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Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

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Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#31

Post by JulianMorrison »

ThomPete wrote: post #29
JulianMorrison wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to have jobs walking behind horses in fields, while the horses pulled ploughs and so forth. Pretty stultifying, dawn to dusk staring at horse's ass. A generation from now, manual driving will be viewed as maddeningly dull makework for human drones. Hours of staring at roads with instant death the punishment for dozing off? Wouldn't do it if you paid me. I'd have said, hopefully the world gets basic income…

How many of the horses have jobs today though? :) But sure I agree. That doesen't change that for some people their job is all they have. If you take that away they have no realistic future unless it's some post scarcity society.

"Canned horse meat was introduced in the United States under the Ken-L Ration brand after WWI as a means to dispose of deceased horses" -- Wikipedia

Are you suggesting a Soylent solution?

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#32

Post by rfghsfgt »

it_learnses wrote: post #28
ThomPete wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to the OP who said it wasn't a zero zum game. Not sure why we are suddenly discussing what I propose instead. All I am saying is that it's easy to forget that real people are effected by progress and that the narrative that we all benefit is kind of disingenuous from that perspective and I believe we need to think harder on what to do about that because it's only going to increase.

Yep, agreed. Universal basic income is one solution that keeps coming back as a silver bullet. Not sure what the downsides are yet, but I'm pretty certain that there's still going to be haves and have nots: just a few rich that own all the automation and resources vs the rest of us just surviving on basic income. Maybe we'll all be ok immersed in VR adventures as long as we're fed and clothed...

One danger is that it lowers the incentive to work.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#33

Post by wcummings »

it_learnses wrote: post #28
ThomPete wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to the OP who said it wasn't a zero zum game. Not sure why we are suddenly discussing what I propose instead. All I am saying is that it's easy to forget that real people are effected by progress and that the narrative that we all benefit is kind of disingenuous from that perspective and I believe we need to think harder on what to do about that because it's only going to increase.

Yep, agreed. Universal basic income is one solution that keeps coming back as a silver bullet. Not sure what the downsides are yet, but I'm pretty certain that there's still going to be haves and have nots: just a few rich that own all the automation and resources vs the rest of us just surviving on basic income. Maybe we'll all be ok immersed in VR adventures as long as we're fed and clothed...

>Not sure what the downsides are yet

It's fantastically expensive.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#34

Post by croon »

CmdrSprinkles wrote: post #23
perfmode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thomas Piketty has articulated a path forward. I support his view that governments ought to step in and institute a global tax on wealth.

Except that doesn't solve this problem (mostly: Read all the way through) The issue isn't The Wealthy having all the money. The issue is technology that will actively remove jobs. It doesn't matter if minimum wage is 90 pounds an hour if you don't have a job. An automated train isn't The Wealthy stealing money. It is a conductor out of work because their job could be handled by a raspberry pi. Basic Income is a theor…

I would say that the issue is The Wealthy having all the money.

Take it a few steps forward. At some point the factory owner (whether local or conglomerate) holds all the money and has 0 workers. The only thing he can buy is new resources to produce more stuff, but no one can buy that stuff because no one works anymore.

At some point it's just a machine making stuff that no one can afford to use other than the very few owning the machine.

Money is useless unless it's spread around and in rotation through the system. The unemployment of uneducated is the one thing I really sympethize with in this election, but the solution isn't going backwards, because there's nothing there anymore.

I understand that the solution isn't one step forward, but maybe 5, and people will suffer in the interim, but that only means it's ever more important to swiftly move in the right direction.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#35

Post by ThomPete »

rfghsfgt wrote: post #32
it_learnses wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, agreed. Universal basic income is one solution that keeps coming back as a silver bullet. Not sure what the downsides are yet, but I'm pretty certain that there's still going to be haves and have nots: just a few rich that own all the automation and resources vs the rest of us just surviving on basic income. Maybe we'll all be ok immersed in VR adventures as long as we're fed and clothed...

One danger is that it lowers the incentive to work.

You will always be incenified to work when it's basic income at least the UBI version as it's not the negative tax version that some talk about.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#36

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

There is so much talk in the current rhetoric about the US losing its dominance in science and technology. But it is a tad myopic to not be excited about a country of a billion people pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It is not a zero sum game and we will all benefit.

