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Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

nytimes.com

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Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#41

Post by gammateam »

bduerst wrote: post #33
Animats wrote: post #16

We need to make progress on automating the job of the CEO. The CEO is just an intermediary between investors and profitable activity. Why should they be so expensive? ROI would improve if CEO costs could be cut, especially for underperforminmg CEOs. There's already a hedge fund where an AI has a board vote on acquisitions. This isn't that far out of reach.

Liability, mostly. It's hard for the board to sue a machine or for officials to send a machine to prison. Also ML/AI isn't even near strong enough to make the varied decisions necessary to run a publicly-traded company, but it could augment decision makers with recommendations.

I think the public facing role and risk is adequately compensated.

CEO's start the company and suffer share dilution. They did their job if the shares are valuable.

Future CEOs don't get the same incentive package, and need something somewhat comparable.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#42

Post by pacala »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #10
airbreather wrote: post #2

So when a significant portion of the population has no work because they have been replaced by machines, who will buy what the machines make (or do)? Seems like a short sighted race to extinction. Not everything that can be done should be done. Footnote:in the long run if society survives the initial shock, I predict it will actually lead to a resurgence in artisanal crafts to manufacture bespoke items that are prize…

What exactly do you mean? Answers like these are too chronocentric. This automation will be no different than the early proto-hominid hunter put out of his job because someone made a spear. Or the scribes that died out because of the printing press. Everything that can be automated will eventually be automated.

Everything can be automated.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#43

Post by overtone »

pseudolus wrote: post #21
fvdessen wrote: post #15

Isn't replacing people with machines what we've been doing uninterrupted since the beginning of the industrial revolution ? In what sense is replacing a translator with DeepL different from replacing a farmer with a tractor ? We've gone from more than two third of the population working on the fields to less than 5% and people still have jobs. What has changed that makes us think that this time it will be different ?

One of the issues is the fairly short timescale over which this is happening. The other is that no credible alternative has emerged as to what role displaced workers, and ultimately their descendants, will have in a society that will be unable to offer employment opportunities. This situation can be distinguished from the reduction in the farm population where farm workers were readily redeployed to the industrial/fa…

> Where will the future unemployed be redeployed?

Pay attention to which jobs currently pay well, those jobs are the most likely to get pressure from surplus labor.

There's also a big and growing demand for health care and care for the elderly.

I doubt that automation will truly replace such a massive amount of labor as some predict, but even if it does, that will cause an equally strong lowering of the cost of living, requiring less labor to live, cheapening welfare, etc.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#44

Post by wallflower »

ianhawes wrote: post #18
fvdessen wrote: post #15

Isn't replacing people with machines what we've been doing uninterrupted since the beginning of the industrial revolution ? In what sense is replacing a translator with DeepL different from replacing a farmer with a tractor ? We've gone from more than two third of the population working on the fields to less than 5% and people still have jobs. What has changed that makes us think that this time it will be different ?

Please do not tell people about DeepL.

One of my friends who does Spanish tutoring also does “clean up” of automated translations to make them sound native-speaker like. Según her, DeepL is not bad but not great. If you use an automated translation for important communications, native speakers will be able to tell and may even be offended that the company did not bother to use the services of a quality translator.

One example from the NYTimes.

English: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/style/modern-love-how-i-m...

Spanish: https://www.nytimes.com/es/2018/09/28/modern-love-donador-es...

Excerpt #1

Original English:

> A couple of years ago I began seeing ads for 23andMe, a service that analyzes your saliva — you spit in a test tube and mail it off for analysis — and provides you with information about ancestry, health and DNA relatives.

Translated Spanish via DeepL:

> Hace un par de años comencé a ver anuncios de 23andMe, un servicio que analiza tu saliva - escupes en un tubo de ensayo y lo envías por correo para analizarlo - y te proporciona información sobre ascendencia, salud y parientes ADN.

Translated Spanish (professional translator):

> Hace un par de años, comencé a ver anuncios de 23andMe, un servicio que analiza tu saliva —la pones en un tubo de ensayo y lo mandas por correo para que se analice— y te da la información de tus ancestros, salud y familiares según tu ADN.

DeepL’s translation has the same faults as other services. Namely, in Spanish, object pronouns are very important. In the sentence describing how he sent a saliva sample, the DeepL translation does not use pronouns correctly like a native speaker would. Also, it stumbles on what is the most common vernacular. The DeepL translation does not use the right way to say “DNA relatives” which is “familiares según tu ADN”. “Según” is commonly used to denote authority of a source or in other words “according to”.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#45

Post by gotocake »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #39
overtone wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t work a coal face because it’s fun, but because it’s what they know how to do, and it brings home the bacon. Far more than that, coal workers take pride in their work, it's part of their identity and it commands a certain degree of respect as being "hard labor". If it was just about "bringing home the bacon" they might as well take any other job. This is in contrast to working for Wal-Mart or McDonalds,…

I think this debate underestimates the psychological value of contributing through work and the identity and belonging that come from that. And I don't even think obsolescence becoming common will help to normalize this state. People want to contribute, and it hurts when they aren't needed.

I agree with this, but I also recognize that it’s not feasible for governments and industries to invent meaning in people's lives. Supporting people and providing them with more than a skin-of-their-teeth existence is and it’s something that isn’t historically addressed very well during transitional periods. If automation eventually dominates work, society will have to change, but that’s something we’ll have to work through as a society. The experience will be less horrific if people are not being dumped into poverty or awful makework jobs as well as having to reinvent the meaning of their collective existence!

