For all those that think automation is just a threat for the little people

[theeedude]

Silicon Valley will take all yall's money, sorry

 

[Moonbeam]

Wrong on so man points.

Lets start with doing things productively and or cheaply. These are both very subjective words that need to have context to have any real meaning. If a BMW is normally sold at $100,000 and goes on sale for $70,000 is it cheap? The answer would depend on the person, as someone who made $20,000 a year would likely still call it expensive, whereas someone who was willing to buy it at full price would call the sale price cheap.

Doing something productively is also a complex idea. Using zyklon b was a very productive way to kill the Jews at the time, but the holocaust was very unproductive in terms of global output and freedom.

So when you say that a machine will always be more productive and or cheaper than a person, you are making a lost of assumption. If said machine were to consume 5 gallons of gas for every load, would you call that productive? Machines only replace people when its more efficient to do so.



The "whole point of machines" is not to reverse engineer human capacities. The point of a machine is to so something more efficiently so that you can enjoy the surplus or use resources to further your life.

Ask yourself this, is there a human replacement for the space shuttle?

Here you say the concepts we are discussing are subjective and require context to have meaning but when you corrected what Engineer said you applied none of that. You simply declared that what he said was wrong. You were not generous at all in how you read what he said and repeated what he said in your own way as if only your subjective contextual interpretation was correct. I don't agree. I think he was saying what you said differently.

Similarly, you are now nit picking what you want to say is reverse engineering of human abilities. I was speaking of reverse engineering arms and a river for the ability to wash clothes by machine, by tumbling and tap water. You apply what I call the pin head approach to thinking, a linear in depth focus on one thing. When I reason, I try to come up for air and see the big picture. As machines acquire more and more capacity to duplicate and exceed human capacities that are required for productivity, fewer and fewer human laborers will be needed to do productivity driven things. People who have spare time because they don't hand wash their clothes still need something to do to pay for the electricity. As fewer and fewer people find work we will require an revolution in how we structure society and distribute the gains we achieve in productivity. As you say, it does no good if the productivity gained by machines destroys society.

The space shuttle doesn't need to be replaced. The humans in it can be replaced by virtual reality machines. You go to sleep here and wake up there.

Has it occurred to you that you might be just such a machine?

 

[realibrad]

Here you say the concepts we are discussing are subjective and require context to have meaning but when you corrected what Engineer said you applied none of that. You simply declared that what he said was wrong. You were not generous at all in how you read what he said and repeated what he said in your own way as if only your subjective contextual interpretation was correct. I don't agree. I think he was saying what you said differently.

Similarly, you are now nit picking what you want to say is reverse engineering of human abilities. I was speaking of reverse engineering arms and a river for the ability to wash clothes by machine, by tumbling and tap water. You apply what I call the pin head approach to thinking, a linear in depth focus on one thing. When I reason, I try to come up for air and see the big picture. As machines acquire more and more capacity to duplicate and exceed human capacities that are required for productivity, fewer and fewer human laborers will be needed to do productivity driven things. People who have spare time because they don't hand wash their clothes still need something to do to pay for the electricity. As fewer and fewer people find work we will require an revolution in how we structure society and distribute the gains we achieve in productivity. As you say, it does no good if the productivity gained by machines destroys society.

The space shuttle doesn't need to be replaced. The humans in it can be replaced by virtual reality machines. You go to sleep here and wake up there.

Has it occurred to you that you might be just such a machine?

You are speaking from authority on a subject you do not know enough about to do so. Economics is a very complex science and you are showing you do not fully understand this situation.

Machines can replace people, and other machines. They can also do things that were never done before. You and the OP seem to think that machines replace what is already there being done by people. Sometimes, machines open up new things to humanity. Machines dont simply improve upon what people were doing, they enable people to do new things.

Can you show me where automation has hurt society overall? Every time I have seen automation, it has improved society. It may hurt those who are replaced, but the rest of the world benefits.

 

[inachu]

Types of jobs that I am happy are removed from the human work force:

Assembly line type jobs. Only humans needed are for the end products the DETAIL work.
New jobs: Assembly line robot repair.

Those farmers who have been using illegals for ages can now use those automated cotton pick machines and it will be affordable. Why pay a human when the costs can skyrocket if someone gets hurt?

Assembly line robot training done by humans. Some assembly robotics can not all know how to do a job so must be either programmed or trained.

I think it will be an extra 50 years before a robot can program itself.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Can you show me where automation has hurt society overall? Every time I have seen automation, it has improved society. It may hurt those who are replaced, but the rest of the world benefits.

Always nice to see someone answer their own question. While few will argue that the end results of said automation generally outperform human involved processess there are certainly people "hurt" by the rise of machines.

What happens when average people cannot compete in any way, shape, or form, with these machines? Our current capitalist structures are not set up well to take care of majority unemployment. We will need a major mind shift.

