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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

#131

Post by somenameforme »

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…

There's a simple litmus test for these sort of nearish future dystopias - how long before you have an 'AI plumber' or an 'AI electrician'? I'm not just listing random skilled trades, but listing jobs that are extremely complex, 100% context sensitive in a way that just doesn't generalize well, requires a mixture of high dexterity and high strength, and a million other things. To say nothing of the numerous [oft extremely expensive] task specific tools you also need.

And those are only two of the jobs for maintaining households. If those two things aren't automated, we're not having these 'robo households' - period. Instead I think the future holds mostly the present - glorified clappers [1] and ad-tech masquerading as some sort of something that mostly does a mediocre to awful job of whatever it's supposed to be, Alexa.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTNuJXi6UUk

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

#132

Post by luckydata »

somenameforme wrote: post #131
rqtwteye wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a simple litmus test for these sort of nearish future dystopias - how long before you have an 'AI plumber' or an 'AI electrician'? I'm not just listing random skilled trades, but listing jobs that are extremely complex, 100% context sensitive in a way that just doesn't generalize well, requires a mixture of high dexterity and high strength, and a million other things. To say nothing of the numerous [oft extre…

You need more to maintain a house, drywaller, gardener, carpenter, painter. The most important robotic help though will be cleaner and nurse. As our population ages and shrinks home help will become scarce and we'll desperately need an alternative to take care of ourselves as we age.

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

#133

Post by kkaatii »

stego-tech wrote: post #93

It's the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions all over again. Broad automation of labor will not result in societal uplift, but Capital uplift, absent worker action to enforce equal distribution of gains (like how Unions brought us the 40hr work week and the end of Child Labor w/ the Industrial Revolution). Worse yet, the irrationality of these techbro arguments shows their complete lack of long-term thinking or s…

One danger is that, from a macroeconomics view, GDP growth can be attained without any regard for natural unemployment rates. When technology, controlled by capital, drives up markup on wages by displacing human labor and killing competition, then natural unemployment will rise, but the economy can still "thrive," from a statistical perspective. But it is individual persons being ignored by statistics. Indeed a grim future.

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

#134

Post by bluefirebrand »

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? No

No, but it hasn't led to a massive increase in incomes either (after adjusting for inflation)

But meanwhile everything gets more expensive so while yes people still have jobs and work as many hours as before, we have much less to show for it

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

#135

Post by riehwvfbk »

somenameforme wrote: post #131
rqtwteye wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a simple litmus test for these sort of nearish future dystopias - how long before you have an 'AI plumber' or an 'AI electrician'? I'm not just listing random skilled trades, but listing jobs that are extremely complex, 100% context sensitive in a way that just doesn't generalize well, requires a mixture of high dexterity and high strength, and a million other things. To say nothing of the numerous [oft extre…

We do, however, have computer assisted plumbers, electricians, and other technicians. With nothing more than YouTube one can fix appliances and cars, or do some DIY home improvement, and the projects that are possible are much more involved than they were in the old days. It's very hard to pick up these skills from a book, but if there's a video to walk through the process - the projects become possible.

AI-assisted plumbers will follow this archetype.

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

#136

Post by bluefirebrand »

sadeshmukh wrote: post #110
ajb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI is strictly worse at automating repetitive tasks than traditional software, because AI output is non-deterministic

If a task is repetitive then the output is predictable so it should be automated deterministically, not with fuzzy AI bullshit

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

#137

Post by mustyoshi »

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…

120 years ago 40% of Americans were farmers, today that number is under 2%.

That technical progress resulted in a few companies and farm conglomerates becoming incredibly wealthy. But the benefits that we all received was we didn't have to toil in a field, and we get fresh beef on every corner.

The wealth gap growing, and the median person being better off aren't mutually exclusive.

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

#138

Post by regularjack »

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,…

> 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.

Do you wanna bet?

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

#139

Post by rchaud »

dogcomplex wrote: post #73
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.

We've had a long history of technological improvements being widespread distributed to the people. There's not a particularly bleak reason to believe the latest AI automation won't be too. Look around your desk or your house and just count all the effort-saving devices that have made their way down to you. Look at the price of TVs cratering. Tech that can be recreated easily spreads far and wide. AI can too. It's dro…

I'm struggling to think of any technological advancement in the past 20 years that's saved me time. The only real change has been a shift to WFH, but that happened independently of technological change in that era. Even things like screen sharing and remote desktop were possible before that time.

25 years ago, sure: online shopping/banking, email and chat -- these are all things my Blackberry or Nokia could handle. The touchscreen smartphone hasn't really moved the needle much in that regard.

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

#140

Post by bluefirebrand »

stego-tech wrote: post #92
jgilias wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. Work(ed) for a company super big on a force of agents. Brought them into my workflows early on, before the company even pivoted. Ran them at home on private hardware (that 3090 had to do something ), at work when access was opened up. Provided valuable feedback on hallucinations (e.g., fabricating the…

> Work(ed) for a company super big on a force of agents.

> RIFed this year

Yeah that's why they are big on the force of agents, so they can justify trimming their workforce

Anyone who doesn't see this is kind of a sucker

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