4 ms·

I think the role of automation is misunderstood. The issue here is not that human work is becoming less and less necessary. That would be true if automation sol

by avz 12y ago

I think the role of automation is misunderstood. The issue here is not that human work is becoming less and less necessary. That would be true if automation solved the challenges humans can solve, but the truth is there are a lot of very hard problems which require human attention from cancer to global warming to food supply to improving the odds of survival of humanity by settling other planets. These are difficult problems and not enough human potential is being thrown at them. The real issue is that decades of neglect have led to substantial under investment in human capital and so large number of people are unable to contribute where human attention is most required. This brings about suffering for the people involved and slows progress for everyone else. Charitable payments like basic income or social welfare free up a lot of recipient's time that they'd otherwise need to spend at work. They could use this time to develop useful skills and expertise. How about gating the level of state support on the recipient's commitment to acquire skills and expertise necessary to solve important problems?

arethuza 12y ago
Who defines that the "important problems" are? And what about the people who, even with all the commitment in the world, can't make it to a level where they can contribute to the solution of these "important problems"?
- avz 12y ago
  Preferably HN, but I'm open to suggestions ;-)
- avz 12y ago
  A person on benefits could try out different things until they found something that works for them. This would allow them to explore a set of disciplines and problems far larger than what people are able to explore today. If they embrace failure and move on to something that fascinates them next, I think they'd be very likely to eventually succeed. Bottom line is that even if not everyone does, we'll all be a lot better off.
- Liesmith 12y ago
  There's no one who can't contribute to important problems. You assume that they are all related to intelligence but you are wrong. Wal-Mart Greeters and nursery caregivers and hospital candystripers are all solving important, impossible to automate problems in our society. All they need is the ability to care about other people and perform fairly simple tasks and provide a warm, human presence when that is called for.
  - waps 12y ago
    That's true. However most people are just completely beside the point, because they are not capable of making real changes happen, and don't really care. Don't put in the effort. For 99% of San Franciscans, climate change activism's purpose is meeting a boy/girlfriend and/or getting votes, not actually doing anything about the climate. So we should really, really, really make sure people get force-fed some basic economics, and stop all this obnoxious efforts that cannot succeed. Right now pretty much all efforts to "fight climate change" are not Nash equilibria. As such, they can only fail (except, of course, when it comes to delivering boy/girlfriends/votes). It is blatantly obvious what we need. We need an economically sound reason to fight climate change (e.g. "solar is cheaper", but can only work if next point is addressed), and we need improved energy storage facilities, at the very least matching oil. There are so many things that could work it's hard to choose where to focus, but looking at actual efforts in these spaces, the effort spent there is dismal. E.g. improve the fisher-tropsch process to produce oil from sunlight + water + co2. Build denser batteries. Improve supercapacitors. Build a viable flywheel battery. But the 999th convention in some clubhouse preaching to the choir about "the need for urgent action", and laws that just make everyone's situation worse while encouraging outsourcing ... that we do not need. Also, given that they do cost resources and cause problems, it would be better not to have anything done at all, when it comes to laws and treaties and preaching. Most of these efforts run afoul of the broken window fallacy : as long as you can't deal with the problem as a whole in a way that doesn't depend on government intervention, or only depends on world-wide inescapable government intervention, anything you do damages some subset of society in some way. So it is NOT a positive. As long as some people don't care about climate, or some governments (ie. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, ...) resist, any effort to fight climate change through treaties and laws is useless and counter-productive. The problem, of course, is that all the real problems are hard. Finding a Nash-equilibrium given all the parameters is not something anybody has been able to do so far (though, if not for the energy storage problem, solar could be a very good answer). So here's what people should do : they should, first, learn economics, physics, chemistry, ..., second, find a way to make this happen. I'm very hopeful for massive solar installations, but that is pretty much the only effort I see to have any hope of success at this point. Contribute to that. Buy some solar city stock, at the very fucking least.
Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
However, the sad truth is that most people do not have the intellectual capabilities to do significant research in those hard problems. So I agree with the grandparent post.
- avz 12y ago
  Intellectual capability is not a fixed parameter for every person. If there is anything we're better at than the current automation, it is the ability to adapt.
  - adrianN 12y ago
    Are you seriously claiming that a large fraction of the population can, with some elbow grease, do cutting edge research? Most people I know struggle with the science they have to learn in school.
    - avz 12y ago
      I'm claiming that with some elbow grease people can increase the fraction of the population which can do the research. I'm not sure what the upper bound on the fraction would be, but so far historical record shows it steadily increasing. We should work at it and see where we can get. (And hopefully by the time we bump against the ceiling implants and genetics will come to our aid.)
- ap22213 12y ago
  I think more importantly, the cost for participating in such work is way too high. Imagine that you're one in the small percent of people with the capacity to do this work. (Some of you may be in that group.) Think about how hard it would be to try to participate, assuming you're not 'in the network'.
- Liesmith 12y ago
  Again, intellectual capabilities are not what makes you immune to automation. We can make smart robots. We can't make those smart robots visit cancer patients in a hospital, or serve me food while playing a violin at a restaurant at my tenth wedding anniversary, or perform a moving and/or erotic song and dance at a concert. Well, we could, but none of those things would go over well or have the desired effect. We also can't make a robot to make startling leaps like "hey, I think the PHASES OF THE MOON are controlling the strength of the tides! Holy crap!" only one of those three jobs is necessarily a product of intelligence.