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#46

Post by brobdingnagians »

>“The choice isn’t between automation and non-automation,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, the director of M.I.T.’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. “It’s between whether you use the technology in a way that creates shared prosperity, or more concentration of wealth.”

This could lead to a scenario with what happened when there was aristocracy. Land was a major necessary means of production and was overwhelmingly owned by the aristocracy, it was guarded since they had no reason to sell it and could rent-seek with it (and primogeniture guaranteed it didn't disperse much), and they simply owned nearly everything.

Craftsmanship and high demand for skilled labor led to the middle class. Automation could be the new land. A wealthy "owning class" owns all the means of production (and less skilled labor) and has no incentive to open it up. Automation could lead to a small wealthy class, but a rapidly expanding lower class with little access to self-ownership of means of production.

Decentralization of means of production tends to have a beneficial effect on society. If normal folk can own means of production, then they will do well in any scenario because they will have choices, but if there is little choice but to work for large corporations, then they will get squeezed on the monopoly of means of production.

Whatever is having that effect of enforcing centralization of means of production is eventually going to not end well. It might be the tech, it might be some of the regulations, it might be cultural, or it might be the "legal entity" nature of corporations and the ability to amass huge amounts of resources with them; but whatever it is, it ain't pretty.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#47

Post by CyberDildonics »

empath75 wrote: post #12
MBlume wrote: post #3

...Good? Work is horrible? If a drop in the amount of work that needs to be done is actually a problem then that's a policy failure.

It’ll be a problem because ultimately the people who own all the capital won’t need anyone else to survive. They’ll build walls and robot guards and live in their utopias of plenty while everyone else starves.

You do realize that food and wood literally grow out of the ground and water falls from the sky right?

If there is all this automation in your predicted future, how would people not be able to automate growing plants, filtering water and cutting down trees?

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#48

Post by gotocake »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #46

>“The choice isn’t between automation and non-automation,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, the director of M.I.T.’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. “It’s between whether you use the technology in a way that creates shared prosperity, or more concentration of wealth.” This could lead to a scenario with what happened when there was aristocracy. Land was a major necessary means of production and was overwhelmingly owned by t…

This could lead to a scenario with what happened when there was aristocracy. Land was a major necessary means of production and was overwhelmingly owned by the aristocracy, it was guarded since they had no reason to sell it and could rent-seek with it, and they simply owned nearly everything.

Don’t look now, but that’s still the case. In England it’s really the case, and the old joke that it helps to have an ancestor who was close to William The Conquerer is genuinely true.

Craftsmanship and high demand for skilled labor led to the middle class. Automation could be the new land. A wealthy "owning class" owns all the means of production (and less skilled labor) and has no incentive to open it up. Automation could lead to a small wealthy class, but a rapidly expanding lower class with little access to self-ownership of means of production.

Again, that has largely already happened, and never really stopped. We just see things differently because we’re not one of billions who can only look up at everyone else’s boots, and because we’re at the tail end of a stable period born from two world wars and the teror of nuclear annihilation.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#49

Post by NeedMoreTea »

bksenior wrote: post #35
overtone wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t work a coal face because it’s fun, but because it’s what they know how to do, and it brings home the bacon. Far more than that, coal workers take pride in their work, it's part of their identity and it commands a certain degree of respect as being "hard labor". If it was just about "bringing home the bacon" they might as well take any other job. This is in contrast to working for Wal-Mart or McDonalds,…

Eh. This seems fluffy. This seems more like the Industrial Revolution + Twitter. Just like all the studies that the world is technically better off in every modern metric of improvement (poverty, starvation, mobility..etc, but things feel shitty because you are forced to read about the one dude kidnapping and eating children one state over, I think it's probably just amplified fears (and ultimately seperation of team…

There was far more to it than that. Whole communities arose around the pit, steel works or ship yard. Hundreds or thousands of local families depended on it. Family, friends and everyone in the street was a part of it. When it goes a few shop or driving jobs may be possible but leaves the majority up shit creek with no paddle.

> Sure it can crush a generation (see the american midwest from 1960-2020), but most people move to where the work is geographically and intellectually or just die out.

That is possibly the most heartless thing I have read on this site. I imagine your perspective would change markedly if it were you that were stuck, unable to afford to move, in a dead town whose industry left, while you contemplate your time until you die out.

Re: Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite

#50

Post by pseudolus »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #36
pseudolus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "world continually gets better over time" is historically a relatively new concept. There are many periods in human history where things have significantly worsened. As they say in finance - past performance is not indicative of future results.

>There are many periods in human history where things have significantly worsened Sure, which is why I said over time. If you look at any isolated period you’re not going to see any trends that take place over longer periods of time. The standard of living world wide goes up over time, and has done so at a very accelerated rate since the industrial revolution. The world is generally becoming a better place, it’s much…

Over the long term it's entirely possible that the current historically anomalous growth rate might be maintained but it's of little comfort to me and, say my children and grandchildren, that my great grandchildren will be living in the land of milk and honey if immediate generations are consigned to some kind of economic purgatory. The negative slopes and valleys that appear, but don't necessarily dominate economic charts, represent people. It's cold comfort to someone, or even a generation, at the bottom of a chart to know that "on average" things will work out.
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