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This guy is making a statement from his position of elite privilege. He already got his bag. When the Europeans came to feudal China they were mystified that t

This guy is making a statement from his position of elite privilege. He already got his bag. When the Europeans came to feudal China they were mystified that the Chinese had all this technology they weren't using. It was intentional. The reason is because the Chinese were smart enough to know that if they automated and outsourced everything they would end up with roving bands of unemployed men causing trouble in the countryside. So yes, AI and ML can take many people's jobs today. Absolutely and in some areas it would be a beneficial improvement, e.g. guided medical procedures. But for other stuff, maybe not so much. What are these now unemployed people to do? There's only so many hamburgers that can be flipped, and you have to have money to buy one anyway. Is the IBM CEO's vision of the future an economy where everyone works at a hamburger joint and then goes to another one to spend their pay to eat a hamburger made elsewhere? Our society is not set up to allow for mass unemployment. Basic income needs to happen first.

nadermx 4y ago
I'm not sure what utopia you envision. But the reality is it takes an extreme amount to do none trivial things that arent just on a screen.
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Where I live, McDonald's and other stores have already started replacing cashiers with touchscreens. Not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer. What about all those people who used to do a job that is now replacing them with a touchscreen or a "chat bot"? What do you envision for them? That they go back to school to train to be a doctor or a lawyer? Sure, will you agree to making education and training free or accessible, or will this require continued privilege where it's a requirement to be born into a rich family first? There's over 8 billion people on the planet. How many blue collar jobs do you envision as being available to people if all the white collar jobs are replaced by AI and ML and automation and outsourcing and offshoring? Am I supposed to be a bricklayer now when I'm already too old physically for the punishing demands of that job? A long time ago I knew a guy whose job was off-shored to the Philippines from Canada. He actually moved to the Philippines to keep it, but this isn't an option available to most people.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    > What about all those people who used to do a job that is now replacing them with a touchscreen or a "chat bot"? What do you envision for them? With fertility rates below replacement level in the west... nothing! We'll need these workers in more lucrative and useful industries. > That they go back to school to train to be a doctor or a lawyer? Interesting you chose the two professions with the most gatekeeping. How about the hundred of skilled trades making civilized life possible?
jml7c5 4y ago
This quote is relevant: >The make-work bias is best illustrated by a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an economist who visits China under Mao Zedong. He sees hundreds of workers building a dam with shovels. He asks: “Why don’t they use a mechanical digger?” “That would put people out of work,” replies the foreman. “Oh,” says the economist, “I thought you were making a dam. If it’s jobs you want, take away their shovels and give them spoons.” I think you are wrong in saying "Basic income needs to happen first." [emphasis mine] We have continually increased efficiency for hundreds of years without causing mass unemployment. I think there's still quite a ways to go before we have more bodies than we can find a use for. Not to mention there's a shorter, 32-hour week on the horizon that could negate the effect of less demand for labor.
- pixelfarmer 4y ago
  You are decades out of touch with reality, because I read years ago already that some guys estimated we hit the break even point (in the "western world") in the mid 90s already. That is almost 3 decades ago by now, and automation hasn't stopped during that time. Do you see the effects? Very much so, if you start looking for the signs of that. Furthermore, the idea that we went through a number of such changes and this one is all the same is merely wishful thinking. Economy exists because humans divide work. Why do we work? To fulfill our needs, you know, stuff like not being thirsty, hungry, having shelter, being healthy, having some entertainment, this kinda stuff. The more we automate all these things, the less humans are involved, and following that it means the economy will shrink. As said: humans divide work, or more correctly: Their time, which is the ultimate currency in this whole thing. It is only during the phase of ramping up the automation that we need to do more than for our needs: We have to have additional economy and thus work to make the automation happen. Following that it is clear that a basic income people can actually live from MUST happen during the transition phase towards "full" automation, not after. Even more so with the system as it is currently, because no work means no income, and if the government doesn't keep people alive, you can just wait for civil war to happen, and before that a big raise in all kinds of crimes. There are more than enough examples of that out there, some of them pretty recent.
  - jml7c5 4y ago
xwdv 4y ago
Not sure what you mean. If we end up with roving bands of unemployed men raising trouble, the next step for them is incarceration. The law is the law, no matter your circumstances.
schemescape 4y ago
> if they automated and outsourced everything they would end up with roving bands of unemployed men causing trouble in the countryside Tangent: I'm not even sure that Universal Basic Income would solve this problem. If you browse Financial Independence forums, you'll see many anecdotes of early retirees who go back to work for one reason or another. So even (some? Most? Not sure...) people with enough money to not have to work, want to work. It seems like a large cultural change around work would be needed. Having said that, it's also possible that we just keep inventing new jobs and a huge unemployment spike never comes. That doesn't seem likely to me, but I'm fairly certain most of my predictions will end up being wrong.
- pixelfarmer 4y ago
  There are many misconceptions about work, and one of the big ones is that work actually often means "paid work". There is tons of unpaid work being done. And there is a certain percentage of people who cannot sit still and have to do something. If that gets paid or not is a whole different matter.
  - schemescape 4y ago
    Good callout. For the record, I was referring to paid work and official unemployment numbers.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Remember that US official unemployment numbers exclude people who aren't actually looking for work.
vbezhenar 4y ago
Unemployed people can plant potatos and feed themselves from the land. Men were able to do so with very little technology for thousands of years. Surely they can do that with today tech even more efficiently.
jonathankoren 4y ago
I don’t know how you square your anecdote about keeping workers busy and tired so they won’t rebel, with the idea that UBI is needs to come for all the unemployed people. They’ll just invent a bunch of make work bullshit jobs to teach us the dignity of work and to appreciate our largesse, and make sure we fight among ourselves instead of question the whole damn system

nadermx 4y ago

I'm not sure what utopia you envision. But the reality is it takes an extreme amount to do none trivial things that arent just on a screen.

