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I don't see the distinction. Aren't workers also tools used to produce things? What's special about workers that makes them irreplaceable? > Also, the fact tha

I don't see the distinction. Aren't workers also tools used to produce things? What's special about workers that makes them irreplaceable? > Also, the fact that you can't find a human example to make this argument What would you count as a single human example of human workers becoming obsolete? This has happened many times. About 96% of people used to work in agriculture. Today it's about 4%. Machines and technology have replaced the rest of the labor needed to grow our food.

BurningFrog 6y ago
> About 96% of people used to work in agriculture. Today it's about 4%. Let's say the 96% number is from 1750, which I think is roughly right. World population then was ~800 million. Today it is ~7700 million. Most have jobs. The human workforce has expanded almost 10x in this period.
- tacitusarc 6y ago
  This is moving the goalpost, though. The discussion was about whether or not the replacibility of generalized human labor is comparable to the replacibility of horse labor. No doubt there can be reasonable disagreement, but we can't compare the adaptation to specialized function replacement with generalized function replacement. The point of the analogy is that it (generlized labor) is novel in human populations, but not for horses.
- nearbuy 6y ago
  But the food needs (and other needs) have expanded 10x. It makes no sense to look at the absolute numbers instead of the percentage. If there had been no technological advancements at all, the workforce would have still expanded (in absolute numbers) to match the population. Without machines and technology, we would need far, far more people today in agriculture. The need for all those jobs has been destroyed by technology. When one job becomes obsolete, this frees up labour and people gradually move to other jobs. This increases production, since we're still producing agricultural products (using fewer people), and there's more people now producing other things. Agricultural jobs were destroyed, but there were always other jobs people could do, that weren't done before simply because agriculture sucked up so much labour. This pattern will continue for a while. When human labour is no longer the best tool for one job, that labour will be reallocated to something else. There's still plenty of things we'd like more of. But the video is talking about what happens when humans are no longer the best tool for any job. It's happened many times in history that some job has become obsolete. We haven't yet made a machine that's better than humans at every job.
  - Animats 6y ago
    One way to look at this is to compare the basic capabilities of humans and machines. The human list remains roughly constant, but the machine list increases over time. Actually, what's happening in automation is not what people expected. We still don't have good robot manipulation in unstructured situations. Machine learning gave us automation of "higher" functions first. The current result is a growth in really dumb jobs, like Amazon warehouse pickers. The computers do almost all the thinking. Humans just pick up things where told to do so and put them somewhere else. Such jobs have no promotion path. This is the "machines should think, people should work" revolution.
- hellbannedguy 6y ago
  “World population then was ~800 million. Today it is ~7700 million. Most have jobs.” I doubt this. In the USA, we have an unemployment number, “able bodied, but not working, or looking for work.” If the 50’s, it was basically housewives. Today it’s a lot of people. (This might not be the exact wording the government uses.) My point is this number is huge, and never talked about much in the United States. I don’t think the government even has a way of tracking the number? I don’t know how the rest of the world treats this number. My guess would be most don’t have jobs, or if that number crossed 50% in any country, the jobs would not be of a livable wage living alone.
  - ExtraE 6y ago
    We do track this, it’s called the prime working age participation rate.
  - Animats 6y ago
    I don’t know how the rest of the world treats this number. India deliberately chose not to automate agriculture. They still have about 50% agricultural workers. Recent attempts to change this have resulted in riots.[1] [1] https://www.facebook.com/Reuters/videos/242972323968171/ https://www.facebook.com/Reuters/videos/242972323968171/
  - bushin 6y ago
    Labor force participation rate: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?locations=JP-US-KR-CN-FR-DE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?location...
willhinsa 6y ago
> Aren't workers also tools used to produce things? What's special about workers that makes them irreplaceable? Absolutely correct. And the entities employing those tools are called "Capital".

BurningFrog 6y ago

> About 96% of people used to work in agriculture. Today it's about 4%. Let's say the 96% number is from 1750, which I think is roughly right. World population then was ~800 million. Today it is ~7700 million. Most have jobs. The human workforce has expanded almost 10x in this period.

tacitusarc 6y ago
This is moving the goalpost, though. The discussion was about whether or not the replacibility of generalized human labor is comparable to the replacibility of horse labor. No doubt there can be reasonable disagreement, but we can't compare the adaptation to specialized function replacement with generalized function replacement. The point of the analogy is that it (generlized labor) is novel in human populations, but not for horses.
nearbuy 6y ago
But the food needs (and other needs) have expanded 10x. It makes no sense to look at the absolute numbers instead of the percentage. If there had been no technological advancements at all, the workforce would have still expanded (in absolute numbers) to match the population. Without machines and technology, we would need far, far more people today in agriculture. The need for all those jobs has been destroyed by technology. When one job becomes obsolete, this frees up labour and people gradually move to other jobs. This increases production, since we're still producing agricultural products (using fewer people), and there's more people now producing other things. Agricultural jobs were destroyed, but there were always other jobs people could do, that weren't done before simply because agriculture sucked up so much labour. This pattern will continue for a while. When human labour is no longer the best tool for one job, that labour will be reallocated to something else. There's still plenty of things we'd like more of. But the video is talking about what happens when humans are no longer the best tool for any job. It's happened many times in history that some job has become obsolete. We haven't yet made a machine that's better than humans at every job.
- Animats 6y ago
  One way to look at this is to compare the basic capabilities of humans and machines. The human list remains roughly constant, but the machine list increases over time. Actually, what's happening in automation is not what people expected. We still don't have good robot manipulation in unstructured situations. Machine learning gave us automation of "higher" functions first. The current result is a growth in really dumb jobs, like Amazon warehouse pickers. The computers do almost all the thinking. Humans just pick up things where told to do so and put them somewhere else. Such jobs have no promotion path. This is the "machines should think, people should work" revolution.
hellbannedguy 6y ago
“World population then was ~800 million. Today it is ~7700 million. Most have jobs.” I doubt this. In the USA, we have an unemployment number, “able bodied, but not working, or looking for work.” If the 50’s, it was basically housewives. Today it’s a lot of people. (This might not be the exact wording the government uses.) My point is this number is huge, and never talked about much in the United States. I don’t think the government even has a way of tracking the number? I don’t know how the rest of the world treats this number. My guess would be most don’t have jobs, or if that number crossed 50% in any country, the jobs would not be of a livable wage living alone.
- ExtraE 6y ago
  We do track this, it’s called the prime working age participation rate.
- Animats 6y ago
  I don’t know how the rest of the world treats this number. India deliberately chose not to automate agriculture. They still have about 50% agricultural workers. Recent attempts to change this have resulted in riots.[1] [1] https://www.facebook.com/Reuters/videos/242972323968171/ https://www.facebook.com/Reuters/videos/242972323968171/
- bushin 6y ago
  Labor force participation rate: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?locations=JP-US-KR-CN-FR-DE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?location...

willhinsa 6y ago

> Aren't workers also tools used to produce things? What's special about workers that makes them irreplaceable? Absolutely correct. And the entities employing those tools are called "Capital".