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The rise of the useless class

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Re: The rise of the useless class

#51

Post by shas3 »

cr0sh wrote: post #44
shas3 wrote: post #6

I'm sure there is a good critique of that Frey and Osborne paper. Epistemologically, it sounds weird to assign 'probabilities of automation.' I don't have the time to read the paper in detail, but here are a few things: 1. Automation doesn't imply that jobs go away. Classic example, deposits and withdrawals were automated by ATMs. Yet, the number of cashiers increased. 2. Automation by itself is not sufficient. Will…

> Think of non-forklift lifting/moving of heavy stuff, we don't really need people doing this manually, robots should be able to do it. But we see with the Boston Dynamics robots that we are many years or decades away from commoditizing lifting robots. Perhaps if we keep insisting that robots need to look like a human in some form factor. Otherwise, we are already there. We already have fully autonomous forklift robo…

Who said anything about human form factor? I said non-forklift, I meant things like: last mile delivery of furniture and appliances, packing and moving, etc. where most of the lifting is manual. These are situations where things are more unstructured than a warehouse. The kind of problems for which Boston Dynamics seems to be building robots.

Re: The rise of the useless class

#53

Post by shas3 »

sebringj wrote: post #45

This is short-term pessimism, inline with the common dystopian future of sci-fi. It is really difficult to predict human behaviors and technology in the long term. Humans have the ability to steer things to their advantage so interesting things can happen. Just for kicks here's a more hopeful approach that I've heard...merge AI with the brain like Kurzweil was predicting. Imagine if everyone was a genius and telekine…

I think this is already happening. In fact most AI pessimists don't consider that "man + machine >> machine." Consider chess. Kasparov's defeat happened in mid-1990s. Machine is considered > man. Yet, in freestyle chess, where players are allowed to consult machines, we have achieved ever greater heights of performance. In chess today, any sufficiently advanced chess engine can be incorporated into a (man+chess-engine) player to perform better. Similar things will happen in Go, Poker, etc. The handicap of not using a computer to inform your moves exists to make things more competitive, it doesn't mean that we are worse off!

Taking this further, most technology we use daily (word processors, email, the Internet, etc.) are enhancements of the man+machine organism and enhance our performance as well as the 'machine''s.

Re: The rise of the useless class

#54

Post by sebringj »

shas3 wrote: post #53
sebringj wrote: post #45

This is short-term pessimism, inline with the common dystopian future of sci-fi. It is really difficult to predict human behaviors and technology in the long term. Humans have the ability to steer things to their advantage so interesting things can happen. Just for kicks here's a more hopeful approach that I've heard...merge AI with the brain like Kurzweil was predicting. Imagine if everyone was a genius and telekine…

I think this is already happening. In fact most AI pessimists don't consider that "man + machine >> machine." Consider chess. Kasparov's defeat happened in mid-1990s. Machine is considered > man. Yet, in freestyle chess, where players are allowed to consult machines, we have achieved ever greater heights of performance. In chess today, any sufficiently advanced chess engine can be incorporated into a (man+chess-engin…

Yah I think so too. Super Tangent warning: I recently saw the documentary on Koko the Gorilla and was amazed at her emotional intelligence and communication skills. Why not integrate AI into other animals besides humans?

Re: The rise of the useless class

#55

Post by sebringj »

sebringj wrote: post #54
shas3 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is already happening. In fact most AI pessimists don't consider that "man + machine >> machine." Consider chess. Kasparov's defeat happened in mid-1990s. Machine is considered > man. Yet, in freestyle chess, where players are allowed to consult machines, we have achieved ever greater heights of performance. In chess today, any sufficiently advanced chess engine can be incorporated into a (man+chess-engin…

Yah I think so too. Super Tangent warning: I recently saw the documentary on Koko the Gorilla and was amazed at her emotional intelligence and communication skills. Why not integrate AI into other animals besides humans?