 

[werepossum]

You are speaking from authority on a subject you do not know enough about to do so. Economics is a very complex science and you are showing you do not fully understand this situation.

Machines can replace people, and other machines. They can also do things that were never done before. You and the OP seem to think that machines replace what is already there being done by people. Sometimes, machines open up new things to humanity. Machines dont simply improve upon what people were doing, they enable people to do new things.

Can you show me where automation has hurt society overall? Every time I have seen automation, it has improved society. It may hurt those who are replaced, but the rest of the world benefits.

Good points.

Always nice to see someone answer their own question. While few will argue that the end results of said automation generally outperform human involved processess there are certainly people "hurt" by the rise of machines.

What happens when average people cannot compete in any way, shape, or form, with these machines? Our current capitalist structures are not set up well to take care of majority unemployment. We will need a major mind shift.

Bober Fett brought up that point last year. At some point human society will need a paradigm shift to accommodate the need for human labor falling below an acceptable standard.

 

[Jhhnn]

Bober Fett brought up that point last year. At some point human society will need a paradigm shift to accommodate the need for human labor falling below an acceptable standard.

We're already there. Witness the welfare state.

 

[realibrad]

Always nice to see someone answer their own question. While few will argue that the end results of said automation generally outperform human involved processess there are certainly people "hurt" by the rise of machines.

What happens when average people cannot compete in any way, shape, or form, with these machines? Our current capitalist structures are not set up well to take care of majority unemployment. We will need a major mind shift.

First, Ill say that me answering my own question is to give my perspective on what I have seen in response to my question. The context of the question was to get others input, because I already have mine. I see nothing wrong with answering my question to establish where I am.

Yes, there will be a shift. I'm going beyond saying there needs to be, I am saying there will be.

Profits currently drive economic activity. When someone owns a robot company, their goal is to make things a cheaply as possible, while selling them for the most amount of money they can. In a world where robots do all or almost all labor, things will become very inexpensive. Its inherent to automation. Automation only happens when the old way is more expensive vs the new way.

So, at some point all people stopped working, except the owners of the firms that build robots. In that market, a person would be willing to do very cheap labor, as the demand for labor would be very low, vs the supply of workers. This must also mean that the production of said robots is extremely low. This would also mean that goods/services done by the robot would be extremely low. The cost of a robot to a person would be very very low, allowing them to purchase and or lease a robot.

The wages of people would be so close to zero, that at first it would seem impossible for the person to purchase anything, but it cannot ever be zero. So, collectively people could pool their resources to get a single robot, which has a very very high productivity. Once the robot meets the needs of one person, it would move onto the next.

In this world, robots would produce things so cheaply, that things would be given away for almost free. We see this happening today in may markets. Companies pay TV and radio companies to advertise. The consumer pays with their time. You will see this expand as automation makes things cheaper. More and more goods will be given away for free, as marketing for things that still can be sold for profits.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

We're already there. Witness the welfare state.

No, we are most certainly not there yet. We currently villify those who can not, or will not, work. Most, despite the public assistance, live at a substandard level. At what point will it become a celebration of never having to be involved in any type of labor and living well?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

The wages of people would be so close to zero, that at first it would seem impossible for the person to purchase anything, but it cannot ever be zero.

While I generally agree with most of your logic, the concept of "wages" and money is central to the paradigm shift. The sooner we reach zero the better.

 

[glenn1]

No, we are most certainly not there yet. We currently villify those who can not, or will not, work. Most, despite the public assistance, live at a substandard level. At what point will it become a celebration of never having to be involved in any type of labor and living well?

English noblemen didn't work either and the urban poor aren't going to start acting like them anytime soon.

 

[realibrad]

While I generally agree with most of your logic, the concept of "wages" and money is central to the paradigm shift. The sooner we reach zero the better.

I would imagine that it would be better if it were not too sudden. A shock in 1 generation would leave a lot of people angry. Look at the people already posting in this thread. The anger and fear would cause a lot of unrest justified or not.

 

[glenn1]

In this world, robots would produce things so cheaply, that things would be given away for almost free. We see this happening today in may markets. Companies pay TV and radio companies to advertise. The consumer pays with their time. You will see this expand as automation makes things cheaper. More and more goods will be given away for free, as marketing for things that still can be sold for profits.

You've hit upon the key issue without even realizing it. Sure, robots can provide "things" like TVs. They can't create content to put on those TVs. The economic value of ideas surpassed that of physical stuff long ago, and if you can't create whuffie in the future then you're just as worthless as the lazy welfare/disability cheat of today.

 

[realibrad]

You've hit upon the key issue without even realizing it. Sure, robots can provide "things" like TVs. They can't create content to put on those TVs. The economic value of ideas surpassed that of physical stuff long ago, and if you can't create whuffie in the future then you're just as worthless as the lazy welfare/disability cheat of today.

