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Just own the damn robots

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Re: Just own the damn robots

#311

Post by anigbrowl »

chopin wrote: post #230
anigbrowl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big if, given the vast range of subversive strategies available.

Most of which require communication which is being heavily surveilled. Afaik, uprisings, even mass uprisings are directed by few well-connected individuals. If you can single those out early enough in the process...

To some extent they are, but uprisings are often misrepresented as coups in retrospect. I have some radically different notions, but they're somewhat inchoate and trying to explain them in a long meandering comment would probably be a waste of my time and that of other readers - I feel like I'm a few years away from being able to generalize it, and realistically that's probably an underestimate.

As a very quick thumbnail, I'm trying to blend Integrated Information Theory, Selectorate Theory, the eusocial dynamics of colonial animals (including ourselves, per Wilson), and some probably-wrong ideas about meiosis (cell division) to come up with a biologically-rooted model of the collective action problem. Not being a professional scholar, there's little or no chance I'll ever weld these into a general theory of human social behavior, nor do I want to; I hope to intuit a good-enough grasp to deploy it within polities and rely on its fundamental harmony with nature as the least destructive method of manufacturing large-scale social change. It's probably a doomed endeavor but I'd rather fail at a hard problem :)

Re: Just own the damn robots

#312

Post by cakeface »

adventured wrote: post #199
ultraluminous wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I don't think that you are taking in to account the 2 for 1 stock split that Microsoft had February 14, 2003.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#313

Post by goatlover »

jernfrost wrote: post #294
CryptoPunk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And wages are growing faster in China than anywhere else. Automation has never been associated with mass unemployment or declining wages. In fact, the reality is exactly the opposite: it is the ultimate cause of all increases in workers' compensation. The belief that automation will hurt workers goes back 200 years and is found in sources as diverse as Marx's writings, JFK's speeches, and warnings from world renowned…

They are investing in automationnlargely because of the rapid wage increase. But you are mixing concerns. This is mostly old style automation which has never bothered is because it could never fully replace humans so we simply moved to new jobs. However now we are getting closer to the beginning of a period were people will become FULLY redundant because eventually there will be NO task which machines can’t do cheape…

> However now we are getting closer to the beginning of a period were people will become FULLY redundant because eventually there will be NO task which machines can’t do cheaper and better than us.

We automate the politicians, judges and CEOs out of a job.

> What then?

The machines get bored with doing everything for us, and figure out a way to exist on a another physical substrate elsewhere, like in the movie Her.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#314

Post by goatlover »

TuringTest wrote: post #210
goatlover wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had computers for 70 years now. In order for the machines to seriously cut into available jobs this time around, the software and robots have to be able to do tasks across a wide swath of activities humans are currently doing.

You haven't been watching the news recently?

Yeah, but I've also read what people like Rodney Brooks have to say on the matter.

And I take tech hype from the media with a healthy dose of salt.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#315

Post by dragonwriter »

Sean1708 wrote: post #259
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…

But didn't that all happen during the Industrial Revolution as well? Why is this any different?

> But didn't that all happen during the Industrial Revolution as well?

Arguably.

> Why is this any different?

Even if it wasn't, massive changes to politico-economic systems to redistribute gains were needed to mitigate the adverse distributional effects of the industrial revolution, so...

Re: Just own the damn robots

#316

Post by et-al »

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…

(random aside: which city had its housing prices jump like that? Waterloo?)

Re: Just own the damn robots

#317

Post by Waterluvian »

et-al wrote: post #316
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…

(random aside: which city had its housing prices jump like that? Waterloo?)

Yup.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#318

Post by CM30 »

philipkglass wrote: post #50
achamayou wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invest in education rather than robots ;)

Even if every barista could learn to write software or practice law, it would just mean that software developers and lawyers would come to be paid like baristas. An individual can rise by educating-up to a kind of job that offers high pay. A whole generation of graduates can't. ( Literacy used to be a specialized skill that provided its wielders with better-than-average jobs. Not so much today.)

> it would just mean that software developers and lawyers would come to be paid like baristas.

In quite a few places, the former are basically paid like baristas and office clerks. That certainly seems to be the case at the web development end (and I guess more mainstream side in general) in a lot of places in Europe.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#319

Post by chii »

grive wrote: post #211
aorloff wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point, there will be a genuine question: why do we need to work to benefit from the goods of these industries? For the same reason you can't look over to your neighbor's driveway and say, since he doesn't use his truck all day while he's at work, why can't I drive it ? The people who built those automated industries expended capital, and likely, borrowed against future revenue to do so. What you are free to…

> For the same reason you can't look over to your neighbor's driveway and say, since he doesn't use his truck all day while he's at work, why can't I drive it ? Now . This sense of ownership will be far more diluted once the truck is entirely automated and only needs ressources to run, while the knowledge that it could be far more efficiently allocated to be used by you at this time is made clear by our connected env…

Your neighbour might not be using said truck right now, but it's availablity for use instantly is in itself valuable. Ownership gives you that. If it was shared, then you lose the instant availablity.

Unless the automation creates free trucks for all to use, you scenario can't really come to pass.

Re: Just own the damn robots

#320

Post by toasterlovin »

mhb wrote: post #271
toasterlovin wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, maybe let your kids decide if life is worth living. Seems wrong to make that decision for them...

Is it wrong to make the decision for the first 1.8 kids or the next 8-10?

Simple: as many kids as you would have if the world weren't so terrible that "it's wrong to bring them into a world like this."
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