Replacing Middle Management with APIs(rein.pk)
rein.pk
Replacing Middle Management with APIs
http://rein.pk/replacing-middle-management-with-apis/
28 comments
A dull, boring job is predictable, and you can plan around it. You can devote your attention to whatever else you like. Until we start paying people to take vacations and entertain themselves, boring is the next best thing.
Beats the heck out of being told what to think, want, and do. Worrying all the time that you can't take it and that you'll have to find something better (when you explode at someone for being an idiot.)
Beats the heck out of being told what to think, want, and do. Worrying all the time that you can't take it and that you'll have to find something better (when you explode at someone for being an idiot.)
> You can devote your attention to whatever else you like
This is key. Also this:
> Beats the heck out of being told what to think
A very repetitive job with no one talking to you is not that bad, because you're free to think, dream, rehash some old story you heard, etc.
Watching TV is the opposite of that, BTW, for that very reason (the whole purpose of TV is telling you what to think... and what not to think).
This is key. Also this:
> Beats the heck out of being told what to think
A very repetitive job with no one talking to you is not that bad, because you're free to think, dream, rehash some old story you heard, etc.
Watching TV is the opposite of that, BTW, for that very reason (the whole purpose of TV is telling you what to think... and what not to think).
I bent sheet metal for a month. Very repetitive, lots of physical exertion. I could have lasted longer (I happened to move across the country for other reasons), but that was not my idea of a fulfilling life. Same thing a year later when I was doing data entry for months over the same forms. Ugh. I think you're misguided.
Boring is not the next best thing... Some people are actually paid to do the thing they love...
You are correct. Let's just call it "one of the more tolerable things" then. (That lacks the same rhetorical punch, I must admit...)
rephrase: "As long as we aren't giving everyone the option of being paid a decent wage to follow their passion of basket-weaving, then a boring job is the next best thing"?
The funny thing is that having access to many "boring" jobs that you can switch between might actually be interesting.
Running a startup, I find it pretty cool to wear as many hats as I do. Some days we are dealing with contracts, some days it's scouting new office locations and painting, some days we're imaging hundreds of SD cards, or doing customer development, or pitching to investors, or shooting videos.
Seperately, each of these things could be horrible mindless jobs. But together, it's a great experience. But I don't know if that's simply because there's a common end goal.
Running a startup, I find it pretty cool to wear as many hats as I do. Some days we are dealing with contracts, some days it's scouting new office locations and painting, some days we're imaging hundreds of SD cards, or doing customer development, or pitching to investors, or shooting videos.
Seperately, each of these things could be horrible mindless jobs. But together, it's a great experience. But I don't know if that's simply because there's a common end goal.
>A lot of people seem to be OK with dull, boring jobs,
I'm a little shocked to see this sentiment, and even more to see support for for it from other commentators.
Has anyone here actually worked jobs like this?
I've had several factory, dull, boring jobs where you repeat the same task 2-10 times per minute, and none of the people I worked with enjoyed it. It's hell.Time slows to a crawl. You can repeat a task a hundred times and only 20 minutes go by.
Attempts were always made to rotate people though different tasks throughout the day. The vast majority would leave to go to a non-repetitious job if possible.
I'm a little shocked to see this sentiment, and even more to see support for for it from other commentators.
Has anyone here actually worked jobs like this?
I've had several factory, dull, boring jobs where you repeat the same task 2-10 times per minute, and none of the people I worked with enjoyed it. It's hell.Time slows to a crawl. You can repeat a task a hundred times and only 20 minutes go by.
Attempts were always made to rotate people though different tasks throughout the day. The vast majority would leave to go to a non-repetitious job if possible.
I've done a few stints in jobs like that - I think how you deal with it depends on how/who you are. With time I found the endless repetition of simple tasks very calming, harmonious and peaceful - I'd hit a "zen zone" and kind of meditate over the machinery / pieces I was making. When you repeat a task long enough, time ceases to exist.
That's exactly what Henry Ford found when he introduced the assembly line in 1914. He found that he had to hire 10x more men than he needed because 90% would quit the line within a few weeks. That's where Ford's 'generous' $5 day came from (twice the prevailing wage). Most found the tedium of the assembly line to be insufferable.
I worked in several furniture factories as a youngster, and I share that sentiment. Assembly lines are soul killing.
I worked in several furniture factories as a youngster, and I share that sentiment. Assembly lines are soul killing.
