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What did the tech CEO say to the worker he wanted to automate?
- jamesaguilar 13y agoYep. If your job could conceivably be done by an automaton, eventually it will be. Since we are just automatons, that means that every job could eventually be automated. Which is ok. I'd rather not have to work. But it's also basically proof that someday we'll need socialism because there will be no jobs at all.
- wheels 13y agoThat's ok. The other animals in the zoo won't have to work either.
- benologist 13y agoYou realize most of us are in that zoo too? There's nothing inherently magical about being able to make CRUD web sites and apps that protects us forever.
- wheels 13y agoMy point, perhaps too veiled, was that as the amount of work that humanity is required to do approaches zero, so too does the likelihood that humanity remains the dominant species.
- emiliobumachar 13y agoWho could replace us? Why can the task of keeping them at bay not be automated?
- monkeyspaw 13y agoI think he may be referring to machine overlords. If the automated processes are what replace humans as the dominant life form, who will watch the automation? I think the "dominant life form" thing is a bit of semantics. But I have found this entire thread very interesting. It will be interesting to see what happens when humanity lacks scarcity. Research indicates that humans tend towards heirarchies, which are defined relative to neighbors. The "keeping up with the joneses" disease might be part of our core programming. In a surplus society, I wonder what will substitute for status. Probably something much like our current system, I suppose.
- textminer 13y agoIf you've never read this article in Jacobin magazine, I think you'd quite like it: http://jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/ http://jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
- jamesaguilar 13y agoInstagram followers. You think I'm joking, but really I am only sort of.
- FreeFull 13y agoI think a big turning point in human history will be when computers will finally be capable of everything and more that a human can do.
- adisbladis 13y agoConsidering how far the research into EEG has gotten the line between you and the computer will eventually blur out.
- ams6110 13y agoI think it's more likely that there will be a massive war and the survivors will be peasants again.
- lukifer 13y agoIf you want to talk about replacing jobs which are done more effectively by software, managing scarce resources to maximize utility and happiness seems like a pretty good candidate.
- straight_talk_2 13y agoHard to understand what you mean. It's not like the current resource managers are trying to maximize happiness, but just lack efficiency. Just the opposite - the majority of ambitions, rich, powerful people in the world are putting tremendous efforts into extracting as much resources from the poor as possible.
- seiji 13y agoFrom 1994 (I welcome any earlier references too): An easy change in the United States could be through the social security system. Social security was originally presented as a government-run pension fund that accumulated wages for retirement, but in practice it transfers income from workers to retirees. The system will probably be subsidized from general taxes in coming decades, when too few workers are available to support the retiring post World War II baby boom. Incremental expansion of such a subsidy would let money from robot industries, collected as corporate taxes, be returned to the general population as pension payments. By gradually lowering the retirement age towards birth, most of the population would eventually be supported. The money could be distributed under other names, but calling it a pension is meaningful symbolism: we are describing the long, comfortable retirement of the original-model human race. from http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1995/RobotMind.talk.html http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.artic...
- prostoalex 13y agoThe problem with "general taxes" is that they don't fall from the skies. In the economies with large percentage of makers and small percentage of moochers things work out decently, as the moochers category includes babies and elderly, so the work by makers is almost a social contract, a "thank you" to the society for support while being a baby, and a rainy day fund for one day when the maker himself will turn elderly. Having a large population of working-age moochers violates the social contract, and creates incentives for the makers to optimize their revenue generation, if not quit altogether, Atlas Shrugged style. The perverse incentives are apparent in post-Soviet economies, where under Soviet ruling government-owned enterprises frequently supported a vast infrastructure of company towns - everything from kindergartens to hospitals was included in the balance sheet of the local plant or factory. Fast forward a few decades ahead, when the government-owned enterprises are now privately-owned, and typical pattern you see is profit-less plants and factories now selling their products at cost, avoiding profit sharing, to a Cyprus or Cayman Islands affiliate, with affiliate (incidentally controlled by large shareholders and top management) pocketing all the profits in tax-efficient manner.
- seiji 13y ago
- adisbladis 13y agoA thousand times yes! Automating away a lot of jobs as the economic system is now be disastrous, just think of Detroit at a very large scale. "Wouldn't that be perfect if she could actually pursue her hobby?" is a very ignorant statement if you start to consider the implications of industry automation for all of the workers who have been automated away. I believe that if we don't fundamentally change the economy through reform this will eventually lead to the next large revolution.
