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Displaced workers going into unskilled labor doesn't seem like an idealized "post-AI" situation. If anything, it might be something we should guard against. The

by bumby 3y ago

Displaced workers going into unskilled labor doesn't seem like an idealized "post-AI" situation. If anything, it might be something we should guard against. There's nothing wrong with honest work, but some would probably paint that scenario as dystopian, if you consider that many people think creative and autonomous work are important to human flourishing. If anything, I'd want AI to take over those rote jobs so people can focus on that type of creative work they tend to find more fulfilling.

candiddevmike 3y ago
AI will enter meat space long after it replaces knowledge workers
- chmod775 3y ago
  Automation entered meat space centuries before it replaced knowledge work.
- bumby 3y ago
  I tend to agree, but there are various degrees of "meat space." Rote manual work has been getting automated away for decades. Now AI is taking away rote (or adjacent) knowledge work. The question is whether a reasonable solution for those displace by AI in the knowledge sector is to go work in the rote manual labor space. That presupposes their labor rate is suppressed below that of automation.
thih9 3y ago
I’m not sure if I’m capable of performing fulfilling work that would also have anything resembling of a demand. Take creative work. The pre-AI market was already extremely competitive. Few artists can chase autonomy, the rest needs to sell out to some level - usually significant; not the human flourishing we wanted. AI may disrupt this; still, my guess is that the pool of profitable creative workplaces remains unchanged, at best.
- bumby 3y ago
  I think that's largely true and most of us are trying to find a balance. Most modern jobs have some aspect of drudgery, or at least less palatable tasks, and we're trying to move the needle towards those tasks that we find fulfilling. But I'd argue some jobs are inherently less amenable to this, if you subscribe to the previously mentioned idea of fullment.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  If an artist wants to make a living making art, the art has to be something people are willing to pay for. If that's "selling out", then so be it. Why should society support the artist if his art has no value to anyone?
  - thih9 3y ago
    Note that our initial goal was different - not an artist who wants to make a living, but an artist who wants to perform fulfilling work.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Draw two circles, 1. fulfilling art 2. art that pays the bills. Create the art that is in the intersection. Otherwise, you'll need another source of income in order to create fulfilling art. There's lots of software I'd like to write. I've spent my time writing code that lies in the intersection.
      - thih9 3y ago
        Sounds like you’re happy in that intersection - and good for you.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        Let's draw another circle: things you make when 'financial obligations' are not a concern. Where does that intersect? Why aren't we drawing it? How much science was done by 'gentlemen scientists' who never worried about money? How much more would we know if that one person who could have figured out electromagnetism in 1400 didn't have to plow fields all day?
opportune 3y ago
It's not unskilled labor which will preserve, so much as it is labor that is difficult to automate. Plenty of skilled jobs, like being a therapist or surgeon, would also be difficult to automate. McDonalds is also at the far end of the spectrum of "human service jobs that are less-skilled but difficult to automate". There is plenty of demand for higher quality versions - requiring a higher degree of skill and creativity - of the same general type, like fine-dining. Truly creative (in the sense of it having a high degree of novelty and quality) work is not at risk of being automated any time soon. What is at risk of being automated is the category of "creative" work that requires some skills but is mostly assembly line. Category-defining or truly novel art almost by definition can't be produced by existing AI in any form, because AI can only remix the content it's seen already. "Generic rock song" or "clip-art like picture of a guy yelling at a computer" are at risk of going away, but I hardly think that means humanity will no longer flourish - producing that kind of stuff is romanticized as a cool, highish status thing to do, but functionally I don't really see it as any different or more worth preserving than obsolete skilled labor of the past like carriage-makers or human-computers. I also think people tend to make the "Lump of Labor" fallacy when thinking about this stuff - economically speaking, if human workers are no longer needed to produce some high-value output, in the long run the excess labor/"talent" that gets freed from that task finds other value-producing tasks to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy. Long-term unemployment and underemployment is completely a solvable economic problem; both can increase due to short term shocks like technological development and shifts in supply/demand, and in some cases underemployment is more a matter of "wrongly skilled", but long term they're both a matter of ensuring there is enough money, liquidity, and capital deployed to drive demand for marginal increases in both jobs and quality-of-jobs (without ruinous inflation).
- bumby 3y ago
  I agree with some of what you said, but some of this comment seems overly intellectualized to the point of being out-of-touch. Have you ever worked in fast food? What makes you think it can’t be automated? From my experience (admittedly decades ago), it’s ripe for automation. The work is largely rote and well controlled. The main edge cases (eg an order of salt free fries, or custom orders) are fairly easily managed without out-of-the-box thinking. The processes are well-defined and controlled. In fact, that’s a major contribution of franchise model: the entire process is already defined largely turn-key. IMO one of the reasons they aren’t automated already is because we essentially subsidize wages with social safety nets. This allows the human wage rate to stay below the cost of automation. We also may disagree on the idea of creative work. By my estimation, creative is defined as not being rote. Maybe the discrepancy is whether you believe combining preexisting ideas is creative; to a large extent most would agree, but that doesn’t, for example, pass the PTOs definition of “non-obvious” so I think there’s some debate as to if it’s truly creative work. I currently think the jobs that are least likely to be automated are non-rote manual labor, especially non-greenfield repair. Fixing a non-routine plumbing issue or installing a one-of-a-kind control system would just not be economical to automate.
yterdy 3y ago
Whatever you'd like, you have to look at reality. It's clear that AI is coming for jobs that are about manipulating information before jobs that are about switching between manipulating objects and serving people. Service jobs COULD be fulfilling. Spending a few hours a day helping your neighbors access the goods and services that they need is a part of community-building; people enjoy that kind of labor. The problem is the corporatization and "shareholder value"-centric bone-deep resource cuts that characterize most of these workplaces, where employees are forced to work under conditions that nominally prioritize profit over everything else (but are really also about, specifically: employee control, legal ass-covering, and union-busting). If people got paid well for working limited and predictable hours where they could rely on coworkers to keep the labor load reasonable, I think these jobs would be more desirable. What better way to spend the value unlocked by AI automation?
- bumby 3y ago
  A couple things: 1) as already stated elsewhere in this thread, automation has been coming for manual labor jobs for decades/centuries before AI has been coming for knowledge workers 2) I think "service" jobs is the wrong discriminator. There are lots of service jobs that are fulfilling. We're a social species and generally have the desire to contribute to our tribe. Service jobs often scratch that itch. Personal training, wedding planners, hairstylists, chef etc. are all service jobs that are fulfilling enough that people want to do those things even when they don't get paid. That should be confused with the rote, drudgery that is associated with jobs like assembly line work or fast food. I'd argue it's less about the pay (although that can't be ignored) and more about the work. Just look at the service job of attorney with its relatively high bar of entry and high pay, yet it still has pretty insane attrition rates. Even if the pay and status is good, people want a job that's fulfilling.
  - yterdy 3y ago
    1) *Silicon-based manual automation (which is mere decades old and has hit a people-shaped wall) 2) You're conflating and categorizing jobs to benefit your argument, not as an accurate reflection of what I presented. Chef work is brutal, too. The main point seems to be that a mechanically unfulfilling job either needs to have fulfilling social contact (functioning as pressure relief, leverage, etc.), or high pay (i.e., an out). Most people would work a (safe) soul-deadening job for a year if they'd get 20 times the median wage out of it.