In the late 60's GM built a new factory west of Youngstown,OH. ~ they soon found out the young men they hired from the local rural farm areas were not happy doing the same thing all day, even though they were paid far better then their previous employment on there families farms. They were used to doing different activities through the day on the farms. Their discontent, became known as the 'Lordstown Syndrome'.
A dull, boring job beats the hell out of a terrifying, dangerous job.
A dull, boring job beats the hell out of no job at all.
No job is the goal. No money is the problem.
I doubt that to be the case. Many (most?) people are lost without a job. Witness the many retirees that get part time jobs because they can't stand sitting around all day.
Some people derive meaning from their work and are lost without it.
Some people derive meaning from their work and are lost without it.
>I doubt that to be the case. Many (most?) people are lost without a job. Witness the many retirees that get part time jobs because they can't stand sitting around all day.
Witness the many retirees that get part time jobs because they can't survive on the income they have without them.
Witness the many retirees that get part time jobs because they can't survive on the income they have without them.
>> Witness the many retirees that get part time jobs because they can't stand sitting around all day.
Hobbies are what they need. But after a life of working some can't trasition. I once heard that life expectancy drops 2 years for every year after XX that you retire. IIRC XX was like 55 or 60 but its a fuzzy memory. Of course thats an average.
Hobbies are what they need. But after a life of working some can't trasition. I once heard that life expectancy drops 2 years for every year after XX that you retire. IIRC XX was like 55 or 60 but its a fuzzy memory. Of course thats an average.
Sorry for what amounts to a trivial comment, but I would love to see that on a t-shirt.
I agree. I think I'm gonna order myself one, to continue the tradition of printing out things from Internet on t-shirts. My last one[0] gets quite a lot of questions from people.
[0] - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/216352/moloch-rendered.p...
[0] - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/216352/moloch-rendered.p...
do explain :) or point out the origin.
It's from this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Long but a very good read, and very relevant in the context of this discussion.
The quote itself is a mix of a poem ("They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven") and Bostrom's last book ("lousy Disneyland with no children"). It refers to the scenario when our economy/incentives system automates away all humans and we're left with a glorious economical machine with no humans inside, running without a purpose - like a fully automated, self-sufficient Disneyland that is never visited by any children.
Long but a very good read, and very relevant in the context of this discussion.
The quote itself is a mix of a poem ("They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven") and Bostrom's last book ("lousy Disneyland with no children"). It refers to the scenario when our economy/incentives system automates away all humans and we're left with a glorious economical machine with no humans inside, running without a purpose - like a fully automated, self-sufficient Disneyland that is never visited by any children.
[deleted]
So it's better to be a bored wannabe like Walter Mitty than a Formula One driver, an olympic skiier, a general dedending your homeland in war, or James Bond?
Better you than me, I say.
Better you than me, I say.
To be honest, this is why I got out of the startup scene. The freedom was great; the need to have a quarterly discussion about what we were actually doing and constantly rotate the type of software I was writing as we pivoted over and over was nauseating.
My work these days isn't exactly predictable, but it has a far less uncertain future. And there's still a deep-seated part of my psyche that would be very happy working a predictable piece work job.
My work these days isn't exactly predictable, but it has a far less uncertain future. And there's still a deep-seated part of my psyche that would be very happy working a predictable piece work job.
According to this:
http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=40...
40,000 in 1925 would be half a million at today's rate. No wonder the dude didn't want to change jobs.
http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=40...
40,000 in 1925 would be half a million at today's rate. No wonder the dude didn't want to change jobs.
I'm not dismissing this line of thought, but realize this probably already exists, and has existed for 100+ years.
When I graduated college I started out as a mechanical engineer, sometimes going down to the factory to work on new design issues. There was a constant source of friction between the 22 year old mechanical engineers and the 50+ year old factory workers. Here are a bunch of skilled guys that have been building the product for 30+ years, and they in essence often have to report to kids half their age right out of college that don't know a thing. There was a pathway up through the factory, but there was no pathway across to engineering without getting a degree.
If you were a smart engineer, you realized that these guys had an enormous amount of knowledge - more than you could ever hope to get out of a simple degree - and that they were worth listening to. If you were a cocky, dumb, engineer you ignored their opinion.
The solution in the past to this problem has been unions. The startups are moving a bit too fast for the unions to catch up, but in all of these recent 'What happens when everything is Uber?' posts written by engineers the role of unions, politicians, and large masses of affected people seem to be ignored.
When I graduated college I started out as a mechanical engineer, sometimes going down to the factory to work on new design issues. There was a constant source of friction between the 22 year old mechanical engineers and the 50+ year old factory workers. Here are a bunch of skilled guys that have been building the product for 30+ years, and they in essence often have to report to kids half their age right out of college that don't know a thing. There was a pathway up through the factory, but there was no pathway across to engineering without getting a degree.
