Automation, Robotics, and AI - The New Job Market

:blush: My bad, I started reading the sentence & went into autopilot "So it's not that the machines would be our slaves, it's that..."

Anyway, I don't want to be a pet. If that's humanity's goal that's pretty sad.

I think the vision of becoming a cyborg myself is much more inspiring (though still a lil weird)
 
We've been chatting about it for thousands of years, still no solution in sight.

Maybe. But in the meantime we've had a multi-century trend of increasing productivity as well as become used to the idea that redundant labourers are a good thing, since it allows us to create new products and services. So, it's a matter of thinking of new solutions to old problems (i.e., people being 'worth' a living wage)
 
:blush: My bad, I started reading the sentence & went into autopilot "So it's not that the machines would be our slaves, it's that..."

Anyway, I don't want to be a pet. If that's humanity's goal that's pretty sad.

I think the vision of becoming a cyborg myself is much more inspiring (though still a lil weird)

I actually wouldn't be surprised if what really ends up happening is humanity ends up merging with machines to the point that the two become indistinguishable from each other. In fact, that may be how machines end up achieving sapience.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that world either since it would more or less achieve the same result of a struggle-free existence.
 
Not saying it would be the end of humanity's days of labor, it would just be the end of humanity's days of compulsory labor. People would be free to work if they want to, but no one would have to work to meet their basic survival needs.

Eventually we will reach the point where even high-level human functions, such as corporate executives and high-level government positions can be placed in the hands of an AI. At that point, there will no longer be an elite ruling class to exploit the masses. At that point everyone just gets taken care of by the various machines we have built to run and maintain our civilization.

Call me a skeptic if you will, but once machines come around, what use will the people who own the machines have for the masses? And if those people have no use then they will get nothing, starve and die. So I suppose in one sense that is the end of their days of labor compulsory or otherwise.
 
I recently read Ford's book as well. He does a very good job of showing how this time really is different. The economy was able to adjust and make jobs for people displaced by manufacturing equipment in the past, but now that robots have gained the ability to read, interpret images, move around in physical environments based on sensory data, write sensible text, look up appropriate information from massive databases, etc., even most of the service jobs that were created in response to the decline of employment in manufacturing are at serious risk. Because most jobs are funamentally routine and repetitive, automation now threatens most jobs. Further, the relentless progress of Moore's Law has led to automation becoming competitive with even poorly-paid workers abroad and in industries like fast food. Increasing the level of education in the population seems to have just triggered an arms race of credentialism rather than driving down long-term unemployment in the population as a whole.

It's physically possible for society to respond to this by letting everyone work fewer hours for the same pay, guaranteeing a reasonable minimum income to people whether they're employed or not, and the like. But of course this isn't how capitalism works: instead, those who own the increasingly productive capital make large sums of money while anybody left unemployed is left to suffer, and lower prices for consumer goods doesn't do much to make their lives easier. And there doesn't seem to be any sign that this situation will be responded to by strengthening the welfare state: overall, social welfare programs are being weakened rather than strengthened. Ford doesn't really seem to have a solution other than advocating a guaranteed minimum income and the like, but while I agree, I don't see any political will for this at all.
I've been saying exactly this for a long time and most people's response is that I'm being "too pessimistic" or that "I'm sure we'll think of something." :mad:
 
We still need a mechanism by which the people who own the food will give the food to people who cannot provide any service of value.

Hang em high if they don't.
 
I've been saying exactly this for a long time and most people's response is that I'm being "too pessimistic" or that "I'm sure we'll think of something." :mad:
I was only really convinced that this is a serious problem earlier this year after dismissing it for years. There are a few things that cause people to dismiss the argument, including that this effect has been feared for quite a while (back at least to the original Luddites) without materializing and that it sometimes gets conflated with the view that "robots are making work obsolete" or "they'll throw everyone out of work" or that a variety of science fiction about sentient AIs is coming true. I don't think any of those are well-supported at least for now - computers really don't think much like humans and are still just tools, and some jobs will resist automation for a long time or possibly forever.

But it doesn't take sentient AI or a total loss of employment for everyone in order to cause huge problems. It seems to take the form of a slow, uneven decline in employment growth that results in fewer jobs being created per capita than there were in the 1945-2000 period. One thing Ford mentions that I found interesting is that Google is making more income in real terms than GM was at the peak of American car manufacturing, but employs only about 5% as many people. It actually employs relatively many people - most successful start-ups have less than 10 employees despite large market valuations. Granted this doesn't count associated jobs in IT and other computer-related industries, but the number of computer programmers and related professions overall is still quite small for the size of the software industry.

The combination of the phenomenal success of Moore's law in hardware and improvements in software algorithms has finally given computers enough power to read and interpret images, words, and voices, write coherent news stories, and predict broad patterns of human behavior by statistical analysis. They apply methods that are very different from humans; for instance, they may store billions of human communications to extract patterns that allow them to recognize what words are likely to be associated with what other ones and then look up vast troves of data to make a match and, say, recognize an object visually. Because most jobs are fundamentally routine, once computers have enough power to do things that humans are comparatively good at like image recognition and interacting with their environment, taking over a variety of jobs happens quite quickly as the price for a given amount of computing power continues to fall exponentially, rapidly outcompeting expensive, unreliable humans.

