4 ms·

its not though... there is literally an infinite amount of work. If humans become 10,000x more efficient, then we still have infinite amount of work to do.

• mothballed 10mo ago
  Sure but at some point if literally everything tangible and essentially every imaginable commercial service can be done by robots and also designed by AI better than a human, humans are basically relegated to what kind of work? Something like being the exotic dancer or baby factory for a robot factory heir, or maybe a meat sacrifice on a Ukraine-esque battlefield to fight the other group of capital holders.
• BobbyJo 10mo ago
  Not necessarily true. There are non-human bottlenecks to productivity, like energy, land area, available raw materials, etc. You're assuming humans can find ways to meaningfully contribute that do not bump up against any of those constraints. R&D is probably the only area not bottlenecked by one of the above out of the gate, and most humans are ill suited for that line of work.
  • itake 10mo ago
    Jobs functions will change over time. Not everyone will be able to do research roles, but robotics is far away from replacing human hands in any meaningful way. Humans need plumbers, home construction, healthcare professionals [0], teachers, judges, relationship driven roles (sales, account managers). [0] - if robotics/ai can replace healthcare, healthcare costs would drop to zero...
    • BobbyJo 10mo ago
      1) Everything you've listed has finite demand, so cannot provide the 10,000x. 2) Robotics cannot drive costs to zero. Robots cost money and require maintenance.
      • itake 10mo ago
        we don't see 10,000x efficiency increases in those job categories.
  • 9rx 10mo ago
    > most humans are ill suited for that line of work. Based on what? Certainly there are humans with crippling disabilities that remove them from pretty much any kind of work, but of the "normally functioning" population? Most lack the necessary attention directed towards R&D as they're too busy living out other lives in other jobs. If that's what you mean, that is a fair point. But if those jobs went away as suggested earlier, they'd have nothing else to do but turn their attention towards R&D. That current world model wouldn't apply anymore.
    • BobbyJo 10mo ago
      > Based on what? Several decades of academic achievement data, psychology studies, etc. I get the argument that "the whole world would be different, so present data isn't applicable", but, if that's your argument, then it's totally unfalsifiable.
      • 9rx 10mo ago
        > Several decades of academic achievement data, psychology studies, etc. Right. That much was obvious. But what does that mean in more detail? If you pick a random, normally capable, person off the street and give them everything they need to become successful in R&D, what ends up happening?
        • BobbyJo 10mo ago
          > If you pick a random, normally capable, person off the street and give them everything they need to become successful in R&D, what ends up happening? Don't we run that experiment on every moderately wealthy child on the planet? I can tell you that the hit rate there is definitely not 100%.
          • 9rx 10mo ago
            I don't know. You're the one who has studied the data, not me. What's the answer? If you are asking about what I've seen anecdotally, which is all you can expect of me given that I am not the one of us who is the subject matter expert between us, all those who were moderately wealthy children that I know have grown up into having success with R&D in at least some limited capacity. They haven't all dedicated their lives to R&D, but they've had no trouble being able to invent things when the situation necessitated it. If they had more time to dedicate their life to it, I see no reason for why that would stop. But, again, you're the expert among us here. I don't know much about it — that is why I'm asking you. Aside, R&D fundamentally isn't guaranteed to deliver fruit, so elaborate for us on how the research you spoke of differentiates between someone who is well suited to R&D work but never strikes gold due to the nature of the beast, and someone who cannot strike gold because they are straight up incapable as a person. That might help us communicate about this more effectively.
• skeledrew 10mo ago
  It's not about the existence of work. It's about decoupling work from access to necessary resources.