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The issue of job displacement is complex and I concur that it is a real problem for many people whose careers are in jeopardy because of technological disruptio

The issue of job displacement is complex and I concur that it is a real problem for many people whose careers are in jeopardy because of technological disruption. They should be provided retraining and/or other kinds of assistance. What I discussed above is about the domains and geographical areas where the expertise is lacking resulting in human suffering or underdevelopment and the situation either improves too slowly or worsens (due to population aging, for example). In domains where complex expertise is required, people will not be replaced unless some kind of human-level AI is invented (when it happens, at least some years/decades away, the ramifications will be vast and outside the scope of this post). Doctors, nurses, architects, etc perform diverse, often creative tasks—many of which no current AI is even at an amateur level.

baybal2 7y ago
> In domains where complex expertise is required, people will not be replaced unless some kind of human-level AI is invented. Expertise is an "inferior good" economics wise. Sadly, but a pretty much a fact for me. You don't need "superhuman AI" for this. When a business gets a lot of money to throw on people, the preference will go to more easily available cadres, even if net cost employing them will be higher. See, how IT outsourcing went. By far, computer programming is the hardest of intellectual professions, yet people with money are more fine ability to hire legions of come and by people in South Asia, than one man with a worth of 100 back home. You will also be surprised that this is also the case in such "intellectual" industries as management consulting, finance, and fund management. Thirty something MBAs doing googling, ctrl-Fing, and some times using purpose made analytical software is what makes most of workforce in "big and serious" investment groups.
- nopinsight 7y ago
  If the business employs underqualified expertise (esp at a higher cost) for an important function, it will suffer and lose to competition over time (unless it’s a monopoly). A local streaming company tries to compete with Netflix and its app is not up to par on latency and reliability. Soon people catch on, cancel subscriptions in drove, and tell others in public forums.
- notahacker 7y ago
  The idea of expertise being an 'inferior good' isn't borne out the reality that companies like Google and VC-funded startups investing massively in increasing their software output tend to choose to locate their dev team in the most expensive region in the world for software developers, whilst the outsourcing trend is driven by IT budget cuts from the sort of companies that regard software as a cost centre.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Those 100k a year Google engineers gave us Chrome and Android as they are now. Now do your judgement on their skill proficiency. Not to say that Google and other akin companies still do employ droves of people in ultra cheap countries.

baybal2 7y ago

> In domains where complex expertise is required, people will not be replaced unless some kind of human-level AI is invented. Expertise is an "inferior good" economics wise. Sadly, but a pretty much a fact for me. You don't need "superhuman AI" for this. When a business gets a lot of money to throw on people, the preference will go to more easily available cadres, even if net cost employing them will be higher. See, how IT outsourcing went. By far, computer programming is the hardest of intellectual professions, yet people with money are more fine ability to hire legions of come and by people in South Asia, than one man with a worth of 100 back home. You will also be surprised that this is also the case in such "intellectual" industries as management consulting, finance, and fund management. Thirty something MBAs doing googling, ctrl-Fing, and some times using purpose made analytical software is what makes most of workforce in "big and serious" investment groups.

nopinsight 7y ago
If the business employs underqualified expertise (esp at a higher cost) for an important function, it will suffer and lose to competition over time (unless it’s a monopoly). A local streaming company tries to compete with Netflix and its app is not up to par on latency and reliability. Soon people catch on, cancel subscriptions in drove, and tell others in public forums.
notahacker 7y ago
The idea of expertise being an 'inferior good' isn't borne out the reality that companies like Google and VC-funded startups investing massively in increasing their software output tend to choose to locate their dev team in the most expensive region in the world for software developers, whilst the outsourcing trend is driven by IT budget cuts from the sort of companies that regard software as a cost centre.
- baybal2 7y ago
  Those 100k a year Google engineers gave us Chrome and Android as they are now. Now do your judgement on their skill proficiency. Not to say that Google and other akin companies still do employ droves of people in ultra cheap countries.