If you were a smart engineer, you realized that these guys had an enormous amount of knowledge - more than you could ever hope to get out of a simple degree - and that they were worth listening to. If you were a cocky, dumb, engineer you ignored their opinion.
The solution in the past to this problem has been unions. The startups are moving a bit too fast for the unions to catch up, but in all of these recent 'What happens when everything is Uber?' posts written by engineers the role of unions, politicians, and large masses of affected people seem to be ignored.
there was no pathway across to engineering without getting a degree.
DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation, makers of the PDP and VAX computer series) once had such a pathway, and electronic technicians could advance to engineering. That wasn't retained after they were acquired by Compaq, then by HP, then downsized.
DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation, makers of the PDP and VAX computer series) once had such a pathway, and electronic technicians could advance to engineering. That wasn't retained after they were acquired by Compaq, then by HP, then downsized.
> The solution in the past to this problem has been unions.
How? Does a union provide a path from the factory floor to being an engineer without needing a degree, or... what?
I honestly don't see how unions would even be relevant here.
How? Does a union provide a path from the factory floor to being an engineer without needing a degree, or... what?
I honestly don't see how unions would even be relevant here.
Unions negotiate for better wages, stable hours, and benefits. Often those benefits include tuition reimbursement, but the other things are just as important for establishing a predictable career path so that factory work can be a step to something else, if you so wish it to be.
Unions do nothing to contribute to productivity (in the broader economic sense). If anything, they are a hindrance to it.
I would rather see a focus on a "union" we already have on the scale of entire states or the entire country called the legislative process. Through it we can argue for basics like guaranteed livable income (so you have the time to better yourself), universal healthcare (so you're not always one accident or sickness from being destitute) and a high quality educational system. A livable income, healthcare and education are the foundation upon which most other opportunities rest.
I would rather see a focus on a "union" we already have on the scale of entire states or the entire country called the legislative process. Through it we can argue for basics like guaranteed livable income (so you have the time to better yourself), universal healthcare (so you're not always one accident or sickness from being destitute) and a high quality educational system. A livable income, healthcare and education are the foundation upon which most other opportunities rest.
> If anything, they are a hindrance to it.
Yes, by doing things like get us the 8 hour working day (parts of what is not the AFL-CIO were the largest driver for that, taking decades, and having members die in the process, and leaving us with May 1st as the international day for labour demonstrations as another direct result).
Productivity is not a measure of the success of a society.
Yes, by doing things like get us the 8 hour working day (parts of what is not the AFL-CIO were the largest driver for that, taking decades, and having members die in the process, and leaving us with May 1st as the international day for labour demonstrations as another direct result).
Productivity is not a measure of the success of a society.
To clarify. I never said they never contributed to productivity. At one time they did, but these days they have largely succumbed to the shirky principle:
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky
The same can be said of the organizations that have typically opposed the unions too. The world has too many zombie organizations that have outlived their usefulness and are now a drag. The effort being spent on unions would be better off spent on increasing support for a guaranteed minimum wage. We've now got universal healthcare (or at least some flavor of it), but there are a lot more ways we can improve equality of opportunity and fairness and I don't see how the modern unions contribute in any way to the bigger picture (like the 8 hour workday)
Productivity is what allows more and more of us to pursue activities that make us happy for more hours of the day.
http://kk.org/thetechnium/2010/04/the-shirky-prin/
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky
The same can be said of the organizations that have typically opposed the unions too. The world has too many zombie organizations that have outlived their usefulness and are now a drag. The effort being spent on unions would be better off spent on increasing support for a guaranteed minimum wage. We've now got universal healthcare (or at least some flavor of it), but there are a lot more ways we can improve equality of opportunity and fairness and I don't see how the modern unions contribute in any way to the bigger picture (like the 8 hour workday)
Productivity is what allows more and more of us to pursue activities that make us happy for more hours of the day.
http://kk.org/thetechnium/2010/04/the-shirky-prin/
by doing things like get us the 8 hour working day
How do you figure? To me it seems that most of the union jobs were simply automated away, moved to third world countries, or heavily supplemented with illegal immigrant labour. None of those arrangements maintain an 8 hour working day limit.
The remaining positions are generally high-skill or based on independent contractors. No wonder they command higher wages and have better working conditions.
Unions rode the tide of technology and globalization but didn't actually cause it.
