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

[glenn1]

What the hell is wrong with you? Can you be any more dense? I'm not making any value judgments on who should or should not be marginalized. I'm not saying any technology should be abandoned because it marginalizes people. It's a fact that a larger and larger percentage of humans WILL BE marginalized. Technology will march on. It cannot be stopped. As machines get smarter and more capable, the number of people who can do any given job better than a machine will get smaller and smaller.

The question is how do we deal with it? You're so fucking dense you can't even identify the question. You and the rest of the fucking buffoons keep setting up "HERP DERP YOU WANT TO GET RID OF COMPUTERS AND HAVE TYPING POOLS DERP!" strawmen as fast as you can, that you don't take the time to actually put any real thought into what's being discussed.

Humans will be marginalized. When physical labor becomes a thing of the past, telling someone who is less intelligent than a computer algorithm to "get a job" might as well be telling them to grow wings.

And the answer is that we don't need to. Every time there has been technological advances people have still worked. Going from hunter-gatherer to agriculture didn't mean former hunters became marginalized. Nor were subsistence farmers, manual laborers, mule drivers, or basically any other job which has ever been. On no ocassion has any super-large segment of population been completely "marginalized" due to a technology advance, and on basically every ocassion they've moved on to doing things more economically valuable, not less.

If you want to sit there and pine over the fate of some obsolete job be my guest, but it's a waste of your time and ours.

 

[Newell Steamer]

I see many people seem to rue the advent of email ("automation") and would prefer to return to the old way of verbally dictating correspondence to be transcribed by a secretary, keyed by a typing pool onto hardcopy, physically transported by a courier, and wait several days for the response since the same work needed to be performed on the other end. If only we could have all those amazing jobs back we'd be so much better off.

I don't,.. and I honestly do not know of anyone who is asking for this.

And, I don't think we would be better off.

In less than a decade, we went from waiting for weeks to even months to get information, to getting it immediately.

You learn the news at it happens - not in the morning paper, not in the evening - NOW. Why would we give that up?

Sure we lost lots of jobs (commercial printers and this typing pool), but we aren't parts in a machine. You aren't an L shaped angle - because when the need for an L shaped angle goes away, we can change our angle or find the need to be an L shaped angle somewhere else. And, this is all due to how we are built; physically, mentally and even emotionally.

Basically, a career change... and A.I. can not adapt or change in this manner, unless an update is uploaded. And humans don't 'upload' anything. We ingest and absorb experiences, we learn from everything and anything (depending on how open our psyche is,..) and we apply it to our own lives (well, most of us,... in some manner).

 

[BoberFett]

And the answer is that we don't need to. Every time there has been technological advances people have still worked. Going from hunter-gatherer to agriculture didn't mean former hunters became marginalized. Nor were subsistence farmers, manual laborers, mule drivers, or basically any other job which has ever been. On no ocassion has any super-large segment of population been completely "marginalized" due to a technology advance, and on basically every ocassion they've moved on to doing things more economically valuable, not less.

If you want to sit there and pine over the fate of some obsolete job be my guest, but it's a waste of your time and ours.

I give up.

 

[glenn1]

I give up.

Why don't you answer your own fucking question then? Because you can't and you know it but want someone else smarter than you to spoon feed you an answer you want to hear. Whining about change is pointless but you seem to be reveling in the exercise.

 

[realibrad]

Why don't you answer your own fucking question then? Because you can't and you know it but want someone else smarter than you to spoon feed you an answer you want to hear. Whining about change is pointless but you seem to be reveling in the exercise.

I'm all for free market ideas, but I think you are missing the point. Human bodies, as organic machines are not optimal in may ways. Further, evolution works in allow for improvements, but its not always optimal. Its quite possible that some day, we could build a machine that replicates intelligence. We have already built machines that surpass human physical abilities, but not in all ways. Your argument is that human innovation will always allow for the possibility that human labor could be needed. But, is it not possible that some day we could create a computer mind and body that is superior to the vast majority of people?

 

[BoberFett]

Why don't you answer your own fucking question then? Because you can't and you know it but want someone else smarter than you to spoon feed you an answer you want to hear. Whining about change is pointless but you seem to be reveling in the exercise.

You're being quite the intolerable fucking prick. Where the hell am I whining about change?

Some of us are pointing out that we're reaching a point where technology will begin replacing more jobs than it creates, while fuckstains like you are herpaderping about how we just want to use typing pools.

Get a fucking clue, Dr. Wankenstein.

 

[BoberFett]

A poem written by a computer, and people couldn't tell the difference.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-poem-that-passed-the-turing-test

So much for those creative jobs that only humans can do...

:sneaky:

 

[First]

^ haha, nice.

 

[Paul98]

I'm all for free market ideas, but I think you are missing the point. Human bodies, as organic machines are not optimal in may ways. Further, evolution works in allow for improvements, but its not always optimal. Its quite possible that some day, we could build a machine that replicates intelligence. We have already built machines that surpass human physical abilities, but not in all ways. Your argument is that human innovation will always allow for the possibility that human labor could be needed. But, is it not possible that some day we could create a computer mind and body that is superior to the vast majority of people?

It's not a question of if, but when.

 

[shira]

A poem written by a computer, and people couldn't tell the difference.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-poem-that-passed-the-turing-test

So much for those creative jobs that only humans can do...

:sneaky:

Some actual human person had to sift through what was probably a huge pile of candidate, AI-created poems to find one that was worthy. A poem thus created and chosen doesn't remotely "pass the Turing test." And mind you, the ONLY reason that even THIS activity could reasonably simulate a human activity is that poems are expected to be rather abstract.

It isn't that I disagree with your premise that automation will at some point destroy more human jobs than it creates. In fact I completely agree with you, and think the process has already begun. But I don't think that this particular example is a scary one.

 

[BoberFett]

Some actual human person had to sift through what was probably a huge pile of candidate, AI-created poems to find one that was worthy. A poem thus created and chosen doesn't remotely "pass the Turing test." And mind you, the ONLY reason that even THIS activity could reasonably simulate a human activity is that poems are expected to be rather abstract.

It isn't that I disagree with your premise that automation will at some point destroy more human jobs than it creates. In fact I completely agree with you, and think the process has already begun. But I don't think that this particular example is a scary one.

My post was tongue-in-cheek, I think the article was poorly written and the "poet" doesn't really understand the Turing test. I was just having some fun with people who claim that humans have a monopoly on creativity.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Honestly I'm more concerned about big data deciding who gets interviewed and who gets promoted.

 

[Blanky]

A poem written by a computer, and people couldn't tell the difference.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-poem-that-passed-the-turing-test

So much for those creative jobs that only humans can do...

:sneaky:

In defense of humanity, though, that poem like much of poetry is a huge load of random bullshit. I'd be more impressed if the same computer could write a short story with a plot and character development.

I get your point, though, and I said it earlier, too. We are going to become increasingly worthless to the economy. We cannot compete with machines that learn faster and don't tire. Shit is going to change immeasurably over the next couple of decades. It's actually quite scary to me.