- smacktoward 13y agoYeah. Not a lot of laid-off auto workers doing backflips with joy because now they can devote more time their stamp collection. The "hobbies" line is also infuriating because it practically drips with condescension. "I'm sure you have a hobby, don't you, dear? Of course you do! Why don't you go and spend some time on that while the grown-ups do the important work." All it's missing is a little pat on the head at the end.
- Houshalter 13y agoI think you are missing the point that people don't usually want to work doing these menial, easily automated jobs. They do it because they have to, to support themselves and their families. If they could still support themselves or get paid, but not have to spend their day working, wouldn't they be better off?
- unclebucknasty 13y agoWouldn't they be doing that now if they could? How does losing their jobs make their "hobbies" suddenly profitable?
- ckannan90 13y agoI think the argument about "hobbies" is a long term one, not one that applies to people who just got laid off. If there was no automation and everyone had to farm, nobody can pursue their "hobbies", because everyone has to work to meet their needs. At present, because of automation, less people have to farm. Because of that, people with a "hobby" of filmmaking can go make films, and other people with a "hobby" of watching films are able to spend their time (and money) watching those films. The argument is that automation eventually frees up society into doing less essential things and increases overall happiness. Also hobbies is definitely not the right word here.
- tartle 13y agowe'll need socialism much earlier than when all jobs are gone. the only problem is how to marry this transition with incentives for further technological development. technological elites enjoying fruits of the economic growth, while the majority gets gradually reduced to TaskRabbits - that's really a disgusting picture...
- diminoten 13y agoWe'll need less people, or smarter people, not socialism. Socialism, as a whole, leads to Bad Things. Sprinklings of socialism help and are good, but if you subscribe fully to any specific socialist doctrine, history shows your group will be harmed by it.
- tartle 13y agofirst of all, it depends what you define as socialism. what seems more important, history shows that there are no Iron Laws Of History Written In Capital Letters. what we see is always an outcome of particular circumstances. like - "trying to establish a particular form of socialism (i would rather say this was communism, not socialism, but let's not open an argument here...) in an isolated, pre-capitalist country, that was recently destroyed by war, and has no democratic culture, produces shitty effects". that doesn't tell much about choices we have today.
- vacri 13y agoPatent nonsense. The 'specific socialist doctrine' of Social Democracy is what the countries with the highest quality of life currently run. If you mean 'communist', then say 'communist'.
- smsm42 13y agoThat's like saying Lance Armstrong took performance drugs, so if you want to bike like Armstrong then drugs is the best way to get there. In fact, for most people drugs would much faster get you into the hospital then into the Olympics. Same with socialism - some rich countries can take a lot of it and still maintain health, but less rich countries would just collapse.
- _ak 13y agoSocialism is such a harsh word. All it really needs is a welfare program for the general population that doesn't punish those whose jobs have been automated. A system how to solve that has been discussed in Germany by left-leaning parties. The idea is simple: give everyone a certain salary per month that allows them to rent a flat, buy groceries, and have a social life. Without the fear of losing their job, not being able to afford food or just becoming poor, people will do whatever they like: some will continue their job (which earns them extra pay, obviously), some will try out a business idea they have, some won't work. Or that's the idea, at least, with the assumption that people aren't lazy by nature and thus must be punished if they neither work nor actively seek for jobs (i.e. the current unemployment benefit system in Germany), but instead would like to work, except working on the stuff they like working on.
- prostoalex 13y agoThis already kinda exists in the United States, except not in the salary form. Food stamps + subsidized housing + disability pay.
- igravious 13y agoHonest question. What kind of life does that give you? A decent enough life or a pretty miserable life? Also, if this is true why are there so many more homeless people in the US than any other Western country I've been to?
- jamesaguilar 13y agoIt doesn't give you a very good life. That said, there is still a question of when we should begin heavily subsidizing non-work. I think there's a decent argument to be made that we're not at that point yet. Also, homelessness in the US is barely related to the question of subsidizing non-work. It's more of a failure on the part of our mental health system. If you talk to a homeless guy in the US, odds are he'll have some pretty noticeable mental issue right from the get-go.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago
- smsm42 13y agoIf there would be no scarcity, who needs socialism? If there would be scarcity, there would be jobs in producing scarce resources and delivering them to whoever wants to consume them. But if you are not happy with this, I can easily offer you a job creation program. Take two people. One would dig the ditch for 8 hours, the other would come next day and fill up the same ditch. Since you claim "jobs" are something we should pursue, this is a perfect example of jobs that can be created cheaply and abundantly. Of course, these jobs would provide zero value, but if you don't care about loss of value from employing people to do things that can be done with much higher value, then why should you care there? Just tax "the rich" and dig the ditch, and the jobs would be there forever. Hint: google "broken window fallacy".
