5 ms·

This is fascinating. I think the big (and scary) meta-trend is this: The population is increasing and the requirement for people is decreasing. This gap is ma

This is fascinating. I think the big (and scary) meta-trend is this: The population is increasing and the requirement for people is decreasing. This gap is made wider by increased birth-rates and better automation. More people are being born into a world where fewer are required. That is quite a scary thought. Computers and machines automate and replace people everywhere. I have some anecdotal evidence of this: At my last business we used to follow-up twice via email with all of the people who had not responded to a quote that we had sent them. We had 50-100 enquiries a day so the follow-ups soon mounted up. I tried every CRM and mail-list manager out there. I could not find one that would trigger an email from my Gmail account if a contact had not responded. I was spending 3-4 hours a day doing the follow-ups. So were my staff. It got to the point where I wanted to hire someone to do it. Eventually I learnt more about the software and read up on ruby on rails. I hired a small software house to help with the backend, built the front-end myself and a month later, a machine replaced the humans and prevented a new hire. That is just one job at a tiny 5-person company. At scale, computer-based automation creates huge efficiencies. The flip-side of that are huge deficiencies in employment. Here come the machines.

jsankey 15y ago
On the upside, as populations become wealthier and more educated the fertility rate drops. We're a (scarily) long way from things stabilising, though.
edoloughlin 15y ago
> a machine replaced the humans and prevented a new hire I think it's more the case that a machine made your small business more efficient and more likely to still be in existence a year from now. Was there really any benefit to have someone sitting at a desk performing a dull, repetitive task?
wladimir 15y ago
I think it's also a matter of what kind of world we want. For example: Do you choose to use software instead of employing a person because you prefer the software, or would you prefer to hire a person but choose software because it is cheaper (which helps the company survive) and kind-of can do the same job? If it's the first, there's a good reason to be scared. If it's the second, then market forces might eventually balance out and make hiring people an attractive choice again. Ideally, tools such as computers will go back to being tools, "human helpers" and not "human replacements". I do not like to think about an automated, antisocial world in which less and less humans are needed because machines have taken over. Isn't that self-defeating anyway? When did we start putting our tools above ourselves?
- Riesling 15y ago
  > Do you choose to use software instead of employing a person because you prefer the software I think in the long run the software will do a much better job than a person. It's inevitable in my opinion. We are not even a century into computing and look what we already have achieved. > I do not like to think about an automated, antisocial world That is because you define your world as the action of going to work in order to receive food and shelter. This does not necessarily have to be your world. I say we should leave this world to machines while everybody can go on to do what he is really passionate about. Of course we need a different distribution mechanism of goods created by the machines. But that's a different question.
  - bzbarsky 15y ago
    Some people are in fact doing jobs they're passionate about. What you should really worry about is a world in which a person can't do anything except consume entertainment and goods, because everything else is handled better by machines....
    - icebraining 15y ago
      I expect the dichotomy of machine/human to disappeared before that moment comes.
    - cgmorton 15y ago
      And what exactly is wrong with that? You've gotten 'consume entertainment and goods' confused with 'do absolutely anything they want'. Maybe that's making movies, or writing, or painting, or travelling, or maybe spending their time getting to know interesting people. And even if this person really prefers sitting at home watching TV (even though they haven't spent their energy at some demeaning, labour-intensive job), well, who are you to say that's a problem? Let people decide for themselves what they want to do. Increasing their free time and decreasing scarcity can only give people more options.
      - bzbarsky 15y ago
jf271 15y ago
In parts of the world where there is a lot of automation birth rates are basically either flat or declining below replacement level. Maybe this is a natural response to increasing automation or at least understanding there is a need for less people.
- bradhall 15y ago
  Do you have a citation or example of this? I've also read the opposite about Japan: that they are increasing automation in order to compensate for declining birth rates.
  - jf271 15y ago
    Not directly. Most studies look at it as automation making up for declining birth rates. There are a lot of studies that say birth rates go down with increased education, surplus goods and increased leisure time so it might be a chicken and egg thing.
kruhft 15y ago
> I could not find one that would trigger an email from my Gmail account if a contact had not responded. You might want to look into a more powerful email client. Gnus (a part or emacs) could be programmed to perform such a task. Setting it up to download your gmail over IMAP and the running a process filter would probably do the trick.

jsankey 15y ago

On the upside, as populations become wealthier and more educated the fertility rate drops. We're a (scarily) long way from things stabilising, though.

edoloughlin 15y ago

> a machine replaced the humans and prevented a new hire I think it's more the case that a machine made your small business more efficient and more likely to still be in existence a year from now. Was there really any benefit to have someone sitting at a desk performing a dull, repetitive task?

wladimir 15y ago

I think it's also a matter of what kind of world we want. For example: Do you choose to use software instead of employing a person because you prefer the software, or would you prefer to hire a person but choose software because it is cheaper (which helps the company survive) and kind-of can do the same job? If it's the first, there's a good reason to be scared. If it's the second, then market forces might eventually balance out and make hiring people an attractive choice again. Ideally, tools such as computers will go back to being tools, "human helpers" and not "human replacements". I do not like to think about an automated, antisocial world in which less and less humans are needed because machines have taken over. Isn't that self-defeating anyway? When did we start putting our tools above ourselves?

Riesling 15y ago
> Do you choose to use software instead of employing a person because you prefer the software I think in the long run the software will do a much better job than a person. It's inevitable in my opinion. We are not even a century into computing and look what we already have achieved. > I do not like to think about an automated, antisocial world That is because you define your world as the action of going to work in order to receive food and shelter. This does not necessarily have to be your world. I say we should leave this world to machines while everybody can go on to do what he is really passionate about. Of course we need a different distribution mechanism of goods created by the machines. But that's a different question.
- bzbarsky 15y ago
  Some people are in fact doing jobs they're passionate about. What you should really worry about is a world in which a person can't do anything except consume entertainment and goods, because everything else is handled better by machines....
  - icebraining 15y ago
    I expect the dichotomy of machine/human to disappeared before that moment comes.
  - cgmorton 15y ago
    And what exactly is wrong with that? You've gotten 'consume entertainment and goods' confused with 'do absolutely anything they want'. Maybe that's making movies, or writing, or painting, or travelling, or maybe spending their time getting to know interesting people. And even if this person really prefers sitting at home watching TV (even though they haven't spent their energy at some demeaning, labour-intensive job), well, who are you to say that's a problem? Let people decide for themselves what they want to do. Increasing their free time and decreasing scarcity can only give people more options.
    - bzbarsky 15y ago

jf271 15y ago

In parts of the world where there is a lot of automation birth rates are basically either flat or declining below replacement level. Maybe this is a natural response to increasing automation or at least understanding there is a need for less people.

bradhall 15y ago
Do you have a citation or example of this? I've also read the opposite about Japan: that they are increasing automation in order to compensate for declining birth rates.
- jf271 15y ago
  Not directly. Most studies look at it as automation making up for declining birth rates. There are a lot of studies that say birth rates go down with increased education, surplus goods and increased leisure time so it might be a chicken and egg thing.

kruhft 15y ago

> I could not find one that would trigger an email from my Gmail account if a contact had not responded. You might want to look into a more powerful email client. Gnus (a part or emacs) could be programmed to perform such a task. Setting it up to download your gmail over IMAP and the running a process filter would probably do the trick.