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Just own the damn robots

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Re: Just own the damn robots

#191

Post by candiodari »

eadmund wrote: post #127
sf_rob wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Manna"[1] as well. While I don't like the writing style, I love the story. Especially since it shows AI gutting middle management in an interesting way before robotics is mature enough to do all the dextrous tasks. 1 http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

I read Manna, but honestly I thought it was silly. > Terrafoam is, by contrast, 'Worse and worse.' No, it's not. Manna is better and better: it yields continually better results. > With all that happening, it is very hard to get people together to work on big projects. Wouldn't it be cool if there were something to get people to work together on big projects? Something like an economic force causing them to give a li…

> Also, in the Manna world the problem is that in the U.S. most people don't have the ability to contribute,

Most people don't have the will to contribute. They've always just coasted through life doing what is described in the manna story. They always know what to do next and the only reason they do anything at all is because someone tells them to, or it directly provides satisfaction. After sufficient years they complain that this restricts their ability to do anything at all, especially to change, but of course that's not true. They could spend 2-4 years training themselves and they'd be perfectly able. The reason that doesn't happen is not often lack of ability.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#192

Post by TrickyRick »

robotresearcher wrote: post #92
jameshart wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The robots are not literally robots in this story. Trading algorithms are robots. Uber's ability to connect riders and drivers is a robot. That said, Amazon and google are in the robot hardware business literally, too.

Amazon is, but their customer is themselves. They use 50,000 robots today and that will grow fast. Google doesn't sell robots. I don't know if they use them, apart from a few for research.

A self driving car is a robot, they will be selling that in a near future if Google themselves are to be believed.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#193

Post by goatlover »

justinjlynn wrote: post #135
visarga wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5) Intuitive leaps. e.g. Rubics cube. You're trolling, right? Intuitive leaps are the bread and butter of neural nets.

In fact, one might argue that's all they do -- depending on how one defines "intuition".

In a vary narrow sense, sure. But humans are great at generalizing across different domains, and finding new connections and patterns.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#194

Post by goatlover »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #178
CryptoPunk wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer-facing service jobs employ a huge number of people. In any case, there once was a time when white collar jobs were a tiny occupation category. There was even a time when manufacturing jobs were rare. The economy and composition of jobs changes with the abundance of resources.

> Customer-facing service jobs employ a huge number of people But irreplaceable ones aren't. Bank tellers, cashiers, bus drivers, firemen, card dealers, bar tenders... all can and will be replaced by automation and consumers won't care.

I don't see bartenders being replaced en masse. It's as much about social interaction as it is about pouring a drink, particularly for your local hangout.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#195

Post by Aeolun »

matthewbauer wrote: post #79

Interesting article but I think the premise that workers are buying tech stocks because they fear automation is incorrect. Gallup found 13% of Americans thought that their jobs would soon be replaced by automation[1]. In fact you usually find more people worried about immigration than automation[2]. Maybe people /should/ be more concerned about automation but they just aren’t right now. [1]: http://news.gallup.com/po…

I don't think there's a big difference in being replaced by a 'robot' from overseas or a robot that was built in the US.

Either way it means your value to society is gone.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#196

Post by hectorlorenzo »

Waterluvian wrote: post #98

Reads like this are slowly convincing me not to buy into the world of mortgages and debt and to just live the rest of my life paying for everything in cash. I tried to buy a house last year with my wife but the market exploded where I live and suddenly houses were 40% more expensive from last year. So we still rent, which makes me feel incomplete. Like I'm kind of failing my duty of bringing the Canadian Dream to my…

Slightly off-topic, but that is the main reason I do not want to have kids: I am not sure I would like the kind of person I would become.

Sometimes I am already paralysed by fear when thoughts about my future take a dark turn (relatively often), but at the end of the day it is my well-being (and my wife's) we are talking about, and we are economically independent adults. We could take a hit or two.

Throwing little defenceless creatures in the mix? Oh gosh...

