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Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

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Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#51

Post by iamcurious »

savanaly wrote: post #46
awinter-py wrote: post #42

Scary parallel here with the recent jeff dean talk about NN. He claims he won't let his team touch any 'research task' that takes more than a week, and prefers to stick to experiments that take under a day to set up and run -- that there's so much low-hanging fruit that every ML project should be simple. Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. I hope I'm misquoting hi…

>Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. Isn't that more properly regarded as exciting than scary? The long term benefits to automation have rarely failed to outweigh the temporary costs. I would personally be very happy if my own current job- software developer- were somehow automated out of existence. Not only would it allow me to put my money where my mouth is rega…

It is scary and exciting. It drastically changes the socioeconomic landscape and it is yet to be seen how (if?) we will adapt.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#52

Post by debacle »

sklogic wrote: post #26
erikb wrote: post #7

Oh well, please let us not connect softwaredevelopment and management too much with non-routine work. On a daily basis I see so many people who work on less than 50% of their capabilities because they haven't created routines in their work, thinking that their work is 90% non-routine. Think about the last time you heard how a developer tells you that you don't need to learn the ten finger system to program well, or t…

What's your issue with 10-20 programming languages? I'd say 20 is not enough, you need dozens and dozens of languages to be efficient.

I don't think you should be downmodded for asking an honest question.

There's a question of: If you know 20 programming languages, how well do you know any of them individually?

I don't think that's necessarily a fair statement, however it rings true when you talk about actual development. Library knowledge, beyond a certain point, is far more important than programming skill.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#53

Post by mziel »

awinter-py wrote: post #42

Scary parallel here with the recent jeff dean talk about NN. He claims he won't let his team touch any 'research task' that takes more than a week, and prefers to stick to experiments that take under a day to set up and run -- that there's so much low-hanging fruit that every ML project should be simple. Very very scary if tech that most of us still haven't touched is also in a sense routine. I hope I'm misquoting hi…

Could you post a link to this talk?

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#54

Post by vonmoltke »

amelius wrote: post #28
erikb wrote: post #7

Oh well, please let us not connect softwaredevelopment and management too much with non-routine work. On a daily basis I see so many people who work on less than 50% of their capabilities because they haven't created routines in their work, thinking that their work is 90% non-routine. Think about the last time you heard how a developer tells you that you don't need to learn the ten finger system to program well, or t…

Programming in the internet age is 1% intellectual and 99% plumbing.

Programming CRUD apps in the internet age may be 1% intellectual and 99% plumbing (though don;t really buy that).

Programming outside the web/enterprise bubble is far less about connecting existing black boxes.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#55

Post by tomjen3 »

debacle wrote: post #49

Isn't that the purposeful outcome of technology? "I could replace everything you do with a script." I know for a fact that work I have done has contributed to the demise of many positions. Could you imagine the industry for "Internet Cataloging" if we didn't have search engines? Email if we didn't have Gmail? Technology is a job killer. That idea is something that's been a part of society and literature for hundreds…

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society.

What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, instead it makes more sense to contract the work out.

This means we should do two things: stop talking about income differences and focus on making sure the poorest have tolerable lives and b) make it much, much, much easier to start your own small business. This means tax cuts but above all simplifications of the relevant law.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#56

Post by sklogic »

debacle wrote: post #52
sklogic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your issue with 10-20 programming languages? I'd say 20 is not enough, you need dozens and dozens of languages to be efficient.

I don't think you should be downmodded for asking an honest question. There's a question of: If you know 20 programming languages, how well do you know any of them individually? I don't think that's necessarily a fair statement, however it rings true when you talk about actual development. Library knowledge, beyond a certain point, is far more important than programming skill.

> There's a question of: If you know 20 programming languages, how well do you know any of them individually?

The real question is how well should you know each individual language to be productive?

Is knowing dark corners of some obscure language bears more value (in terms of productivity) than an ability to chose the most fitting language for your particular task you're doing at the moment?

And when I mentioned dozens of languages, I was talking about the DSLs primarily. A well-designed DSL does not need much learning effort at all.

> Library knowledge, beyond a certain point, is far more important than programming skill.

