ago
Uh, yes you can. Robots are already being used for battlefield simulations coming up with moves humans couldn't think of. They beat humans in Go by finding better moves that's entirely creative. They write news articles, paint, create music, and help in diagnosis of disease. Humans are all going to be replaced soon enough. We'll be serving AI masters or wiped out within 50 years tops.
- ajwin 7y ago
  Why would this comment get down voted?
  - salawat 7y ago
    Likely due to the fact it's bubkus. AI's permutate artwork. They don't feel, they don't assign or derive meaning. They don't feel, they aren't inspired, they aren't moved. They don't derive joy from the beautiful, despair and disgust from the loathsome, awe at the sublime, and dissolution and insignificance in the face of the all encompassing. They don't dance with glee at a bright and bouncy tune, they aren't struck to the edge of tears by the melody of wind through a forest of bottles. They know and can reproduce patterns that are labelled for them, but they don't get it, ya dig? They don't relate or understand the soul of Jazz, the message of Blues/Rock and Roll, the Struggle and perseverance evoked by a good fight song. They can't appreciate the byproducts of their work, or "make 10 more, but different." They can't appreciate, display, or develop technique; they cannot perform. When composing, they generate content based off of higher-dimensional correlations between words as encoded through syntax and grammar, but a poem generated by a machine is not but a permutation of words ejaculated forth, with no rhyme, reason, or correlation to the world at the time; even being removed from the whimsy of it's programmer. Art is a tricky thing. It is what it is because a human found that at that time in their life, in the details of their personal situation was the right time for that work to be born forth into the world, in all it's symbolism, ugliness, beauty, sublimity, and to affect all those who gazed upon it. Think hard about the significance of that. That man's mortality factors into the fruits of his labor; something a machine, deriveable from a prescription can never truly know or imitate. It isn't humanistic chauvinism...merely that as the clock is not the first cause of time, so the AI is not the creator of the Art it produces, if what it produces can even be truly called Art. It may not always remain that way. Right now though, it is. Least that's my guess.