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I found 'Humans need not apply' utterly unconvincing. For instance, the example cited regarding computer-generated music that was supposed to prove that compute

I found 'Humans need not apply' utterly unconvincing. For instance, the example cited regarding computer-generated music that was supposed to prove that computers could write great music. But the computer-generated music that was featured in the video sounded obviously like computer-generated music, and not something that I would ever listen to.

ivanca 12y ago
The irony there is that music is going downhill anyways, without needing to be automatized, because now you buy songs instead of albums/discs or just listen to them using youtube or some free streaming service. Plus there may be a finite number of songs -distinguishable by the human hear- than can be created. Plus, single examples are low-hanging fruit, you need to attack the main reasoning or just assert plausibility.
- Ma8ee 12y ago
  It's more great music produced now than ever in history, and it is cheap and accessible for everyone. We are many orders of magnitude before we are even starting to approach the limitations of what humans can distinguish.
  - ivanca 12y ago
    Really, "more great than ever in history"? Tell me one single group that is better than Queen, one single singer better than Syd Barrett, one single song better than Stairway to Heaven. I believe there is good music out there, but saying "more great than ever in history" is just plain false.
    - Ma8ee 12y ago
      And most people are stuck in the same music they listened to during their formative years and will always consider everything done after that garbage. Consequently, for you there will never be anything better than those groups, and if I suggested anything made today you would find it incomprehensible that anyone could think that music better than your icons.
- CalRobert 12y ago
  Not sure about you but my experience is that my life is full of more amazing music than it ever has been before.
fivedogit 12y ago
You don't have to buy each point in the video (I agree about the computer music) to agree with the larger trend: human brain labor is being phased out. Some already has (aspects of car manufacturing), other large swaths are coming soon (car driving), and the laws of economics will ensure that nothing will stop it. A job is something wealthy people begrudgingly pay you to do until they can figure out how to replace you with a machine. When I watched "Humans need not apply" the first time, it was a near-religious experience for me. It framed some of the observations and frustrations I see and feel every day and helped clarify the core trend: capitalism has worked really, really well during the labor-based phase of human civilization. Will it work well when human labor is no longer required? What happens then? The obvious extension of 'Humans need not apply' is that the financial rewards of the march of technology have been concentrated in the hands of the few. The 100+ workers it used to take to work a farm aren't now chilling on a beach somewhere. The founders and stockholders of John Deere are (or their grandkids are). The workers are struggling to find work driving cabs or what-have-you, only to be crossed-out by Google in a few years. There's nowhere to hide. I applaud the entrepreneurs at John Deere and Google and they deserve every penny they made, but the concentration of liquid wealth (excluding homes and cars) into the hands of just a few is fostering profound opportunity inequality. While some folks are becoming wealthy on a scale that's hard to even wrap your brain around, what chance does an Appalachian or inner-city kid have to make it in today's world? Almost none, especially when computers can do things like drive cars. As the video states, the trend is everywhere. Take Canva, for instance. For some portion of small companies and startups, guess what? They don't need a full time graphic designer anymore. Web frameworks and cloud services have lead to the rise of the "full stack" engineer when there used to be a dedicated database person, app tier person, frontend person, etc. Everywhere A major, major inflection point of human history is coming in the next couple of decades, and there is no clear solution yet. European-style socialism doesn't work very well and obviously Russian-style oligarchy sucks. So what will we do?
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > European-style socialism doesn't work very well Citation? Because even though Americans are working themselves to death with no vacation, healthcare, or retirement guarantee, the French are more productive and enjoy (what I would argue) is a much higher quality of life: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=french+productivity+2011 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=french+productivity+2011 We should not judge quality of life by how many SUVs are in the driveway, and how many big screen TVs are in the 3K sq ft home.

ivanca 12y ago

The irony there is that music is going downhill anyways, without needing to be automatized, because now you buy songs instead of albums/discs or just listen to them using youtube or some free streaming service. Plus there may be a finite number of songs -distinguishable by the human hear- than can be created. Plus, single examples are low-hanging fruit, you need to attack the main reasoning or just assert plausibility.

Ma8ee 12y ago
It's more great music produced now than ever in history, and it is cheap and accessible for everyone. We are many orders of magnitude before we are even starting to approach the limitations of what humans can distinguish.
- ivanca 12y ago
  Really, "more great than ever in history"? Tell me one single group that is better than Queen, one single singer better than Syd Barrett, one single song better than Stairway to Heaven. I believe there is good music out there, but saying "more great than ever in history" is just plain false.
  - Ma8ee 12y ago
    And most people are stuck in the same music they listened to during their formative years and will always consider everything done after that garbage. Consequently, for you there will never be anything better than those groups, and if I suggested anything made today you would find it incomprehensible that anyone could think that music better than your icons.
CalRobert 12y ago
Not sure about you but my experience is that my life is full of more amazing music than it ever has been before.

fivedogit 12y ago

You don't have to buy each point in the video (I agree about the computer music) to agree with the larger trend: human brain labor is being phased out. Some already has (aspects of car manufacturing), other large swaths are coming soon (car driving), and the laws of economics will ensure that nothing will stop it. A job is something wealthy people begrudgingly pay you to do until they can figure out how to replace you with a machine. When I watched "Humans need not apply" the first time, it was a near-religious experience for me. It framed some of the observations and frustrations I see and feel every day and helped clarify the core trend: capitalism has worked really, really well during the labor-based phase of human civilization. Will it work well when human labor is no longer required? What happens then? The obvious extension of 'Humans need not apply' is that the financial rewards of the march of technology have been concentrated in the hands of the few. The 100+ workers it used to take to work a farm aren't now chilling on a beach somewhere. The founders and stockholders of John Deere are (or their grandkids are). The workers are struggling to find work driving cabs or what-have-you, only to be crossed-out by Google in a few years. There's nowhere to hide. I applaud the entrepreneurs at John Deere and Google and they deserve every penny they made, but the concentration of liquid wealth (excluding homes and cars) into the hands of just a few is fostering profound opportunity inequality. While some folks are becoming wealthy on a scale that's hard to even wrap your brain around, what chance does an Appalachian or inner-city kid have to make it in today's world? Almost none, especially when computers can do things like drive cars. As the video states, the trend is everywhere. Take Canva, for instance. For some portion of small companies and startups, guess what? They don't need a full time graphic designer anymore. Web frameworks and cloud services have lead to the rise of the "full stack" engineer when there used to be a dedicated database person, app tier person, frontend person, etc. Everywhere A major, major inflection point of human history is coming in the next couple of decades, and there is no clear solution yet. European-style socialism doesn't work very well and obviously Russian-style oligarchy sucks. So what will we do?

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> European-style socialism doesn't work very well Citation? Because even though Americans are working themselves to death with no vacation, healthcare, or retirement guarantee, the French are more productive and enjoy (what I would argue) is a much higher quality of life: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=french+productivity+2011 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=french+productivity+2011 We should not judge quality of life by how many SUVs are in the driveway, and how many big screen TVs are in the 3K sq ft home.