One more tangent: The perception of time would be very different if we were highly integrated into machines right? What if you could perceive things at 1000 times the normal human?

Re: The rise of the useless class

#56

Post by mojomark »

kbos87 wrote: post #49
mojomark wrote: post #43

Of course automation will inevitably be capable of displacing all human acts (jobs and art). The author concludes with the same tired, naiive and unsatisfactory outlook: 'you don't need worry about it because robots will just kill off humans'. However, it seems obvious that humanity will handle this like many cultures have - by choice. Just like some people chose not to eat GM food, and others (Amish) generally elect…

I'm curious to see how long it will take for the world to experience any meaningful kind of pushback against automation or AI. Today, I feel like all I see are a dwindling number of people saying they'd "rather deal with a real person", and a growing number of people who come close to fetishizing automation. Maybe once Uber decides to flip the switch on all of the drivers who are now dependent on them for some if not…

Honestly, like you point out, I think it's happening at micro-levels already. Certainly entire societies have voluntarily cut themselves off largelt from technology altogether - not just Amish, but modern off-grid people as well. However, just like some "bush people" will bend the rules and return to modern technology in diar situations (e.g. they need an insulin shot), I'd bet dollars to donuts that medical needs will drive many situations where self-declared "AI-free" people will opt for an AI product, since there are certain to be many AI-generated medical treatments currently out of the reach of limited human brains to develop.

Re: The rise of the useless class

#57

Post by mojomark »

rndmize wrote: post #27

Arguably, some of this is already happening. IMO there was a much better article a few months ago - https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/

Indeed - I'm only 50% through, but defibitely a MUCH more informed and insightful article already

Re: The rise of the useless class

#58

Post by ideonexus »

This is the most fascinating quote for me. If corporations and nations are entities capable of owning things, could we give such power to software/algorithms? How would that work?

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might themselves become the owners. Human law already recognizes intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as “legal persons.” Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a transportation empire or a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master. Before dismissing the idea, remember that most of our planet is already legally owned by non-human intersubjective entities, namely nations and corporations. Indeed, 5,000 years ago much of Sumer was owned by imaginary gods such as Enki and Inanna. If gods can possess land and employ people, why not algorithms?

Re: The rise of the useless class

#59

Post by Houshalter »

charles-salvia wrote: post #30

I can't help but be skeptical of things like this... historically speaking, humans tend to underestimate just how many things we do that require full "general intelligence" to make "common-sense" decisions. Despite recent advances in machine-learning (i.e. adding more layers to neural networks, i.e. adding more columns to a matrix), we don't really have anything that even approaches an artificial general intelligence…

What percentage of jobs actually require general intelligence though? Deep learning can only do things that are relatively simple and repetitive. But that covers quite a lot. Sure, they won't be taking the jobs of programmers or doctors any time soon. But what percentage of the population can be retrained as programmers or doctors?

Re: The rise of the useless class

#60

Post by TezlaKoil »

shas3 wrote: post #53
sebringj wrote: post #45

This is short-term pessimism, inline with the common dystopian future of sci-fi. It is really difficult to predict human behaviors and technology in the long term. Humans have the ability to steer things to their advantage so interesting things can happen. Just for kicks here's a more hopeful approach that I've heard...merge AI with the brain like Kurzweil was predicting. Imagine if everyone was a genius and telekine…

I think this is already happening. In fact most AI pessimists don't consider that "man + machine >> machine." Consider chess. Kasparov's defeat happened in mid-1990s. Machine is considered > man. Yet, in freestyle chess, where players are allowed to consult machines, we have achieved ever greater heights of performance. In chess today, any sufficiently advanced chess engine can be incorporated into a (man+chess-engin…

> In chess today, any sufficiently advanced chess engine can be incorporated into a (man+chess-engine) player to perform better.

This worked between about 2008 and 2013; but those days are long one. Engines such as Stockfish 8 surpass both humans and human+engine "centaurs". That is, incorporating a human into the loop only makes things worse.

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