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No Recent Automation Revolution

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Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#21

Post by jvanderbot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16
d3nj4l wrote: post #14

I thought about this article in context of the recently reposted piece "There’s No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence" [1]. While it may be true that we haven't been able to automate new kinds of jobs, maybe we are just moments away from having an AGI that would make that kind of automation easy. That would contradict this article's claim that the narrative around an incoming automation revolution is bull…

> maybe we are just moments away from having an AGI that would make that kind of automation easy What evidence do we have for being closer to AGI today than we were twenty years ago? My point isn't that AGI is useless. But it's currently an article of faith. Faith is fine. Faith is essential. But isn't a good way to make huge allocations of resources.

His assertion that we could always be one discovery away is not false, it's just irrelevant. The article states no evidence that there's been any past effect of "increasing automation" and assumes the near future will look like the recent past. Just inventing AGI wouldn't actually change much the next day, it would just be a new paradigm, and things would eventually change... so I agree with TFA.

(Also, AGI would be not so useful. Humans are notoriously difficult to work with, and we seem to have General Intelligence. It would have to have a strange concoction of motivations to be immediately --- or even eventually --- useful for anything that we would want to automate).

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#22

Post by irjustin »

Is it just me or does it feel like this timeframe was too short?

Personally, I expect the largest disruptor of jobs to come from autonomous driving, but we're still 5-10+ years from seeing that hitting the ground.

As far as today is concerned, I largely agree. ETFs BOTZ and ROBO have increased, but not in such a way that would suggest huge automation revolution.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#23

Post by GuiA »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12
cancerSpreads wrote: post #8

This article comes too soon. How long have we been able to use millions of entries to machine learn? I'm still limited by processing speed. I imagine between math improvements, electrical engineering, computer science improvements/discoveries, and more we can automate jobs that require thinking or fine motor movements.

> This article comes too soon Most estimates a decade ago forecasted massive automation-caused job losses by 2020. > How long have we been able to use millions of entries to machine learn? How long did mechanical looms need to show they wouldn't become sentient? > I imagine I do to. But based on current technology, we have no idea how to achieve these goals. We can't even model how or when we might do so. This implie…

> How long did mechanical looms need to show they wouldn't become sentient?

Ah, thank you. That's handy phrasing.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#24

Post by d3nj4l »

jvanderbot wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe we are just moments away from having an AGI that would make that kind of automation easy What evidence do we have for being closer to AGI today than we were twenty years ago? My point isn't that AGI is useless. But it's currently an article of faith. Faith is fine. Faith is essential. But isn't a good way to make huge allocations of resources.

His assertion that we could always be one discovery away is not false, it's just irrelevant. The article states no evidence that there's been any past effect of "increasing automation" and assumes the near future will look like the recent past. Just inventing AGI wouldn't actually change much the next day, it would just be a new paradigm, and things would eventually change... so I agree with TFA. (Also, AGI would be…

I definitely don't mean it as in "AGI is invented; humans need not apply", but in the point you've covered:

> The article states no evidence that there's been any past effect of "increasing automation" and assumes the near future will look like the recent past.

My point was that predictions of AGI being so far away may be false, as explained the article I linked. If they were false, and we ended up with AGI, I don't think the article's assumption about the near future will apply. This does not need to happen overnight, it can take time, but the kinds of jobs we could automate would change drastically over time (and the time scale in the article is two decades long!)

On your second point, though. Part of why humans are difficult to work with because we have our own emotions and motivations and sometimes decide not to do things other people want. An extremely intelligent AI that did only what it was told to do would probably not be as difficult to work with?

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#25

Post by lettergram »

We are only a couple years away from automating most customer servicing. You’ll still need a few, but if we collect data on the few it’s possible to scale those answers to millions.

That’ll put millions out of work and is basically text generation... easy to deploy, easy to maintain, and we probably already have the technology just not productionized.

