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I'd be quite surprised if AI (as we've seen so far) threatens manual jobs as these have already been under quite intense pressures to automate for well over a c

I'd be quite surprised if AI (as we've seen so far) threatens manual jobs as these have already been under quite intense pressures to automate for well over a century. The low-hanging fruit IMO are most likely to be anything that is done entirely via/inside a computer. Because interacting in the digital world is much less of an issue than having to deal with digital + physical world like manual jobs do. That's not to say it will take all computer jobs but those intuitively seem like they will be the easiest for computer-based AI to do. Something like working in a kitchen is a long way off (or at least will require a redesign of kitchens from the ground up or humanoid robotics that are effective, reliable, and reasonably cheap). Whereas if your job is already entirely done via computer with little real world engagement, then it will be much easier for AI.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
An autonomous robot cleaning the dishes on its own in an unfamiliar kitchen without breaking anything: how many years? What's your bet?
- TapWaterBandit 3y ago
  So you mean like something you can wheel in and install or a humanoid style robot you could use in any kitchen? Cause in theory you're just talking about a dishwasher lol. If you mean a robot that could clean in any kitchen without breaking anything, I'd say at least 20 years. As in you could move it from kitchen to kitchen with no install needs. I suppose another way to look at it is this: how many businesses use robot cleaners to vacuum/mop their floors? Because as far as I can tell that is already solved (basically) but it isn't done because the cost/benefit/efficacy just doesn't add up. What do you think?
  - js8 3y ago
    I can imagine a "box", say 1x1x2 meters, that you get in your home, it will have a plexiglass on it, and inside, it will have several AI-controlled arms, and you will be able to command it to fix anything in that space. Not really sure about cooking, but you could ask for example to fix your trousers, or repair a notebook, or make a fitting for water tap, and so on, and it would autonomously do it (it would ask to order some tools and materials and you would bring them to it). These could also be modular so that they could repair themselves in a limited way. There would also be a larger "boxes" available for fixing larger things. For example, your washing machine broke up, you put it into the "communal" box that is like 6x6 meters, and inside it, it will repair it. Or you could have a communal box that works like a kitchen (but IMHO the biggest problem with AI kitchen is that we cannot easily automate the human taste and smell).
    - FeepingCreature 3y ago
      I find bipedal robots more plausible. Our living spaces are configured for humans; ultimately, something that looks like a human will be best suited to navigate them.
    - TapWaterBandit 3y ago
      That is a very cool concept I hadn't considered. No idea of feasibility but would love to see it or something similar happen.
    - brightlancer 3y ago
      Things are so disposable now that I don't think most households would have a use case for a Repair-Bot; I can see it in offices and factories, OTOH. I think we're pretty far away from a robot that can take an arbitrary problem and fix it accurately. I'll be excited when I can take my car to the mechanic and he's supervising a robot changing my oil.
      - js8 3y ago
        There is no use case for 8-bit home computers or home 3D printers either.
  - FeepingCreature 3y ago
    A dishwasher isn't autonomous. I'm talking about the second. I think if we don't solve general intelligence first, we should be able to get there in three to four years.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      "An autonomous robot cleaning the dishes on its own in an unfamiliar kitchen without breaking anything" " I think if we don't solve general intelligence first, we should be able to get there in three to four years" Very unlikely. I mean you can build something that roughly does that already today, but it will break things and/or it will be so slow it is unusable. Also you have to take savety into account. The robot may not wash the cat or the kid and not accidently break them. But the level of required autonomy for the task requires a machine that can be dangerous. And the recent rise of LLMs really don't help with reliable doing tasks in an unfamiliar environment. Making cars drive save everywhere is an equally hard target and despite all the investment, I don't see us getting there anywhere soon. And there is not the investment in making robot dishwashers, because we have common dishwashers, that do require manual labour, but they work. A humanoid robot on the other hand, that can put the dishes into the dishwasher, but requires some learning, this might be possible in a few years.
