AI are taking jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: AI are taking jobs

#161

Post by 127 » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 1:28 AM UTC

marquis wrote: post #146

127 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a society of couch potatoes and drug addicts to me. From my perspective you have a much too optimistic view on the human race. If people are not forced to exceed, they will not. Suffering, that does not cripple, defines us. It makes us stronger, more agile, more determined. I would go so far as to say that when we have dreams and goals and we strive to achieve them, by making work towards step by step, ea…

> the easier it is to meet material needs, the lazier people get and more prone to instant gratification. It's not that difficult to extrapolate from this one simple truth And yet all literature (fiction and non-fiction) ever written on this topic concludes that above all humans want to feel connected and valued. I completely disagree with your theory and believe that given the opportunity to not require demeaning wo…

>all humans want to feel connected and valued.

Being lazy and prone to instant gratification does not mean not having friends or family. Why would you see these two points as mutually exclusive?

>rich culture of arts and music

Are you assuming that everyone can produce something of value in this regard? They can't. A very large majority of it is complete crap.

>prefers to do something with their time

I didn't say people wouldn't do anything, just that they wouldn't do much anything they found uncomfortable to meet some abstract, long term goal. The ability to work to embetter themselves is not the same as mental masturbation.

>I am confident the majority will also prefer meaning over stagnation.

People need reasons to do things they find difficult. Motivation and drive is not born out of a vacuum. Remove a reason like the need to have food, water, heat, electricity, sanitation and housing; lose much of the need in creating wealth for yourself.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#162

Post by oelewapperke » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 7:40 AM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #149

mseebach wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's where I'm coming from: Putting food on the table as a result of your work is satisfying and a source of pride. Not being able to do it is shameful. This is a fundamental dynamic. While it's good that there's a safety net so slip-ups and bad luck won't put you in the street and kill your children, institutionalising that dynamic (effectively removing it) will have catastrophic effects on the values of societ…

>So here's where I'm coming from: Putting food on the table as a result of your work is satisfying and a source of pride. Not being able to do it is shameful. This is a fundamental dynamic. You act like this is a fundamental feature of humanity; it's not. Its a learned response to thousands of years of scarcity. There were plenty of societies where food was plentiful and thus they never developed this sort of social…

You mean the dark ages ? And of course, times in history when living was actually worse than in the dark ages.

I love how people think today. My grandfather was a colonial doctor, and he actually participated once or twice in a group that approached a tribal society, with more than enough food for all members of the tribe. They did the very same thing then as a completely unrelated tribe on a different continent did to the national geographic crew that approached them.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/30/uncontacted-amazon-tribe...

Those "plentiful" societies are very different, but they share 2 properties : 1) it's law of the jungle. Kill or be killed. Being a member of the tribe basically entitles you to not be automatically attacked the moment they see you. That's it. 2) the most progressive form of government to be found there is a violent dictatorship, with violent "revolutions" every few years. (the worst ? The same, but every few months). Regularly the new leader decides to eradicate half the tribe.

This is what you're referring to ?

Re: AI are taking jobs

#163

Post by oelewapperke » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 7:42 AM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #137

_delirium wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second part doesn't seem correct; a huge amount of new development in Denmark is done by people on transfer income. For example, a number of research results that later were commercialized have come out of Masters theses (there's even a whole arrangement where you can do a thesis in collaboration with a company), and a number of companies were funded initially by some kind of government benefits, sometimes offici…

So, student subsidies are the odd one out here, because they're not money you're given to survive, they're given in exchange for a specific activity. They do, however, count as transfer income, and the source I have for 60% didn't break it down. Yes, unemployment benefits can provide a backstop that enables entrepreneurship, but Denmark has more generous benefits than most other countries, yet the levels of entrepren…

Student subsidies are less than 1% of all social security spending in Denmark.

Also, most of even that 1% it is wasted. The majority of people fail, even with this more than generous government support.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#164

Post by corporalagumbo » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 8:30 AM UTC

forensic wrote: post #73

mediaman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect the particulars of your situation but it is not standard. I own a manufacturing company with >100 employees, a mix of manufacturing and office/service jobs, and I don't expect answers from home from anyone except a couple top execs and the sales team, who are all based out of their home anyway and have company provided smartphones. According to benchmarking data our company is not lavish, pays competitive w…

Your company is not standard. Manufacturing? Are you sure you're not in China? Most jobs available right now are customer facing service jobs. They give a typical employee 32 hours per week to avoid being legally required to treat them as a full time employee, and they change the shifts on a week to week basis. Good employees are rewarded with more hours or better shifts, while bad employees are punished by reducing…

Wait. I thought we lived in a world where a staggering majority of the 7 billion people now alive (an absolutely unprecedented population level) manage to have more than enough food to eat from day to day. A world that largely has forgotten what true food insecurity is like. A world that pushes the limits of the world's carrying capacity. A world that is the product of the most efficient, integrated systems mankind has ever built to extract the world's resources.

So how can this be true while we also apparently have been enslaved by computers and corporate overlords who refuse to let us eat?

My conclusion: 1) You use the word 'slavery' very loosely. 2) You ignore the ability of population increases to nullify productivity gains. 3) You have let your emotions overpower your thoughts and so instead of analysing issues you rant.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#165

Post by GFischer » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 2:45 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #97

potatolicious wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that there aren't new jobs being created, it's that almost none of them can be done by the people who were displaced. You lay off 10,000 factory workers. Do you think they can ever be airline pilots? Or programmers? Or financial analysts? Or what-have-yous? Sure, a small (very small) percentage of these folk will successfully retrain into another field, but the vast majority of them will be left beh…

I don't see how non-knowledge-based work is gone forever. Sure, we have roombas, but we are a long way from me being able to tell a robot to clean a messy room, or to properly lay out merchandise that has been messed up by customers. Heck, even at high-end SysAdmin rates, I can assemble servers cheaper than I can buy them from Dell. I mean, I think a some of the barrier to unskilled employment right now is cultural.…

Exactly, with the creation of more wealth, you can afford that kind of nice services :) like a cleaning lady :)

In Mexico and South America, it's even expected that if you're well off, you're going to have household people (gardeners, cooks, cleaning staff).

