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> Anything that could be automated but isn’t automated is because it isn’t cost effective to do so or there is insufficient capital to invest. Is there any evi

by Teever 2y ago

> Anything that could be automated but isn’t automated is because it isn’t cost effective to do so or there is insufficient capital to invest. Is there any evidence to back up this wildly huge assertion?

ch4s3 2y ago
It should be obvious. There are plenty of thing we can build robots to do, but we don't because its wildly more expensive than we can sell the resulting product for. We can mostly automate construction but it turns out the land acquisition dominates costs, installation still ends up being sloppy and human, building codes are different everywhere, and people want a different kind of dwelling than what prefab is suited for at the moment.
- Teever 2y ago
  If it should be obvious then the evidence should be equally obvious. Or perhaps the world is a bit more nuanced and it may very well be that we're stuck in some local maximums that our current methodologies don't allow us to escape but escaping them is relatively easy if we chose to implement a meagre amount of resources for that purpose which is something we don't do because we're stuck in that local maximum and so on and so forth. Another way of looking at what you're saying is that we're doing things optimally and that there's no room for improvement when that very obviously is not the case. There are many gross inefficiencies in our system as it currently is -- look at food production for example. How much of the food produced globally is outright wasted? 30%? 50%? If we made a conscious effort to tighten that up we could reallocate those resources to solving the problems of automation issues that you're describing. The true hole in one for automation is a durable machine that can make a copy of itself as well as useful economic goods. Bonus points if this machine can be in a humanoid form to integrate into our existing economic infrastructure. Once you have a self replicator you can have it make as many copies as needed to solve any problem you need with minimal human effort. But a self-replicating machine isn't on anyones radar. Have you ever seen a politician or policy person discuss this?
  - ch4s3 2y ago
    I’m sorry, any talk about self replicating machines is just science fiction at this point. It’s not a serious thing to discuss as a near future possibility.

by Teever 2y ago

ch4s3 2y ago

It should be obvious. There are plenty of thing we can build robots to do, but we don't because its wildly more expensive than we can sell the resulting product for. We can mostly automate construction but it turns out the land acquisition dominates costs, installation still ends up being sloppy and human, building codes are different everywhere, and people want a different kind of dwelling than what prefab is suited for at the moment.

Teever 2y ago
If it should be obvious then the evidence should be equally obvious. Or perhaps the world is a bit more nuanced and it may very well be that we're stuck in some local maximums that our current methodologies don't allow us to escape but escaping them is relatively easy if we chose to implement a meagre amount of resources for that purpose which is something we don't do because we're stuck in that local maximum and so on and so forth. Another way of looking at what you're saying is that we're doing things optimally and that there's no room for improvement when that very obviously is not the case. There are many gross inefficiencies in our system as it currently is -- look at food production for example. How much of the food produced globally is outright wasted? 30%? 50%? If we made a conscious effort to tighten that up we could reallocate those resources to solving the problems of automation issues that you're describing. The true hole in one for automation is a durable machine that can make a copy of itself as well as useful economic goods. Bonus points if this machine can be in a humanoid form to integrate into our existing economic infrastructure. Once you have a self replicator you can have it make as many copies as needed to solve any problem you need with minimal human effort. But a self-replicating machine isn't on anyones radar. Have you ever seen a politician or policy person discuss this?
- ch4s3 2y ago
  I’m sorry, any talk about self replicating machines is just science fiction at this point. It’s not a serious thing to discuss as a near future possibility.