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This hoary take irks me. There were still places for human endeavour to go when the looms were automated. That is no longer the case. Think of it instead as c

This hoary take irks me. There were still places for human endeavour to go when the looms were automated. That is no longer the case. Think of it instead as cognitive habitat. Sure, there has been habitat loss in the past, but those losses have been offset by habitat gains elsewhere. This time, I don't see anywhere for habitat gains to come, and I see a massive, enormous, looming (ha!) cognitive habitat loss. -- EDIT: Reply to reply, posted as edit because I hit the HN rate limit: > Your job didn't exist then. Mine didn't, either. Yes, that was my point. New habitat opened up. I infer (but cannot prove) that the same will not be true this time. At the least, the newly-created habitat (prompt engineer, etc.) will be miniscule compared to what has been lost. Reasoning from historical lessons learned during the introduction of TNT was of course tried when nuclear arms were created as well. Yet lessons from the TNT era proved ineffective at describing the world that was ushered into being. Firebombing, while as destructive as a small nuclear warhead, was hard, requiring fantastic air and ground support to achieve. Whereas dropping nukes is easy. It was precisely that ease-of-use that raised the profile of game theory and Mutually Assured Destruction, tit-for-tat, and all the other novelties occurrent in the nuclear world and not the one it supplanted. Arguing from what happened with looms feels like the sort of undergrad maneuver that makes for a good term paper, but lousy economic policy. So many disanalogies.

WalterBright 4y ago
> There were still places for human endeavour to go when the looms were automated. Your job didn't exist then. Mine didn't, either.
harold_b 4y ago
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WalterBright 4y ago
> the same will not be true this time This prediction has occurred with every technology revolution. It hasn't been borne out yet. > the sort of undergrad maneuver It's a variation of the broken window fallacy.
- 1attice 4y ago
  > This prediction has occurred with every technology revolution. It hasn't been borne out yet. So what? You are performing 'induction from history', which is possibly the hand-waviest possible means of estimating what is next to occur. Discontinuities occur. Fire gets tamed. Alphabets get invented. What went before is only a solid guide to the future absent any major disruption to the status quo. There is no a-priori reason to think that this time will be the same, either. Burden of proof is yours. > It's a variation of the broken window fallacy. I appreciate parsimony as much as the next academic but I'd appreciate you fleshing out your position here, so I can take it apart at the joints, in the custom and manner of my people >:)
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > which is possibly the hand-waviest possible means of estimating what is next to occur The "this time it's gonna be completely unlike anything seen before!" is much more suspect. > fleshing out your position here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window The parallels with your theory are unmistakable. Prosperity doesn't come from jobs that are little more than make-work.
    - 1attice 4y ago
      You still haven't stepped away from historical induction -- your argument still depends on this time not being radically different than last time. There are good reasons -- presented everywhere, right now -- to suppose that this time is substantively different. Sundar Pichai called the invention of AI the most important thing humanity has worked on -- more important than fire, or the alphabet -- and I share his view. It's out there, commonly, in the intellectual wild; you cannot, on pain of being unconvincing, simply ignore it. "Big, if true," and it very well might be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqd516M0Y5A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqd516M0Y5A I propose that you invest in a more convincing line of argument. The burden of proof lies heavy upon you. Secondly -- for the life of me -- I don't see how we got from "prosperity doesn't come from jobs that are little more than make-work" (a claim, by the way, that Keynes would take exception to) to the view that automating most of the intellectual work on the planet will have nugatory impact, or that we'll all just vy to become celebrated Twitch streamers or influencers or whatever (assuming that synthetic influencers don't take off -- oh, wait, they did: https://www.synthesia.io/glossary/ai-influencer https://www.synthesia.io/glossary/ai-influencer) Even were you correct (and Keynes wrong), the instantaneous conversion of meaningful labour --- journalism, counselling, engineering -- into, as you say, "make-work" (the position I infer you are taking) would have tremendous cost. Need I invoke Rawls here on widely-distributed self-respect/self-esteem? It's actually one of the prerequisites, he notes, for a stable civilization; https://academic.oup.com/book/32571/chapter-abstract/270366531?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/book/32571/chapter-abstract/2703665... At minimum, the psychological impact of such a transition would make the developed world's COVID hangover look like a day at the zoo. Finally, the Parable of the Broken Window specifically refers to destructive work. Non-productive work is not covered. https://finshots.in/archive/dig-holes-and-get-paid-to-fill-them-up/ https://finshots.in/archive/dig-holes-and-get-paid-to-fill-t.... And that is to say nothing about how economic fruits are distributed -- a whole other matter, upon which, I again infer, you have no further comment.
Sol- 4y ago
Loved reading your thoughts on the situation in this thread, super interesting and depressing at the same time. I wonder how long it will take politics to appreciate the deep societal problems that may soon arise. Probably it will be too little, too late.
dgwight 4y ago
Competition still has potential for infinite growth. Even if ai is better than humans at everything, humans will be finite and will likely be better at making people with money feel important. Potentially the future economy is everyone just competing to make the wealthy feel important whether fighting their wars, worshiping at their cults, or working at their “startups”

