3 ms·

I'm not going to remark on the topic of Internet job annihilation because I feel like I have nothing else intelligent to say, but I wanted to add I do feel the

I'm not going to remark on the topic of Internet job annihilation because I feel like I have nothing else intelligent to say, but I wanted to add I do feel the Fancy Hands thing. Something about that entire proposition struck me as disturbing from the beginning. "Not an elite? Then pretend you're one with your very own anonymous slave!" How much clearer could it be that even those anonymous slaves will be replaced by robots the second that it's technically feasible.

Zikes 13y ago
That technical infeasibility is precisely why the business exists. If it were technically feasible, a person could purchase their own device or system to manage such tasks and Fancy Hands and similar services would become obsolete, or graduate to more complex tasks that are still as yet technically infeasible.
zanny 13y ago
Good? It is clear people using this service don't want to do the task, but likewise don't value having it done either. Though the examples given in the article seem more like things one would want to interact with themselves. If people are willing to take money for this work, and someone else wants it done, that is economics. The broader question is "does raw human labor possess value anymore?" and if the answer is no, in the sense that a working human with no domain skills is laboring below a living wage, then it is time to rethink our economic model, and minimum wage is just a hatchet to stymie the bigger issue - the systemic devaluation of human output. Because machines are better at it.