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Education is great, but it can go only so far. We will always have to find things to do for the less gifted in order to provide them with some dignity. Even if

by peepee1982 4y ago

Education is great, but it can go only so far. We will always have to find things to do for the less gifted in order to provide them with some dignity. Even if they are not strictly needed for reasons of productivity or profitability. Anything else would be inhumane.

adrianN 4y ago
Panem et circenses. I think it's unlikely that we'll be able to sufficiently transform the economy so that there is an ample supply of desirable jobs that could more profitably done by robots.
brutusborn 4y ago
People can find their own outlets if given the basic necessities and enough time. I fear this attitude will lead to job programs where people work a 9-5 and achieve essentially nothing, I.e. bullshit jobs.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  seems that as automation has increased bullshit jobs have too, so that future seems very plausible to me.
- imiric 4y ago
  > I fear this attitude will lead to job programs where people work a 9-5 and achieve essentially nothing, I.e. bullshit jobs. We already have plenty of those in the most profitable industries today.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    Then better to remove such bullshit jobs even further.
    - artificialLimbs 4y ago
      So that those people won't have any jobs at all?
      - cercatrova 4y ago
        None of us will have jobs at all soon enough.
        CuriouslyC 4y ago
        Human made objects will become more of a status symbol, and "content" will still be directed/produced/edited by humans, it's just the art/writing/acting/sets/lighting/etc that will be handled by AI. Humans will always serve as "discriminators" of model output because they're better at it (and more transparent) than a model.
- milsorgen 4y ago
  >People can find their own outlets if given the basic necessities and enough time. This has not been my experience. People need something to do but not many people know that about themselves. It leads to a lot of... 'wasteful' behaviors, rather than enriching ones. I think it's going to be something that has to be taught to people, a skill like any other. Albiet a little more abstract than some.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    There definitely has to be a cultural shift but I think the shift can’t truly happen until most things are automated. There needs to be a critical mass of people who are fully devoted to their interests, currently there is too much demand for labour and so dedicating your time to your interests is alien to most people. When the value of labour approaches zero for most people, work becomes pointless and something must fill the vacuum.
    - peepee1982 4y ago
      Many people don't have interests.
- peepee1982 4y ago
  You can, and I can. You'd be surprised how many people would just drink themselves to metaphorical or literal death.
bbor 4y ago
Do you see “giftedness” as a 1D score, where someone is either smart or not smart? And presumably this quality happens to correlate with software engineering ability? I think you’re hinting at some very hurtful, dangerous ideas.
- bayarearefugee 4y ago
  The weird bit is that a lot of software engineers seem to have the idea that their work is one of the the last that will be automated. Looking at the current track and extending it out assuming no unforeseen roadblocks, typical software engineering looks to be one of the most threatened. Plumbers are much safer for longer all things considered. The obvious rebuttal to the idea that AI will eat software engineering is "we'll always need 'software engineers' and the nature of what they do will just change", which is probably true for the foreseeable future, but ignores the fact that sufficiently advanced AI will be like a water line rapidly rising up and (economically) drowning those that fall below it and those below that line will be a very significant percentage of the population, including even most of the "smart" ones. However this ends up shaking out, though, I think its pretty clear we're politically and economically so far from ready for the practical impact of what might happen with this stuff over the next 10-20 years that its terrifying. "60-80% of you aren't really needed anymore" looks great on a quarterly earning statement until the literal guillotines start being erected. And even if we never quite reach that point there's still the inverse Henry Ford problem of who is your customer when most people are under the value floor relative to AI that is replacing them. I'm not trying to suggest there aren't ways to solve the economic and political problems that the possible transition into an AI-heavy future might bring but I really just don't see a reasonable path from where we are now to where we'd need to be to even begin to solve those problems in time before massive societal upheaval.
  - peepee1982 4y ago
    I feel pretty replaceble already. No need for AI to get any better.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    What I don't understand is how accounting has not been completely automated at this point. AI isn't even strictly needed, just arithmetic. If we can't completely automate accounting, then there is no hope for any other field.

adrianN 4y ago

Panem et circenses. I think it's unlikely that we'll be able to sufficiently transform the economy so that there is an ample supply of desirable jobs that could more profitably done by robots.

brutusborn 4y ago

People can find their own outlets if given the basic necessities and enough time. I fear this attitude will lead to job programs where people work a 9-5 and achieve essentially nothing, I.e. bullshit jobs.

pasquinelli 4y ago
seems that as automation has increased bullshit jobs have too, so that future seems very plausible to me.
imiric 4y ago
> I fear this attitude will lead to job programs where people work a 9-5 and achieve essentially nothing, I.e. bullshit jobs. We already have plenty of those in the most profitable industries today.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  Then better to remove such bullshit jobs even further.
  - artificialLimbs 4y ago
    So that those people won't have any jobs at all?
    - cercatrova 4y ago
      None of us will have jobs at all soon enough.
      - CuriouslyC 4y ago
        Human made objects will become more of a status symbol, and "content" will still be directed/produced/edited by humans, it's just the art/writing/acting/sets/lighting/etc that will be handled by AI. Humans will always serve as "discriminators" of model output because they're better at it (and more transparent) than a model.
milsorgen 4y ago
>People can find their own outlets if given the basic necessities and enough time. This has not been my experience. People need something to do but not many people know that about themselves. It leads to a lot of... 'wasteful' behaviors, rather than enriching ones. I think it's going to be something that has to be taught to people, a skill like any other. Albiet a little more abstract than some.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  There definitely has to be a cultural shift but I think the shift can’t truly happen until most things are automated. There needs to be a critical mass of people who are fully devoted to their interests, currently there is too much demand for labour and so dedicating your time to your interests is alien to most people. When the value of labour approaches zero for most people, work becomes pointless and something must fill the vacuum.
  - peepee1982 4y ago
    Many people don't have interests.
peepee1982 4y ago
You can, and I can. You'd be surprised how many people would just drink themselves to metaphorical or literal death.

bbor 4y ago

Do you see “giftedness” as a 1D score, where someone is either smart or not smart? And presumably this quality happens to correlate with software engineering ability? I think you’re hinting at some very hurtful, dangerous ideas.

bayarearefugee 4y ago
The weird bit is that a lot of software engineers seem to have the idea that their work is one of the the last that will be automated. Looking at the current track and extending it out assuming no unforeseen roadblocks, typical software engineering looks to be one of the most threatened. Plumbers are much safer for longer all things considered. The obvious rebuttal to the idea that AI will eat software engineering is "we'll always need 'software engineers' and the nature of what they do will just change", which is probably true for the foreseeable future, but ignores the fact that sufficiently advanced AI will be like a water line rapidly rising up and (economically) drowning those that fall below it and those below that line will be a very significant percentage of the population, including even most of the "smart" ones. However this ends up shaking out, though, I think its pretty clear we're politically and economically so far from ready for the practical impact of what might happen with this stuff over the next 10-20 years that its terrifying. "60-80% of you aren't really needed anymore" looks great on a quarterly earning statement until the literal guillotines start being erected. And even if we never quite reach that point there's still the inverse Henry Ford problem of who is your customer when most people are under the value floor relative to AI that is replacing them. I'm not trying to suggest there aren't ways to solve the economic and political problems that the possible transition into an AI-heavy future might bring but I really just don't see a reasonable path from where we are now to where we'd need to be to even begin to solve those problems in time before massive societal upheaval.
- peepee1982 4y ago
  I feel pretty replaceble already. No need for AI to get any better.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  What I don't understand is how accounting has not been completely automated at this point. AI isn't even strictly needed, just arithmetic. If we can't completely automate accounting, then there is no hope for any other field.