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No Recent Automation Revolution

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Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#31

Post by adventured »

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…

Also in the customer service segment, we continue to accelerate the move to wipe out fast food jobs. Four million people work in fast food restaurants in the US. I'll be surprised if around 1/4 to 1/3 of those jobs don't vanish this decade. That is part of the automation revolution and it is underway. Just the process of automating ordering at fast food restaurants as we already easily can, will remove several hundred thousand jobs permanently.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#32

Post by Barrin92 »

hirundo wrote: post #3

The horrors of the automation revolution have been on our collective mind for a long time. In the '70s this was one of my dad's favorite jokes: "It's terrible, my father lost the job he had for decades. He was replaced by a clever mechanical gizmo just six inches long. And then my mom got one." It plays on the fear of being emasculated by technology. Maybe that leads us to exaggerate the threat.

Ted Chiang made a similar point a few years back. (well not that phallic, but also about psychological projection as a reason for the AI fear)

"This summer, Elon Musk spoke to the National Governors Association and told them that “AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Doomsayers have been issuing similar warnings for some time, but never before have they commanded so much visibility.[...]AI redesigns itself to be more effective, it might decide that the best way to maximize its output would be to destroy civilization and convert the entire surface of the Earth into strawberry fields"[...]

"This scenario sounds absurd to most people, yet there are a surprising number of technologists who think it illustrates a real danger. Why? Perhaps it’s because they’re already accustomed to entities that operate this way: Silicon Valley tech companies."[...]

"The idea of superintelligence is such a poorly defined notion that one could envision it taking almost any form with equal justification: a benevolent genie that solves all the world’s problems, or a mathematician that spends all its time proving theorems so abstract that humans can’t even understand them. But when Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no-holds-barred capitalism."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-dang...

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#33

Post by agumonkey »

jariel wrote: post #2

Star Wars used painstakingly crafted models and photography effects to produce the film. Now, people using modern tools can do much more, with considerably less work. The 'jobs' analysis wouldn't necessarily reveal that. Taking inventory in a retail store used to be a paper and pencil mass bureaucracy - it's now streamlined. We don't stand at the line anymore to withdraw or deposit money. Secretaries don't type memos…

Slight anecdata. Lots of secretarial roles do take handwritten notes. It's an odd time because it's clear that human intervention is almost not required anymore.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#34

Post by Zaskoda »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
Zaskoda wrote: post #10

Due to the Covid-19 lock down, my company was forced to accelerate our automation program. We did in months what we had originally planned to do in years. As we are able to open our operations center further, it's clear that we'll be providing fewer jobs than we did before. At least some part of that is the result of automation. I can't help but think this same pattern is playing out at other companies right now.

> Due to the Covid-19 lock down, my company was forced to accelerate our automation program This sounds like the centre of the distribution catching up to the frontier moreso than the frontier advancing.

Sort of. We do have unique problems to solve given the nature of our products. But to some degree, you are correct. We would have eventually done it to scale, but right now we did it to survive.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#35

Post by maxerickson »

adventured wrote: post #31
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…

Also in the customer service segment, we continue to accelerate the move to wipe out fast food jobs. Four million people work in fast food restaurants in the US. I'll be surprised if around 1/4 to 1/3 of those jobs don't vanish this decade. That is part of the automation revolution and it is underway. Just the process of automating ordering at fast food restaurants as we already easily can, will remove several hundre…

Fast food automates tasks more than jobs.

Which the link doesn't particularly seem to be analyzing. McDonalds eliminating ~1 near minimum wage job at every store isn't going to be reflected in wages of the remaining employees.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#36

Post by [deleted] »

_AzMoo wrote: post #18
d3nj4l wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point, but that doesn't seem to be what the article talks about. From the linked article: > Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that for many years the media has been almost screaming that we entering a big automation revolution , with huge associated job losses, due to new AI tech, especially deep learning. Emphasis mine. Their point doesn't seem to be that automation isn't happening,…

I think a lot of people that are in the AI/Tech space are probably a bit detached from the realities of non-tech businesses. While you talk of "new tech" being AI and deep-learning, I'm still in the process of implementing barcoding systems in warehouses. I think the vast majority of businesses just aren't ready to move into the data-driven AI space that you call new tech. They're 20 years behind it.

[deleted]

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#37

Post by averros »

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…

[dead]

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#38

Post by maxerickson »

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…

Everything having an awful phone tree doesn't seem like we are a couple years away from automating customer service.

What's happened is companies have restricted the customer service they offer (the phone operator can't do anything the customer can't do on the website). That's not automation getting closer, it's the service getting shittier.

(seriously compare calling a hospital and talking immediately to an operator that connects you to the person you want to listening to 3 selection lists with the same virus warning at the beginning of the each one and then talking to an operator that connects you to the person you want...)

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#39

Post by agumonkey »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #17
agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's shallow (funny, but shallow). It's about stability. You carved a nice spot where you found joy and financial ... well .. stability. And now your life might go to the toilet. There's no guarantee that your next job will be 1. Fulfilling in itself 2. Provide the same income 3. Provide the same secondary benefits (colleagues, hours, boss, etc) And.. automation is not even a guarantee that what your were producing…

Yes, all the unemployment/stock market value/income statistics all leave out the most important metric - the feeling of security, or insecurity I should say. Volatility is high, people can see it and feel it, and it shapes their decisions.

Volatility also open roads to predatory management. Last year I felt how job blackmail felt. It's near invisible, no one has to say a word. Your boss can just bully you and if you happen to like and need that job, you have to decide to harm your own daily life or suffer his ways.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#40

Post by tschwimmer »

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…

I agree with you, but probably not for the same reason.

I think Millennials are less comfortable talking with people and are willing to put up with less flexible and less powerful automated solutions where their parents would not. Expect customer service to get even worse with automation, not better.

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