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Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

epoch.ai

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Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#101

Post by nukem222 »

fjdjshsh wrote: post #90
NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. Watch a sci-fi film - nifty gadgets, robots taking care of chores, and widespread spaceflight. Real life is some unreliable chat bots. Then there's the depressing practical stuff. AI being forced down our throats. AI as an excuse lay people off. AI as an excuse for massive data hoarding. AI flooding the internet, making it harder to find good content.

>AI as an excuse lay people off. Why do you think the managers/business owners need an excuse to lay people off? If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people. Having AI won't help them as an excuse. In fact, I would say it sounds like a much worse excuse than "the economy is on a rough spot" or something like that

> If it's legal and economically beneficial to them, they'll fire people.

More importantly, if they can imagine some economic benefit. Very plausible an executive might think a chatbot is as capable as an engineer when they don't know how to evaluate either.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#102

Post by nukem222 »

jgilias wrote: post #30
jajko wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody sane and smart I know is advocating for AI now . All keep saying 'one day', 'soon' etc. Our megacorp very effectively blocked all of this and we don't have anything internal yet, but we are in specific market. And basically all I saw so far was a snake oil from people trying to push it or benefit from it, even here. Trust me bro... well no, show me some hard facts and we can start building trust. Sure assistan…

Advocate or not, it’s here to stay. And if you’re not adjusting to it, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Last week I did the amount of work that would’ve taken me give or take a month. A significant part of it was writing an API client for a system I needed to use. Pretty run of the mill stuff. Doing this ‘by hand’ just takes time. Go look at the docs, type out your data structures, wire things up for the new call,…

> And if you’re not adjusting to it, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

What does this even mean? AI is mostly forced in situations where it can't actually improve on the output, like at the top of a google search.

> So this is my thesis now - if you’re a senior who neglects this new tool, you’re going to be out of a job soon-ish.

If your job mostly consisted of writing api clients maybe, but that's a pretty odd job.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#103

Post by tordanik »

toogan wrote: post #58
pjmlp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am as optimistic as a factory worker about to replaced by robots. Hence why I can't stand such techno-optmism, apparently most folks live in an ideal world free of economics.

Has the last 70 years of productivity increases led to a reduction in weekly work hours? No. Some jobs will be automated away. Good thing. Braindead stuff that a machine can do should be done by a machine. Doesn't mean we'll all soon be just picking our noses. There will be other work to be done, and if unregulated capitalism has its say then it can easily lead to even more worker exploitation.

> Has the last 70 years of productivity increases led to a reduction in weekly work hours?

Yes, it has led to a significant reduction in hours worked: https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever

Of course, the effects aren't equally distributed across all countries. For example, annual work hours per worker have almost halved in Germany since 1950, but only seen a more modest decrease in the US. So political factors still play a role in how the benefits of increased productivity are used by society.

But it's a strong effect. And those numbers don't even consider other factors such as how increased life expectancy combined with mostly unchanged retirement age, and being older when we first start working, give people an extra decade or two of not being part of the workforce at all.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#104

Post by nthingtohide »

buckle8017 wrote: post #89
geysersam wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am pretty sure in the not too far future we will have enough technology that you can live off the land somewhere with the help of some robots. I don't understand, what stops you from doing that today?

The availability of fertile land.

Vertical farming / hydroponics will solve that.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#105

Post by nthingtohide »

getnormality wrote: post #11

This article lost all credibility with me here: > ...this means that only 20% of labor productivity growth in the US since 1988 has been driven by R&D spending! Capital deepening accounts for around half of labor productivity growth in this period... This is like saying that Jeff Dean's net worth is attributable not to his programming skills, but to the capital deepening of his bank account. The authors are working w…

It has become fashionable to write think pieces without thinking too much.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#106

Post by elcritch »

nthingtohide wrote: post #104
buckle8017 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The availability of fertile land.

Vertical farming / hydroponics will solve that.

See the neo-feudalism comment below. Land and even vertical farming will be controlled by nobility / corporates in the neo-feudalism era.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#107

Post by ein0p »

rqtwteye wrote: post #25
techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

Technical progress would be fantastic if the benefits didn't go mainly to the top. I am pretty sure in the not too far future we will have enough technology that you can live off the land somewhere with the help of some robots. Or have them do all your housework. In principle, this is great, but our society is not set up for a lot of people not working while the technology is progressed by a relatively small number o…

You can live off the land today with no help from robots. I know a couple of folks who had enough of corporate America and now live on a farm in Florida. It's been almost 10 years, they're doing all right. It's not even that much work unless you grow stuff commercially.

But I hear what you're saying. More "humane" progress would certainly be very welcome. In fact if neo-feudalism wins, most of us will have to "live off the land", whether we want to or not.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#108

Post by abenga »

decGetAc wrote: post #7
api wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing human labor with technology is usually a wonderful thing if the gains are generally realized. It means less time spent in 'toil' and more time to pursue one's true interests and desires. The reason it feels depressing is that if recent history is any guide, 0.0001% of the human race will receive almost all the benefit. A tiny number of richer-than-rich will get even richer and everyone else will stay the sa…

Agreed,only the super rich will get cars err electricity err I mean refrigerators err I mean personal computers err I mean mobile devices To be fair I think there's a lot of truth in your statement in the short term (and arguably in the long). But in the 'long' term , it sure does look like revolutionary technology makes everyday peoples life better (I didn't even go into transportation or health care/life expectency…

It is possible for luxuries to become easier to have, but still have entire generations unable to buy homes or retire.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#109

Post by istjohn »

gnulinux wrote: post #98
bashfulpup wrote: post #69

Very typical SV argument that R&D is "complex" and everything else is "simple". Would it blow your mind if I told you 10yrs ago that we'd have AI that can do math/code better than 99% of humans but ordering a hotdog on doordash would be cutting edge and barely doable? I don't disagree that "common" tasks are more valuable. I only argue that the argument these are easily automatable is a viewpoint based on ignorance.…

> if I told you 10yrs ago that we'd have AI that can do math/code better than 99% of humans This not even remotely close to true. Like not even a little bit. I use Cursor and Gemini for work daily and I'd be hard pressed to think AI is a "better" programmer than any professional software engineer. Sure it makes writing code faster and more efficient, because you just click tab and three lines are written for you. It…

The top 50% of college freshman math and physics majors is approximately equal to the top 1% of all people.

Re: Most AI value will come from broad automation, not from R & D

#110

Post by sadeshmukh »

ajb wrote: post #32
techpineapple wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find techno-optimism really depressing? I guess one for the more common reason that it’s displacing humanity with technology, but the second reason is just you can’t get excited about a hype that is unlikely to manifest. It feels very ungrounded from tangible benefits to society.

Yeah The historic benefits of technology come from eliminating the waste of human effort: - Motors and engines removed the waste of using our muscles as an energy source - Computers removed the waste of people's time doing calculations and admin manually - Electronic Communications removed the waste of carrying information in physical form What's the most prevalent form of waste today? I think it's dishonesty and cor…

Does AI not also automate away repetitive tasks? This seems to be a disingenuous comparison.
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