- kordless 13y agoJust because you have a distinct view on the future doesn't mean it's OK to push that view into others. Telling someone their job is going to be obsolete is akin to saying, "If you don't make the choice to get a new job in the next 15 years, it's likely you'll be out of a job." Honestly, if someone told me what I do for a living would be not needed soon, I'd probably go on a Tweet bender myself. It's a frightening proposition, even if it is interesting and exciting.
- iaskwhy 13y ago> Just because you have a distinct view on the future doesn't mean it's OK to push that view into others. I guess that's why he didn't. The conversation seemed to be very calmly introduced even when that lady had no idea of what was coming.
- smacktoward 13y agoIt's also a great way to take your smugness out for a walk. The unspoken corollary to "your job will be obsolete in 15 years" is "but mine won't." It's casting judgment on the person: I'm smart, you're stupid; I'm successful, you're a failure. (Even though your job isn't obsolete yet! Don't be fooled by the decent life you have today; your inherent loser-ness is going to flush all that down the drain, you see. It is inevitable.)
- kansface 13y agoYou certainly believe some jobs will not exist in 15 years? For instance, I assume you can see the writing on the wall for truck drivers and cabbies? No matter how unpleasant it may be to say to those people, "If you don't make the choice to get a new job in the next 15 years, it's likely you'll be out of a job", not saying is not a service to them and does not make it any less true. What do you propose we do instead?
- martinshen 13y agoIf you read some of the comments on the article they simply cite automation techniques that are focused on decreasing costs for merchants like grocery checkout. It's true, these are arguably worse than the human alternative. However, this is extremely short sighted as in time we will have automation that is superior to the human alternatives. Grocery checkout will be replaced with self-stocking kitchens (which decide on a menu based on the FitBit in your blood stream) delivered by self driving cars. Instacart is a good example of the "hack" version of this. With that being said, I think there'll still be room for the "human touch" in leisure oriented businesses like restaurants or high-touch pricey services like high end wealth management. You can see that this article appears to have an anti-futurist, anti-technology sentiment. Its opinion represents the vast majority of the world's view which tends to only forecasts out 3 to 5 years out. Significant change is a scary concept especially to those subject to the change. I believe that wealth disparity will continue on the trend that it has been and likely "get worse". But it is my hope that someday a high standard of living will be so affordable that the poorest will have a very high quality of life. Currently, we technologists are building products that improve the quality of life of the wealthiest 25%. I see this as a good testing ground. Take a page from Tesla's strategy with products and services for the wealthiest to later understand how to bring those products/services to even the poorest. A note to the technologists/futurists here: as much fun as it is to be "disruptive" especially to large enterprise and put ourselves against them, this is not the most pragmatic approach for middle class jobs. Instead, let's emphasize that automation/technology will ultimately improve everyone's lives so that the middle class lifestyle will be the new "poverty". That's the type of "poverty" I'm happy with. EDIT: reworded/reorganized/clarified
- tartle 13y ago"let's emphasize that automation/technology will ultimately improve everyone's lives so that the middle class lifestyle will be the new poverty" except there's no reason to believe it will happen. possibly new poverty will be good, old poverty as we know it - just extended to what used to be middle classes. when mass labour is no longer needed, those who possess the wealth have no incentive to share it. last 30 years fly in the the face of the "trickle down" narrative. when those who sell their labour will face further weakening of their negotiating position, this trend will rather accelerate.
- andrewflnr 13y agoI think this is related to another trend that's a little closer to home for us hackers: software that solves common problems tends to become free over time. Eventually an open-source option picks up steam, and proprietary vendors find their product has been commoditized. This is nearly identical to having their job automated away. I think customization and support are the future. Just like the woman in the article was able to provide specialized help for the other person who couldn't figure out the ticket machine, there will always be room for someone to fit a generic solution more closely to some company's specific needs. It will at least be the next phase before strong AI (possibly) takes over and makes people completely obsolete.
