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This reminds me of a talk by economist Robin Hanson: http://www.vimeo.com/9508131 http://www.vimeo.com/9508131 Although his presentation is pretty futuristic,

This reminds me of a talk by economist Robin Hanson: http://www.vimeo.com/9508131 http://www.vimeo.com/9508131 Although his presentation is pretty futuristic, a good chunk of it focuses on the economics of machines replacing people in tasks. His argument goes like this: There's a range of tasks that need to be done in an economy. Some of them are more efficiently done by machines and some by humans. Together, all these tasks grow the economy, and over time machines have been able to do a greater portion of these tasks efficiently. Also, machines can be mass-produced, while it takes longer to scale and train people. While the growth of machines has augmented humans for most of history, it's certainly possible for machines to replace humans in many tasks, such that the per-capita income of humans goes down even as the economy grows.

recampbell 15y ago
By machines, he mostly means simulated brains. I've always thought that a robotic singularity would result in an concentration of income in the hands of the capitalist/owner/shareholder since demand for human labor would diminish. But I think he is saying that it's likely these robotic-simulated-brain-people would multiply rapidly and would displace us fleshy-brain-people, much like humans displaced their humanoid for-bearers.
mparr4 15y ago
The fact that somebody can make a living going around and giving talks like that is interesting. It is so incredibly obvious that this is the way that things are, but it seldom gets said (with a few exceptions). And, along that line, this is a red flag when put to PGs "What You Can't Say" essay. It's somehow impolite to say something like this Hanson fellow is saying, despite the fact that it is both obvious AND true. Ought we not stare at this straight in the face to better understand how we can best remedy the situation?
- mparr4 15y ago
  it seems my ability to write coherently decreases significantly after a single drink... What I was trying to say was that it is quite interesting that something like this is "news" and moreover, that we find it surprising. If we can be just as productive as we were in the 90s, when we were all doing better (seemingly), why can't we have a similar quality of life? This all reminds me of an old story posted on HN: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in... Record profits and increased efficiency seem like they ought to lead to an improved quality of life. Shouldn't they?

recampbell 15y ago

By machines, he mostly means simulated brains. I've always thought that a robotic singularity would result in an concentration of income in the hands of the capitalist/owner/shareholder since demand for human labor would diminish. But I think he is saying that it's likely these robotic-simulated-brain-people would multiply rapidly and would displace us fleshy-brain-people, much like humans displaced their humanoid for-bearers.

mparr4 15y ago

The fact that somebody can make a living going around and giving talks like that is interesting. It is so incredibly obvious that this is the way that things are, but it seldom gets said (with a few exceptions). And, along that line, this is a red flag when put to PGs "What You Can't Say" essay. It's somehow impolite to say something like this Hanson fellow is saying, despite the fact that it is both obvious AND true. Ought we not stare at this straight in the face to better understand how we can best remedy the situation?

mparr4 15y ago
it seems my ability to write coherently decreases significantly after a single drink... What I was trying to say was that it is quite interesting that something like this is "news" and moreover, that we find it surprising. If we can be just as productive as we were in the 90s, when we were all doing better (seemingly), why can't we have a similar quality of life? This all reminds me of an old story posted on HN: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in... Record profits and increased efficiency seem like they ought to lead to an improved quality of life. Shouldn't they?