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Economist Robin Hanson has a good talk about the economics of nanotech and AI: http://vimeo.com/9508131 http://vimeo.com/9508131 Around 22 minutes in, he talks
by ggreer 13y ago
Economist Robin Hanson has a good talk about the economics of nanotech and AI: http://vimeo.com/9508131 http://vimeo.com/9508131
Around 22 minutes in, he talks about whether labor and capital (machines) are complements or substitutes.
I'll summarize his argument for the time-constrained: There are many tasks that need to be done in an economy. Machines are more efficient at some of these tasks, humans at others. Over time, machines have been able to do a greater portion of these tasks efficiently.
Today, machines are mostly complements. They help humans do tasks more efficiently. But as machines get better, they're able to do a larger portion of tasks. At some point, they'll start substituting for people. This has happened for some basic jobs in the past, but not to the extent we'll soon see.
On the bright side, the limiting factor in most of our economy today is people. Machines can be mass-produced, but raising and training people is hard. Machines can augment people, but run into diminishing returns. Having two monitors won't make you twice as productive, and two keyboards won't let you type twice as fast. If we can do all the tasks in our economy without people, we can get insane growth rates in GDP.
Unfortunately, with no people in the economy, everyone would be out of work. Only the machine owners (or investors) would benefit. Everyone else would be dependent on social programs or charity.
In Robin's example, AI is the machine that can do all tasks. But we don't need to build such amazing machines before putting a lot of people out of work. Most jobs are not AI-complete.
- avmich 13y agoImagine how nicely this problem - with machines gradually becoming better - would play out in a country resembling Soviet Union. In SU, everyone works for government, and salaries aren't too different. So, with greater and greater employment of robotics, salaries can gradually rise, and working hours gradually decrease - and the whole society gets benefits more or less at the same time. More money supports demand for products - to some extent - and more time allow to improve the quality of life - people devote more time to kids, to arts, to each other, to interesting ideas etc.
- georgemcbay 13y ago"In Robin's example, AI is the machine that can do all tasks. But we don't need to build such amazing machines before putting a lot of people out of work. Most jobs are not AI-complete." I didn't watch the video yet, but one thing often missed in the whole automation debate is that for a given task, you don't need to replace 100% of the people to cause great, painful economic shifts. Just complementary-automating things enough so that 5 people can do the work that 10 people used to do is incredibly impactful.
- handzhiev 13y agoI don't understand why everyone says only rich people will own machines. Once robots become that good to replace humans everywhere, they will also be able to produce more robots, thus making themselves incredibly cheap. So everyone, even on social payments, would be able to get a robot to produce the goods and services they need.