- chrischen 13y agoIn my opinion the BART kiosk employee is a bad example of a job that can be automated. The fact is her job is already automated and probably why we don't have 10 of those kiosk workers per station handing out tickets and processing them by hand. Her job is really just catching the 10-20% of people who don't know how to use tech that need hands on support at the stations, and random other odd jobs at the station that in fact can't be automated or automated to the same level of quality.
- yaddayadda 13y ago"Her job is really just catching the 10-20% of people who don't know how to use tech..." or people that need something that current tech simply doesn't provide. The last time I traveled to another big city I actually sought assistance from the metro kiosk worker - information that wasn't limited to metro data. Could I have gotten the info I needed in other ways - yes, but it would have taken me longer than the time I had available. The kiosk worker was familiar with the area and the metro and was able to address my needs in a way that technology simply can't (at this point).
- NamTaf 13y agoPrecisely. The job is already automated; the worker is a value-add resource. That's not entirely unlike what many other 'advanced' roles do, just in a different form. The same applies to technical support - for the most part, there's FAQs and the like to resolve common problems, but also additionally there's tech support people who can value-add by solving the more difficult, fuzzier issues.
- rrwhite 13y agoExactly. Customer service jobs are actually increasing in pay and sophistication because there's less overall work to be done but what's left behind after automation is more complex.
- shubb 13y agoThe thesis of the audio clip appears to be that an unsolved problem with automation is what becomes of the automated workers. My girlfriend works in a government job, at a regulator. Most jobs there exist because they insist in dealing with paper forms instead of internet ones - for most employees, half the work is in correcting invalid forms (e.g. no contact address). The other half is in applying rules that they have to know because they have never been codified in a database (instead living in large regulation documents). Recently, they have been downsizing. One of the employees that was fired was primarily responsible for sorting emails that arrive in a centralized inbox, allocating them equally to staff. She also ordered stationary, and watered plants. When she left, she was entirely replaced by 2 Outlook rules, one to allocate the mail, the other to periodically order stationary by automated mail. I wonder what will become of that lady. She had a fear of technology, not even mastering how to send email though it was her primary role for 5 years. She regularly cried in the office, and when asked to do anything outside that small role, approached a nervous breakdown. There are a lot of people who are not able to cope with advanced roles, by which I mean normal jobs a normal person could perform. Either we are willing to pay for them to be comfortably unemployed (as the CEO implies we should be), or we are not. I suspect we are not. So they will be punished, and made to feel terrible, until they are diagnosed with something and can be disabled. At this point, their livelyhood relies on not being able, and this seeps into the soul.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoYes, to be provocative about it, here are some options for what to do: 1. Support them comfortably for the rest of their lives, retrain the ones who wish to be retrained. (too crazy?) 2. Euthanize them in a kindly fashion, ie with laughing gas. (obviously ridiculous) 3. Euthanize them in a cruel way, ie humiliate them by making them beg their families for care and resources, starve the ones with no family. Let them die of exposure if they haven't saved a fortune and can't cope gracefully with rapid technological progress. (the way we've been doing it)
- drivingmenuts 13y ago#1 won't happen - there's too many people who want to toss unproductive people aside like so much dead wood. Unproductive people cost money and there's a whole school of thought in the US that really, really (and I do mean really) resents that. #3 is already being done and it's working as intended (not that it is a good thing by any means), although it seems to be inefficient as far as that first group of thinkers is concerned.
- akjetma 13y agoIt seems like he doesn't understand the complexities of her job. Automating repetitive tasks isn't hard, but automating a person is.
- snom380 13y agoYes, and he's not the only one. Just look at how many people are convinced that pilots can easily be replaced by autopilots.
- akjetma 13y agoYeah, but then again there are services like Siri that do a phenomenal job at understanding complex user input. I don't think I've ever experienced Siri not understanding my intended query and then giving me a generalized response that has nothing to do what I asked for, so maybe people in roles like this woman's can be easily automated. It's probably trivial to encompass every function that she performs. Maybe a weekend project!
- qu4z-2 13y agoI was worried you were serious until I got to the last sentence. :)
- reginaldjcooper 13y agoCan't they be? I read the autopilot can land a plane in an emergency, and engineers have got them to fly model planes with a whole wing broken off.
- snom380 13y agoWell, they can if all you do is expect them to actually fly the plane. And even then, these autopilots make trivial mistakes if the get the wrong input data. Human pilots make tons of non-trivial decisions that don't have anything to do with the actual maneuvering of the airplane, including where to land the airplane in an emergency. So again, the fallacy is believing that the job is a specific, well-defined task. When we have sentient computers that can process 3D vision, hearing, smell etc as well as a human and exceed humans in decision making, we can replace human pilots and expect the same performance.