by bumby 3y ago

candiddevmike 3y ago

AI will enter meat space long after it replaces knowledge workers

chmod775 3y ago
Automation entered meat space centuries before it replaced knowledge work.
bumby 3y ago
I tend to agree, but there are various degrees of "meat space." Rote manual work has been getting automated away for decades. Now AI is taking away rote (or adjacent) knowledge work. The question is whether a reasonable solution for those displace by AI in the knowledge sector is to go work in the rote manual labor space. That presupposes their labor rate is suppressed below that of automation.

thih9 3y ago

I’m not sure if I’m capable of performing fulfilling work that would also have anything resembling of a demand. Take creative work. The pre-AI market was already extremely competitive. Few artists can chase autonomy, the rest needs to sell out to some level - usually significant; not the human flourishing we wanted. AI may disrupt this; still, my guess is that the pool of profitable creative workplaces remains unchanged, at best.

bumby 3y ago
I think that's largely true and most of us are trying to find a balance. Most modern jobs have some aspect of drudgery, or at least less palatable tasks, and we're trying to move the needle towards those tasks that we find fulfilling. But I'd argue some jobs are inherently less amenable to this, if you subscribe to the previously mentioned idea of fullment.
WalterBright 3y ago
If an artist wants to make a living making art, the art has to be something people are willing to pay for. If that's "selling out", then so be it. Why should society support the artist if his art has no value to anyone?
- thih9 3y ago
  Note that our initial goal was different - not an artist who wants to make a living, but an artist who wants to perform fulfilling work.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Draw two circles, 1. fulfilling art 2. art that pays the bills. Create the art that is in the intersection. Otherwise, you'll need another source of income in order to create fulfilling art. There's lots of software I'd like to write. I've spent my time writing code that lies in the intersection.
    - thih9 3y ago
      Sounds like you’re happy in that intersection - and good for you.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Let's draw another circle: things you make when 'financial obligations' are not a concern. Where does that intersect? Why aren't we drawing it? How much science was done by 'gentlemen scientists' who never worried about money? How much more would we know if that one person who could have figured out electromagnetism in 1400 didn't have to plow fields all day?

