6 ms·

AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs

52 points by rpm4321 12y ago

LesZedCB 12y ago
> Throughout history, technology has been a job creator—not a job destroyer This is one argument that I have always really disagreed with. Technology doesn't inherently create jobs. Rather it makes people able to be more productive and efficient. I think that will longer stand the test of time. Hopefully someday soon we will go beyond this need for everybody to have jobs so that they can pay for food and rent. Instead we will be able to do human things. Do projects, cool hacks, make art and music, explore the universe. Why spend all our time compensating for scarcity when robotics can do it for us? That however is going to be a long transition. Especially one for the people in the US, who have such a heavy burdened work culture (i.e. if you aren't working you aren't valuable to society). Also shameless plug here for basic/guaranteed annual income.
- Vektorweg 12y ago
  I'm not sure about the art and music making. Computers will make this too and not just better, but also personalized for your brain. I think, there will be a great depression, when even creativism becomes boring.
  - normloman 12y ago
    Being creative doesn't become boring because someone else can do it better. Just trying to express yourself is fun. If it weren't, nobody would participate in amateur hour or open mic nights.
    - bsoares 12y ago
      I agree 100%. The idea of automating creativity is ludicrous. Creativity is what being human is all about and the universe we live in is infinitely vast and full of endless paths to explore.
      - krapp 12y ago
        >The idea of automating creativity is ludicrous. No it isn't. Not anymore ludicrous than automating anything else, just far more complex in its implementation. It's not impossible. >the universe we live in is infinitely vast and full of endless paths to explore. Yes, but human beings are not infinite, nor is their capacity for creative thought. We're bound by finite time, space, perception, culture and neurology. Therefore, I believe human creativity is a process which can be modeled, replicated and mass produced just as human labor can. There's nothing special or magic about it, it's just a nut we haven't cracked yet. But then, there was a time when the concept of a machine doing math was unthinkable as well, and a machine doing cryptography, and a machine playing Jeopardy, etc. Consider how formulaic much of modern popular culture is. Do you really think it's impossible for an AI, with access to the entire web and, theoretically, working neural models, to churn out an acceptable dime store novel or movie or video game? We're not talking about genius, here, we're talking about commerce. People will buy it. And if people will buy it coming from a machine, there's no longer any reason to pay humans to generate it. It doesn't even really have to be better than what humans would produce - just acceptable.
        taroth 12y ago
        I think the point the above posters were making is that people will continue to create for fun, even if machines are better at it.
        bsoares 12y ago
        This is exactly my point. Creativity is not a mindless endeavor in need of automation. It is the heart of human existence, no matter how finite your world view considers it.
        krapp 12y ago
        I agree that creativity is as important to the human experience as you say. But that still doesn't mean the industry of creativity won't suffer the same drive for automation as every other, or that it can't be generated by machines. I don't think there's actually a contradiction here, people will still be creative, but more and more popular culture will be algorithmically generated - the jobs for creative work, and the support work, may not be there. Although that does also suggest that human-generated creative works may become more valuable for their rarity.
    - kefka 12y ago
      Being creative can also be doing things like this: http://hackaday.io/project/2021-3D%28ollar%29-Scanner http://hackaday.io/project/2021-3D%28ollar%29-Scanner Yep. It's mine.
  - hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
    > I think, there will be a great depression, when even creativism becomes boring. The entertainment industry has never been so big and it doesn't stop growing, so I guess the trend hints at the opposite. Electronic games weren't a thing 30 years ago, online games weren't a thing 10 years ago, both are now big industries. I bet more in technology introducing new medias (e.g. Oculus) and aiding on better / cheaper / faster content creation than completely automating creative work.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mentos 12y ago
Considering cars are made by robots I always wondered why a big company like McDonalds couldn't do similar when making its cheeseburgers. Never researched it until now but looks like there is a machine capable: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaurant-minimum-wage-crushing-burger-flipping-robot http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaura...
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  I look forward to completely automated fast food. Drive up, wave my RFID tag near a sensor, get a menu of last 5 thinks I ordered, touch screen, plop! Bag drops out chute, clean and hot and just the way I like it.
