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

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

#51

Post by 3pt14159 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 5:54 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #35

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.

It's already happening. The number of "knowledge worker" jobs is shrinking. The low-skilled are the first to go and software is replacing them, just as low-skilled labor jobs have been replaced by machines. It's a slow process, as the quantity and depth of software increases, the number of knowledge workers decreases. That's literally the reason for existence for most software.

Low-skill and knowledge worker are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

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

#52

Post by conroe64 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 5:55 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #47

conroe64 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, post singularity, people with no wealth or ability to work will be prevented from starving? There are many people that are dying from starvation today. Why would this change?

The idea of the singularity also includes post-scarcity for at least basic survival needs. The logic being when robots & AIs take over all the jobs we can increase the output to a point where goods are exceedingly abundant. Granted that path involves quite a bit of faith that there's some reason to provide, but it's not terribly unreasonable if a bit idealistic.

This idea fails because we had the resources to feed everybody today yet it doesn't happen. In the future, when techno-baron A sees that techno-baron B is getting ahead, techno-baron A consumes more resources in order to defeat techno-baron B. If people are in the way of that, and they are of no use to any techno-barons they are pushed aside.

There was "post-scarcity for basic survival needs" for millions of years already. When life first formed on earth, there was food enough for every organism. That didn't prevent organisms from fighting each other.

Competition and the extinction of the losers has been a central theme of life since it began. Being at the top of the food pyramid, and in a first-world country has made us forget that fact. The idea that humanity can rise above this, formed from living in this social-economic bubble for far too long, is just hubris.

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

#53

Post by ujeezy » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:04 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #50

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…

I laughed until I realized you were serious. AI can't even get basic speech processing correct. The combined computer processing power in the world cannot yet accurately emulate the thought processes of the average human mind. It will be decades before it can tackle the "creativity" needed to draft complex transactional legal documents, let alone litigation-related documents. I can't comment on finance, but law is no…

Low-level legal work, such as discovery, is already disappearing. For example: http://www.blackstonediscovery.com

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

#54

Post by rtkwe » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:05 PM UTC

simonbrown wrote: post #49

rtkwe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of the singularity also includes post-scarcity for at least basic survival needs. The logic being when robots & AIs take over all the jobs we can increase the output to a point where goods are exceedingly abundant. Granted that path involves quite a bit of faith that there's some reason to provide, but it's not terribly unreasonable if a bit idealistic.

What if natural resources are scarce?

Basic living is perfectly sustainable for our current population and beyond I think (and I think I've read but have no source), anything above that could be allotted based on the newly scarce resource of human creativity or whatever we decide. Also many scarce resources could likely be made non scarce with 'free' labor of robots/AIs.

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

#55

Post by ujeezy » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:10 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #26

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.

> You don't have to fully automate a job

Right, and a lot of today's technology bridges the gap by shifting work to the end user. How often does anyone call a travel agent anymore?

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

#56

Post by rtkwe » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:16 PM UTC

conroe64 wrote: post #52

rtkwe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of the singularity also includes post-scarcity for at least basic survival needs. The logic being when robots & AIs take over all the jobs we can increase the output to a point where goods are exceedingly abundant. Granted that path involves quite a bit of faith that there's some reason to provide, but it's not terribly unreasonable if a bit idealistic.

This idea fails because we had the resources to feed everybody today yet it doesn't happen. In the future, when techno-baron A sees that techno-baron B is getting ahead, techno-baron A consumes more resources in order to defeat techno-baron B. If people are in the way of that, and they are of no use to any techno-barons they are pushed aside. There was "post-scarcity for basic survival needs" for millions of years al…

Things have always been this way isn't really strong argument for this. There are many ways we could set up a society in which the basic needs for everyone's survival is needed and the surplus is allocated in a way which most benefits society. A perfectly impartial central planning AI comes to mind.

That's where the big difference comes from your example of '"post-scarcity for basic survival needs" for millions of years already.' there's never been the coordination and impartiality to distribute and coordinate at that level.

As for today if we coordinated and there were no economic considerations we could feed everyone today. It's just that there's not the planning or monetary forces in place to make it happen.

