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No Recent Automation Revolution

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Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#91

Post by visarga »

Barrin92 wrote: post #32
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.[...]A…

It is rather automation and not AI itself that will bring changes to the job market. And the article argues automation hasn't had the expected effect yet.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#92

Post by mdoms »

I don't think anyone believes that the automation revolution is happening right now, but that it's imminent and we should start preparing our societies to cope with it now.

> Our paper has so far received zero media attention

Because you're answering a question no one asked.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#93

Post by reducesuffering »

cameldrv wrote: post #81
raducu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 meaningles…

Having not lived through it, but having seen a glimpse of its aftermath living in Berlin a few years, it was very interesting to see the contrasts between the Ossis and Wessis (at least ones that were say, at least 18 in 1989). In general, I found the Ossis to be more friendly and open and fun loving. For example, an Ossi party would usually be louder, messier, and have worse food, but everyone would be laughing and…

It’s not exactly a novel concept. Compare your recollection of the low class Irish party scene on the Titanic. What’s your imagination of a suburban house party or block party compared to the eloquent glitzy ballroom party by the well-to-do? Not many in society are expecting the well off to have much fun in gatherings amongst themselves.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#94

Post by visarga »

yk wrote: post #74

> Last December, Keller Scholl and I posted a working paper suggesting that this whole narrative is bullshit, at least so far. Thing is, when you are calculating the color of the sky, then it is either a bluish looking spectra, or you are in trouble. And consequently physicists will look outside immediately after that calculation. The entire post needs an explanation of why they don't find any automation in that time…

> I mean, just from administration we have things like package managers, containers, several cloud stuff, and so on.

Automation replaces human work, business can do better now, then they want to produce more than before so they up hiring as well. It's much easier to set your target higher (production, profit) than to automate anything. As soon as you have automated something new work pops up, work that was probably not done before for lack of resources.

Programming has been automating tasks for decades yet here we are, so many of us. Cloud should have automated many jobs, yet with this new found ease of deployment we chose to deploy more rather than hire less. As long as humans have needs and desire for betterment I don't think we can surpass our ever growing ambition with automation.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#95

Post by peisistratos »

There used to be local record shops and big ones downtown - music distribution has since become pretty automated. There used to be many bookstores around - book distribution has become fairly automated. Gamestop has been closing stores and has been hit by automated distribution in recent years.

I used to buy Hagstrom map books filled with detailed current maps - they were sold in gas stations and bookstores and they even had some of their own stores. Their stores all shut down and their business shrank enormously as map navigation became automated.

There used to be a lot of tour and travel agencies around. They still exist, but are much less prevalent and are scaled down.

In fact, automation of commodity distribution has had a major effect on retail, and consequently commercial real estate.

Insofar as office work - people who work in law tell me the large number of secretaries who shuffled through cabinets full of folders containing records have largely disappeared as record retrieval has been automated. I had data entry jobs many years ago, itself a type of automation - but the jobs I did have disappeared as data distribution has become automated.

I don't know what they are measuring but I have seen the effects of a automation all around. Maybe with the closing of bookstores and record stores and video game stores, they mean the role of a retail clerk has not been much automated, which may be true. But I have seen automation have a large effect on many industries, and then rippling effects onto industries like real estate.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#96

Post by biddlesby »

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.

To be fair, "the centre of the distribution catching up" is exactly the fear that the article is criticising. The fear isn't that one company is going to make some huge leap in AI - it's more about what happens if that leap gets adopted en-masse by the whole economy.

I think the OP's comment is very relevant.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#97

Post by thaumasiotes »

yurishimo wrote: post #75
gremlinsinc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

w/ touch screen you don't need to 'speak' unless maybe blind or something... So, you could be more accurate.. I mean I ALWAYS use mobile ordering now when going through drive through. I'll pull over, sit for a moment, place my order, then get in line.

Since COVID started I've been using some mobile ordering apps more and more. One of my new favorites is Whataburger here in Texas. Texans know that Whataburger is infamous for being slow since everything is made to order. In-n-Out has figured it out but Whataburger is still so slow for some reason. With the app, I can place an order in my driveway, then arrive at the drive thru about the time its ready. If I'm lucky,…

> Texans know that Whataburger is infamous for being slow since everything is made to order. In-n-Out has figured it out but Whataburger is still so slow for some reason.

The analysis is obviously incomplete. Making your order to order, in a timely fashion, was the point that distinguished Burger King from McDonald's.

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#98

Post by ImaCake »

Barrin92 wrote: post #32
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.[...]A…

You might enjoy Charles Stross (early 2000s) take on the same concept which he has published under a CC license here: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/t...

Re: No Recent Automation Revolution

#100

Post by kristianp »

gigel82 wrote: post #73

I don't know enough about industrial automation to form an opinion, but RPA is definitely coming for the rank-and-file office drones. You'd be surprised how many "paper pushers" still fill the cubicles of this world (their job literally to copy stuff from this ERP to this CRM or to this legacy Access / Excel / BI system). This is the low hanging fruit of job automation and enterprises are quickly figuring out what ki…

RPA?
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