Actually, I did but I was saving it for later . To be fair, David Friedman has done debates explaining all of this in far more detail. He is almost as smart as his dad... almost.

 

[Jaskalas]

Folks associate their job and "hard earned wages" with their sense of independence and freedom. If government were to hand them things, there'd be strings attached. It wouldn't be "freedom" anymore.

There is a tremendous amount of fear associated with the welfare state, and with unemployment in general. Restrictions and substandard quality being chief among them.

 

[Moonbeam]

realibrad: You are speaking from authority on a subject you do not know enough about to do so. Economics is a very complex science and you are showing you do not fully understand this situation.

M: That is a pretty authoritarian statement.

Machines can replace people, and other machines. They can also do things that were never done before. You and the OP seem to think that machines replace what is already there being done by people. Sometimes, machines open up new things to humanity. Machines dont simply improve upon what people were doing, they enable people to do new things.

M: That is not the point. In the first place, you live in a world where the rate of change has happened at a pace to which humans have had the ability to adapt, but change is happening at a geometric rate. Given time and continued progress in the rate of technological advance, only an artificial intelligence will be able to manage it. That will be an event horizon beyond which no human will be able to see.

Secondly, when you say that machines open up new things to humanity, you are speaking of new things that humans can do with, but not by new machines. But the rate of change will mean that only machines will be able to manage themselves. The question will become, what is the point of human life and how do we, or can we, coexist with a species with greater intelligence than ourselves. There is a speed bump ahead that I think you are missing

As to my understanding of economics:

I don't know much. I see that machines in China, that have less overhead than American machines have replaced American machines requiring unemployment compensation and welfare. I hear that even cheaper machines in even less developed countries are taking some of those jobs in China. All this happens out of the self interest of individual people pursuing wealth and success as per the dynamics built into a Capitalist competitive system. Are you looking forward to the day when one AI competes with another? And if you came first would you even allow another given that you are programmed to win?

r: Can you show me where automation has hurt society overall? Every time I have seen automation, it has improved society. It may hurt those who are replaced, but the rest of the world benefits.

M: There is no world and that is a big part of the problem. There are a lot of countries, machines, in competition. Each pursues its own self interest without any real understanding of what it is. A machine that operated by program isn't artificially intelligent but naturally stupid.

 

[Zaap]

You've hit upon the key issue without even realizing it. Sure, robots can provide "things" like TVs. They can't create content to put on those TVs. The economic value of ideas surpassed that of physical stuff long ago, and if you can't create whuffie in the future then you're just as worthless as the lazy welfare/disability cheat of today.

And the TV itself is just an automation of the movie theatre which is just an automation of all of us going to see tons of local live performers on stage. Oh noes there goes all that Vaudeville work!

People love automation. They have for centuries. Many just think of this subject in the most rudimentary and childish way possible, because they've seen too many automated vaudeville performances about killer robots on their entertainment automation devices.

A box that allows us to automate the process of putting text on a page and pushing it out to the world? Awesome!!!! Sign us all up, pronto!

But I swear, if I attached two glowing led eyes to that box, metallic limbs and a voice box repeating a script that a human wrote... then the same people would dial it straight up to looney toons: "omg! Run for the hills!!! Theres no more jerbs! !!! How do the humans survive!!!???? Societal shift!!!!"

And highly ironically using every form of modern automation possible to express the irrational fear of more of the same.

Ill end this post now. Ran out of typeset letters.

 

[realibrad]

realibrad: You are speaking from authority on a subject you do not know enough about to do so. Economics is a very complex science and you are showing you do not fully understand this situation.

M: That is a pretty authoritarian statement.

Machines can replace people, and other machines. They can also do things that were never done before. You and the OP seem to think that machines replace what is already there being done by people. Sometimes, machines open up new things to humanity. Machines dont simply improve upon what people were doing, they enable people to do new things.

M: That is not the point. In the first place, you live in a world where the rate of change has happened at a pace to which humans have had the ability to adapt, but change is happening at a geometric rate. Given time and continued progress in the rate of technological advance, only an artificial intelligence will be able to manage it. That will be an event horizon beyond which no human will be able to see.

Secondly, when you say that machines open up new things to humanity, you are speaking of new things that humans can do with, but not by new machines. But the rate of change will mean that only machines will be able to manage themselves. The question will become, what is the point of human life and how do we, or can we, coexist with a species with greater intelligence than ourselves. There is a speed bump ahead that I think you are missing

As to my understanding of economics:

I don't know much. I see that machines in China, that have less overhead than American machines have replaced American machines requiring unemployment compensation and welfare. I hear that even cheaper machines in even less developed countries are taking some of those jobs in China. All this happens out of the self interest of individual people pursuing wealth and success as per the dynamics built into a Capitalist competitive system. Are you looking forward to the day when one AI competes with another? And if you came first would you even allow another given that you are programmed to win?

r: Can you show me where automation has hurt society overall? Every time I have seen automation, it has improved society. It may hurt those who are replaced, but the rest of the world benefits.