Re: Just own the damn robots

#197

Post by tome »

Iv wrote: post #106
aorloff wrote: post #102

15 years ago all the software jobs I worked at were retiring clerical workers with software (oh you have 15 people doing spreadsheets ? We can automate that and you won't need them for the same report generation). So this has been going on a lot longer than the article supposes. Yes its true that the sophistication of the automation, and the breadth of its reach (with robots / gig economy) is higher than before, so i…

> but it will also create new jobs managing the automation No, that's bullshit. New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to automation otherwise. This month I visited a warehouse with a team tasked to automate it. If we succeed, phase I should put ~10 people out of job and we don't expect to have to do more than occasional monthly interventions (and that's assuming that we have a hi…

> New jobs will be created that way but far less: there would be no incentive to automation otherwise

The incentive would be to produce more for the same cost. One human plus one robot produces more than one human alone for the same cost.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#198

Post by suls »

Terr_ wrote: post #116

> In this context, the FANG stocks are not a gimmick or a fad, they’re a f---ing life raft. Note that if you are employed in one of those companies, you should think twice how you'd want to invest in them, because you're actually putting a bunch of your eggs in one basket. I keep remembering those poor Enron employees whose retirement funds were mainly in stock of Enron itself, so that they were both unemployed and f…

This. Just a bit of portfolio theory would make it very clear this isn’t a good idea ..

.. yet I have to defend myself every odd month as to why I am not participating in the employee stock ownership program.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#199

Post by adventured »

ultraluminous wrote: post #177
adventured wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest market cap companies in a given decade, overwhelmingly tend to be under-performers in the following decade. It's a trend that has repeated decade after decade. Many of these types of companies - AMZN, NFLX, GOOGL, FB - have pulled a massive share of their future returns forward (which is what happened to Microsoft, stagnating its stock for ~15 years). In 2007 the largest companies were: Exxon, GE, Microso…

Ironically (considering all the prognostication) one of the main examples you cite is factually incorrect. which is what happened to Microsoft, stagnating its stock for ~15 years Microsoft stock ticker - https://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:MSFT The longest "stagnant" period is directly after the dotcom bust and up to 2007. In that period the stock appreciated by ~10%. Over the following decade it appreciated…

No, it wasn't factually incorrect.

December 1999, it hit a high of $59.97.

As recently as November 2016, it was still below that line. Between mid January 2000 and September 2016, it didn't once cross above $59.97 in all of those years in-between.

Go back to as recently as August 2015 and you could find it under $40 still. It was $28 as recently as April 2013.

Even if you didn't want to look up specific date prices for the ticker, a 30 second check on its long-term stock chart will reveal my statement was correct. Slightly more than 15 years of stagnation in fact.

Inflation adjusted, it went down considerably over that time. That's not accounting for their share buybacks and dividends, which if you're lucky might have off-set 15 years of inflation.

Your attempt to claim I was wrong, consists of stating they generated a 10% return over seven years. Even if I were wrong about what I said (fortunately stock quotes are easy to check), that's comical. Go ahead and post what the annual return for those seven years was, under your 10% premise. Then find me an investor that wouldn't consider that stagnation. And that's the idealized scenario, the actual scenario is that the stock proceeded to consistently generate mediocre returns (or worse) between the post dotcom bubble era all the way into 2013.

The point of noting Microsoft's 15 plus years of stagnation in the market, is that their future returns were pulled forward. That's exactly what happened and investors suffered accordingly.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#200

Post by adventured »

frandroid wrote: post #35
adventured wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You forget that Microsoft's stock stagnated for 10 years before that. A 28 PE ratio is the new normal for tech companies. With Ballmer out of the picture, investors are speculating on a brighter future for MS. It's not here yet but they're making lots of smart moves.

> A 28 PE ratio is the new normal for tech companies.

It's not the new normal. That's what people say to justify extreme premiums during times in which investors have overly inflated valuations. This is the third bubbly tech era in the last 20 years. That new normal premise has been used frequently in each.

I understand why Microsoft has inflated. It doesn't jive with actual results in the post Ballmer era. There isn't even a hint of the kind of growth that could justify such an elevated PE ratio (elevated for a company with no growth for years). Their fast growth areas are struggling to off-set what they're losing in eroding, old business franchises. Net result, they're standing still.

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