This must be very dependent on an industry you're in. Enterprise Java coding - maybe. HPC - partially true. Embedded - what libraries?!? Can't find any!

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#57

Post by iamcurious »

ktRolster wrote: post #5
dante9999 wrote: post #3

I wonder if you can reliably classify jobs into "nonroutine" and "routine". There is element of routine in every work, and I'm pretty sure that even most boring and repetitive job can be done better with some degree of creativity. It would be really interesting to read more about reasoning behind classification presented in this article. I mean can you seriously say there is no "routine" in programming or management?

Here's a better article that discusses that: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/08/is-your-job-routin... If your work is just following instructions, then it's probably routine. As for me, I'd like to see most middle management go away, since I largely see it as a waste (basically, if people know how to manage themselves, you can get rid of most middle-managers).

You still need management as a way of reducing communication costs. Without any management you need (n!) communication channels in the worst case. With proper management you can achieve (n*C ~).

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#58

Post by cableshaft »

lmm wrote: post #32
erikb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point. Typing is not the main part of programming, so just typing faster than your colleague doesn't make you feel that much more powerful. Let me give you another example that maybe drives the point home better: Have you seen the videos of how Minecraft was made? A very short amount of time was spent on getting the I/O to the filesystem to work, of setting up a window and filling it with colors, of creati…

> Let me give you another example that maybe drives the point home better: Have you seen the videos of how Minecraft was made? A very short amount of time was spent on getting the I/O to the filesystem to work, of setting up a window and filling it with colors, of creating the basic 3D world. I believe that is a huge part why not everybody can write a successful game as Minecraft. Because I don't have trained the rou…

Angry Birds' popularity was mostly luck and timing. Minecraft was doing something that wasn't very well represented in video games and touched on people's creativity, primed as children with Lego blocks, and helped create a whole new genre. I don't think there's a parallel universe where Minecraft was created and did not become a hit.

Sure, he did get lucky that Penny Arcade (and Kotaku, and a bunch of other sites) covered his minecart rollercoaster video to get that initial burst of attention to his project, and maybe you could argue that it was lucky that he stuck with the project's development for two years in relative obscurity for it to get developed enough to help reach its overnight success.

However, I definitely feel it was a novel enough of an experience that it would have eventually found a way to hit the mainstream and been a big hit regardless.

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#59

Post by gphil »

tomjen3 wrote: post #55
debacle wrote: post #49

Isn't that the purposeful outcome of technology? "I could replace everything you do with a script." I know for a fact that work I have done has contributed to the demise of many positions. Could you imagine the industry for "Internet Cataloging" if we didn't have search engines? Email if we didn't have Gmail? Technology is a job killer. That idea is something that's been a part of society and literature for hundreds…

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society. What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, i…

I was with you until the last sentence:

> This means tax cuts but above all simplifications of the relevant law.

How do you pay for the poorest to have tolerable lives with tax cuts? Or are you talking about cutting out regressive taxes on the working poor?

Re: Jobs Involving Routine Tasks Aren't Growing

#60

Post by bdavisx »

tomjen3 wrote: post #55
debacle wrote: post #49

Isn't that the purposeful outcome of technology? "I could replace everything you do with a script." I know for a fact that work I have done has contributed to the demise of many positions. Could you imagine the industry for "Internet Cataloging" if we didn't have search engines? Email if we didn't have Gmail? Technology is a job killer. That idea is something that's been a part of society and literature for hundreds…

Most of the population having access to most of the worlds knowledge in the palm of their hand is a gigantic boon to society. What we should accept is that the time is approaching where a) it is possible for skill and lucky people to make many millions of times more money than those who are neither and that b) the cost communication has decreased so much that in many cases it no longer makes sense to employ people, i…

I think we need to be careful about what "tolerable lives" means too. I've seen "guaranteed income" proposals talking about something in the $25,000 USD range or similar. That's basically poverty level - and while that's better than nothing, it probably won't work as more and more jobs go away.

Imagine a world (or the US) where 75% of the people are at the poverty level and 25% are "rich". How long do you think that's going to last?

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