WalterBright 4y ago

> There were still places for human endeavour to go when the looms were automated. Your job didn't exist then. Mine didn't, either.

harold_b 4y ago

[dead]

WalterBright 4y ago

> the same will not be true this time This prediction has occurred with every technology revolution. It hasn't been borne out yet. > the sort of undergrad maneuver It's a variation of the broken window fallacy.

1attice 4y ago
> This prediction has occurred with every technology revolution. It hasn't been borne out yet. So what? You are performing 'induction from history', which is possibly the hand-waviest possible means of estimating what is next to occur. Discontinuities occur. Fire gets tamed. Alphabets get invented. What went before is only a solid guide to the future absent any major disruption to the status quo. There is no a-priori reason to think that this time will be the same, either. Burden of proof is yours. > It's a variation of the broken window fallacy. I appreciate parsimony as much as the next academic but I'd appreciate you fleshing out your position here, so I can take it apart at the joints, in the custom and manner of my people >:)
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > which is possibly the hand-waviest possible means of estimating what is next to occur The "this time it's gonna be completely unlike anything seen before!" is much more suspect. > fleshing out your position here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window The parallels with your theory are unmistakable. Prosperity doesn't come from jobs that are little more than make-work.
  - 1attice 4y ago
    You still haven't stepped away from historical induction -- your argument still depends on this time not being radically different than last time. There are good reasons -- presented everywhere, right now -- to suppose that this time is substantively different. Sundar Pichai called the invention of AI the most important thing humanity has worked on -- more important than fire, or the alphabet -- and I share his view. It's out there, commonly, in the intellectual wild; you cannot, on pain of being unconvincing, simply ignore it. "Big, if true," and it very well might be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqd516M0Y5A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqd516M0Y5A I propose that you invest in a more convincing line of argument. The burden of proof lies heavy upon you. Secondly -- for the life of me -- I don't see how we got from "prosperity doesn't come from jobs that are little more than make-work" (a claim, by the way, that Keynes would take exception to) to the view that automating most of the intellectual work on the planet will have nugatory impact, or that we'll all just vy to become celebrated Twitch streamers or influencers or whatever (assuming that synthetic influencers don't take off -- oh, wait, they did: https://www.synthesia.io/glossary/ai-influencer https://www.synthesia.io/glossary/ai-influencer) Even were you correct (and Keynes wrong), the instantaneous conversion of meaningful labour --- journalism, counselling, engineering -- into, as you say, "make-work" (the position I infer you are taking) would have tremendous cost. Need I invoke Rawls here on widely-distributed self-respect/self-esteem? It's actually one of the prerequisites, he notes, for a stable civilization; https://academic.oup.com/book/32571/chapter-abstract/270366531?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/book/32571/chapter-abstract/2703665... At minimum, the psychological impact of such a transition would make the developed world's COVID hangover look like a day at the zoo. Finally, the Parable of the Broken Window specifically refers to destructive work. Non-productive work is not covered. https://finshots.in/archive/dig-holes-and-get-paid-to-fill-them-up/ https://finshots.in/archive/dig-holes-and-get-paid-to-fill-t.... And that is to say nothing about how economic fruits are distributed -- a whole other matter, upon which, I again infer, you have no further comment.

Sol- 4y ago

Loved reading your thoughts on the situation in this thread, super interesting and depressing at the same time. I wonder how long it will take politics to appreciate the deep societal problems that may soon arise. Probably it will be too little, too late.

dgwight 4y ago

Competition still has potential for infinite growth. Even if ai is better than humans at everything, humans will be finite and will likely be better at making people with money feel important. Potentially the future economy is everyone just competing to make the wealthy feel important whether fighting their wars, worshiping at their cults, or working at their “startups”