pinkyand 12y ago
We're always hearing "there will be new kinds of jobs", but never what those jobs will be , how many they could be in number or any relevant detail to that claim. Why is that ?have we no sense of imagination ? Or is it that the claim is just an easy comforting truism(that preservers the current order) and nothing but ?
- gipp 12y ago
  Do you think people in Turing's time could have possibly envisioned the existence or proliferation of the role of "developer"? Not saying you're right or wrong, but our inability to envision future jobs, or lack thereof, doesn't mean much one way or the other.
  - JeremyReimer 12y ago
    It's hard to see developer jobs (as awesome as they are) replacing displaced jobs on a massive scale. I was listening to an NPR podcast where they estimated that only one percent of workers in the United States are employed as software developers.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    > Do you think people in Turing's time could have possibly envisioned the existence or proliferation of the role of "developer"? Yes, I do. Before that there were already people that spent most of their time creating algorithms, and programming machines.
- thinkingkong 12y ago
  Perhaps there is net job creation but not for the people who are immediately displaced. The jobs figures are treated like some pool, and it ignores the fact that many people can't adapt their existing skill set to the jobs that were created. For example, 100,000 truckers are put out of work by a truck that drives itself. There might be 100,000 other jobs created - we might all get to work less one day - but for those 100,000 truckers, the number of them becoming automation developers is probably pretty low.
jbarrow 12y ago
Reading articles like this I'm often reminded of Amara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." In terms of overestimation in the short term, it seems to me that although we are trending towards automative technologies, 11 years seems like far too short a span for those technologies to have "displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers." Meanwhile, in the long term, the time frame these technologies actually need to have fully permeated, we don't know what types of jobs or how many will be brought about by their existence.
- tmp1234519029 12y ago
  Exactly my feeling. Although I can't blame someone for overestimating the impact of automation on his jobs and preparing for it. Those who underestimate AIs will pay a hefty price. Anyway, I don't think the "when" is really interesting to think about, especially when it's an arbitrary date. I prefer to ponder on much more significant and inevitable events/thresholds such as when AIs will surpass humans in every aspect. In my opinion, as long as AIs are inferior to humans in terms of intelligence, there will be jobs for most people, but past this point the concept of "work" is not event relevant anymore. And don't tell me "people will always need interaction with other people". That's clearly underestimating the capacity of future generations to identify with highly intelligent and sentient robots.
soperj 12y ago
You could pretty much eliminate all mcdonalds staff already with a vending machine that has a conveyor belt that runs under a heating element(like they do at quiznos), and sprays some condiments on a bun. All you'd need then is someone to replenish the vending machine. So artificial intelligence isn't even necessary.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Has to be self-cleaning, sense outages, package up the food and bag it. Respond to disruptions (conveyor broke; ketchup dispenser leaking etc). AI could be useful.
  - soperj 12y ago
    Or just sensors? I doubt that the McDonalds grill is cleaned at all during the day. If that were the only issue, you could get someone in every night and clean it/restock it. You certainly don't need AI to bag a meal (or even just _I_ for that matter). I'm just trying to say that really a lot of the work can be replaced already but they haven't done it yet. Why?
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      I think you want to automate the whole 'food chain', end to end, to make it profitable. Else you have robots AND employees, which costs more than one or the other.
      - soperj 12y ago
        Still cheaper to pay someone for 1 hour to clean & re-stock then to pay them for 8 hours to cook, as long as the machinery costs & maintenance is cheaper in the long run.
- seizethecheese 12y ago
  You'd need supervising staff with real technical skills, whose wage is the clear barrier here, not the tech involved. A sufficiently high minimum wage might do the trick.
nova 12y ago
I don't get this issue. Let the robots have all the jobs.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Disruption of the economy. What if they had Your job? And you couldn't find another one.
  - bsoares 12y ago
    The real question that intrigues me is why have a job in the first place? Obviously the current system derived from capitalism requires that we either work or own, but this doesn't make it the right path for mankind.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

