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Yes - this is exactly what AI/robotics should be targeted at - things that currently would have to be done manually, but aren't feasible (at least not in high-w

• bumby 3y ago
  Why not both? Manual work has been getting automated away for over a century. Tech has already eroded low and middle class jobs for decades. To think that similar won't happen in knowledge work (or that we shouldn't let it), feels like a very techy type of NIMBYism
  • bigfudge 3y ago
    Because one will be a net benefit to society and the other probably won’t be?
    • bumby 3y ago
      Can you elaborate? Because it's not immediately clear to me the distinction. I'll concede that automating manual labor has made consumer products cheaper. Whether that is wholly a net benefit, I think, is up for debate. When you consider the externalities like the environmental effects of rampant consumerism and the erosion of the middle class via a reduction in manufacturing jobs, I think there's plenty of basis for at least arguing there is tipping point on automating away manual labor. To say automating manual labor bluntly (and without careful consideration of blowback) always leads to a better society, I think one needs to define what they mean as society and what metrics they're using to define "better." I, personally, don't think raw GDP is a good measure of the health of a society. If anything, I think automating knowledge work has as at least a potentially larger upside. The downside will largely be borne by the upper-middle and upper-classes, which is why the GGP can read like a classist perspective.
      • rob74 3y ago
        I was referring to automating "jobs" that are not even realistic jobs without automation, because they would be too labor-intensive/unpleasant/low-paying for anyone to want to do them, like the trash-sorting example.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • bumby 3y ago
          u/xvector did a good job explaining why this dynamic exists https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39828089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39828089
          • Philorandroid 3y ago
            They make the cynical case that automation is coming for us all, and it will eventually replace every ounce of fun or meaning in gainful employment, but that it's okay because of some nebulous societal good. It's not a convincing argument.
            • bumby 3y ago
              While I do question their point that AGI is coming for all jobs, I think you're shoehorning your own narrative onto their point. At no point did they mention "fun" or "meaning". Even the idea that those are synonymous with employment is suspect.
              • Philorandroid 3y ago
                It's not a narrative so much as a leftover from what I was originally going to post, in that the creative/expressive/stimulating work is what's being touted as the first thing to be eliminated by AI. That aside, what exactly is suspect about finding meaning or joy in work? Is the quintessential experience meant to be soulless and grating?
  • aydyn 3y ago
    > Why not both? Can you be explicit? With LLMs I use it as a tool to improve my efficiency at translating thought to code, that's good. With image generation, I struggle to see the value, especially relative to its harm even apart from taking jobs from artists. What I see is: * The increase in possibility of fake photos/fake news (the recent photoshopped Kate Middleton comes to mind) * A new level of degenerate coomer addiction from AI booba * Mass production of CSAM (I believe this to be a hugely underreported issue from what I've seen on reddit/civitai) Diffusion models/image transformers are incredible and fun technological marvels but as far as I can tell current usage is at best a fun toy.
    • dukeyukey 3y ago
      It does "take jobs from artists" but it also hugely opens things up for more people. Like, a friend of mine made a parody trading card game a bit ago. Doing custom art for each card would've been completely prohibitive. Instead, she used AI art for it all. Cue lots of hilarity and a good time for all. Same for writers, another friend is writing a D&D campaign. Again, he doesn't have the skill himself to do good digital art, and dozens of custom pieces is way too much cash at this point. But some carefully-done AI pieces, they mon't be perfect, but a damn bit better than nothing!
      • aydyn 3y ago
        As I said, it's at best a fun toy and all you've said confirms that. It does not help solve any of the problems facing humanity.
        • bumby 3y ago
          >It does not help solve any of the problems facing humanity. There's an argument that neither do most jobs [1], but that doesn't mean they are unaffected by automation. [1] Graeber, D. and Lou, L.I.T., 2019. Bullshit Jobs: A Conversation with David Graeber. Made in China Journal, (2).
          • aydyn 3y ago
• SamBam 3y ago
  I get what you're saying, but this sounds a lot like "Person who voted for Face-Eating Leopards Party only wants leopard to eat other people's faces."
• xvector 3y ago
  If you want to create an AGI it will eventually "target" all professions. Art, writing, and basic programming are just the easiest ones to tackle first. You have fast iteration cycles because iteration is virtual. This temporary period of difficulty is the price we pay for AGI, which will yield far more benefit in the long run.
  • sophacles 3y ago
    > which will yield far more benefit in the long run. This is questionable at best. Im glad you have optimism, but do you have any facts that show it won't be a long run benefit like cfcs, or lead in everything? > This temporary period of difficulty is the price we pay... Im glad you're signing me up for difficulty. I get that you probably think you stand to benefit in some way from AGI, so why don't you pay the price yourself instead of volunteering others? Maybe it's because the difficulty that it causes really really sucks, and the benefit isn't worth paying the price yourself?
