3 ms·

By this logic we should just forbid the wheel. Imagine how many untrained people could work in transport and there would always be demand. So why did the wheel

By this logic we should just forbid the wheel. Imagine how many untrained people could work in transport and there would always be demand. So why did the wheel not result in mass unemployment? And factories neither? Certainly it should have happened already but somehow it never did...

jhbadger 3y ago
The point isn't forbidding anything, it is realizing that technological change is going to cause unemployment and having a plan for it, as opposed to what normally happens where there is no preparation.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Yup. Likewise, a key variable in understanding this is .. velocity? Ie a wheel is cool and all, but what did it displace? A horse is great and all, but what did it displace? Did it displace most jobs? Of course not. So people can move from one field to another. Even if we just figured out self-driving it would be a far greater burden than we've seen previously.. or so i suspect. Several massive industries displaced overnight. An "AI revolution" could do a lot more than "just" self-driving. This is all hypotheticals of course. I'm not a big believer in the short term affect, to be clear. Long term though.. well, i'm quite pessimistic.
somesortofthing 3y ago
Past technological breakthroughs have required large, costly retools of society though. Increasingly, those retools have resulted in more and more people working in jobs whose societal value is dubious at best. Whether the next breakthrough(or the next five) finally requires a retool whose cost we can't afford is an open question.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  Is there a time period in the past you would have preferred to live instead and why?
  - somesortofthing 3y ago
    No, and I have no idea what I said that makes you think I do.
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      > Increasingly, those retools have resulted in more and more people working in jobs whose societal value is dubious at best. This implies to me that in the past more people had worked in jobs with good societal values which would mean it was better for them I assume, and better for society. So I’m genuinely curious when that was and why. It sounds like a common romanticized past misconception to me.
      - somesortofthing 3y ago
        An increasing number of people being unproductive doesn't rule out an increase in total production. It does suggest that for those whose jobs are now obsolete, there is increasingly no alternative to subsidizing their entire existence. We've kept pace so far, but a majority of people being in a situation where their labor is worthless is a huge potential societal fault line.
wraptile 3y ago
I think the argument here is that we are losing the _good_ jobs. It's like we're automating painting, arts and poetry instead of inventing the wheel. I don't fully agree with this premise (lots of intelectual work is rubbish) but it does sound much more fair when put this way.
justatdotin 3y ago
anyone can make a wheel. only a handful of (effectively unaccountable) entities have SOTA AIs, and it's very unlikely for others to catch up.

jhbadger 3y ago

The point isn't forbidding anything, it is realizing that technological change is going to cause unemployment and having a plan for it, as opposed to what normally happens where there is no preparation.

unshavedyak 3y ago
Yup. Likewise, a key variable in understanding this is .. velocity? Ie a wheel is cool and all, but what did it displace? A horse is great and all, but what did it displace? Did it displace most jobs? Of course not. So people can move from one field to another. Even if we just figured out self-driving it would be a far greater burden than we've seen previously.. or so i suspect. Several massive industries displaced overnight. An "AI revolution" could do a lot more than "just" self-driving. This is all hypotheticals of course. I'm not a big believer in the short term affect, to be clear. Long term though.. well, i'm quite pessimistic.

somesortofthing 3y ago

Past technological breakthroughs have required large, costly retools of society though. Increasingly, those retools have resulted in more and more people working in jobs whose societal value is dubious at best. Whether the next breakthrough(or the next five) finally requires a retool whose cost we can't afford is an open question.

alchemist1e9 3y ago
Is there a time period in the past you would have preferred to live instead and why?
- somesortofthing 3y ago
  No, and I have no idea what I said that makes you think I do.
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    > Increasingly, those retools have resulted in more and more people working in jobs whose societal value is dubious at best. This implies to me that in the past more people had worked in jobs with good societal values which would mean it was better for them I assume, and better for society. So I’m genuinely curious when that was and why. It sounds like a common romanticized past misconception to me.
    - somesortofthing 3y ago
      An increasing number of people being unproductive doesn't rule out an increase in total production. It does suggest that for those whose jobs are now obsolete, there is increasingly no alternative to subsidizing their entire existence. We've kept pace so far, but a majority of people being in a situation where their labor is worthless is a huge potential societal fault line.

wraptile 3y ago

I think the argument here is that we are losing the _good_ jobs. It's like we're automating painting, arts and poetry instead of inventing the wheel. I don't fully agree with this premise (lots of intelectual work is rubbish) but it does sound much more fair when put this way.

justatdotin 3y ago

anyone can make a wheel. only a handful of (effectively unaccountable) entities have SOTA AIs, and it's very unlikely for others to catch up.