Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split • Hacker News Board

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#71

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #38

true_religion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that manual labor will be a thing of the past, and I struggle to see how this is a bad thing overall. If the same work is being done without human intervention, why not just give people who're unemployed the products of that labour?

Because the entities that control the machines and give their products away will be outcompeted by entities that keep the products to fuel their own growth. Over time, the former kind of entities will die out. This is a general argument, the "entities" could be rich people, companies, governments, AIs, etc.

You made an excellent point, thank you. This is big.

We're not fighting with rich men in possession of robots; we're facing the entire machinery of capitalism, and this is still probably only a mask of an underlying process that optimizes for growth and competition. So far our goals and the goals of this process are more-less correlated, but in the future those goals may diverge and the process will continue unhindered in a fully automated world while we die a slow, painful death.

I've been thinking about it for some time. I'm afraid that, of all the things we fear, we might end up getting fucked by game theory. Anyway, I recently found a nice writeup on the topic by someone much smarter than me, which elaborates on this problem [0]. (warning: it's long, but worth reading)

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#72

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:12 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #70

cousin_it wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powerful entities can extract more value from a piece of land than weak entities. That means powerful entities will outbid weak entities, and in the long run all land will belong to powerful entities. There will be no land for you to farm or forage. Labor isn't the only thing needed for survival. You also need things like living space, air and water. If these resources can be more profitably used by someone else, the…

Like I said, these things don't happen in isolation. Nor do they just manifest into existence out of thin air. It's a slow progression, and a slow co-evolution of different elements. "If these resources can be more profitably used by someone else, they will outbid you." You use the word profit as a motive for "entities" consuming all resources. But you fail to elaborate on where this profit comes from? Well, other en…

I think cousin_it is not talking about just capitalism and markets, he's talking about optimization processes and game theory. The idea is, if you have two populations and one is better at using resources to grow than the other, then the first one will outgrow and displace the second. The "populations" and "resources" are free terms here; you can substitute for them "companies" and "profit", or "rat populations" and "food" - the point is, this mechanism holds in abstract.

> Either way, all you need is the non-aggression principle and respect for property rights. And these "powerful entities" will never be able to coerce their way into the full market dominance that you describe.

Non-aggression principles and respect for property are not laws of physics, they need to be actively enforced to have any meaning. For example, the reason patent trolling is profitable is that the victims stand to loose too much in a fight, even if they would ultimately win. We're having a hard time enforcing anything against rich people today, it's hard to see how this will change when the rich get orders of magnitude richer while the poor won't be able to provide any value to exchange for food.

The transition process will be hard and painful, but I do hope we'll emerge victorious on the other side, and that cousin_it's vision will be only temporary.

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#73

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:17 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #58

tawan wrote: post #51

I see a darker future ahead: From a totally cynical but rational and economic perspective I think human labour is cheaper than any machine workforce for many tasks. We reproduce and maintain ourselves, we just need some water and food. We are very flexible and can adapt to any task very quickly. No need to order spare parts made from expensive raw materials. Human labour is only expensive because we have civil rights…

But robots adapt (or their manufacturers do). Need a drill attachment for construction? Just snap it on. NO need to use a human who needs a portable drill with internal motor and cord.

You can adapt humans as well. Bolt in the drill and a battery pack to the human "frame" and you're good to go. We're not Borg already only because "we have civil rights and we tend to riot if we are treated badly".

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#74

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:19 PM UTC

tawan wrote: post #51

I see a darker future ahead: From a totally cynical but rational and economic perspective I think human labour is cheaper than any machine workforce for many tasks. We reproduce and maintain ourselves, we just need some water and food. We are very flexible and can adapt to any task very quickly. No need to order spare parts made from expensive raw materials. Human labour is only expensive because we have civil rights…

Sadly, you have a great point. Find a way to shut down the "riot if treated badly" part in our brains, or even most of the higher cognitive functions, and you've made yourself a cheap but extremely efficient robot frame that's self-replicating thanks to being made from complicated nanorobots.

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#75

Post by cousin_it » Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:59 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #70

cousin_it wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powerful entities can extract more value from a piece of land than weak entities. That means powerful entities will outbid weak entities, and in the long run all land will belong to powerful entities. There will be no land for you to farm or forage. Labor isn't the only thing needed for survival. You also need things like living space, air and water. If these resources can be more profitably used by someone else, the…

Like I said, these things don't happen in isolation. Nor do they just manifest into existence out of thin air. It's a slow progression, and a slow co-evolution of different elements. "If these resources can be more profitably used by someone else, they will outbid you." You use the word profit as a motive for "entities" consuming all resources. But you fail to elaborate on where this profit comes from? Well, other en…

Do you think a free market with property rights is a "self-correcting system", in which every participant always ends up with enough resources to survive? That sounds weird to me, because firms go out of business all the time. If the trend of machine productivity continues, it's easy for me to imagine a future where most people go "out of business", like inefficient firms.

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#76

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 2:19 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But robots adapt (or their manufacturers do). Need a drill attachment for construction? Just snap it on. NO need to use a human who needs a portable drill with internal motor and cord.

You can adapt humans as well. Bolt in the drill and a battery pack to the human "frame" and you're good to go. We're not Borg already only because "we have civil rights and we tend to riot if we are treated badly".

But much more expensive to adapt to a biological unit. The robot's drill can share the robot's power unit. Mine has to be plugged in; has to have its own motor; has to be shielded and safe.

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#77

Post by Houshalter » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 6:25 AM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #45

cousin_it wrote: post #25

Nah, it's not as bad as the article says. It's much worse. 1) If you don't lose your job to a robot, you'll lose it to an emulated human. An em requires only a tiny chip and a little electricity, and is every bit as capable of doing empathy and creativity as you are. 2) If you don't lose your job to an em, you'll lose it (and your life) to unfriendly self-improving AI that has a use for your atoms. If you think there…

> an emulated human I don't buy it at all. Where is your evidence that convincing emulation of human emotion and empathy will exist any time in the next 100 years. Based on current technology and the pace of technological advancement that proposition just seems ridiculous.

The median result of polling AI researchers is we will have human level AI by is the 2040's.

The last century we went from no computers at all, to people carrying around supercomputers in their pocket. We went from the first powered flight to landing on the moon in 66 years. AI in a century is by no means impossible or unlikely.

Re: Will You Lose Your Job to a Robot? Silicon Valley Is Split

#78

Post by Houshalter » Thu, Aug 07, 2014, 6:31 AM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #42

pjc50 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feasibility and cost of "emulated humans" is not settled; it may well be physically impossible.

Wouldn't it be nice if all the things that threaten us turned out to be physically impossible? "At the same time, the parts we do understand, such as that human intelligence is almost certainly running on top of neurons firing, suggest very strongly that human intelligence is not the limit of the possible. Neurons fire at, say, 200 hertz top speed; transmit signals at 150 meters/second top speed; and even in the real…

A very relevant short essay: http://intelligenceexplosion.com/2011/plenty-of-room-above-u...

Thinking human brains are the pinnacle of intelligence is ridiculous. We are just the very first intelligent thing to evolve. On top of which, biology is severely constrained in many ways and stuck in local optimas.