- shitgoose 13y agoautomating unions? good luck with that... not before they automate you with the crowbar.
- alukima 13y agoIt's interesting to watch the SF tech vs. blue collar debate as someone who has lived in both worlds. It was almost impossible for me to read an article during the strike without cringing. It's easy to forget that there are people who know nothing about technology through no fault of their own. My nephews go to low income schools that still don't have computers in the classroom and their parents can't afford them. On the flip side, many people assume that tech workers are all smug bastards who work 10 hours a week who have had everything handed to them. Even if they had many advantages there's still hard work involved, sure it's not manual labor but that doesn't negate someone putting in 50 hours a week and spending another 20 keeping up with their trade.
- ssivark 13y agoAmara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." Not to seem like a luddite, but let me play the devil's advocate here. 15 years, IMHO, a huge exaggeration. The standard technology of today: IVRS systems suck so bad that they make me want to slam the phone down after 2 minutes, if I cant talk to a human. Siri or GoogleNow aren't much better. When you force a human to interact with a computer, you are handicapping them and taking away most of their expressiveness. Guess what, humans don't like that. You reduce them to the level of the computer which can only understand a few pre-programmed options. That seems like a far cry from human communication which it will try to replace. And we don't even know if that's possible even in principle. All we have is the hope from a bunch of people who are generally excited by technology, and the ensuing hype. Keeping Amara's law in mind, I would imagine that such a drastic change would take a longer time (almost 1 generation's working life?). Incremental changes summed up might displace jobs over decades, but if someone can adapt to those incremental changes, I would imagine that they can manage their whole working lives. At least as applicable to people born till (say) 2000 and would presumably live till 2100 or so. Any "predition" beyond that would be a wild leap. As for humans being born circa now... However, I believe that a few questions are still of supreme importance and we need to tackle them for the sustenance of mankind (pun unintended). 1. If a computer/robot could exactly replicate a job (and do it on a macroscopic scale), will such a solution be energy efficient? [Assume that you already have a population of X billion whose needs you will have to meet] 2. What is the real aim of automation? Is it to save costs from the perspective of the business owner, or to give people leisure? 3. Let's say robots/computers replace a large segment of jobs. Presumably, a small number of people will own and operate those systems of scale (you just have to make a 3D printer which can print other 3D printers). Then what is the role of the "unemployed" humans? And most importantly, any such structure we come up with, must lead to a stable society.
- snom380 13y agoI find it interesting how many smart people seem to truly believe that things will just work itself out. Kind of like the idealist libertarians or communists, only with technology as the solution to every problem.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoThe answer nobody's facing is that the system of working for a living is going to have to stop. We all retire, or we're all sacked, pick one. Because eventually ALL jobs, without exception, will be automated. Even in the near term, a lot of jobs you wouldn't expect, ones that look "creative" or "decision making", will be automated.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoPlaying in a band isn't exactly a job today, but I can't see how it can be automated. It can become less popular or forgotten altogether, but not automated.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoYeah, there's stuff that nowadays is phrased as "a job" because it has to be, that would become "a vocation" when jobs went away. Programming is another obvious example.
- icebraining 13y agoIt depends on how you define "playing in a band", but I'd say that's what Hatsune Miku does.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoShe's not playing, she's the act. Someone "wrote" her and (s)he is the artist.
- icebraining 13y agoYeah, but it's turtles all the way down, isn't it? She's just software, so in theory someone can metaprogram that as well. If you're writing a generator of virtual performers, are you really "playing in a band"?
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
- staunch 13y agoOne thing I thought was funny was when he suggested that perhaps the information desk worker might instead work remotely via video chat. She laughed at the suggestion, saying that was a long way off. I saw this exact use case, and I mean exact use case, in Japan a couple weeks ago. It's technically trivial at this point.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoIt's not much cheaper but much more limiting - you no longer can help people out. It's an example of false economy.
- hershel 13y agoThey used it in japan. It's probably economic. Why, because you could: 1. Outsource the job. 2. Use dead times more efficiently/share loads. 3. Now it's easier to automate more stuff. For example, after hearing you're request , the lady could give you a map+text+video explanations and move to the next customer.