Now, those people will be retrained to do something. Maybe even just do more detailed customer service. So I’m not too concerned - just saying automation is coming

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#26

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jsmith12673 wrote: post #19

Economics noob here: the paper concludes that past automation is predicted by 2 key factors: pay and employment. What does that mean exactly? Are they saying that higher a job pays, the more likely it is to get automated? Or the other way around? Also what does 'employment' refer to exactly? Is measuring how well the demand for labour is being met in a certain job?

> Are they saying that higher a job pays, the more likely it is to get automated?

Yes. "Simple economic theory predicts that, all else equal, employers are more eager to automate jobs with higher pay and more workers. So these two factors should predict job automation. And we do in fact see such effects in Table 3, though more consistently for pay than employment."

> what does 'employment' refer to exactly?

Number of people employed.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#27

Post by raducu »

Swizec wrote: post #6
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear is very real, not about emasculation, but a loss of identity in a society where "you are your job". I have seen this first hand in both people who weren't "essential" during COVID shutdowns (to their horror), and people who were deemed "essential" but it was, in their words, "bullshit". Automation is rapidly accelerating into the wall that is identity beliefs at scale, and there is evidence that these belief…

> The revolution won't be the automation. It'll be in us accepting that the job wasn't who we were/are and it's okay to let it go This is perhaps the only thing socialism got right. At least the flavor we had in Yugoslavia and the remnants it left on the psyche of my parent's generation. You do your job, then you go home and live your actual life. The job exists as a way to "pay your dues" in society, but it isn't yo…

"Money doesn't buy happiness" is just something we tell the poor so they don't revolt -- this also applied to communism -- the communist elites lived a much better life materially and socially. Sure, average Ivan was "happy" because his neighbors had just as crappy flat, just as crappy car, just as crappy job, just as crappy food and so on and there was no way for him to "better" his life because money was meaningless because thats not what Ivan really lacked -- he lacked freedom to do as he pleased with his money.

My point was that people are competitive, social animals and social status is very important; sure, communism castrated a lot of those impulses and some people claim they were much happier back then, but its mostly bullshit nostalgia.

I was very young back then, but I remember the deprivations, my kindergarten educator slapping me for not applauding "dear leader", my parents just leaving me alone in the flat because they had to go the communist parades, being lectured in kindergarden how my parents jobs(doctors) were in fact less important than the jobs of other coleagues worker-parents jobs who "perhaps" made the syringes my parents could not do without; I remember people having to work on saturdays, night shifts and so on.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lettergram wrote: post #25

We are only a couple years away from automating most customer servicing. You’ll still need a few, but if we collect data on the few it’s possible to scale those answers to millions. That’ll put millions out of work and is basically text generation... easy to deploy, easy to maintain, and we probably already have the technology just not productionized. Now, those people will be retrained to do something. Maybe even ju…

> We are only a couple years away from automating most customer servicing

The paper rigorously questions such assertions of faith. It merits a thoughtful response.

As Deming said, "in God we trust, all others must bring data."

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#29

Post by mortenjorck »

irjustin wrote: post #22

Is it just me or does it feel like this timeframe was too short? Personally, I expect the largest disruptor of jobs to come from autonomous driving, but we're still 5-10+ years from seeing that hitting the ground. As far as today is concerned, I largely agree. ETFs BOTZ and ROBO have increased, but not in such a way that would suggest huge automation revolution.

The headline (and paper) are titled "No Recent Automation Revolution." We might very well be on the cusp of one, but prediction was not the goal of this paper.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#30

Post by [deleted] »

jvanderbot wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe we are just moments away from having an AGI that would make that kind of automation easy What evidence do we have for being closer to AGI today than we were twenty years ago? My point isn't that AGI is useless. But it's currently an article of faith. Faith is fine. Faith is essential. But isn't a good way to make huge allocations of resources.

His assertion that we could always be one discovery away is not false, it's just irrelevant. The article states no evidence that there's been any past effect of "increasing automation" and assumes the near future will look like the recent past. Just inventing AGI wouldn't actually change much the next day, it would just be a new paradigm, and things would eventually change... so I agree with TFA. (Also, AGI would be…

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