    • xvector 3y ago
      Coal workers don't like renewables even though it's great for humanity because it threatens their jobs. The same goes for AGI and everyone else. It's irrelevant what the average person thinks about AGI because they can't see past the short term fear of losing their job. They can't see the billions of lives that will be saved, the therapies and medicines and technologies that will be developed, etc. Nothing about the concept of the "singularity" registers, just fear about their next paycheck - a fear to be expressed to their government at that, instead of killing progress that may one day save their own or their children's lives. We volunteer you for AGI, and myself, and everyone else, because our selfish shortsighted nature and fear for our jobs are not worth the lives and suffering and death and disease of billions of people to come. It's sad that we lose our jobs - but it is the price we pay for the cure to everything. The best we can do is implement UBI while we make this transition as a species. Trying to stop the development of AGI out of this fear is akin to being a plague doctor trying to stop the development of penicillin so as to not be out of work. I get it, we are all afraid for our jobs, but their importance does not stand a candle to the reduction in global human suffering AGI would be able to net us. We are all literally going to die, you hear me? You, me, our children. It's not going to be pretty, because the lack of choice/consent around dying is the single biggest driver of human suffering, full stop. But AGI could at least give us a choice here, a choice to spend many decades more in healthy life with those we cherish and love, fully provided for and safe and secure, and that's worth more than any job.
• mschuster91 3y ago
  > or sorting mixed trash into non-recyclable and recyclable (and further into various metals and plastics) A lot of that can already be automated. Push the trash into a series of shredders, until it's powderized, then use magnets to pull out metals, and differentiate the rest by weight, IR spectrum and air streams. Then, one can use a spectrum of solvents to target plastic polymers to get back the precursors. Unfortunately, for plastic polymers that's still way more expensive than to just dump the wholesale trash on some Asian or African piece of land where it will eventually either degrade into microplastics or be burnt by extremely poor people who hope to get some of the metals back.
• cynicalsecurity 3y ago
  It cannot replace neither artists nor software developers. People are already laughing at Devin or whatever this thing is called hallucinating really heavily and producing gibberish.
  • digging 3y ago
    current state of technology !== maximum capabilities of that technology
    • cynicalsecurity 3y ago
      We are still not flying in space ships to other planets. It's quite possible the AI won't progress at all.
• aqfamnzc 3y ago
  Hardware is hard. That and the fact that AI is still bleeding edge - I'm not surprised at all that LLMs, image generation, etc. is what companies are jumping for right now.
• reaperducer 3y ago
  Instead, it's targeted at replacing graphics artists and software developers... It would be nice if we would not stigmatize manual labor. There's nothing wrong with manual labor. For some people, it's ideal. In a city where I used to live, I'd frequently come home on red eye flights. Over time I started to recognize a couple of older gentlemen mopping the floors in the early morning hours. Then one day, they were gone. Instead, there was a slow-moving robot mopping the floors. One clearly too large to get into all the places where the dirt accumulates, but... Automation! A couple of years later, I learned that the airport was part of a municipal program employing intellectually challenged adults, and that the cleaning guys I saw were probably part of that. Now when I travel through that airport, I always wonder what happened to them. Did they find another mopping job? Are they homeless now? Do they have to live under a bridge because society fetishizes technology and robots? Because budget spreadsheets always have a line for "money saved," but never a line for "lives improved?" Mopping the floors at the airport is not a great job for a tech bro who wants to make seven figures. But it's a good, honest job for a lot of people.
  • asimovfan 3y ago
    If there are people intellectually challenged, the solution is not to abuse them for menial tasks which noone want.
    • reaperducer 3y ago
      Clearly you've never worked with the intellectually challenged. These are people who want to live normal lives, and like most normal people find earning an honest wage and providing for themselves very rewarding. And to describe manual labor as "abuse" is, frankly, disgusting.
      • asimovfan 3y ago
        I have family members who are intellectually challenged and my work is manual labour. There could be many therapeutic applications provided by the government where they could still live 'normal' lives (this is obviously wrong because they do need different conditions, if you really want to benefit them they will have different requirements). Normal lives do not mean doing work that is tiresome. Perhaps in a different world manual labour could be something good, but i dont think its honest of you to say that you think people who do manual labour are not being abused.
• singularity2001 3y ago
  things that currently would have to be done manually, but aren't feasible one example i'd like to see is "guiding cows to pastures" which is often no longer economic to be done by humans