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I think his logic holds. The point is that we found new jobs for horses because there were areas where machines were inferior to them. Once machines could do e

I think his logic holds. The point is that we found new jobs for horses because there were areas where machines were inferior to them. Once machines could do everything that a horse could do (probably some mixture of load carrying and agility / endurance) we had no more work for them. To bring the same logic to humans, in history machines freed up humans to do better work than before. Let's say what humans excel at is dexterity and thinking. Once machines are more dexterous and can think better than people, there's no more new jobs - because whatever jobs they would be, machines will be better qualified for.

hooande 6y ago
The number of jobs that horses can do is a rounding error compared to the number of jobs that humans can do. If we're living in an imaginary future where machines can be trained to 90% of jobs, sure. But google a list of "most common jobs" and see how many a computer could do fully. Even if you think a miracle ai revolution is on the horizon, humans and horses are not comparable in terms of diversity of labor
- ben_w 6y ago
  > Even if you think a miracle ai revolution is on the horizon, humans and horses are not comparable in terms of diversity of labor As someone who does expect an AI revolution, I think you’re being overly literal with an analogy. For arguments’ sake, a toy model of AGI: copy a human brain onto a substrate that costs less to run than a real human costs to feed [0]. For every intellectual task this human could have performed, it is now cheaper to have the AI do it. As this AI could be based on any human by the nature of the hypothetical, any human intellectual task is now done cheaper by the corresponding AGI. Current robot bodies (for the hypothetical uploaded minds) are currently a bit meh, but (a) not so much as to make the idea ridiculous, and (b) we’ve already got BCIs demonstrated in animals, so an AGI puppeting a fast growing cheap animal is also entirely within the realm of the plausible if you don’t want robots and don’t care much about animal rights (though not much worse in that regard than current meat production, IMO). As an aside: tasks is a better metric than jobs, as almost all jobs have many tasks some of which are easier to automate than others. [0] https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/51746/when-will-uploaded-minds-be-a-reality/67531#67531 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/51746/when...
BurningFrog 6y ago
> The point is that we found new jobs for horses because... My core point is that horses didn't have jobs! People used horses to do jobs. > Once machines are more dexterous and can think better than people, there's no more new jobs - because whatever jobs they would be, machines will be better qualified for. I think this is another version of the same error. Machines have jobs in this scenario! People have to pay for what the machines produce, but there is no human on the other side of the transaction, so after a while humans run out of all money and die off. Or something.. It's getting late and I'll stop here.
- deleted 6y ago
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- lukifer 6y ago
  > People used horses to do jobs. If I order food delivered, I and the restaurant are using a human to do a job. If that job can be done by a drone instead, that human has to find something else to do for income. For better or worse, the labor market is a process for turning other humans into tools. The fact that the horse is paid in oats and not wages is irrelevant: a socially useful niche is transferred from a biological creature to a machine. It's an open question whether the future will contain enough socially useful niches for every working-age human (at least, ones that can pay a subsistence wage).

hooande 6y ago

The number of jobs that horses can do is a rounding error compared to the number of jobs that humans can do. If we're living in an imaginary future where machines can be trained to 90% of jobs, sure. But google a list of "most common jobs" and see how many a computer could do fully. Even if you think a miracle ai revolution is on the horizon, humans and horses are not comparable in terms of diversity of labor

ben_w 6y ago
> Even if you think a miracle ai revolution is on the horizon, humans and horses are not comparable in terms of diversity of labor As someone who does expect an AI revolution, I think you’re being overly literal with an analogy. For arguments’ sake, a toy model of AGI: copy a human brain onto a substrate that costs less to run than a real human costs to feed [0]. For every intellectual task this human could have performed, it is now cheaper to have the AI do it. As this AI could be based on any human by the nature of the hypothetical, any human intellectual task is now done cheaper by the corresponding AGI. Current robot bodies (for the hypothetical uploaded minds) are currently a bit meh, but (a) not so much as to make the idea ridiculous, and (b) we’ve already got BCIs demonstrated in animals, so an AGI puppeting a fast growing cheap animal is also entirely within the realm of the plausible if you don’t want robots and don’t care much about animal rights (though not much worse in that regard than current meat production, IMO). As an aside: tasks is a better metric than jobs, as almost all jobs have many tasks some of which are easier to automate than others. [0] https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/51746/when-will-uploaded-minds-be-a-reality/67531#67531 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/51746/when...

BurningFrog 6y ago

> The point is that we found new jobs for horses because... My core point is that horses didn't have jobs! People used horses to do jobs. > Once machines are more dexterous and can think better than people, there's no more new jobs - because whatever jobs they would be, machines will be better qualified for. I think this is another version of the same error. Machines have jobs in this scenario! People have to pay for what the machines produce, but there is no human on the other side of the transaction, so after a while humans run out of all money and die off. Or something.. It's getting late and I'll stop here.

deleted 6y ago
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lukifer 6y ago
> People used horses to do jobs. If I order food delivered, I and the restaurant are using a human to do a job. If that job can be done by a drone instead, that human has to find something else to do for income. For better or worse, the labor market is a process for turning other humans into tools. The fact that the horse is paid in oats and not wages is irrelevant: a socially useful niche is transferred from a biological creature to a machine. It's an open question whether the future will contain enough socially useful niches for every working-age human (at least, ones that can pay a subsistence wage).