52 points by rpm4321 12y ago

> Throughout history, technology has been a job creator—not a job destroyer This is one argument that I have always really disagreed with. Technology doesn't inherently create jobs. Rather it makes people able to be more productive and efficient. I think that will longer stand the test of time. Hopefully someday soon we will go beyond this need for everybody to have jobs so that they can pay for food and rent. Instead we will be able to do human things. Do projects, cool hacks, make art and music, explore the universe. Why spend all our time compensating for scarcity when robotics can do it for us? That however is going to be a long transition. Especially one for the people in the US, who have such a heavy burdened work culture (i.e. if you aren't working you aren't valuable to society). Also shameless plug here for basic/guaranteed annual income.

Vektorweg 12y ago
I'm not sure about the art and music making. Computers will make this too and not just better, but also personalized for your brain. I think, there will be a great depression, when even creativism becomes boring.
- normloman 12y ago
  Being creative doesn't become boring because someone else can do it better. Just trying to express yourself is fun. If it weren't, nobody would participate in amateur hour or open mic nights.
  - bsoares 12y ago
    I agree 100%. The idea of automating creativity is ludicrous. Creativity is what being human is all about and the universe we live in is infinitely vast and full of endless paths to explore.
    - krapp 12y ago
      >The idea of automating creativity is ludicrous. No it isn't. Not anymore ludicrous than automating anything else, just far more complex in its implementation. It's not impossible. >the universe we live in is infinitely vast and full of endless paths to explore. Yes, but human beings are not infinite, nor is their capacity for creative thought. We're bound by finite time, space, perception, culture and neurology. Therefore, I believe human creativity is a process which can be modeled, replicated and mass produced just as human labor can. There's nothing special or magic about it, it's just a nut we haven't cracked yet. But then, there was a time when the concept of a machine doing math was unthinkable as well, and a machine doing cryptography, and a machine playing Jeopardy, etc. Consider how formulaic much of modern popular culture is. Do you really think it's impossible for an AI, with access to the entire web and, theoretically, working neural models, to churn out an acceptable dime store novel or movie or video game? We're not talking about genius, here, we're talking about commerce. People will buy it. And if people will buy it coming from a machine, there's no longer any reason to pay humans to generate it. It doesn't even really have to be better than what humans would produce - just acceptable.
      - taroth 12y ago
        I think the point the above posters were making is that people will continue to create for fun, even if machines are better at it.
        bsoares 12y ago
        This is exactly my point. Creativity is not a mindless endeavor in need of automation. It is the heart of human existence, no matter how finite your world view considers it.
        krapp 12y ago
        I agree that creativity is as important to the human experience as you say. But that still doesn't mean the industry of creativity won't suffer the same drive for automation as every other, or that it can't be generated by machines. I don't think there's actually a contradiction here, people will still be creative, but more and more popular culture will be algorithmically generated - the jobs for creative work, and the support work, may not be there. Although that does also suggest that human-generated creative works may become more valuable for their rarity.
  - kefka 12y ago
    Being creative can also be doing things like this: http://hackaday.io/project/2021-3D%28ollar%29-Scanner http://hackaday.io/project/2021-3D%28ollar%29-Scanner Yep. It's mine.
- hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
  > I think, there will be a great depression, when even creativism becomes boring. The entertainment industry has never been so big and it doesn't stop growing, so I guess the trend hints at the opposite. Electronic games weren't a thing 30 years ago, online games weren't a thing 10 years ago, both are now big industries. I bet more in technology introducing new medias (e.g. Oculus) and aiding on better / cheaper / faster content creation than completely automating creative work.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mentos 12y ago

Considering cars are made by robots I always wondered why a big company like McDonalds couldn't do similar when making its cheeseburgers. Never researched it until now but looks like there is a machine capable: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaurant-minimum-wage-crushing-burger-flipping-robot http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-12/meet-smart-restaura...

