Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI are taking jobs

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 169 posts

Re: AI are taking jobs

#21

Post by ars »

kandu wrote: post #5

Imagine a world where all goods and services required for a decent life will be provided by AI and robots. Still, there will plenty of jobs for humans - those related to the humanity of humans. Life could become dedicated to enjoying art in various forms, and this art will be conceived mostly by humans. If people will have no work to do, they could hire entertainers. They could do jobs as a hobby - e.g., manually pro…

Sounds like a horrible world to me.

"Life could become dedicated to enjoying art"?? Ugh!!!!

"...could enjoy the variety of clothing..." are you kidding? That sounds horrible.

There is a basic human need to be needed. People who have everything but are not needed are miserable. People who are needed, but have little are happy.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#22

Post by gameshot911 »

For those who are interested in what a world where (intelligent) robots are the source of production, and humans are the content creators, I highly recommend this short story: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Sounds like Heaven on Earth to me. Now to make it happen during our lifetimes!

Re: AI are taking jobs

#23

Post by DavidSJ »

mikeash wrote: post #13
simonsarris wrote: post #7

I don't see this as a bad thing, except: In the 1950's people wondered what the future generations would do with all their free time. They predicted, correctly, that worker productivity would rise immensely. They also assumed that people would be just as wealthy while working much less. People are wealthier in some ways. In america, its pretty much standard issue to own at least one car (partially perhaps because a c…

This is just my uninformed opinion, but I think a lot of it has fallen victim to keeping up with the Joneses, and a lot of the rest to employers not being willing to give decent terms to part timers. People could get by with a much smaller salary (or keep the same salary but save a ton of it) by having an older car, a smaller house, less fancy food, etc. but everybody else has nicer things. I see people buying really…

For the other side, let's say I make $X but only need $X/2 to live. Try finding an employer who will let you work half time for $X/2. It's pretty tough, especially if you make $X at something "professional", rather than, say, digging ditches.

Rather than working ~20 hours a week, work ~40 hours a week, half your life.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#24

Post by forensic »

adamjernst wrote: post #12
simonsarris wrote: post #7

I don't see this as a bad thing, except: In the 1950's people wondered what the future generations would do with all their free time. They predicted, correctly, that worker productivity would rise immensely. They also assumed that people would be just as wealthy while working much less. People are wealthier in some ways. In america, its pretty much standard issue to own at least one car (partially perhaps because a c…

Hmm. I'd dispute that. We now have cellular phones, computers and the Internet, cars that are far safer and more efficient, 43" plasma TVs with 500 channels, iPads... You might say "well, those are all gadgets." Fine, but if you cut all of those out of your life you'll probably save more than $3000 per year. That itself is a huge boost for the average worker.

If you cut all those out of your life, you don't have a job anymore.

Cell phones, cars, computers, internet... these aren't luxuries. These are mandatory investments that people have to make in their career. Investments they have to make out of their own pocket.

Try getting a job without a phone. Doesn't work.

If I was a retired millionaire I could cut them out.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#25

Post by [deleted] »

Permit wrote: post #20
maeon3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the cotton pickers will need to be forced to go to high school and learn something that hasn't been automated. To the argument that this can't be done, take away their food, they will adapt. Mercy can be used in exceptional cases. I don't like the argument: "This human has such an aversion to learning that they must be supported forever like a pet". I suppose you wait for them to die and the problem solves itsel…

>take away their food, they will adapt. Oh, undoubtedly. But they will go down the path of least resistance which will more than likely be a life of crime. It's also important to recognize that not everyone is cut out for intellectually demanding jobs. There is a wide variety of intelligence levels throughout society.

[deleted]

Re: AI are taking jobs

#26

Post by conorgdaly »

I really love the photo. :) The digital robot interfacing with the laptop through it's keyboard; seemingly the only permitted I/O in the future. Trust issues between different hardware vendors must have hit an all time low after the various standards authorities fell apart!

Re: AI are taking jobs

#27

Post by sliverstorm »

simonsarris wrote: post #7

I don't see this as a bad thing, except: In the 1950's people wondered what the future generations would do with all their free time. They predicted, correctly, that worker productivity would rise immensely. They also assumed that people would be just as wealthy while working much less. People are wealthier in some ways. In america, its pretty much standard issue to own at least one car (partially perhaps because a c…

it does not seem like the average worker is as well-off as the past had predicted

Well, we may not all be working 8-hour weeks and vacationing in Hawaii and Mexico, but the simple truth is that people on average are a lot better off than in the past. The only stat I have in my head right now: Infant mortality has dropped from 2.6% to 0.6% since 1960.

A hundred years ago, poor people had dirt floors. That's unheard of today, except among the utterly destitute.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#28

Post by shasta »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

A lot of the argument on this topic seems to be "but this time it is really different!" Perhaps. And perhaps not. Most likely it is different, just like all those other times were different. I hate to be skeptical, but when this same pattern of people saying "it's different!" repeats over and over again without it being different, I think the onus is on those making the claim to support their argument better. If anyt…

As wealth accumulates among the masters of technology, asking what jobs might provide value to your peers is the wrong question. What value can your friends provide to big corporations?

Re: AI are taking jobs

#29

Post by inkaudio »

The author does not fully understand the totality of the work these professional do. From the two example listed.

"Radiologists, who can earn over $300,000 a year in America, after 13 years of college education and internship, are among the first to feel the heat. It is not just that the task of scanning tumour slides and X-ray pictures is being outsourced to Indian laboratories, where the job is done for a tenth of the cost. The real threat is that the latest automated pattern-recognition software can do much of the work for less than a hundredth of it."

a very naive understanding of radiologists. This only one of the many task a radiologists must handle, including interaction with patient, which is the most important task. We are far away from replace that service with Ai. Software handling one task won't eliminate the need for radiologists.

"Lawyers are in a similar boat now that smart algorithms can search case law, evaluate the issues at hand and summarise the results. Machines have already shown they can perform legal discovery for a fraction of the cost of human professionals—and do so with far greater thoroughness than lawyers and paralegals usually manage."

Case discovery is only one of the many task a Lawyer must perform, case discovery alone won't replace lawyers. It will only allow them to be more productive. Lawyers still responsible for many other task, they have to broker deals, consult clients and in the case of trial attorneys, win trials.

more thoughts at: http://techiroll.com/post/10173031897/do-not-blame-technolog...

Re: AI are taking jobs

#30

Post by noonespecial »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #14

A lot of the argument on this topic seems to be "but this time it is really different!" Perhaps. And perhaps not. Most likely it is different, just like all those other times were different. I hate to be skeptical, but when this same pattern of people saying "it's different!" repeats over and over again without it being different, I think the onus is on those making the claim to support their argument better. If anyt…

Spot on. Nearly all of the articles I've seen of late that tackle this theme reduce to "but how can all of the X's that are now unemployed find work if the economy will never again need X's".

Its a simple failure of imagination. When 50% of the people were farmers, not many of them could imagine being airline pilots. A combine harvester must have seemed like a fearsome thing indeed.

Post reply on HN