6 ms·
We used to dream of a day when automation and robotics would take the burden from our shoulders, leaving us to lead our better lives. Now that it's happening (
by JoeAltmaier 4y ago
We used to dream of a day when automation and robotics would take the burden from our shoulders, leaving us to lead our better lives.
Now that it's happening (and has been for a couple decades) we only hear FUD from folks trying to get everybody back to work.
- mehphp 4y agoI agree the automation is happening, but I'm not seeing the part where it leads to better lives for the majority of people.
- Waterluvian 4y agoIt’s subjective and there’s a pithy response to any argument. But for me it’s night and day. I have far more time with my kids than my parents ever had with us, partly because I simply do not grocery shop or merchandise shop anymore. Yes there’s still plenty of humans involved but both are heavily automated with AMRs. This is hours a week of freed time. Again, to each their own. But for me it’s huge and I love and cherish it.
- capableweb 4y agoThat's you moving up the class-ladder, not the results of automation. As you said, humans are the cornerstone of that resource chain you're describing, for most part.
- Waterluvian 4y agoActually I moved down the class ladder. I make a fraction what my parents did. The home I grew up in is worth millions now. I could never afford it. But a number of services exist now that didn’t 30 years ago. Largely in part to many forms of normalization and automation.
- ahelwer 4y agoIt is just fundamentally strange that you are including gig economy work in a discussion of automation. That isn't automation! The people shopping for you are not automatons just because your interaction with them is mediated by an app! They are doing your chores for you and have less time with their families so you can have more time with yours.
- Waterluvian 4y agoIt’s heavily automated where I shop. I know because I write software for the robots at some of these customers and 3PLs. I watch the robots do their thing on a big board.
- ripe 4y agoRight, the human+machine system is providing the scalable and convenient service, but the "human" part is usually some minimum-wage or gig worker. This kind of automation is helping the haves, but not so much the have-nots. I guess countries are becoming more of what they already were: the US gets more unequal and exploitative. Other, more socialist countries are getting more so. China is getting totalitarian using automated facial recognition and censorship.
- pydry 4y ago>But a number of services exist now that didn’t 30 years ago. Largely in part to many forms of normalization and automation. The Ubers and doordashes and deliveroos of this world are predicated upon the growth of the precariat. India had all this stuff 50 years ago, just without an app. I remember it not being unusual to have Starbucks delivered to your door in Buenos Aires in 2012. Again, no app.
- ripe 4y agoTrue story from the early oughts: a friend spent some weeks at the India office of his big US-based software company. When you sent a document to the printer, an employee called a "peon" would pick it up and bring it to your office. He would also bring around tea and cookies in the afternoon. Now that's service!
- scruple 4y agoI mean, I just take my kids with me shopping. Usually alone. They're twins and they're 3. These things aren't hard, people just don't want to do them.
- cbm-vic-20 4y agoJust because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening. IMO society in the developed regions of the world would collapse without automation.
- mehphp 4y agoI said for the majority if people. Tech people like us, with nice salaries, are able to enjoy these things more than those who have to do the grunt work. No matter how good automation gets, the government is going to lag way behind. I don’t foresee a transition to any sort of utopian era where everyone enjoys the fruits of automation. I think those at the top will continue to hoard the wealth because they own those systems.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoGiven that the majority (as in around 90%) of people are no longer agricultural serfs or slaves toiling in the fields, I'd say that automation has definitely led to better lives. IIRC, the breakdown was typically around 1% lords and priests, 9+% soldiers to protect the lords and priests against other lords and priests, and 90% unfree agricultural labor of one form or another (being a serf was slightly better than being a slave, but only a bit).
- baandam 4y ago
- baandam 4y ago
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoKind of my point. A UBI for instance could help with that. But there's nothing but FUD on that subject.
- athinggoingon 4y agoHow exactly is "automation and robotics" taking the burden from our shoulders? I live in a single family house. I still need to hire plumbers, electricians, handy men to paint my house, etc. I still need to hover over a porcelain bowl a few times a day and clog it up a few times a year. Toilet augers and plungers to the rescue.
- michaelt 4y agoThere was a time when if you wanted to know a phone number you had to manually consult a huge book, if you wanted to share a photo with family you had to manually carry the print to them, if you wanted to watch a movie at home you had to drive to blockbuster, and if you wanted to hurl abuse at a politician you had to wait for them to hold a rally in your city and queue for hours to get a front row seat. Now I can find phone numbers, share photos with family, watch movies on demand and hurl abuse at politicians, all without leaving my chair.
- rightbyte 4y agoOnline phone books are not as complete. People lose their digital photos. Blockbuster had better stock of films than Netflix has now. Politicians don't read pleb Twitter accounts.