opportune 3y ago

It's not unskilled labor which will preserve, so much as it is labor that is difficult to automate. Plenty of skilled jobs, like being a therapist or surgeon, would also be difficult to automate. McDonalds is also at the far end of the spectrum of "human service jobs that are less-skilled but difficult to automate". There is plenty of demand for higher quality versions - requiring a higher degree of skill and creativity - of the same general type, like fine-dining. Truly creative (in the sense of it having a high degree of novelty and quality) work is not at risk of being automated any time soon. What is at risk of being automated is the category of "creative" work that requires some skills but is mostly assembly line. Category-defining or truly novel art almost by definition can't be produced by existing AI in any form, because AI can only remix the content it's seen already. "Generic rock song" or "clip-art like picture of a guy yelling at a computer" are at risk of going away, but I hardly think that means humanity will no longer flourish - producing that kind of stuff is romanticized as a cool, highish status thing to do, but functionally I don't really see it as any different or more worth preserving than obsolete skilled labor of the past like carriage-makers or human-computers. I also think people tend to make the "Lump of Labor" fallacy when thinking about this stuff - economically speaking, if human workers are no longer needed to produce some high-value output, in the long run the excess labor/"talent" that gets freed from that task finds other value-producing tasks to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy. Long-term unemployment and underemployment is completely a solvable economic problem; both can increase due to short term shocks like technological development and shifts in supply/demand, and in some cases underemployment is more a matter of "wrongly skilled", but long term they're both a matter of ensuring there is enough money, liquidity, and capital deployed to drive demand for marginal increases in both jobs and quality-of-jobs (without ruinous inflation).

bumby 3y ago
I agree with some of what you said, but some of this comment seems overly intellectualized to the point of being out-of-touch. Have you ever worked in fast food? What makes you think it can’t be automated? From my experience (admittedly decades ago), it’s ripe for automation. The work is largely rote and well controlled. The main edge cases (eg an order of salt free fries, or custom orders) are fairly easily managed without out-of-the-box thinking. The processes are well-defined and controlled. In fact, that’s a major contribution of franchise model: the entire process is already defined largely turn-key. IMO one of the reasons they aren’t automated already is because we essentially subsidize wages with social safety nets. This allows the human wage rate to stay below the cost of automation. We also may disagree on the idea of creative work. By my estimation, creative is defined as not being rote. Maybe the discrepancy is whether you believe combining preexisting ideas is creative; to a large extent most would agree, but that doesn’t, for example, pass the PTOs definition of “non-obvious” so I think there’s some debate as to if it’s truly creative work. I currently think the jobs that are least likely to be automated are non-rote manual labor, especially non-greenfield repair. Fixing a non-routine plumbing issue or installing a one-of-a-kind control system would just not be economical to automate.

yterdy 3y ago

Whatever you'd like, you have to look at reality. It's clear that AI is coming for jobs that are about manipulating information before jobs that are about switching between manipulating objects and serving people. Service jobs COULD be fulfilling. Spending a few hours a day helping your neighbors access the goods and services that they need is a part of community-building; people enjoy that kind of labor. The problem is the corporatization and "shareholder value"-centric bone-deep resource cuts that characterize most of these workplaces, where employees are forced to work under conditions that nominally prioritize profit over everything else (but are really also about, specifically: employee control, legal ass-covering, and union-busting). If people got paid well for working limited and predictable hours where they could rely on coworkers to keep the labor load reasonable, I think these jobs would be more desirable. What better way to spend the value unlocked by AI automation?

bumby 3y ago
A couple things: 1) as already stated elsewhere in this thread, automation has been coming for manual labor jobs for decades/centuries before AI has been coming for knowledge workers 2) I think "service" jobs is the wrong discriminator. There are lots of service jobs that are fulfilling. We're a social species and generally have the desire to contribute to our tribe. Service jobs often scratch that itch. Personal training, wedding planners, hairstylists, chef etc. are all service jobs that are fulfilling enough that people want to do those things even when they don't get paid. That should be confused with the rote, drudgery that is associated with jobs like assembly line work or fast food. I'd argue it's less about the pay (although that can't be ignored) and more about the work. Just look at the service job of attorney with its relatively high bar of entry and high pay, yet it still has pretty insane attrition rates. Even if the pay and status is good, people want a job that's fulfilling.
- yterdy 3y ago
  1) *Silicon-based manual automation (which is mere decades old and has hit a people-shaped wall) 2) You're conflating and categorizing jobs to benefit your argument, not as an accurate reflection of what I presented. Chef work is brutal, too. The main point seems to be that a mechanically unfulfilling job either needs to have fulfilling social contact (functioning as pressure relief, leverage, etc.), or high pay (i.e., an out). Most people would work a (safe) soul-deadening job for a year if they'd get 20 times the median wage out of it.