The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#121

Post by Ar-Curunir » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:27 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #96

edblarney wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" But it is reasonable to expect that they will get better, and it is reasonable to expect that we will be able to emulate the brain with transistors and on a much bigger scale some days." No, it's not reasonable to assume they will emulate brains. Not even the experts are saying that. They're not trying to emulate brains at all.

I was under the impression that neural networks are inspired by the brain. And as we understand how the brain works better, it is obvious that we will be replicating it mechanically.

Only superficially. Deep learning has little to do with biology, and even if a future AGI was running on a NN, it's structure would be very different from our brains.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#122

Post by usrusr » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:28 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #53

adventured wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, dramatically lower the corporate income tax rate and substantially reduce the massive over-regulation in the US economy. Check out the various regulation registries at the Federal level, the US is choking to death on thousands of unnecessary regulations (growing rapidly for decades) that are almost always written solely for the benefit of protectionism or for fake the-government-is-doing-something purposes (whi…

The US effective tax rate for corporations is pretty much comparable to other developed countries' effective rates [1], because the US has more deductions, write-offs, and tax holidays. If you're talking about cutting the statutory rate while also eliminating deductions and simplifying the code, I'm all for that (ditto for personal income taxes). A huge complicated tax code benefits big corporations more than your sm…

When looking at effective tax rates, one might want to include the cost for all the experts employed to get to the difference between nominal and effective tax rate, and the brain drain these careers impose on more productive disciplines. But you will have a hard time finding a country where people are not convinced that their tax system is the worst, so maybe the US is not particularly bad in that way either.

The observation that a complicated makes the big guy part a lower effective rate than the small guy should be much more popular, I wish someone established a good name for it.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#123

Post by Delphiza » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:32 AM UTC

2sk21 wrote: post #108

Its not just automation. There have been many more applications of optimization to reducing operating margins. At my company, there was, for example, a project aimed at identifying the optimal service intervals for heavy mining equipment. As a result of this work, it was possible to substantially reduce the amount of preventative maintenance that was being done on the machinery. It was found that not all of the preve…

This is a missing part of long stories about AI and automation. I too work in servicing of industrial equipment that is now being connected. The algorithms can be simple - after n running hours a component needs servicing. No fancy AI or automation, no over-hyped 'predictive maintenance' machine learning, just a 'connected machine'. As a result, the number of service engineers can be reduced significantly because they no longer over-service. This is not a robot taking someone's job, but a 10% efficiency gain in servicing equipment is a lot of people. It's across a skills range too - we have customers that range from minimum wage floor cleaners to PhD-level scientific equipment engineers.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#124

Post by Bombthecat » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:32 AM UTC

torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

You might want to watch incoperated to get a feel :)

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#125

Post by usrusr » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:35 AM UTC

tcbawo wrote: post #76

Once productivity increases through bio hacking becomes possible, we may see the day when hacking yourself to be competitive for employment becomes an ethical problem.

Ever heard of a guy called Lance Armstrong? How many people routinely mess with their brain chemistry to fulfill self-imposed (via career expectation) performance expectations?

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#126

Post by aninhumer » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:36 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #51

wvenable wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine? As software developers, it's literally our jobs to put people out of work. My software is specifically designed reduce the need for increased labor as the company crows. In my industry, legal, entire departments (like night word processing) no longer exist. The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years…

> The fact is you cannot extrapolate from 100 years of human history and say everything will continue on It's a lot more than 100 years. The invention of the scientific process, the printing press, the popularization of steel and before that, bronze, heck even the invention of agriculture radically changed human societies by increasing individual productivity and enabling specialization. > People just a few hundred y…

>Right, which is why it's silly for us to look at the technology we have today and say "welp, that's the end of human employment."

And why it's also silly to look at the past and say "meh it worked out last time, everything will be fine".

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#127

Post by ako » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:37 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #57

torpfactory wrote: post #12

I think we are destined for a future of political and social instability in the world if we continue to define labor and its compensation as we do now. We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required. The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, to be harnessed by willing politicians of short-sighte…

> The resentment of the winners (capital owners) by the losers (jobless masses) may lead to great upheaval, That's why we need to place the means of production in the hands of the people, not just of capitalists. > What will it mean to work and contribute to society in the future of machines? Self-supporting human society, a mix of small companies, skilled people and experts, using automation as well, that works to s…

Marx speaking...

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#128

Post by zigzigzag » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:40 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #85

edblarney wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We currently don't have a social understanding for navigating a world where little human labor is required" Yes we do. The industrial revolution had far greater impact on labour than any of this mysterious AI will ever have. The first 'machines' powered by coal etc. instantly 'unemployed' hundreds of people per unit. Go ahead and look at the productivity/capita charts for the early 19th century - UK citizens were mu…

I agree with your main point (that this is a small increment to the industrial revolution), but two objections: > tell me which people you know, in which industries, have outright 'lost their jobs' due to some AI or machine Right now AI is still a future technology. The current AI algorithms are the equivalent of the early GSM phones, which looked like car batteries, very far from modern smartphones. But it is reason…

A not insignificant share of the population just cannot become skilled.

Can you justify that statement?

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#129

Post by SFJulie » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

The long term job killer is UNFAIR access to automation decided by the costs of automation or political decision.

The revolt in late XIXth century in Europe were based on the generalisation of the steam engine that were favoring without any other merits than birth the wealthy and ripping the craftsmen of their jobs.

Diesel made an engine so craftsman could compete vs steam engine. The german government pre-empted his invention so that it would not disrupt the dominant position of big corporations...

Automation is not the problem, it is unfair access to automation decided by capital.

Re: The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China, It’s Automation

#130

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Dec 22, 2016, 10:56 AM UTC

jobu wrote: post #9

This was one of the more frustrating parts of this past election cycle: "No candidate talked much about automation on the campaign trail. Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico, there is no clear way to stop it, and many of the technology companies are in the United States and benefit the country in many ways." A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't com…

>Technology is not as convenient a villain as China or Mexico

Technology is a MUCH more convenient villain. You can roll back 1% friendly trade agreements with China and Mexico. You can point pitchforks at the 1%. You can't roll back technological advancement and it's pointless to try.

You achieve nothing by being against technology except looking like an idiot, which is precisely why articles like this are trying to convince everybody that technology is the "villain".

Because god forbid Lloyd Blankfein and his cronies start being seen as villains.

>A lot of US jobs have been lost to globalization, but in the long-term that won't compare to the jobs lost to automation. As a software developer this seems painfully obvious to me,

Funny. As a software developer it seems painfully obvious to me just how far off we are from this supposed goal. All around me I see developers who shirk at even automating their own tests while getting excited over vaporware.