This realization seems to be very slowly dawning on a few economists, but it's probably going to take at least a decade before it becomes mainstream. Here's Larry Summers talking about the effect of technological innovation, where he makes some tentative but rather bleak conclusions. (starting around 34:00).


Link to video.
 
I've been saying exactly this for a long time and most people's response is that I'm being "too pessimistic" or that "I'm sure we'll think of something." :mad:

The problem I have with the naysayers is they usually portray automation as all doom and gloom. Sure there are going to be difficulties and suffering that result from this, but it's nothing to go all Chicken Little about. Just as with every major transitional period in human history there are always those who get left behind, but humanity as a whole has always ultimately come through the other side better off than before. It will be the same with this transitional period as well. Granted, due to the nature of this transitional period there will be a much larger segment of the population that gets left behind, but I still don't think it will be a large enough segment to warrant all the anti-technology talk I'm hearing nowadays.
 
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that world either since it would more or less achieve the same result of a struggle-free existence.
humans-have-grown-fat.jpg
 
The problem I have with the naysayers is they usually portray automation as all doom and gloom. Sure there are going to be difficulties and suffering that result from this, but it's nothing to go all Chicken Little about. Just as with every major transitional period in human history there are always those who get left behind, but humanity as a whole has always ultimately come through the other side better off than before. It will be the same with this transitional period as well. Granted, due to the nature of this transitional period there will be a much larger segment of the population that gets left behind, but I still don't think it will be a large enough segment to warrant all the anti-technology talk I'm hearing nowadays.
I largely agree with you. It seems to me that it will turn out to be an adjustment problem with bending our economic and moral beliefs to fit a new situation rather than some sort of apocalyptic thing. But I think it will take decades to make this adjustment, and a very large proportion of the population will be left behind at least initially with nothing to catch them from a hard fall. It's taking a long time for people to even come to terms with the effect of computer technology on employment, let alone develop sensible policies. I don't know what the long-term future holds and it's very likely we'll solve these problems and make a positive story out of it, but the short to medium term doesn't look as bright as most technophiles make it out to be.
 
I largely agree with you. It seems to me that it will turn out to be an adjustment problem with bending our economic and moral beliefs to fit a new situation rather than some sort of apocalyptic thing. But I think it will take decades to make this adjustment, and a very large proportion of the population will be left behind at least initially with nothing to catch them from a hard fall. It's taking a long time for people to even come to terms with the effect of computer technology on employment, let alone develop sensible policies. I don't know what the long-term future holds and it's very likely we'll solve these problems and make a positive story out of it, but the short to medium term doesn't look as bright as most technophiles make it out to be.

Agreed. That's why my technophilia focuses on those long term benefits. I know that I most likely will never live to see the world I envision and I fully acknowledge there will be a lot of turmoil, a lot of struggle, and a lot of adjustment before we get to that awesome future. However, as the saying goes "the harder the squeeze, the sweeter the juice". So while this major transitional period looks to be the most difficult one humanity has had to deal with, I think it will ultimately lead to one of the greatest eras of prosperity humanity has ever known.
 
Robots will be used to maintain a computer simulation in which all people live in a world where they find employment. Naturally, that computer simulation will look like 17th century Europe.
 
The only thing that keeps the rich from eating the poor is that the poor don't taste very good.

I'm going to steal that for a quote!

There are a variety of ideologies that the rich can adopt to justify their wealth to themselves, but enjoyment of other people's suffering doesn't really seem to come into it.

And quote something back, from Galbraith:
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy - that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness

I agree that they do try to justify themselves, but when those justifications become transparently false, do they change their attitude?
We are getting closer to that point, with automation...
 
I recently read Ford's book as well. He does a very good job of showing how this time really is different. The economy was able to adjust and make jobs for people displaced by manufacturing equipment in the past, but now that robots have gained the ability to read, interpret images, move around in physical environments based on sensory data, write sensible text, look up appropriate information from massive databases, etc., even most of the service jobs that were created in response to the decline of employment in manufacturing are at serious risk. Because most jobs are funamentally routine and repetitive, automation now threatens most jobs. Further, the relentless progress of Moore's Law has led to automation becoming competitive with even poorly-paid workers abroad and in industries like fast food. Increasing the level of education in the population seems to have just triggered an arms race of credentialism rather than driving down long-term unemployment in the population as a whole.

It's physically possible for society to respond to this by letting everyone work fewer hours for the same pay, guaranteeing a reasonable minimum income to people whether they're employed or not, and the like. But of course this isn't how capitalism works: instead, those who own the increasingly productive capital make large sums of money while anybody left unemployed is left to suffer, and lower prices for consumer goods doesn't do much to make their lives easier. And there doesn't seem to be any sign that this situation will be responded to by strengthening the welfare state: overall, social welfare programs are being weakened rather than strengthened. Ford doesn't really seem to have a solution other than advocating a guaranteed minimum income and the like, but while I agree, I don't see any political will for this at all.

Eventually, the jobless gain a very large numbers lead. They will have a very strong voting presence at that point and would be tough to manage without concessions. If robots wind up doing almost everything that's the route we go I think...less work and a commanding vote influence for min income level.
 
Barring Asimovian optimism and instead relying on powerful people being powerful, like ever, serfdom is the only really feasible outcome for large quantities of people with no power to provide useful service.
 
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