      - FeepingCreature 3y ago
        Right. I think the kitchen scenario is more constrained than self-driving (for one, you don't have to continuously keep moving to be safe), and the people who I think are at the forefront of self-driving are also doing robots, and "perform tasks in an unfamiliar kitchen" is a ML classic. My main assumption for "don't injure humans" is that even small animals routinely manage to avoid doing actions that would be potentially harmful, so it doesn't seem to require full general intelligence. And of course, if we crack an AI that can work on AI better than humans can, that solves - or at any rate obviates - all other AI problems by proxy.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > I suppose another way to look at it is this: how many businesses use robot cleaners to vacuum/mop their floors? Because as far as I can tell that is already solved (basically) but it isn't done because the cost/benefit/efficacy just doesn't add up. At least in the US, the parasitic labor unions are explicitly fighting such automation: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/automation-hotel-strike-ai-jobs/579433/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/autom... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-workers-jobs-inequality-union-automation_n_5ae043f9e4b061c0bfa32e0c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-workers-jobs-inequal... Cleaning robots may not yet be cost-efficient everywhere, but they can't be far off.
- taneq 3y ago
  They could call it something snappy like, I dunno, a DishWasher.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    DishWasher™
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  A month after self-driving cars.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
Not really afraid of that at all. On the contrary, you cannot just take an AI and make it do stuff. You need experts to parameterize and train it. It is also a bit more complicated than a pid controller where you turn a few knobs. For training you would need domain experts. The same reason we didn't see too widespread automation in industry. You actually need a lot of engineers to automate systems for their specific purpose. Today robots sold the most primitive parts but even there rework is needed. There are exceptions where scale and value of the good allows for it. An AI currently isn't even capable of doing excel business analysis without the data being checked. This check has to be done by an analyst as well. It cannot even do book keeping without errors and the work to check for errors surpasses doing it yourself. We aren't there where anyone has to fear about their jobs from AI compared to general technological advancement. If so I think the first impact will hit the click generators (good) and artists (bad). Although in both cases you need people to generate new concepts. True that you cannot get rid of cooks ever though.
- TapWaterBandit 3y ago
  I agree that engineers will likely be fine (if at all decent). But there are many more jobs done on computers that are fairly routine which are the ones that will be threatened. > An AI currently isn't even capable of doing excel business analysis without the data being checked. This check has to be done by an analyst as well. It cannot even do book keeping without errors and the work to check for errors surpasses doing it yourself. Here I think you are thinking about this wrong. AI is going to be built directly into Excel so I think it will harm a lot of especially entry level type work for analysts. If any part of your job is using microsoft/Mac software I think you will see a radical shake up in work (that will still enable more people to be entrepreneurs etc so on balance a good thing).
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > Here I think you are thinking about this wrong. AI is going to be built directly into Excel so I think it will harm a lot of especially entry level type work for analysts. I'd go further and say: Excel is the automation: "computer" used to be a profession rather than a machine, and a linear regression line-of-best fit is basically the same maths as a single (no backprop) perceptron, which we used to have to calculate by hand.
ben_w 3y ago
> Something like working in a kitchen is a long way off (or at least will require a redesign of kitchens from the ground up or humanoid robotics that are effective, reliable, and reasonably cheap) Factories that make food are already a thing. I didn't know there was an entire TV series dedicated to just this topic until 5 minutes ago, but I have seen at least one short segment about the topic, specifically Viennetta ice cream: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Factory
- iinnPP 3y ago
  You may be interested in How it's Made. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made