- icebraining 13y agoIt depends on the volume. Often you can handle the 80% case with VAs, and then have just one or two people to handle the rest. A good example is banks: mine still has tellers, just much, much less than before ATMs were common.
- gbog 13y agoSeen from China this debate becomes at the same time epic because of the proportion and in a way easily solved. Here if you have no salary you just borrow a few tools from a relative and choose a street corner where to fix passers by's bicycles.
- ajays 13y agoI feel that often such discussions tend to the extremes: either do nothing, or replace everyone with robots. The happy middle ground, for example, is left out because it's the least controversial. There are some jobs that are best automated. The BART "train operator", for instance; it is _already_ automated! People don't realize that the BART train runs by itself; the "operator" just hits the "close door" button when needed. Or, for example, the cleaner who is (purportedly) supposed to clean the cars. A Scooba-like robot would do just fine. On the other hand: a customer-service job is best done by humans (for now), because when we need help, it is reassuring to speak to a person instead of Siri. So casting this debate as one between "replace all humans" and "keep the current inefficient system" is wrong.
- wtallis 13y agoThere's a difference between "replace everyone with robots" and "replace everyone with robots now". We can't really say what the limits are to what kind of jobs can some day be done by robots, so we all have to live with the knowledge that our jobs might be automated before we're ready to retire.
- codexon 13y agoThen White was the one smiling. “See?” he said. “Wouldn't that be perfect if she could actually pursue her hobby?” I don't understand how this person could be the CEO of uservoice. How can she pursue her hobby if she loses her job?
- alcari 13y agoHe's thinking a few steps further: she loses her job due to advancing automation (along with a large segment of the population), _and_ guaranteed basic income becomes a reality.
- codexon 13y agoThat's a pretty big assumption given the current status of welfare in the US.
- rrwhite 13y agoWhich is why I talked about the concept of basic income. I don't know the answer but people are arguing about whether automation is good or bad which is irrelevant. These jobs will be automated whether you like it or not. If we play our cards right then perhaps more people can pursue their passions. If we don't... well I'd rather focus on making the former happen.
- codexon 13y agoWell think about how your request plays out. She stays on her job for the next 2-3 years until they figure out how to automate her job. Then for the next 30 years she is destitute or working a more menial job until the number of marginalized citizens become a large enough to pass a basic income bill. Then all the people in control of these automated industries ask themselves, why am I going to pay 20% more tax for these deadbeats when I can move to Ireland or Dubai?
- rrwhite 13y ago
- kumarski 13y agoI'm waiting for fast food to be automated. http://momentummachines.com http://momentummachines.com could be on to something huge.
- smsm42 13y agoOne interesting nugget from Superfreakonomics book: whaling industry in the US at the 19th century was fifth largest (think all the insurance industry right now) and employed 1% of the total workforce (think twice the auto industry now). It has almost completely vanished now and yet US economy did not collapse (for the smarties out there - I know about the Great Depression, has nothing to do with it). I deduce from this that even a huge market shift can be absorbed by a healthy economy and healthy society without too much harm. Now, for the people that get caught in it, it can suck big time, and means must be found to help those of them that can't help themselves (the toll booth lady from the article who has a hobby of buying and selling houses probably is going to be fine anyway), but economically if you say we can't do without some industry or sector, more frequently than not it's just a failure of imagination.
- TheRealDunkirk 13y ago"... can be absorbed by a healthy economy and healthy society..." Are we playing Spot the Problem with the Argument? Because I think I have a possible winner.
- smsm42 13y agoIf you're implying that US economy and society is hopelessly sick, it is not. If anything, we have wastly more support programs for needy than in 19th century, and vastly more opportunities for mobility and career change.
- dionidium 13y agoStill, you are sort of begging the question, which is whether we actually can absorb this shift and something you state as fact.
- smsm42 13y agoWe could absorb the shock of industry of size of the whole insurance industry now disappearing and amount of people roughly equivalent of twice the whole car industry now having to find new jobs. What exactly says we couldn't absorb a bunch of toll booth attendants or cashiers having to look for other job?
- nraynaud 13y agoThe real problem here is the working people, chasing the slackers, mocking holidays, praising people with long weeks. Nobody will want this free time if it's stained with stigmata. There will be the work alcoholic saying "I'm working more than him, I don't want to pay for his free time". Moreover we work more now than before. So the free time thesis is just a joke, it might me economically feasible, but to sell it to the society will be hard. The idea that the maximum output of a system is very not often achieved when all of its components are at their individual maximum is already impossible to act on in a company (ie. it might be better to have some slackers), I can't see that happening with money directly involved.
