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Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

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Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#21

Post by gt_ »

crc32 wrote: post #13
announcerman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it isn't profitable to help the people left behind there won't be much done. Hopefully the people left behind will start making it unprofitable for the elites to ignore them. Probably won't happen though due to the vast amount of surveillance we're subjected to along with possible robotic police force in the future.

Yes. What is being suggested by the zeitgeist is that we are in a transition period; and that the scale of the problem is going to be so large that it cannot be ignored. That is, if 75% of the population has no job in 2150 you have a huge ethical and societal problem.

This article is about unemployment rates, but wage drops in lower paying job sectors is already a huge ethical and societal problem. It can already not be ignored. It is, nonetheless, still being ignored.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#22

Post by onion2k »

landryraccoon wrote: post #16
onion2k wrote: post #2

The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. I don't see that in the current wave of "AI"-based automation. There's an emphasis on speed, accuracy, and working with more unknowns, but there isn't any talk of getting more work done. That makes it scary.

> There's an emphasis on speed, accuracy, and working with more unknowns How is this not getting more work done? It sounds exactly like more work is getting done to me.

If you produce one report in a day, or a computer does it more accurately in 50ms and you don't need the person, the same amount of work is done.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#23

Post by abusoufiyan »

crc32 wrote: post #12
abusoufiyan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. I guess I also just don't see much difference. All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily aut…

> didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. this is by definition "increasing productivity" isn't it? > All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily automatible ones) to different kinds. If that's true, then what will the shift be to ? These are interesting questions. And how long will the shift take? Because I th…

If that's what increasing productivity is, then AI will surely increase productivity.

I think the shift will probably be towards internet-based jobs. Content creation / software development / content curation (think social media managers) / customer service, the things that it's hard for AI to get right.

It will probably take longer and definitely leave some malcontents but, so did the stocking frame.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#24

Post by elgenie »

abusoufiyan wrote: post #8
erikrothoff wrote: post #5

It feels like we're moving away from jobs that are purely productive, to jobs that are more creative. I don't mean arts etc, but 50 years ago a company like Facebook/Snap/Gaming/Any digital entertainment really, could not exist because people were occupied work that was required for society to function. Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also…

>also choosing careers based on what they feel is fun/satisfying for themselves. I don't think this is ever going to change in human society. If a job is fun to a large group of people, then it will pay poorly because many people will want to do it. And poor pay decreases the satisfaction one gets from such a job. The only people who win here are those who find a job fun / satisfying that most other people cannot han…

Lots of people would love to play in the NBA and would find it fun and satisfying. It's just that very few of them are 6'8", absurdly athletic, and skilled at shooting a basketball. However, if something like nanotechnology made it possible for all those people to play basketball at that level, then the entertainment and spectator aspect would fall away and the desirability of that occupation would go away as well.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#25

Post by landryraccoon »

onion2k wrote: post #22
landryraccoon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's an emphasis on speed, accuracy, and working with more unknowns How is this not getting more work done? It sounds exactly like more work is getting done to me.

If you produce one report in a day, or a computer does it more accurately in 50ms and you don't need the person, the same amount of work is done.

That doesn't make any sense to me. So, if a tractor digs a hole in 5 minutes that a person could dig in a day, the same work is being done because a person could have done it? If a horse carries a person 10 miles in an hour and a car does it in 10 minutes, the same work is done because the horse did the same work as the car? Does an ATM do no work because a teller could do the same thing, just slower and at higher cost?

By your standard, does the industrial revolution mean that more work is being done?

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#26

Post by abusoufiyan »

Sukera wrote: post #9
abusoufiyan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. I guess I also just don't see much difference. All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily aut…

Yes, all kinds of jobs - but are there actually a substantial number of people doing those jobs compared to the number of jobs that are easy to automate away?

I don't see why it matters. In the end, there won't be massive job loss to automation.