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
I look forward to completely automated fast food. Drive up, wave my RFID tag near a sensor, get a menu of last 5 thinks I ordered, touch screen, plop! Bag drops out chute, clean and hot and just the way I like it.

pinkyand 12y ago

We're always hearing "there will be new kinds of jobs", but never what those jobs will be , how many they could be in number or any relevant detail to that claim. Why is that ?have we no sense of imagination ? Or is it that the claim is just an easy comforting truism(that preservers the current order) and nothing but ?

gipp 12y ago
Do you think people in Turing's time could have possibly envisioned the existence or proliferation of the role of "developer"? Not saying you're right or wrong, but our inability to envision future jobs, or lack thereof, doesn't mean much one way or the other.
- JeremyReimer 12y ago
  It's hard to see developer jobs (as awesome as they are) replacing displaced jobs on a massive scale. I was listening to an NPR podcast where they estimated that only one percent of workers in the United States are employed as software developers.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  > Do you think people in Turing's time could have possibly envisioned the existence or proliferation of the role of "developer"? Yes, I do. Before that there were already people that spent most of their time creating algorithms, and programming machines.
thinkingkong 12y ago
Perhaps there is net job creation but not for the people who are immediately displaced. The jobs figures are treated like some pool, and it ignores the fact that many people can't adapt their existing skill set to the jobs that were created. For example, 100,000 truckers are put out of work by a truck that drives itself. There might be 100,000 other jobs created - we might all get to work less one day - but for those 100,000 truckers, the number of them becoming automation developers is probably pretty low.

jbarrow 12y ago

Reading articles like this I'm often reminded of Amara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." In terms of overestimation in the short term, it seems to me that although we are trending towards automative technologies, 11 years seems like far too short a span for those technologies to have "displaced significant numbers of both blue- and white-collar workers." Meanwhile, in the long term, the time frame these technologies actually need to have fully permeated, we don't know what types of jobs or how many will be brought about by their existence.

tmp1234519029 12y ago
Exactly my feeling. Although I can't blame someone for overestimating the impact of automation on his jobs and preparing for it. Those who underestimate AIs will pay a hefty price. Anyway, I don't think the "when" is really interesting to think about, especially when it's an arbitrary date. I prefer to ponder on much more significant and inevitable events/thresholds such as when AIs will surpass humans in every aspect. In my opinion, as long as AIs are inferior to humans in terms of intelligence, there will be jobs for most people, but past this point the concept of "work" is not event relevant anymore. And don't tell me "people will always need interaction with other people". That's clearly underestimating the capacity of future generations to identify with highly intelligent and sentient robots.

soperj 12y ago

You could pretty much eliminate all mcdonalds staff already with a vending machine that has a conveyor belt that runs under a heating element(like they do at quiznos), and sprays some condiments on a bun. All you'd need then is someone to replenish the vending machine. So artificial intelligence isn't even necessary.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Has to be self-cleaning, sense outages, package up the food and bag it. Respond to disruptions (conveyor broke; ketchup dispenser leaking etc). AI could be useful.
- soperj 12y ago
  Or just sensors? I doubt that the McDonalds grill is cleaned at all during the day. If that were the only issue, you could get someone in every night and clean it/restock it. You certainly don't need AI to bag a meal (or even just _I_ for that matter). I'm just trying to say that really a lot of the work can be replaced already but they haven't done it yet. Why?
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    I think you want to automate the whole 'food chain', end to end, to make it profitable. Else you have robots AND employees, which costs more than one or the other.
    - soperj 12y ago
      Still cheaper to pay someone for 1 hour to clean & re-stock then to pay them for 8 hours to cook, as long as the machinery costs & maintenance is cheaper in the long run.
seizethecheese 12y ago
You'd need supervising staff with real technical skills, whose wage is the clear barrier here, not the tech involved. A sufficiently high minimum wage might do the trick.

nova 12y ago

I don't get this issue. Let the robots have all the jobs.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Disruption of the economy. What if they had Your job? And you couldn't find another one.
- bsoares 12y ago
  The real question that intrigues me is why have a job in the first place? Obviously the current system derived from capitalism requires that we either work or own, but this doesn't make it the right path for mankind.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]