by avz 12y ago

arethuza 12y ago

Who defines that the "important problems" are? And what about the people who, even with all the commitment in the world, can't make it to a level where they can contribute to the solution of these "important problems"?

avz 12y ago
Preferably HN, but I'm open to suggestions ;-)
avz 12y ago
A person on benefits could try out different things until they found something that works for them. This would allow them to explore a set of disciplines and problems far larger than what people are able to explore today. If they embrace failure and move on to something that fascinates them next, I think they'd be very likely to eventually succeed. Bottom line is that even if not everyone does, we'll all be a lot better off.
Liesmith 12y ago
There's no one who can't contribute to important problems. You assume that they are all related to intelligence but you are wrong. Wal-Mart Greeters and nursery caregivers and hospital candystripers are all solving important, impossible to automate problems in our society. All they need is the ability to care about other people and perform fairly simple tasks and provide a warm, human presence when that is called for.
- waps 12y ago
  That's true. However most people are just completely beside the point, because they are not capable of making real changes happen, and don't really care. Don't put in the effort. For 99% of San Franciscans, climate change activism's purpose is meeting a boy/girlfriend and/or getting votes, not actually doing anything about the climate. So we should really, really, really make sure people get force-fed some basic economics, and stop all this obnoxious efforts that cannot succeed. Right now pretty much all efforts to "fight climate change" are not Nash equilibria. As such, they can only fail (except, of course, when it comes to delivering boy/girlfriends/votes). It is blatantly obvious what we need. We need an economically sound reason to fight climate change (e.g. "solar is cheaper", but can only work if next point is addressed), and we need improved energy storage facilities, at the very least matching oil. There are so many things that could work it's hard to choose where to focus, but looking at actual efforts in these spaces, the effort spent there is dismal. E.g. improve the fisher-tropsch process to produce oil from sunlight + water + co2. Build denser batteries. Improve supercapacitors. Build a viable flywheel battery. But the 999th convention in some clubhouse preaching to the choir about "the need for urgent action", and laws that just make everyone's situation worse while encouraging outsourcing ... that we do not need. Also, given that they do cost resources and cause problems, it would be better not to have anything done at all, when it comes to laws and treaties and preaching. Most of these efforts run afoul of the broken window fallacy : as long as you can't deal with the problem as a whole in a way that doesn't depend on government intervention, or only depends on world-wide inescapable government intervention, anything you do damages some subset of society in some way. So it is NOT a positive. As long as some people don't care about climate, or some governments (ie. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, ...) resist, any effort to fight climate change through treaties and laws is useless and counter-productive. The problem, of course, is that all the real problems are hard. Finding a Nash-equilibrium given all the parameters is not something anybody has been able to do so far (though, if not for the energy storage problem, solar could be a very good answer). So here's what people should do : they should, first, learn economics, physics, chemistry, ..., second, find a way to make this happen. I'm very hopeful for massive solar installations, but that is pretty much the only effort I see to have any hope of success at this point. Contribute to that. Buy some solar city stock, at the very fucking least.

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago

However, the sad truth is that most people do not have the intellectual capabilities to do significant research in those hard problems. So I agree with the grandparent post.

avz 12y ago
Intellectual capability is not a fixed parameter for every person. If there is anything we're better at than the current automation, it is the ability to adapt.
- adrianN 12y ago
  Are you seriously claiming that a large fraction of the population can, with some elbow grease, do cutting edge research? Most people I know struggle with the science they have to learn in school.
  - avz 12y ago
    I'm claiming that with some elbow grease people can increase the fraction of the population which can do the research. I'm not sure what the upper bound on the fraction would be, but so far historical record shows it steadily increasing. We should work at it and see where we can get. (And hopefully by the time we bump against the ceiling implants and genetics will come to our aid.)
ap22213 12y ago
I think more importantly, the cost for participating in such work is way too high. Imagine that you're one in the small percent of people with the capacity to do this work. (Some of you may be in that group.) Think about how hard it would be to try to participate, assuming you're not 'in the network'.
Liesmith 12y ago
Again, intellectual capabilities are not what makes you immune to automation. We can make smart robots. We can't make those smart robots visit cancer patients in a hospital, or serve me food while playing a violin at a restaurant at my tenth wedding anniversary, or perform a moving and/or erotic song and dance at a concert. Well, we could, but none of those things would go over well or have the desired effect. We also can't make a robot to make startling leaps like "hey, I think the PHASES OF THE MOON are controlling the strength of the tides! Holy crap!" only one of those three jobs is necessarily a product of intelligence.