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

#57

Post by sliverstorm » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:26 PM UTC

moarzLaw wrote: post #13

sliverstorm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the article, like just about damn everyone else, completely misunderstands Moore's law, which actually observes that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years. Transistor count does not directly correlate to performance.

Wrong again. Moore's law is actually not any kind of law at all. It's merely a business practice adopted by Intel, which they attempt to adhere to. The fact that they refer to it as a law, and that journalists around the world parrot their term, is all merely a magical marketing sales pitch. They TRY to double the transistor count on a periodic basis, and, when they do, suddenly, they've got a newer, better, more exp…

It's not a law, nor is it a business practice. Read what I said again:

Moore's law ... OBSERVES that the number of transistors we can fit on a chip doubles every two years.

If you are trying to argue with me calling it "Moore's law", you are too late. You missed the boat. That's what it is called, law or not.

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

#58

Post by ujeezy » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:44 PM UTC

nwenzel wrote: post #20

While I doubt there will be some Reverse Big Bang of creative destruction, it's tough to argue that the need for knowledge workers is being reduced. In theory, even Excel reduces the need for knowledge workers by allowing a single analyst to produce more output that an analyst with graph paper. My question to HN-ers, as people who write code that further reduces the need for knowledge workers, how should we feel abou…

I'm optimistically looking for ways not to feel guilty about this. I've always believed that better technology creates new jobs and a wealthier society, but it's pretty clear now that businesses are doing very well by automating away mid-skill jobs. Just contrast the stock market with the job market: companies are becoming more profitable but hiring/paying less.

Tech entrepreneurs are trained to think about optimizing/automating. For example, here's an old blog post by Kopelman: http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/04/shrink_a_market.html Summary: there's a lot of opportunity for you if you find a way to shrink a market.

Without doing too much handwringing, I think it's our responsibility as engineers/technologists to at least try to be aware of what we destroy with what we create.

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

#59

Post by conroe64 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #56

conroe64 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This idea fails because we had the resources to feed everybody today yet it doesn't happen. In the future, when techno-baron A sees that techno-baron B is getting ahead, techno-baron A consumes more resources in order to defeat techno-baron B. If people are in the way of that, and they are of no use to any techno-barons they are pushed aside. There was "post-scarcity for basic survival needs" for millions of years al…

Things have always been this way isn't really strong argument for this. There are many ways we could set up a society in which the basic needs for everyone's survival is needed and the surplus is allocated in a way which most benefits society. A perfectly impartial central planning AI comes to mind. That's where the big difference comes from your example of '"post-scarcity for basic survival needs" for millions of ye…

A central planning AI to impose fairness and the right to basic survival could only come about and remain standing if there was enough support for it from those already in power to allow this. How would you suppose this would come about?

The future will hold a very different scenario than a typical first-world country today where the populous actually produces useful work. As a leader, instead you have a population who who in-fight amongst themselves for the best of the consumable goods and produce absolutely nothing of value for you. To make matters worse, they continually attempt to push their boundaries, growing bigger and bigger if not thwarted (as life normally does).

My other point, that techno-baron A will want to fight/defend himself against techno-baron B still applies. Won't anything that techno-baron A needs to do to defend himself against techno-baron B trump the humanitarian concerns for maintaining the lifestyle of his subjects that give absolutely nothing back to him?

Even if techno-baron A is morally inclined to do so, there will be others that are more brutal and would not. And even if the moral techo-baron A is able to completely conquer the world (seems very unlikely considering how schizophrenically both brutal and compassionate he would have to be), then his hold on it will at some time cease, probably under duress from threat(s) within.

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

#60

Post by wtallis » Thu, May 23, 2013, 6:57 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #14

mapleoin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you misread computing power as CPU clock speed

No I didn't. Intel desktop CPUs did not gain a significant amount of computing power the last 3 years. Compare 1995 CPUs to 1998. Now compare 2010 CPUs to 2013.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191

That's a big enough difference to count as significant. Especially when you consider that Intel's been lowering their power budget and spending larger portions of their transistor budget on the integrated GPU. The Pentiums on the market in 1995 were 10-12W, and the Pentium 2s on the market in 1998 were 30-45W followed by a die shrink that brought power back down to 20-30W.