Self driving cars are much more valuable to China than the US. China, for all its development, lacks road and parking infrastructure and places to put them even if it was willing to build them. So cities like Beijing are incredibly congested. Likewise, the driving culture in many Chinese cities (all slightly different) is often very bad, it isn't uncommon to see someone back up on a free way because they missed their exit in Beijing....The US, for the most part, doesn't have these problems (lots of roads, parking, and fairly well behaved drivers)...self driving cars are seen as more of a convenience than a necessity.

Self driving cars potentially solve all that by optimizing limited infrastructure and standardizing driving behavior. It has the potential to make cities that are bursting at the seams (like Beijing) much more livable and viable. Couple that with an authoritarian government that can dictate rules much more easily, I predict that self driving cars will be a thing in China much faster than in the west (even if much of the tech still comes from the west).

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#37

Post by Zigurd »

ThomPete wrote: post #4
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

There is so much talk in the current rhetoric about the US losing its dominance in science and technology. But it is a tad myopic to not be excited about a country of a billion people pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It is not a zero sum game and we will all benefit.

How? How do the uneducated in the rust belt benefit? And perhaps more importantly when? I agree that technology for society in general make us better of over time, but society consists of individuals who don't necessarily benefit from this. In fact 12 million jobs are in danger of being lost to automated cars. How are they going to benefit from that?

I'd guess you got downvoted because that's irrelevant. The benefits come in the form of fewer road deaths, which is potentially as significant as curing malaria, which only in the abstract benefits the people you are talking about, but it nevertheless does benefit them.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#38

Post by seanmcdirmid »

whazor wrote: post #9

In Asia, to say it gently, people follow less rules... Baidu is going to have a hard time, as people take advantage when you are driving carefully.

Beijing could just mandate that the ring roads from 6AM to 10PM are self driving only, like they already ban trucks during that time. The cars will also have cameras galore, and who knows...if they are owned by the state (or a taxi company), they might as well just report bad human drivers to ensure good behavior.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#39

Post by Zigurd »

bertomartin wrote: post #10
perfmode wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who owns the future though? While I am not a nationalist and I think it's commendable that the human race is making progress, I'm concerned that advances in technology are causing troubling concentrations of wealth among those who operate and control the technology.

luddites thought the same ;)

Luddism was about a privileged caste defending their way of life. That has little to do with thinking about a post labor world and what happens to everyone who gets stranded outside the cash economy, never mind having any capital. If coders formed a guild and smashed automatic coding machines, now THAT would be more like Luddism.

Re: Baidu’s self-driving cars begin public test in Wuzhen, China

#40

Post by nartsbtaa »

ThomPete wrote: post #29
JulianMorrison wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to have jobs walking behind horses in fields, while the horses pulled ploughs and so forth. Pretty stultifying, dawn to dusk staring at horse's ass. A generation from now, manual driving will be viewed as maddeningly dull makework for human drones. Hours of staring at roads with instant death the punishment for dozing off? Wouldn't do it if you paid me. I'd have said, hopefully the world gets basic income…

How many of the horses have jobs today though? :) But sure I agree. That doesen't change that for some people their job is all they have. If you take that away they have no realistic future unless it's some post scarcity society.

> That doesen't change that for some people their job is all they have. If you take that away they have no realistic future unless it's some post scarcity society.

This has always been the case throughout history: new technology makes some jobs irrelevant, and humans adapt by doing new jobs. It's unfortunate for people who cannot or will not adapt, but historically people have been resilient to such changes.

It's a legitimate issue when there aren't enough jobs to employ a significant portion of the population, and perhaps we're starting to reach that point now. We're seeing a decoupling in our economy: job growth is slowing while corporate growth and profits continue to rise. On one hand, this indicates that we are heading towards post-scarcity conditions. On the other hand, the current arrangement is that an increasing amount of wealth is being distributed to a decreasing number of people, leading to greater wealth inequality.

What can be done? We might increase wage/salary while cutting the number of hours worked per week, allowing more people to work while still providing a livable income. A basic income is another option, but that seems extreme; things would have to get much worse (or better, depending on your long-term view of automation) before that's taken seriously on a large scale.

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