- falcor84 4y agoYou lost me at "Blockbuster had better stock of films than Netflix has now". While "better" is debatable, my watch list of films I want to watch on Netflix will most likely outlive me
- rightbyte 4y agoObviously the 90s movie rental place had no movies made after the 90s. A movie rental place had more or less all blockbusters (pun intended) and a huge stack of old movies. Netflix today, not the old postal order Netflix, has nowhere near the assortment of a kinda crappy movie rental place of the late 90s.
- stuaxo 4y agoExactly; maybe we can take from this that there is (some) truth in that "nobody wants to work", so we should do something about it with automation, but we also need redistribution so that we don't end up in a society where nobody has any money except a few trillionaires.
- sokoloff 4y agoOr maybe, just maybe, people could find a way to break themself off a slice of that wealth by doing or creating something of value and nudging themselves along the number line between $0 and $1T. I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work.
- waboremo 4y agoBreaking off a slice of that wealth, which by your own admission, is limited. And so what happens to people who can't? The additional problem to this framing is that anywhere between $0-[amount dictated to provide a stable life, including inflation] is a hellscape and has proven extremely difficult for majority of people to escape from for a variety of reasons. But sure, the solution is everyone being their own boss hashtag entrepreneur... but wait if everyone is their own boss... who do the bosses exploit so they can nudge themselves further down the number line faster than others?
- bobkazamakis 4y ago>Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands… The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights. -- some idiot 50 years ago. Glad things have changed!
- vadansky 4y agoThe problem is we taught AI to make art before we taught it to make useful work. so when it finally catches up and we all have free time, but are we supposed to do? Just yell prompts into SD-9000?
- petterparker 4y agoI'm sure you can think of something better to do with your time than spend it on 'work'?
- gilleain 4y agoAs it happens, gave a 5-min lightning talk on text-to-img yesterday, and from discussions with colleagues afterwards one thing that works well is 'Mr Blobby' in various situations. Hmm, not on-topic for OP, but oh well.
- WJW 4y agoThe idea that people would be free to make art when automation obsoleted menial labor was because art was viewed as something inherently pleasurable to do, not because it is needed. You could yell prompts into SD-9000 if you want, or you can paint it yourself, you can even choose to do nothing at all. It doesn't matter which, as long as you are pleased with the result.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoI think its a bit like starting a hobby programming project. If you google your idea, you're most likely going to see that someone else already did it and all the fun will be sucked out of what you're doing. Better to just not look and do it for your own enjoyment. If you want to make art, make it, don't look at what stable diffusion or others are doing.
- fullshark 4y agoWhat we mostly do with our free time: consume and not create.
- refurb 4y agoAutomation still requires workers. And those workers would get more money. And have more stuff, better medical care, more experiences. And then someone would say “thats unfair they have more money than me”. Rinse and repeat.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoAutomation needs 1 or two people to run a machine that replaced 200.
- refurb 4y agoRight, that’s my point.
- CalRobert 4y agoSo long as there remain any scarcities of necessities (housing, mostly) improvements in automation and robotics will only be put to use to help us outcompete our peers. It's more galling when you realize these shortages, at least of housing, are artificially created in order to make sure people keep working as much as possible.
- BurningFrog 4y agoThe housing shortages are artificial, but there is no organized thought of keeping people working behind it. Mostly just homeowners voting in their self interest, and unintended consequences.
- CalRobert 4y agoThe connection between "I want my home price to go up" and "I want other people to have to work really really hard for me to sell them my home" should be less tenuous.
- eulers_secret 4y agoI have recently given up the notion of ever owning a house: it’s far too expensive. Even with rent increases, I can live in 500 sqft apartments and basically retire in my 30s/40s. If I buy a house I’ll work until I’m 70. And I’ll be house poor that whole time. The price of single-family detached homes is so out of line that it is absurd.
- jjav 4y ago> If I buy a house I’ll work until I’m 70. And I’ll be house poor that whole time. How will you pay for the ever-increasing rent on apartments when you're 70 and beyond? Owning a house is short-term pain but allows you to lock in a "rent" (mortgage) which will never increase and will at one point go to zero, hopefully before you retire.
- BurningFrog 4y agoIt's been happening since the Industrial Revolution started ~250 years ago. Today's luxuries becomes tomorrow's bare necessities. Each generation ends up having more than the previous one could dream of, and yet they keep wanting more.
- alecbz 4y ago> Each generation ends up having more than the previous one could dream of, and yet they keep wanting more. This makes sense though -- I think it's somewhat natural for people to want growth/progress. I've found that working towards goals is one of the things that makes me the happiest and most fulfilled in life.
- BurningFrog 4y agoYeah, I think it's mostly human nature. Not only do we always want more, we also want more than other people.