Here in Uruguay I used to have a cleaning lady (once a week) when my income was U$ 500/month ! (she made U$ 10 per visit).

Re: AI are taking jobs

#166

Post by hackinthebochs » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 3:01 PM UTC

127 wrote: post #160

hackinthebochs wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If it were not for women, I'd just sit home playing World of Warcraft, drinking energy drinks and masturbating, to put it bluntly. This is where I think your argument falls apart. It's not because of some drive created through scarcity that encourages you to get up and be productive, its to gain social status (as communicated through wealth) to attract women. This drive will be ever present in a society where basic…

>It's not because of some drive created through scarcity that encourages you to get up and be productive, its to gain social status (as communicated through wealth) to attract women. Isn't this exactly the same thing? The love of women is the scarce resource that drives me to exceed. I don't understand your point here. >This drive will be ever present in a society where basic needs are free. It already is. It's calle…

I'm not sure we're arguing the same thing anymore.

>Isn't this exactly the same thing? The love of women is the scarce resource that drives me to exceed. I don't understand your point here.

It can certainly be viewed this way. What I was referring to when I said scarce resource was food and wealth. The point is that, even if your necessities were taken care of, you wouldn't sit in your basement playing WoW all day. Those drives that push you to go out and create now (in an environment of scarcity) would still be just as present in an environment where wealth was not scarce. What society deems as status-worthy would simply evolve.

The point is that we would NOT become a society of "couch potatoes and drug addicts", as you claimed, as the drives that push us to excel today would be just as present in the supposed robot-utopian future.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#167

Post by skerrit_bwoy » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 3:33 PM UTC

forensic wrote: post #159

skerrit_bwoy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people on HN are 1-3 sigmas on the right side of the IQ bell curve. They have a hard time understanding what life is like on the other side (although rampant off-shoring and H1B wage gouging might, one day, engender some horizon broadening). Read this: http://www.isteve.com/How_to_Help_the_Left_Half_of_the_Bell_...

There are major issues with the genetic view of IQ. Proper training/environment increases IQ scores tremendously. In any case, that was a good read.

It's just a question of degree. Is height solely determined by genetics? No - we know that nutrition plays a large part. But potential height is still dominated by genetics. It doesn't matter whether or not he eats his Wheaties, the average kid is not going to grow up to be Shaq, period.

Ditto for intelligence. Things like iodine and breast feeding seem to be capable of boosting IQ by a few points each. Doubtless there are other factors. And yet, there is little reason to doubt that there is a genetic ceiling to any given person's potential IQ, at least if you accept that IQ stems from physical properties - in which case, how could it be exempt from genetic determination?

This is reality, and there is little hope of improving the lot of those who did not win the genetic lottery without first accepting that there is, in fact, such a lottery.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#168

Post by forensic » Thu, Nov 10, 2011, 1:18 AM UTC

corporalagumbo wrote: post #164

forensic wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your company is not standard. Manufacturing? Are you sure you're not in China? Most jobs available right now are customer facing service jobs. They give a typical employee 32 hours per week to avoid being legally required to treat them as a full time employee, and they change the shifts on a week to week basis. Good employees are rewarded with more hours or better shifts, while bad employees are punished by reducing…

Wait. I thought we lived in a world where a staggering majority of the 7 billion people now alive (an absolutely unprecedented population level) manage to have more than enough food to eat from day to day. A world that largely has forgotten what true food insecurity is like. A world that pushes the limits of the world's carrying capacity. A world that is the product of the most efficient, integrated systems mankind h…

Are we better off than 1000 years ago?

Yeah.

Are we better off than America 40 years ago?

No.

Are we as far ahead as we should be?

No.

There is still food scarcity today, and there doesn't need to be. There is still environmental destruction today, and there doesn't need to be. Freedom, democracy and prosperity came about with enlightenment philosophy, but computer technology has actually caused a reduction in freedom and prosperity for Americans. This is a problem.

My rant would not have been made 40 years ago in this country. Things have gotten worse in this country.

Re: AI are taking jobs

#169

Post by loup-vaillant » Thu, Nov 10, 2011, 12:50 PM UTC

skerrit_bwoy wrote: post #167

forensic wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are major issues with the genetic view of IQ. Proper training/environment increases IQ scores tremendously. In any case, that was a good read.

It's just a question of degree. Is height solely determined by genetics? No - we know that nutrition plays a large part. But potential height is still dominated by genetics. It doesn't matter whether or not he eats his Wheaties, the average kid is not going to grow up to be Shaq, period. Ditto for intelligence. Things like iodine and breast feeding seem to be capable of boosting IQ by a few points each. Doubtless the…

Just a precision. I see two questions of interest when talking about whether height and IQ come from genetic or environmental factors.

The first question is, how much of the currently observed variability in height (and IQ) is explained by genetic factors and environmental factors respectively? Meaning, how much of a lottery genes actually are?

The second question is, how could we take control of the variability? Meaning, how much could we deliberately influence height (and IQ) through genes and environment respectively?

By itself, the first question is of high academic interest, and low practical interest. The second question is just the opposite. But more important, those two questions should be treated separately, so everyone knows what we are talking about.