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>Calculators allowed us to outsource arithmetic to machines. They did not eliminate the need for mathematicians. They did not eliminate mathematicians, but I d

>Calculators allowed us to outsource arithmetic to machines. They did not eliminate the need for mathematicians. They did not eliminate mathematicians, but I do not believe mathematicians were ever doing arithmetic for a singificant portion of their workday. Before it was a device, "Calculator" used to be a job description. It isn't any more. Every one of those people lost their job.

xmprt 4y ago
I think this only becomes a problem if technology evolves faster than people change. All those "calculator" employees got better jobs. People keep making the analogy of how cars completely replaced horses (I used to as well) but horses can't fundamentally change what they are capable of. Even if the technology does evolve faster than people, governments can make sure people don't get impacted. Coal plants are more expensive to operate, worse for the environment, and less efficient but the coal industry is still kicking along for better or for worse.
- barking_biscuit 4y ago
  >I think this only becomes a problem if technology evolves faster than people change. This is the key distinction. Bandwidth. Humans only have so much of it, and if the rate at which they need to change their careers / find a new line of work exceeds their ramp-up time to become productive in that career / line of work then we can start to expect non-linear behavior from those humans. Maybe that means some sort of mental breakdown.
pfisherman 4y ago
Calculation is not dead! Finding more efficient ways to do calculations was and still is an active branch of mathematics and computer science. It’s just called algorithms now. PageRank was essentially an efficient way to compute / approximate the leading eigenvector of a very large matrix.
anticensor 4y ago
> "Calculator" used to be a job description It was computer, not calculator.

xmprt 4y ago

I think this only becomes a problem if technology evolves faster than people change. All those "calculator" employees got better jobs. People keep making the analogy of how cars completely replaced horses (I used to as well) but horses can't fundamentally change what they are capable of. Even if the technology does evolve faster than people, governments can make sure people don't get impacted. Coal plants are more expensive to operate, worse for the environment, and less efficient but the coal industry is still kicking along for better or for worse.

barking_biscuit 4y ago
>I think this only becomes a problem if technology evolves faster than people change. This is the key distinction. Bandwidth. Humans only have so much of it, and if the rate at which they need to change their careers / find a new line of work exceeds their ramp-up time to become productive in that career / line of work then we can start to expect non-linear behavior from those humans. Maybe that means some sort of mental breakdown.

pfisherman 4y ago

Calculation is not dead! Finding more efficient ways to do calculations was and still is an active branch of mathematics and computer science. It’s just called algorithms now. PageRank was essentially an efficient way to compute / approximate the leading eigenvector of a very large matrix.

anticensor 4y ago

> "Calculator" used to be a job description It was computer, not calculator.