FeepingCreature 3y ago

An autonomous robot cleaning the dishes on its own in an unfamiliar kitchen without breaking anything: how many years? What's your bet?

TapWaterBandit 3y ago
So you mean like something you can wheel in and install or a humanoid style robot you could use in any kitchen? Cause in theory you're just talking about a dishwasher lol. If you mean a robot that could clean in any kitchen without breaking anything, I'd say at least 20 years. As in you could move it from kitchen to kitchen with no install needs. I suppose another way to look at it is this: how many businesses use robot cleaners to vacuum/mop their floors? Because as far as I can tell that is already solved (basically) but it isn't done because the cost/benefit/efficacy just doesn't add up. What do you think?
- js8 3y ago
  I can imagine a "box", say 1x1x2 meters, that you get in your home, it will have a plexiglass on it, and inside, it will have several AI-controlled arms, and you will be able to command it to fix anything in that space. Not really sure about cooking, but you could ask for example to fix your trousers, or repair a notebook, or make a fitting for water tap, and so on, and it would autonomously do it (it would ask to order some tools and materials and you would bring them to it). These could also be modular so that they could repair themselves in a limited way. There would also be a larger "boxes" available for fixing larger things. For example, your washing machine broke up, you put it into the "communal" box that is like 6x6 meters, and inside it, it will repair it. Or you could have a communal box that works like a kitchen (but IMHO the biggest problem with AI kitchen is that we cannot easily automate the human taste and smell).
  - FeepingCreature 3y ago
    I find bipedal robots more plausible. Our living spaces are configured for humans; ultimately, something that looks like a human will be best suited to navigate them.
  - TapWaterBandit 3y ago
    That is a very cool concept I hadn't considered. No idea of feasibility but would love to see it or something similar happen.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    Things are so disposable now that I don't think most households would have a use case for a Repair-Bot; I can see it in offices and factories, OTOH. I think we're pretty far away from a robot that can take an arbitrary problem and fix it accurately. I'll be excited when I can take my car to the mechanic and he's supervising a robot changing my oil.
    - js8 3y ago
      There is no use case for 8-bit home computers or home 3D printers either.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  A dishwasher isn't autonomous. I'm talking about the second. I think if we don't solve general intelligence first, we should be able to get there in three to four years.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "An autonomous robot cleaning the dishes on its own in an unfamiliar kitchen without breaking anything" " I think if we don't solve general intelligence first, we should be able to get there in three to four years" Very unlikely. I mean you can build something that roughly does that already today, but it will break things and/or it will be so slow it is unusable. Also you have to take savety into account. The robot may not wash the cat or the kid and not accidently break them. But the level of required autonomy for the task requires a machine that can be dangerous. And the recent rise of LLMs really don't help with reliable doing tasks in an unfamiliar environment. Making cars drive save everywhere is an equally hard target and despite all the investment, I don't see us getting there anywhere soon. And there is not the investment in making robot dishwashers, because we have common dishwashers, that do require manual labour, but they work. A humanoid robot on the other hand, that can put the dishes into the dishwasher, but requires some learning, this might be possible in a few years.
    - FeepingCreature 3y ago
      Right. I think the kitchen scenario is more constrained than self-driving (for one, you don't have to continuously keep moving to be safe), and the people who I think are at the forefront of self-driving are also doing robots, and "perform tasks in an unfamiliar kitchen" is a ML classic. My main assumption for "don't injure humans" is that even small animals routinely manage to avoid doing actions that would be potentially harmful, so it doesn't seem to require full general intelligence. And of course, if we crack an AI that can work on AI better than humans can, that solves - or at any rate obviates - all other AI problems by proxy.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > I suppose another way to look at it is this: how many businesses use robot cleaners to vacuum/mop their floors? Because as far as I can tell that is already solved (basically) but it isn't done because the cost/benefit/efficacy just doesn't add up. At least in the US, the parasitic labor unions are explicitly fighting such automation: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/automation-hotel-strike-ai-jobs/579433/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/autom... https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-workers-jobs-inequality-union-automation_n_5ae043f9e4b061c0bfa32e0c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-workers-jobs-inequal... Cleaning robots may not yet be cost-efficient everywhere, but they can't be far off.
taneq 3y ago
They could call it something snappy like, I dunno, a DishWasher.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  DishWasher™
raxxorraxor 3y ago
A month after self-driving cars.

raxxorraxor 3y ago

Not really afraid of that at all. On the contrary, you cannot just take an AI and make it do stuff. You need experts to parameterize and train it. It is also a bit more complicated than a pid controller where you turn a few knobs. For training you would need domain experts. The same reason we didn't see too widespread automation in industry. You actually need a lot of engineers to automate systems for their specific purpose. Today robots sold the most primitive parts but even there rework is needed. There are exceptions where scale and value of the good allows for it. An AI currently isn't even capable of doing excel business analysis without the data being checked. This check has to be done by an analyst as well. It cannot even do book keeping without errors and the work to check for errors surpasses doing it yourself. We aren't there where anyone has to fear about their jobs from AI compared to general technological advancement. If so I think the first impact will hit the click generators (good) and artists (bad). Although in both cases you need people to generate new concepts. True that you cannot get rid of cooks ever though.

TapWaterBandit 3y ago
I agree that engineers will likely be fine (if at all decent). But there are many more jobs done on computers that are fairly routine which are the ones that will be threatened. > An AI currently isn't even capable of doing excel business analysis without the data being checked. This check has to be done by an analyst as well. It cannot even do book keeping without errors and the work to check for errors surpasses doing it yourself. Here I think you are thinking about this wrong. AI is going to be built directly into Excel so I think it will harm a lot of especially entry level type work for analysts. If any part of your job is using microsoft/Mac software I think you will see a radical shake up in work (that will still enable more people to be entrepreneurs etc so on balance a good thing).
- ben_w 3y ago
  > Here I think you are thinking about this wrong. AI is going to be built directly into Excel so I think it will harm a lot of especially entry level type work for analysts. I'd go further and say: Excel is the automation: "computer" used to be a profession rather than a machine, and a linear regression line-of-best fit is basically the same maths as a single (no backprop) perceptron, which we used to have to calculate by hand.

ben_w 3y ago

> Something like working in a kitchen is a long way off (or at least will require a redesign of kitchens from the ground up or humanoid robotics that are effective, reliable, and reasonably cheap) Factories that make food are already a thing. I didn't know there was an entire TV series dedicated to just this topic until 5 minutes ago, but I have seen at least one short segment about the topic, specifically Viennetta ice cream: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Factory

iinnPP 3y ago
You may be interested in How it's Made. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_It%27s_Made