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Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

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71–80 of 96 posts

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#71
post #66

Why do only few people realize that bots ARE NOT(!) the problem! Our f*cked up economic system is! If we would live in. better society in which capitalism is finally known to be horrible by a majority of people, everyone would profit from robots and almost everyone (except those mind-sick workaholics) would be happy. We just need to finally acknowledge, that capitalism is bullshit, period. P.S.: I hate communism more…

Offer solutions, not problems.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#72
post #52

As a man, learn to accept a life of celibacy. Sadly, women's tendency to evaluate men by their occupation is not going to change as quickly as the jobs market. (This is admittedly a dystopian view, but I believe it's possible.)

This sort of sentiment is sexist, demeaning, and false.

Throwing out a string of random adjectives does not give credence to your skepticism of the post above.

There is a huge body of research done on mating preferences for both sexes. Some of them may not confirm with your current world view.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#73
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking more along the lines of "Turn to a life of crime." But your solution also has merit.

Suicide and crime have merit? I fail to see the ethical upside of any of those besides short-term gains.

On Maslow's hierarchy of needs ethics are most likely a tier 3 or tier 4 concern. We're discussing a scenario that directly threatens tier 1 concerns. So on what grounds is it shocking that ethics are the first thing to go?

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#74
post #66

Why do only few people realize that bots ARE NOT(!) the problem! Our f*cked up economic system is! If we would live in. better society in which capitalism is finally known to be horrible by a majority of people, everyone would profit from robots and almost everyone (except those mind-sick workaholics) would be happy. We just need to finally acknowledge, that capitalism is bullshit, period. P.S.: I hate communism more…

Why do you hate communism? Is there a legitimate reason?

Given his statement I'm assuming his family fled a particular implementation of communism at some point in the past. I struggle with responses to statements like OP has made for a number of reasons. I find it questionable that authoritarianism is a required component of a communist society. That said it has clearly been a component of all implementations of "communism" at the national level. I'm air quoting that because again it's questionable that authoritarian regimes bear any resemblance to actual ML political theory, and most real world implementations were merely authoritarian regimes that borrowed the stalinist playbook and enough ML buzzwords to offer a fig leaf during their rise to power.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#75
That depends a lot on the type of the world we live in at the time the robots take my job. Are their jobs available still that I can retrain for, or are we living in a post-work world where the Robots have taken all the jobs? If it’s the former I will hopefully be able to retrain for a new job or have accomplished plan A. If it’s the latter I’m not really sure. That world would look so much different than today’s world that I’m not sure I can predict what I would be doing. Hopefully, I would be doing some kind of creative work like playing music. I suspect that even when AI is capable of producing art and entertainment there will still be a desire to go watch other humans create. Plan A is to save enough money that by the time my job is automated away I will be able to live off of my savings. That way I will have the freedom to retrain for a job that hasn't been automated away or to be able to work in a volunteer capacity or on some creative endeavor without expectation of financial return. I will probably always want to work in some capacity, so I don't see myself just retiring into leisure.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you hate communism? Is there a legitimate reason?

Given his statement I'm assuming his family fled a particular implementation of communism at some point in the past. I struggle with responses to statements like OP has made for a number of reasons. I find it questionable that authoritarianism is a required component of a communist society. That said it has clearly been a component of all implementations of "communism" at the national level. I'm air quoting that beca…

Communism requires a planned economy which requires authoritarianism.

Post scarcity != communism, if we go by the motief of this thread then the federation is not communist it also doesn't have a planned economy.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#77
post #8

Are we assuming a magic source of income? If yes: I'd take up writing, teaching and practicing yoga, and charcoal drawing. If no: I'd probably have to be some kind of nanny or domestic help. :/

I think everyone "assumes" basic income grants, when the robots make say upwards of 50 percent of people redundant. I myself remain sceptical. If you low-medium skilled you should be able to find work from the people made richer by the robots, as butlers, assistants, etc... Yes even with the best robot, some people will prefer human contact. Some people may even pay a premium for companionship.

A "modern servant" scenario (if you will let me summarize it as such) might work when robots make, say, 50% of people redundant. But what about 90%? 99%? 100%?

Another thing: In a fully automated, yet capitalist society, wealth will be concentrated in the hands of even fewer people than right now, because we will come to a point where no one will offer robots for sale anymore, so no one can become rich except by heritage, and rich people will fail and become poor at a certain rate (because that's how capitalism works).

This process leads to a financial singularity in which 10 people own all the money in the world (and all the robots). I see two likely scenarios then:

1. Since one rich person (and their family) cannot possibly use a billion servants, a lot of the poor people will not be able to make a living and die.

2. The poor people agree to not care about the meaning of these green slips of paper anymore and seize the robots.

Come to think of it, #1 is actually more likely if the robots are intelligent enough to protect themselves against being seized.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#78

As some others have mentioned, the title vs the text confuse a little. The main difficulty in the thought process is what is meant by "my job". Of course, it can't literally be just my job. It would have to be a class of jobs. What class? I do a little supervision, a little data analysis, a little CRUD app maintenance/development. The hardest part of my job is translating customer requests/requirements into action wi…

If we are at the point where the job of "translating customer requests/requirements into action without adverse side effects" can be performed by an "NLP+AI type bot", I can literally not imagine any type of job that could not be automated. Politics is supposed to be the hardest kind of job, and what you do is basically politics if you s/customer/voter/.

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#79
post #4

If the bots can pick up the phone, make a sale and get a client to pay me on a subscription basis, I won't need to do anything. I will sit on my couch, sip some wine and watch TV. Until then, I have a job.

Why should the bots pay you, then?

Re: Ask HN: If the bots take your job, what would you do?

#80
post #52

As a man, learn to accept a life of celibacy. Sadly, women's tendency to evaluate men by their occupation is not going to change as quickly as the jobs market. (This is admittedly a dystopian view, but I believe it's possible.)

Either celibacy, or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the sex bot".
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