M: There is no world and that is a big part of the problem. There are a lot of countries, machines, in competition. Each pursues its own self interest without any real understanding of what it is. A machine that operated by program isn't artificially intelligent but naturally stupid.

WOT.

Also, geometric rate does not mean what you think it does. Look up Geometric progression. Rate does not denote progress or regress. Your statement means nothing without that context.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I would imagine that it would be better if it were not too sudden. A shock in 1 generation would leave a lot of people angry. Look at the people already posting in this thread. The anger and fear would cause a lot of unrest justified or not.

No illusions about the status quo fighting for many generations to retain their top dog status. It's nice to dream though. I would argue that leaving "a lot of people angry" would amount to roughly 1% of the population as a whole.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

And highly ironically using every form of modern automation possible to express the irrational fear of more of the same.

Irrational? Hmmm it strikes me as completely rational to believe in the likelihood of further automation. You speak of Fear as if you have not seen the face of your robotic replacement...... yet. It may not ever happen in your lifetime if you are lucky.

For those people who labored for large portions of their lives at a task only to have a machine take their place my heart goes out to them. For some it may have been liberating. For most I suspect it was far from enjoyable.

 

[BoberFett]

Zaap is an idiot on this topic. He thinks being concerned about the inevitable collapse of the value of human labor means we all fear machines and want to throw our clogs into them. Don't bother responding to that dim bulb.

 

[realibrad]

Zaap is an idiot on this topic. He thinks being concerned about the inevitable collapse of the value of human labor means we all fear machines and want to throw our clogs into them. Don't bother responding to that dim bulb.

There is something to be said for using a house instead of a fly swatter when dealing with small things. It always makes me smile.

 

[Zaap]

Zaap is an idiot on this topic. He thinks being concerned about the inevitable collapse of the value of human labor means we all fear machines and want to throw our clogs into them. Don't bother responding to that dim bulb.

^ aaaand there's what I mean about the childish, simple-minded view of this.

Newsflash: untalented, unskilled, uncreative and simple-minded people (ie: YOU in many ways) will not have a great time of it in the future- not with increased automation, or just increased competition from the rest of the non-first world spoiled retard world.

Many of the above types will toil away in some form of diminished existence, probably blaming everyone else, shaking fists and frothing at the mouth over cops, robots and "outsourcing err jerbs!!!!" But that's because just being able to do that and *nothing* else that's actually useful to your fellow human beings will NEVER be a sought after commodity- automation or not. Sorry for the wake up call.

Others in society will simply get on with it- using their skills, talents, creativity, problem-solving and inventive abilities to design/create/service/promote/service the things that any robots would be making or building in the first place, because the only purpose of having all the robots you fucking idiotic moron- would be in service of HUMAN industry.

Your irrational, babified fear of tech advances is just because your pea brain has attached an image of a human-replacing "robot" to it, and your childlike mind literally focuses on that and not the fact that even fearing the most advanced of automation is the same as being a blithering chickenshit idiot over a printing press, power tools, automobiles and all other forms of automation.

You're too dense to see that for every advancement, there's simply a shift in what becomes useful to know. There was no one getting paid to be a pilot before there were airplanes. The invention created many brand new occupations, but you're the twit whining about the loss of a few jobs in the passenger ship industry.

 

[Zaap]

Irrational? Hmmm it strikes me as completely rational to believe in the likelihood of further automation.

Duh. Of course there will be further automation. It's not belief in it that's irrational, it's blindingly stupid, childlike fear of it. People that do so in 2014 are the same type of nitwits that feared the coming innovations of the 20th century in 1914. And that feared the coming innovations in 1814. And 1714.. and so on.

You speak of Fear as if you have not seen the face of your robotic replacement...... yet. It may not ever happen in your lifetime if you are lucky.

Ohhh scary!

Heck, I wish I could get a robotic replacement just to clean up the house after the whole holiday mess, let alone do my job for me. It'd be fucking awesome if the robots some of you idiots quake in fear of actually existed.

 

[Jaskalas]

Heck, I wish I could get a robotic replacement just to clean up the house after the whole holiday mess, let alone do my job for me. It'd be fucking awesome if the robots some of you idiots quake in fear of actually existed.

You don't seem to have any appreciation for the economic impacts ahead. It will be extremely destabilizing for us to have to rethink labor from the ground up.

There's no guarantee our political system will be flexible or responsive enough to survive such societal changes as the collapse of labor. We're on the cusp of uncharted economic territory.