- kaa2102 13y agoWhat if AI, automation, and the goal to maximize short-term profits leads to robots only making things for other robots?
- fchollet 13y agoTwo remarks about taking the booth lady as an example: 1) Her job has already been automated, thus validating the automation thesis. Her job has/used to have two aspects: ticket sales, and information. Tickets are now being sold by automatons, and she only has to handle the edge cases of people unable to use the machines, or the machine failings. As for information, most people will now use convenient smartphone apps to navigate BART, and she will only handle the few people who don't --tourists or people unwilling to use smartphones. 2) She was a terrible example in that you cannot automate her, since she is precisely what is left after the automation of her job. The work that comes to her is what did not fall into the automated use cases. The value of some jobs is the human contact, or human interface they provide, and she falls into this category. This is also why we won't automate, say, barmen, or waitresses. But what CAN be automated about BART, are train drivers (absolutely unnecessary in our day and age), and train dispatchers. They don't do consumer-facing human interaction, and machines would do their jobs better. And in time, they will get automated.
- bliti 13y agoAt the time of this comment, there is a post on the HN front page titled "More Connected, Yet More Alone" (link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6312076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6312076 ). One thing that automation like this misses is the much needed human interaction. Yes, humans are not as efficient or dependable as machines (not yet). But we are now entering a rather depressing period in history where human interaction is set aside in favor of digital and mechanical efficiency.
- wtallis 13y agohttp://xkcd.com/1227/ http://xkcd.com/1227/ Your complaint is nothing new. People will always be able to romanticize the past.
- veridies 13y agoThe present is better (for humans) than the past. But that doesn't mean that everything is better. When I go to Safeway, and have to go through a self-checkout, I do feel less connected to the people around me. When I order delivery, it's online through GrubHub, not over the phone. It's fairly obvious that automation is decreasing the amount that we have to interact with one another, and some people dislike that. This is a specific problem that's because caused by automation, even though automation solves many other problems. It's a problem that should be thought about and fixed. And your attitude of "things are generally better now, so don't complain" is utterly counter-productive.
- xarien 13y agoRobots aren't cheap. Complicated systems aren't cheap and neither is the maintenance required to ensure an up-time of near 100%. However, will there be markets where the high investment will be justified as the return is also high as well? Yes. San Francisco is a prime example. But, with that said, much of the argument here isn't actually technological, but political. Take wages for instance, many of our current policies such as minimum wage actually muddle the ground between an economical policy and a social policy. If we are able to separate the two types policies, human resource cost reductions such as automation and out-sourcing would actually make much less sense given that labor rates would be more closely tied to output and required skills of a given worker. Of course, as a society, we would need to implement policy including a minimum universal health care to ensure a sustainable life style even in our large metropolitan areas.
- thret 13y agoI recommend http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm A nice little dystopian story about runaway automation and the effect that might have on society.
- francispedraza 13y agoNext time, don't do something automate-able. You're a human, remember? Do things that only humans can do.
- marknutter 13y agoI reject the idea that there will suddenly be a shortage of jobs due to automation and technological advances. It didn't happen after all our agricultural advances, it didn't happen after the industrial revolution, and it hasn't happened in the information age. Think about the types of jobs people have today and compare it to the types of jobs people had 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. I would argue the majority of today's jobs not only didn't exist back then, but didn't even seem conceivable. As long as something exists that someone else doesn't want to do, there will be work. Even when robots handle 90% of our labor intensive work, there will be new annoyances and problems that require a human element. Artificial intelligence is a long ways away from being better than even the most simple human mind for most creative tasks, and the more information we have to parse the more opportunity there will be for people to help curate and manage it. Or maybe, once we've run out of jobs that are aimed at making our lives comfortable we'll create jobs aimed at making our lives more exciting. More immersive video games and cinematic experiences. Missions to mars and space tourism. Extreme sports. Nature restoration. Etc, use your imagination. We can't possibly know what the jobs of the future might be, but I'm pretty sure there will be enough for everybody.
