31–40 of 143 posts
I knew a very comfortably well-off lady who made a fine point of how she never used the automatic machines in the supermarket, because she wanted to ensure that those poor cashiers didn't lose their jobs.
How noble!
> The unique opportunity that AI offers humanity is to push back against the process started by computerization
Yes. More automation and computers will clearly solve the problems created by automation and computers.
I can't find where he probably says something like "outsourcing of these jobs will also improve middle class outcomes" but I assume it's in there through some kind of weasel-wording.
The problem with the concept of a middle class job (one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations), is that it represents an unstable equilibrium state. Incentives of most businesses are the opposite of someone in the middle class. Businesses don't think in terms how they can take so little such as to perpetuate some idyllic lifestyle unimpinged, they think in…
Who are companies going to sell to if everyone is impoverished? The emergence of the middle class was a boon for businesses.
The problem with the concept of a middle class job (one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations), is that it represents an unstable equilibrium state. Incentives of most businesses are the opposite of someone in the middle class. Businesses don't think in terms how they can take so little such as to perpetuate some idyllic lifestyle unimpinged, they think in…
I'd like to see that math expanded because I'm not sure I follow. Just because some (even if all) companies want to bleed the world dry, they aren't all colluding. If Tesco put up their prices it's not going to derail my middle class lifestyle, I'll just go shop at lidl instead. If my employer cuts pay in real terms then that's certainly a tougher situation which is why we have a union, but though it may be hassle, m…
The world is mostly inhabited by people who work for a living but mostly run by people who own things for a living.
These two sources of income (or capital gains -- heaven forbid we tax our rich like we tax our plebs) lead to highly distinct and often directly opposed objective functions. The extent to which this leads to a self-serving policy spiral for the rich is a function of the degree to which the inhabited-by/run-by distinction is true: with a steep enough wealth distribution, yeah, it's fair for people at the bottom to say that people at the top actually are all colluding.
The self-serving policy spiral doesn't look like "Lidl hikes prices and Tesco doesn't, so you can just shop at Tesco," it looks like "merger approved between Lidl and Tesco, now listen to the surviving PR department tell you how this will surely save you money."
This person assumes AI is going to stay in its current form: a technology that requires an expert operator to help accomplish tasks. Most people are afraid of “next-level” AI, where no operator is required. If trucks can be moved without anyone at the wheel, truck driving is a job that won’t exist anymore. As simple as that. Whether trucks can be 100% autonomous remains to see.
Not if but when. 100% autonomous ability is well within reach.
The problem with the concept of a middle class job (one where you can comfortably afford living, fun, saving, etc I think is most people's interpretations), is that it represents an unstable equilibrium state. Incentives of most businesses are the opposite of someone in the middle class. Businesses don't think in terms how they can take so little such as to perpetuate some idyllic lifestyle unimpinged, they think in…
I'd like to see that math expanded because I'm not sure I follow. Just because some (even if all) companies want to bleed the world dry, they aren't all colluding. If Tesco put up their prices it's not going to derail my middle class lifestyle, I'll just go shop at lidl instead. If my employer cuts pay in real terms then that's certainly a tougher situation which is why we have a union, but though it may be hassle, m…
That's just for the hypothetical streaming agency. When you add up all these little increases of just about every good and compare that to wage growth, you see that wages are stagnating relative to other metrics like cost of living or business/national productivity, in the US or the UK or just about anywhere with these sort of metrics available. You can raise minimum wages to fend of a total economic collapse every now and then but these increases find their way to these other hands reaching into your pocket before long as well. A constant sucking noise and a march to what, I'm not sure, but it won't be pretty I expect.
This person assumes AI is going to stay in its current form: a technology that requires an expert operator to help accomplish tasks. Most people are afraid of “next-level” AI, where no operator is required. If trucks can be moved without anyone at the wheel, truck driving is a job that won’t exist anymore. As simple as that. Whether trucks can be 100% autonomous remains to see.
"Recall that the advent of pre-AI computing made the expert judgment of professional decision- makers more consequential and more valuable by speeding the task of acquiring and organizing information. Simultaneously, computerization devalued and displaced the procedural expertise that was the stock-in-trade of many middle-skill workers. But imagine a technology that could invert this process: what would it look like? It would support and supplement judgment, thus enabling a larger set of non-elite workers to engage in high-stakes decision-making. It would simultaneously temper the monopoly power that doctors hold over medical care, lawyers over document production, software engineers over computer code, professors over undergraduate education, etc."
"Artificial Intelligence is this inversion technology. By providing decision support in the form of real-time guidance and guardrails, AI could enable a larger set of workers possessing complementary knowledge to perform some of the higher-stakes decision-making tasks currently arrogated to elite experts like doctors, lawyers, coders and educators. This would improve the quality of jobs for workers without college degrees, moderate earnings inequality, and — akin to what the Industrial Revolution did for consumer goods — lower the cost of key services such as healthcare, education and legal expertise."
"Moderate earnings inequality" means "fewer high-paying jobs", as someone pointed out in another comment. From where does the pressure come to raise incomes across the board? That's what unions were for. In the US, the unions were crushed. The whole idea of paying people more than they are worth as an economic unit, a key goal of the union movement, is almost forgotten. Yet that's what this paper assumes will happen. Somehow.
This is "trickle-down" economics with an "AI" label pasted on it.
The author has better papers. His "Why are there still so many jobs" (2014) [1] is worth a read. He makes predictions one can now check.
[1] https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/publications/w...