5 ms·

Excellent analysis from first principles. However, this is an extremely simple model. In reality, human ability is roughly distributed normally about a mean. Te

by FD3SA 13y ago

Excellent analysis from first principles. However, this is an extremely simple model. In reality, human ability is roughly distributed normally about a mean. Technological progress began automating work starting at the very left tail, and worked its way along to the right. This progress has shown no signs of slowing down. How do you imagine a society will look, when only those with abilities four standard deviations from the mean can compete in the labor market? This is known as "winner-take-all", or the superstar effect. By your example, the majority of mankind will be at the whims of an extremely tiny elite, due to their lack of marketable skills. What happened to horses after the onset of the automobile?

jrs99 13y ago
are you talking about a world in which robots perform surgery better than surgeons?
- tiglionabbit 13y ago
  Probably not. Surgeon is a highly skilled occupation. He's referring to a world where only Surgeons (and equally skilled people) can get any money at all.
  - baddox 13y ago
    But that's a fallacious idea. If only surgeons and equally skilled people get any money, where is that money coming from?
    - sergiosgc 13y ago
      Excellent question. Capitalism is a model to allocate scarce resources where they are most productive. Take scarcity out of the equation and suddenly Capitalism makes a lot less sense. What comes afterwards? I have no idea. Everytime one imagines a post-scarcity world under our current model, questions like yours arise; a symptom that at some point in the future, we'll need to invent and transition to a new society model. It's pretty obvious it's not the current model, it's entirely non-obvious which model will it be.
      - nickff 13y ago
        There is and always will be scarcity, whether it is in gold, helium, cars, rockets, airplanes, ships, real estate, the time of skilled labor, new ideas, or thoughtful conversations. The market is a tool for allocating resources efficiently, and a non-functioning or non-existent market will cause waste, and eventually (create or) exacerbate scarcity.
      - dnautics 13y ago
        Capitalism is not a model to allocate scarce resources, although there is good reason to believe it is more efficient than socialism. It is a system to allocate rivalrous resources in a system that uses a minimum of political involvement. Why is an economic allocation preferable to a political allocation? Because in order to use your economic power, you have to give it away (or at least, offer to give it away). This is not true for political allocation: cronies enrich each other often without giving away anything; popularity can snowball as people join bandwagons... So political allocation is a more dangerous system for creating haves- and have-nots, widening the gap between the chosen and the left behind, than economic allocation.
    - lmm 13y ago
      The super-efficient robot factories owned by the few super-elites who had the skills or wealth to acquire them.
- tikhonj 13y ago
  A world where Watson 5.0 is hooked up to an SRI trauma pod? No, he isn't talking about that, but it's not exactly implausible. What he is taking about is when anything short of surgery or other expert creative work is automated. Which is likely to happen even sooner.
- hershel 13y ago
  Why not ? It's already possible to do surgery without cuts in some cases , using an ultrasound beam to kill cells you want to kill[1]. The doctor just needs to choose which area needs this, using an MRI machine that looks into the body in real time. They claim remarkable results , and very fast procedure time, and immediate release to home after surgery. And one could imagine software optimized to choosing which cells to kill, So this work could be fully automated. [1]https://www.solveforx.com/moonshots/yoav-medan-ultrasound-surgery-healing-without-cuts https://www.solveforx.com/moonshots/yoav-medan-ultrasound-su...
hershel 13y ago
I agree with you in general, but sometimes automating simple tasks like vision are coordination are much more complicated than a automating a complex cognitive task . Hell we had tools doing part or whole medical diagnosis and treatment recommendations for a long time ago, some more accurate than the average doc.

by FD3SA 13y ago

jrs99 13y ago

are you talking about a world in which robots perform surgery better than surgeons?

tiglionabbit 13y ago
Probably not. Surgeon is a highly skilled occupation. He's referring to a world where only Surgeons (and equally skilled people) can get any money at all.
- baddox 13y ago
  But that's a fallacious idea. If only surgeons and equally skilled people get any money, where is that money coming from?
  - sergiosgc 13y ago
    Excellent question. Capitalism is a model to allocate scarce resources where they are most productive. Take scarcity out of the equation and suddenly Capitalism makes a lot less sense. What comes afterwards? I have no idea. Everytime one imagines a post-scarcity world under our current model, questions like yours arise; a symptom that at some point in the future, we'll need to invent and transition to a new society model. It's pretty obvious it's not the current model, it's entirely non-obvious which model will it be.
    - nickff 13y ago
      There is and always will be scarcity, whether it is in gold, helium, cars, rockets, airplanes, ships, real estate, the time of skilled labor, new ideas, or thoughtful conversations. The market is a tool for allocating resources efficiently, and a non-functioning or non-existent market will cause waste, and eventually (create or) exacerbate scarcity.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      Capitalism is not a model to allocate scarce resources, although there is good reason to believe it is more efficient than socialism. It is a system to allocate rivalrous resources in a system that uses a minimum of political involvement. Why is an economic allocation preferable to a political allocation? Because in order to use your economic power, you have to give it away (or at least, offer to give it away). This is not true for political allocation: cronies enrich each other often without giving away anything; popularity can snowball as people join bandwagons... So political allocation is a more dangerous system for creating haves- and have-nots, widening the gap between the chosen and the left behind, than economic allocation.
  - lmm 13y ago
    The super-efficient robot factories owned by the few super-elites who had the skills or wealth to acquire them.
tikhonj 13y ago
A world where Watson 5.0 is hooked up to an SRI trauma pod? No, he isn't talking about that, but it's not exactly implausible. What he is taking about is when anything short of surgery or other expert creative work is automated. Which is likely to happen even sooner.
hershel 13y ago
Why not ? It's already possible to do surgery without cuts in some cases , using an ultrasound beam to kill cells you want to kill[1]. The doctor just needs to choose which area needs this, using an MRI machine that looks into the body in real time. They claim remarkable results , and very fast procedure time, and immediate release to home after surgery. And one could imagine software optimized to choosing which cells to kill, So this work could be fully automated. [1]https://www.solveforx.com/moonshots/yoav-medan-ultrasound-surgery-healing-without-cuts https://www.solveforx.com/moonshots/yoav-medan-ultrasound-su...

hershel 13y ago

I agree with you in general, but sometimes automating simple tasks like vision are coordination are much more complicated than a automating a complex cognitive task . Hell we had tools doing part or whole medical diagnosis and treatment recommendations for a long time ago, some more accurate than the average doc.