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Just own the damn robots

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Re: Just own the damn robots

#51

Post by colemannugent »

EliRivers wrote: post #10
jboggan wrote: post #8

"We’re in an age where we’re being told AI is about to start writing its own software." The most pregnant sentence in the entire piece.

All the problems in every serious piece of software I've ever worked on stem from the customer (be it external or in-house) not knowing what they want, the person in charge of capturing that doing a pretty bad job of it anyway, and the chain from there to the person writing the software taking that failure and making it worse. AI writing software will just get me another flavour of the wrong software. AI working out…

My thoughts exactly. Until the AI can hold useless meetings and design things by bureaucracy it will never be a serious threat to big businesses/government.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#52

Post by hodder »

leggomylibro wrote: post #19
pdog wrote: post #5

Interesting investment thesis, but isn't there a better way to hedge yourself than buying tech stocks? That's just a huge bet on a tiny number of cyclical revenue sources: online shopping, online advertising, cloud services, iPhones, Microsoft Office, and Windows.

What will that tech need to survive? Lithium, for batteries. Heavy metals, for processing. Energy, most of all. I wonder how long it'll be until we replace fiat currencies with a balance of kilowatt-hours.

The problem with those is they are capital intensive industries with commodity products. Not exactly the kind of thing that compounds capital at fast rates.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#53

Post by btilly »

A correction to the history of retirement schemes.

Retirement schemes go back a lot farther than acknowledged in that article. The most popular to have lots of children in the hopes that one would take care of parents in their old age. But then you having things like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#54

Post by CobrastanJorji »

mooreds wrote: post #34
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was some article here on HN a while back that framed this much better for me. It's NOT that Robots are going to take all the jobs, it's that automation and productivity advances are going to reduce the people necessary by a drastic degree. There's lots of stats like Ikea factories making 17x the bookcases they did in 1985 but with the same number of staff. But even in our technical and development niche, look at s…

Some might say it's a "Brave New World" :) The real question is what happens to the 90%.

The best outcome is the "Culture" endpoint: a post-need society. 10% of people are called upon to work, and the rest thrive on basic income and become artists and inventors, philosophers and musicians and actors.

The worst outcome, on the other hand, is rather more dystopian. A society with a very large percentage of young, unemployed people with no particular path to success is not a stable society.

I suppose it matters how comfortable the 90% is when they become unemployed. Is basic income enough to fulfill individual passions and interests? What happens to a large body of humans whose needs are taken care of but who aren't strictly needed for anything?

Re: Just own the damn robots

#55

Post by colemannugent »

anigbrowl wrote: post #22

Why not just seize the means of production? Private (real) property is ultimately rooted in the theft of the commons. This has historically been justified using two assertions: that people don't value what they don't own, and that nobody does anything except for profit. Both are highly questionable, yet when counterexamples are offered they are generally dismissed as 'the exception that proves the rule' or some equal…

In the capitalist interpretation, "seize the means of production" translates to "start your own business and out-compete your competitors". Or put another way: just own the damn robots.

"Private (real) property is ultimately rooted in the theft of the commons"

If only somehow I could capitalize on everyone who believed this nonsense. I would sell them shirts, but for them to receive them would be ownership of private property and therefore a "theft of the commons".

Can I ask what piece of technology you stole from "the commons" to write that comment? What was the brand?

Re: Just own the damn robots

#56

Post by dogruck »

Nice rant, but I think it would be stronger if it did more to consider the counter arguments.

I see it as:

* perhaps AI will someday rule the world -- in which case there's nothing more to discuss

* if humans do still have a role, then they will work with the machines to figure out a solution

* most moaning about so called under privileged people, such as Uber drivers, ignores that their standard of living is far superior to people of the past (e.g. 1800s farmer) and the millions living in deep poverty or slavery today.

To be clear, I think there are many social problems that need to be addressed.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#57

Post by paulpauper »

adventured wrote: post #15
pdog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors are willing to accept much lower long-term returns for safe haven assets. If you're going to "just own the damn robots" at any price, you're essentially paying for this sort of insurance.

I agree investors will continue to own these companies in a very big way. They won't continue to maintain much less inflate the premium that presently exists. Microsoft for example has barely grown its income in a decade. On what planet should they have a 28 pe ratio? The stock has tripled (!) in five years on the back of zero income growth. It's massive value destruction just waiting to happen. Shareholders will not…

the problem with this argument is if you wait, you may leave money on the table in the form of:

missed dividends

the possibility that Microsoft grows its profits more

the possibility the stock keeps rising, and then even if it falls, it's still higher than the price you sold

The last reason is why timing the market is so hard. Had you sold the S&P 500 in early 1996 because it was 'too expensive', you would have never been able to buy back at a lower price, ever, even after the crash of 2000-2002 and 2008-2009, and you would have missed all the dividends.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#58

Post by a_brawling_boo »

I came to see if people were talking about the robotics and automation ETF cited in the article and if it would be a good idea to buy at this point, but seems that everyone is having philosophical conversation instead of a investing conversation :-p

Re: Just own the damn robots

#59

Post by sf_rob »

a_brawling_boo wrote: post #58

I came to see if people were talking about the robotics and automation ETF cited in the article and if it would be a good idea to buy at this point, but seems that everyone is having philosophical conversation instead of a investing conversation :-p

The "problem" with that ETF is that there are few "pure play" intelligent robotic/automation companies in the world. There are manufacturing/farming equipment suppliers, consumer good robots doing fairly mundane tasks, chip makers who happen to make hardware that is good for AI.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#60

Post by arichard123 »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #29
arichard123 wrote: post #21

I just don't buy it. I understand I'm in a minority, so let me indulge myself and explain, for a moment, why I think AI / Robots are nothing to worry about. My claim is: Robots will not replace humans in all jobs. Further, it's more than because of Human preference, I think that Robots will lack cognitive abilities that we have. My expectation is that in each area where they are deficient then they may well become a…

I'm unsure how you would expect humans to do better with cultural concerns or strategy in the face of uncertainty. We're known for routinely making mistakes in both of these domains - just look at POTUS for a case study. Computers can already infer sentiment, not to mention recognize patterns extremely well, and are likely trainable to provide example feedback to any given cultural current. Is culture really any more…

Our differences may well just come down to a difference of beliefs.

In reference to the first 3 paragraphs of your response, I believe there are a few orders of magnitude (at least) difference between "computers can already infer sentiment" to, for example, "a computer that manages a construction firm that uses Mexican commodities realises that Trump has come to power and THAT wall, that is promised, isn't going to happen. Mexico won't be happy, and there might be a trade war. Perhaps start supporting Anti-Trump causes. Certainly don't waste time bidding to build the thing."

In reference to the flesh vs machinery question. I think I don't believe it because I don't think we have a good way of designing a good AI.

An AI needs to be like a slave that is motivated to serve some goal other than itself. A human brain would not be a good model for such an AI, as our brains are trained to serve ourselves. (Or our selfish genes?) So we cannot copy human brain design and development processes to make an AI that we can trust. We need to design a new brain, based on perhaps similar, but different processes.

Evolution with different selectors? Deterministic design? I don't think we could do it.

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