Brain work may be going the way of manual work • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#21

Post by tocomment » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #18

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Schumpeterian (or Marxist) "creative destruction" at play. The idea of "creative destruction" is an interesting one, and it's an area of much debate in regards to the long-term viability of the capitalist model. The key idea of "creative destruction" is basically that technological innovation both creates (duh) and destroys (in that it destroys economic value based on pre-innovation techn…

You mention Schumpeterian, guess who wrote the article! (or it could be someone with the same name, I don't honestly know)

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#22

Post by Iterated » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #16

It's the finance and legal professions that are most at risk with the current level of AI and machine learning. Contrary to what most finance and legal professionals believe, there is low creativity in their vocations - and that is exactly what AI and machine learning does best: wrote procedural operations from a complex set of rules. This will be very interesting to see how our "captains of corruption" (the fucks th…

What part of finance do you think will go first ? Finance is highly subjective, and while I don't think it isn't at risk of being taken over by AI, I think it will be quite a while before a machine can make the proper subjective decisions a finance professional makes.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#23

Post by lpvn » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

kybernetyk wrote: post #4

3pt14159 wrote: post #2

No they will not. The amount of effort required to shrink real knowledge worker jobs is astronomical compared to simply driving a car. After the singularity, fine. But even that will require a massive, massive amount of work. The low hanging fruit for increasing knowledge work output is in Gattaca not AI.

I guess the point where an AI can replace a programmer is the point where a technological singularity begins. Because at that point the AI is capable of improving its own code which would lead to a 'runaway reaction'. And if you're in a post-singularity world you don't really have to worry about jobs anymore. So I guess being a programmer is pretty future proof ;)

The fact that automation will take most of population out of work doesn't necessarily mean that your job will be completely automated. Look at a manufacturing plant for instance, human workers are still necessary but you need 10x less workers and they'll produce 10x more than 50 years ago.

The same holds for technical areas, we can't say for sure when we'll have strong AI but in the meantime we're gonna need less and less people to do the job that a lot of people do today. This all to say that the problem of unemployment isn't about every single person in the world being unable to get a job, if you have 35% of your population unable to exchange their labour capacities for a living then this is a huge social problem.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#24

Post by ahi » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:10 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #21

mindcrime wrote: post #18

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Schumpeterian (or Marxist) "creative destruction" at play. The idea of "creative destruction" is an interesting one, and it's an area of much debate in regards to the long-term viability of the capitalist model. The key idea of "creative destruction" is basically that technological innovation both creates (duh) and destroys (in that it destroys economic value based on pre-innovation techn…

You mention Schumpeterian, guess who wrote the article! (or it could be someone with the same name, I don't honestly know)

Schumpeter died in 1950. "Our Schumpeter columnist and his colleagues consider business, finance and management, in a blog named after the economist Joseph Schumpeter"

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#25

Post by Gravityloss » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

Unfortunately, the world is very imperfect and there's a huge amount of things that need improvement. To quote M King Hubbert: "Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know." I don't see work running out.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#26

Post by JulianMorrison » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #2

No they will not. The amount of effort required to shrink real knowledge worker jobs is astronomical compared to simply driving a car. After the singularity, fine. But even that will require a massive, massive amount of work. The low hanging fruit for increasing knowledge work output is in Gattaca not AI.

You don't have to fully automate a job. You just have to replace most of the human labour. The "secretary" sector wasn't obliterated by word processing and email, but it was crushed down to a vestigial remnant. The "lawyer" sector could be as easily crushed by Watson.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#27

Post by enraged_camel » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

aespinoza wrote: post #5

3pt14159 wrote: post #2

No they will not. The amount of effort required to shrink real knowledge worker jobs is astronomical compared to simply driving a car. After the singularity, fine. But even that will require a massive, massive amount of work. The low hanging fruit for increasing knowledge work output is in Gattaca not AI.

Sadly, I couldn't read the article due to the paywall. But I agree with you. I don't think AI will replace knowledge workers. A couple of decades ago, people used to say that workers in factories would disappear as well. That never happened, at least not completely. The costs are always a problem. If AI will ever really replace us, is still a mystery for the future. Because for it to work, it would have to be cost ef…

>>A couple of decades ago, people used to say that workers in factories would disappear as well. That never happened, at least not completely.

It hasn't happened completely, but that is only a matter of time. Manufacturing jobs have been declining at a sharp and steady rate in the US. One part of this may be due to outsourcing, but the other part is due to automation. When machines can do most of the labor, eventually you will only need a few high-level engineers to calibrate those machines.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#28

Post by return0 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #21

mindcrime wrote: post #18

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Schumpeterian (or Marxist) "creative destruction" at play. The idea of "creative destruction" is an interesting one, and it's an area of much debate in regards to the long-term viability of the capitalist model. The key idea of "creative destruction" is basically that technological innovation both creates (duh) and destroys (in that it destroys economic value based on pre-innovation techn…

You mention Schumpeterian, guess who wrote the article! (or it could be someone with the same name, I don't honestly know)

I assume it's the name of the column, unless the dead have risen. And creative destruction is mentioned in the article too!

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#29

Post by danielweber » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #15

kybernetyk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the point where an AI can replace a programmer is the point where a technological singularity begins. Because at that point the AI is capable of improving its own code which would lead to a 'runaway reaction'. And if you're in a post-singularity world you don't really have to worry about jobs anymore. So I guess being a programmer is pretty future proof ;)

Software is already replacing programmers through gains in efficiency if not AI. Just look at what a small number of programmers can accomplish today vs 10 or 20 years ago.

There's not a finite amount of software that the world needs, though. We're standing on the shoulders of giants but the top of the ladder is not even in sight.

Re: Brain work may be going the way of manual work

#30

Post by mindcrime » Thu, May 23, 2013, 4:14 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #21

mindcrime wrote: post #18

FWIW, this sounds a lot like Schumpeterian (or Marxist) "creative destruction" at play. The idea of "creative destruction" is an interesting one, and it's an area of much debate in regards to the long-term viability of the capitalist model. The key idea of "creative destruction" is basically that technological innovation both creates (duh) and destroys (in that it destroys economic value based on pre-innovation techn…

You mention Schumpeterian, guess who wrote the article! (or it could be someone with the same name, I don't honestly know)

Yeah, the original Schumpeter is long dead. But apparently that blog is meant as a tribute to him or something. I actually wasn't completely clear on that point myself, when I first saw the word "Schumpeter" on the page. I kind of assumed it was either something like that, or an amazing coincidence.