Sunspark 4y ago
Where I live, McDonald's and other stores have already started replacing cashiers with touchscreens. Not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer. What about all those people who used to do a job that is now replacing them with a touchscreen or a "chat bot"? What do you envision for them? That they go back to school to train to be a doctor or a lawyer? Sure, will you agree to making education and training free or accessible, or will this require continued privilege where it's a requirement to be born into a rich family first? There's over 8 billion people on the planet. How many blue collar jobs do you envision as being available to people if all the white collar jobs are replaced by AI and ML and automation and outsourcing and offshoring? Am I supposed to be a bricklayer now when I'm already too old physically for the punishing demands of that job? A long time ago I knew a guy whose job was off-shored to the Philippines from Canada. He actually moved to the Philippines to keep it, but this isn't an option available to most people.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > What about all those people who used to do a job that is now replacing them with a touchscreen or a "chat bot"? What do you envision for them? With fertility rates below replacement level in the west... nothing! We'll need these workers in more lucrative and useful industries. > That they go back to school to train to be a doctor or a lawyer? Interesting you chose the two professions with the most gatekeeping. How about the hundred of skilled trades making civilized life possible?

jml7c5 4y ago

This quote is relevant: >The make-work bias is best illustrated by a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an economist who visits China under Mao Zedong. He sees hundreds of workers building a dam with shovels. He asks: “Why don’t they use a mechanical digger?” “That would put people out of work,” replies the foreman. “Oh,” says the economist, “I thought you were making a dam. If it’s jobs you want, take away their shovels and give them spoons.” I think you are wrong in saying "Basic income needs to happen first." [emphasis mine] We have continually increased efficiency for hundreds of years without causing mass unemployment. I think there's still quite a ways to go before we have more bodies than we can find a use for. Not to mention there's a shorter, 32-hour week on the horizon that could negate the effect of less demand for labor.

pixelfarmer 4y ago
You are decades out of touch with reality, because I read years ago already that some guys estimated we hit the break even point (in the "western world") in the mid 90s already. That is almost 3 decades ago by now, and automation hasn't stopped during that time. Do you see the effects? Very much so, if you start looking for the signs of that. Furthermore, the idea that we went through a number of such changes and this one is all the same is merely wishful thinking. Economy exists because humans divide work. Why do we work? To fulfill our needs, you know, stuff like not being thirsty, hungry, having shelter, being healthy, having some entertainment, this kinda stuff. The more we automate all these things, the less humans are involved, and following that it means the economy will shrink. As said: humans divide work, or more correctly: Their time, which is the ultimate currency in this whole thing. It is only during the phase of ramping up the automation that we need to do more than for our needs: We have to have additional economy and thus work to make the automation happen. Following that it is clear that a basic income people can actually live from MUST happen during the transition phase towards "full" automation, not after. Even more so with the system as it is currently, because no work means no income, and if the government doesn't keep people alive, you can just wait for civil war to happen, and before that a big raise in all kinds of crimes. There are more than enough examples of that out there, some of them pretty recent.
- jml7c5 4y ago

xwdv 4y ago

Not sure what you mean. If we end up with roving bands of unemployed men raising trouble, the next step for them is incarceration. The law is the law, no matter your circumstances.

schemescape 4y ago

> if they automated and outsourced everything they would end up with roving bands of unemployed men causing trouble in the countryside Tangent: I'm not even sure that Universal Basic Income would solve this problem. If you browse Financial Independence forums, you'll see many anecdotes of early retirees who go back to work for one reason or another. So even (some? Most? Not sure...) people with enough money to not have to work, want to work. It seems like a large cultural change around work would be needed. Having said that, it's also possible that we just keep inventing new jobs and a huge unemployment spike never comes. That doesn't seem likely to me, but I'm fairly certain most of my predictions will end up being wrong.

pixelfarmer 4y ago
There are many misconceptions about work, and one of the big ones is that work actually often means "paid work". There is tons of unpaid work being done. And there is a certain percentage of people who cannot sit still and have to do something. If that gets paid or not is a whole different matter.
- schemescape 4y ago
  Good callout. For the record, I was referring to paid work and official unemployment numbers.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Remember that US official unemployment numbers exclude people who aren't actually looking for work.

vbezhenar 4y ago

Unemployed people can plant potatos and feed themselves from the land. Men were able to do so with very little technology for thousands of years. Surely they can do that with today tech even more efficiently.

jonathankoren 4y ago

I don’t know how you square your anecdote about keeping workers busy and tired so they won’t rebel, with the idea that UBI is needs to come for all the unemployed people. They’ll just invent a bunch of make work bullshit jobs to teach us the dignity of work and to appreciate our largesse, and make sure we fight among ourselves instead of question the whole damn system