- lsc 13y ago>I reject the idea that there will suddenly be a shortage of jobs due to automation and technological advances. It didn't happen after all our agricultural advances, it didn't happen after the industrial revolution, and it hasn't happened in the information age. Many people believe it's happening now. >We can't possibly know what the jobs of the future might be, but I'm pretty sure there will be enough for everybody. That's the thing, there aren't enough jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled right now. And those that exist provide dramatically lower pay (relatively speaking) than the unskilled or semi-skilled jobs of our parent's era. It's hard to quantify unemployment, but it's been historically bad for more than half a decade now. Of course, you are going to have a hard time pinning that down on automation (or any other one cause) - but the point remains, there are a lot of folks who would like jobs, who would have had jobs in the '90s, who are unemployed now. The valley is a huge exception right now. Now, on your overall point? I... am sympathetic to your view; My view on the unemployment problem (and I recognize that this is... insulting, and that my view comes from a place of privilege.) My view is that something is wrong with the economy; Nobody has spent enough effort figuring out how to make money off of semi-skilled labor. I also think that we have a cultural problem. We have generations who were trained to "do your job" - e.g. the boss will tell you what to do and how to do it. You follow those steps, and you make money for the company, and the company pays you. Most job growth that I've seen has been in jobs where the boss kinda waves in the direction she wants and you do something reasonable. Sometimes, you get to participate in deciding which direction in which to wave. There's a big difference in the way of thinking.
- hoi 13y agoA good example is the docklands light railway in London, already automated railline that serves the financial district - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docklands_Light_Railway
- ryguytilidie 13y agoStories like this always assume that the benefits of things like automation are equally shared. As if because business A saves X amount of money doing Y, they will divide that money up by the whole of society and just cut us a check. However, as we've seen, automating BART would now be done by a private company who would pocket all the profits. Pretending that this theoretical world where LaNesse does her hobbies is great seems to miss the point that she will join the ever growing ranks of Americans living in poverty. I don't even understand how statements like that are taken seriously.
- ssivark 13y agoLet alone distributing the benefits among mankind. For starters, you'd want the displaced ("obsoleted") workers to get a share of the benefits. You might ask why they deserve a share of the benefits when somebody else designed a system to replace their jobs... These are people who signed up for "risky" jobs, those which could be obsoleted within their working lifetimes. If we refuse to compensate them for that, we would face problems with people running away from any field which is "soon" to be automated, well before the jobs are actually automated. It's like asking them to hold the door open so someone could kick them out. To not compensate them (and hence ensure a smooth transition for everyone) would be tatamount to exploitation. It is interesting to note that a union of sorts will preserve employee interests in such a situation, by giving them bargaiing power.
- StandardFuture 13y agoThat Richard White guy has a blog post of his thoughts on the topic: http://rrwhite.com/on-the-inevitability-of-automation http://rrwhite.com/on-the-inevitability-of-automation And for a shameless self-plug I made a recent blog post on the same topic of automation a couple of weeks back (although from a different angle): http://standardfuture.com/post/58571196148/a-fully-automated-society-overly-simplified-and http://standardfuture.com/post/58571196148/a-fully-automated... Automation in society IS something we (especially as hackers) should feel responsible for discussing, planning for AND acting on. I know we are some fairly smart people, I just hope that we are all smart enough to take this seriously. :)
- TheZenPsycho 13y agoI bet I could write a program to automate away the job of a start-up CEO. Think of the vast amount of money we'd save! And the start up CEOs of the world, freed from the burden of making any money, could pursue their personal hobbies of... what is it exactly that they contribute to the world other than smugness anyway? I'm a bit unclear on that.
- chris_wot 13y agoThe first job I would automate would be the job of Tech CEO.
- lhl 13y agoThe problem with the arguments of people like White are that they ignore the fundamental negative consequences of automation. When workers (lets call them the "proletariat") are displaced by automation, they don't see any of society's productivity gains - those benefits are instead captured and concentrated by a smaller and smaller set of owners/capitalists (lets call them "bourgeoisie"). Yes, everyone who's displaced is now free to pursue their "hobbies" but let's not forget that the IRS (rightly) defines hobbies as unprofitable activities. It's one thing to say that you should pursue your passion, but another thing to also not provide any method to ... you know, pay for stuff. This should worry White (and us a lot more) because economic/technological logic is no doubt going to drive this displacement, but it's not going to address the resulting social instability creating a massive and literally unsustainable underclass.
- juliendorra 13y agoI'd like to point the most excellent Automation Song (1964) by Phil Ochs as still relevant here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WbSTnuXv_3Y&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWbSTnuXv_3Y http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WbSTnuXv_3Y&desktop_uri=%2Fwatc...