Automation right now can eliminate most farm laborers. So why are there still so many farm laborers in the world? Because

a) human wages in most of the world are cheaper than expensive machinery

b) There isn't a profit motive to automate away jobs that pay so little

c) structure of society is such that many technologies take decades upon decades to trickle out to most people in the world (talking the whole world here, not just Euromerica).

In addition, the service economy won't be automated away for a long time because human contact is valued by lots of people in that field. Service economy scales with the purchasing power of communities and AI is going to create a consolidation of purchasing power wherever it is introduced.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#27

Post by abusoufiyan »

crdoconnor wrote: post #15
abusoufiyan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference I see is that historically automation was used to increase productivity. Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It just did work humans were doing for less money than a human salary. I guess I also just don't see much difference. All that will happen will be again a shift away from many kinds of jobs (the easily aut…

>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It was largely used to employ cheap labor to produce crap. The luddites produced higher value artisinal goods. The luddites weren't reactionaries intent on destroying technology any more than strikers are protesting against the concept of 'work', they were just saboteurs trying to improve the…

Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#28

Post by andyjohnson0 »

erikrothoff wrote: post #5

It feels like we're moving away from jobs that are purely productive, to jobs that are more creative. I don't mean arts etc, but 50 years ago a company like Facebook/Snap/Gaming/Any digital entertainment really, could not exist because people were occupied work that was required for society to function. Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also…

> Now humans can start focusing on spending their day building things for the entertainment of other humans, and also choosing careers based on what they feel is fun/satisfying for themselves.

How long before we get to a situation where this is a realistic proposition for many people? Most people on HN live in a comfortable bubble. The reality right now is that the vast majority of jobs are not creative, fun, or satisfying for the people that perform them. Shop work, changing car tires, cleaning roads/offices/windows/people, mining, warehouse work, digging holes, erecting scaffolding, checking invoices, data entry, driving trucks, painting houses. Dull and exhausting: that's the reality of work for most people right now.

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#29

Post by abusoufiyan »

elgenie wrote: post #24
abusoufiyan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>also choosing careers based on what they feel is fun/satisfying for themselves. I don't think this is ever going to change in human society. If a job is fun to a large group of people, then it will pay poorly because many people will want to do it. And poor pay decreases the satisfaction one gets from such a job. The only people who win here are those who find a job fun / satisfying that most other people cannot han…

Lots of people would love to play in the NBA and would find it fun and satisfying. It's just that very few of them are 6'8", absurdly athletic, and skilled at shooting a basketball. However, if something like nanotechnology made it possible for all those people to play basketball at that level, then the entertainment and spectator aspect would fall away and the desirability of that occupation would go away as well.

Exactly.

Lots of people don't want to play in the Eastern European basketball league. They specifically want to play in the NBA. It's not about basketball, it's about the perks.

Sidenote: Other than the height, the absurd athleticism and skill at shooting ball are grown over a long period of hard work. Nanotechnology cannot substitute for hard work and years of learning the strategies and techniques of playing the game...

Re: Technological Unemployment: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#30

Post by crc32 »

abusoufiyan wrote: post #27
crdoconnor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is this true? The stocking frame (and the reactionary group of Luddites that it incited) didn't really increase productivity. It was largely used to employ cheap labor to produce crap. The luddites produced higher value artisinal goods. The luddites weren't reactionaries intent on destroying technology any more than strikers are protesting against the concept of 'work', they were just saboteurs trying to improve the…

Okay, I'm not a scholar on European history, so you're probably right. It was just an example. Still there have been automations in the past. We're all still here.

Well actually, we're not all still here!

Those shifts - i.e. the industrial revolution - were enormously disruptive!

Assuming that this is happening; or going to happen, how can we smooth it out a bit?

And of course; that is on the basis that this is not a science fiction AI special; in which case an even more thoughtful approach might be required to minimise the damage and maximise happiness; or whatever variable you prefer.

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