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The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

cacm.acm.org

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Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#71

Post by Defletter »

arvinsim wrote: post #63
omscs99 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate it? Another example, if there’s some repetitive task that you automate at a software dev job, would you get rewarded for figuring out how to automate it? The answer is obviously dependent on culture, at my current gig you just get brushed off Seems to me like you’re assuming that…

> Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate. The reward is more time. Now where that time is spent is another story.

More time, yes, probably doing something else equally tedious, or looking for a job.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#72

Post by asdff »

conception wrote: post #34
opportune wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely she had the tools to do that in excel itself, no? This is something I see a lot in software, where people devalue and trivialize the skills and abilities needed to make software simply because they know something is possible to do in software and because, as a software worker, they most likely had a natural predilection towards the kind of thought processes that led them toward pursuing software work. I th…

You see this in manufacturing as well. You’d think robots would be everywhere but often, like way more than you’d imagine, it’s cheaper to hire a human to do it.

I think part of that is how these sorts of businesses choose to organize their money. A manufacturer might budget themselves to be quite lean, so lean that for any sort of improvement like automation with robots, they have to hire an expensive consultant to tell them they have to hire an expensive robot company to build them expensive robots with expensive service contracts. So of course in that model the human is cheaper. However, if the manufacturer instead took all that money they would have spent on the expensive consultant, and opened up their own "internal" automating wing that would just look for things within the company to replace with a robot they create and service internally, maybe the math would pencil out another way.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#73

Post by zweifuss »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #49
NikolaNovak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say that - I'm increasingly subscribing to "bullshit jobs" theory : * productivity for goods is high and availability is high (we can discuss inequality and distribution) * we just don't need everybody to work 40hrs a week to obtain collectively good standard of living * but as a society we are uncomfortable with universal basic income * so instead we basically do UBI through inefficient, unnecessary j…

> so instead we basically do UBI through inefficient, unnecessary jobs. Your first 3 bullet points make sense, but this last one is where I think the normal theory behind "bullshit jobs" really falls apart. Every individual business has a large, strong economic incentive to not hire these bullshit jobs if they don't need to, so why should we think they would be so generous to engage in this "bullshit jobs charity"? I…

Yes, that's how it is. For every reform that would benefit society as a whole, there is now a tiny minority of certain losers with a deeply entrenched lobby against the new and for the old. Be it fossil fuels, health care, banking, peace in the Middle East, nuclear technology, the use of genetic engineering in plant breeding, electric vehicles, and so on.

I don't think UBI would change that, but UBI might have a chance to change the perception of one's job as a bullshit job (they say that's 40% of the workforce).

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#74

Post by mnky9800n »

ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

And don't forget that automating this process could also include a host of error checking she is simply unable to do because she is a human and not a computer.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#75

Post by eru »

HHC-Hunter wrote: post #69
arvinsim wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hypothetically, if she figured out how to automate it on her own, would she get any kind of reward for it? If not, why should she automate. The reward is more time. Now where that time is spent is another story.

Sounds like you're implying that that newly spared time would be hers to spend and not her employers?

If she keeps her mouth shut about it, definitely.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#76

Post by rottencupcakes »

bee_rider wrote: post #13
ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

It would be nice if there was a general expectation by now that people would have a sort of “intro to scripting” type class in high school. Not everyone has to be a programmer, in the same way not everyone needs to be an author, but everybody ought to be able to write a memo, email, or shopping list.

What I learnt from the emergence of chatGPT was that way more people were allergic to writing even a small note than I thought.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#77

Post by eru »

bee_rider wrote: post #13
ethbr1 wrote: post #3

I understand this is ACM, but I would say the decline has strictly been a failure of software . Specifically, corporate IT's failure to deliver general purpose development tools usable by anyone in a company to make computers do work for them (aka programming). There's still a ton of general value that could be delivered by general purpose processors/computers. But instead, most non-programmers live in a Kafkaesque r…

It would be nice if there was a general expectation by now that people would have a sort of “intro to scripting” type class in high school. Not everyone has to be a programmer, in the same way not everyone needs to be an author, but everybody ought to be able to write a memo, email, or shopping list.

Look at all the other classes people are already sitting through for high school and not learning anything either. What makes you think this one would be any different?

Already around the world high schools all have something highfalutin like 'teaching critical thinking' in their curriculum.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#78

Post by eru »

asdff wrote: post #64
bee_rider wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if there was a general expectation by now that people would have a sort of “intro to scripting” type class in high school. Not everyone has to be a programmer, in the same way not everyone needs to be an author, but everybody ought to be able to write a memo, email, or shopping list.

Take it a step further and teach actual data analysis and statistics that are not coin flip/compound interest plug and chug into the calculator problems. No matter what sort of job you do in life, being able to pull a csv from all your different credit or debit accounts and draw some inferences from that would be so useful.

Just because something fancy (or even basic) is on the curriculum doesn't mean that anyone is learning anything.

No matter how well meaning, high school barely teaches most people anything in practice.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology (2021)

#79

Post by mvncleaninst »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #49
NikolaNovak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say that - I'm increasingly subscribing to "bullshit jobs" theory : * productivity for goods is high and availability is high (we can discuss inequality and distribution) * we just don't need everybody to work 40hrs a week to obtain collectively good standard of living * but as a society we are uncomfortable with universal basic income * so instead we basically do UBI through inefficient, unnecessary j…

> so instead we basically do UBI through inefficient, unnecessary jobs. Your first 3 bullet points make sense, but this last one is where I think the normal theory behind "bullshit jobs" really falls apart. Every individual business has a large, strong economic incentive to not hire these bullshit jobs if they don't need to, so why should we think they would be so generous to engage in this "bullshit jobs charity"? I…

> I think what is really happening is that as society advances, lots of rules, regulations and processes just build up and up over time, and this complexity eventually becomes self-sustaining, even if it greatly diverges from the original intent of the original rules.

This is one theory, I think a slightly different explanation could be that most corporations are too large for the people making decisions regarding things like layoffs to be able to have a clear picture of what each employee is doing

Also like a sibling comment said, there are also conflicting incentives like middle management engaging in empire building. Because of this, there isn't any vertical enforcement or clarity

Really interesting how much better complexity scales in software than it does in business

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