How do you figure? To me it seems that most of the union jobs were simply automated away, moved to third world countries, or heavily supplemented with illegal immigrant labour. None of those arrangements maintain an 8 hour working day limit.
The remaining positions are generally high-skill or based on independent contractors. No wonder they command higher wages and have better working conditions.
Unions rode the tide of technology and globalization but didn't actually cause it.
From your link,
Although there were initial successes in achieving an eight-hour day in New Zealand and by the Australian labour movement for skilled workers in the 1840s and 1850s, most employed people had to wait to the early and mid twentieth century for the condition to be widely achieved through the industrialized world through legislative action. [And many other countries followed the same trajectory.]
How come? I'll take a guess: because it was only made possible in practice in the 20th century by a sufficient increase in productivity, mainly through automation but also economies of scale. And as the process continued, those jobs went away completely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
Although there were initial successes in achieving an eight-hour day in New Zealand and by the Australian labour movement for skilled workers in the 1840s and 1850s, most employed people had to wait to the early and mid twentieth century for the condition to be widely achieved through the industrialized world through legislative action. [And many other countries followed the same trajectory.]
How come? I'll take a guess: because it was only made possible in practice in the 20th century by a sufficient increase in productivity, mainly through automation but also economies of scale. And as the process continued, those jobs went away completely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
> Unions do nothing to contribute to productivity (in the broader economic sense). If anything, they are a hindrance to it.
Yes, unions are (supposed) to defend the interests of workers. Not to make it easier for bosses or shareholders to profit from the workers' work.
Whether or not today's unions are still doing that is up for debate though.
Yes, unions are (supposed) to defend the interests of workers. Not to make it easier for bosses or shareholders to profit from the workers' work.
Whether or not today's unions are still doing that is up for debate though.
>How? Does a union provide a path from the factory floor to being an engineer without needing a degree, or... what?
They tell the management that the current situation is really dumb and won't fly, and they have the power to back it up. A union should ideally work for the self-interest of the workers and fight for a larger piece of the pie that is the company, but also try to make the pie bigger.
They tell the management that the current situation is really dumb and won't fly, and they have the power to back it up. A union should ideally work for the self-interest of the workers and fight for a larger piece of the pie that is the company, but also try to make the pie bigger.
No, unions make it so "cocky, educated" engineers can't tinker with "the way things have always been done" without a big fuss.
So they entrench methods of doing things that may be highly inefficient in the face of changing requirements. Sounds great.
I've worked in such a situation. You could make your own coffee (could cost someone their job, you see). You couldn't park your foreign car at the plant (later acquired by Daimler).
We were in the engineering building offsite and there were union guys working there too. I enjoyed working with everybody there, despite the bit of wackiness around the corner.
We were in the engineering building offsite and there were union guys working there too. I enjoyed working with everybody there, despite the bit of wackiness around the corner.
Unions allow for a "cocky educated" technician.
That dynamic sounds somewhat similar to the NCO-Commissioned officer relationship. The race to put everyone through college promulgated IMHO a concomitant, deplorable attitude shift that the line/floor had little to nothing to offer. You even see glimmers of this in the API sub-thread on this discussion. Once your automation efforts are down to a "game of inches" (see Al Pacino's performance that expounds on that term), iterative feedback from the line/floor saves you a ton of design time.
I think we also have to recognise that the days of working in the same company for 40 years or until you die are long gone. For many people, career progression is not something that happens within the same organisation, but by moving from one job to another. Perhaps this is just the other side of the same coin -- in order to 'hop the gap' in career progression, you actively have to seek another job on the other side.
Why do we have to recognize that? There's some evidence that Millenials are changing jobs less quickly than previous generations.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/millennials-changing-job...
I think a lot of young-ish folks experienced rapid job changes over the past 15 years, because we lived through the explosive early growth of the Internet. But there's also evidence that that time is over.
http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/180431/american-entrep...
The tech industry is consolidating, and there are plenty of huge stable companies to provide long-term careers. I don't see any reason that a young engineer couldn't sign on with Google or Facebook out of college and stay there for 40 years.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/millennials-changing-job...
I think a lot of young-ish folks experienced rapid job changes over the past 15 years, because we lived through the explosive early growth of the Internet. But there's also evidence that that time is over.
http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/180431/american-entrep...
The tech industry is consolidating, and there are plenty of huge stable companies to provide long-term careers. I don't see any reason that a young engineer couldn't sign on with Google or Facebook out of college and stay there for 40 years.
That doesn't solve the problem, it merely changes its name. There has always been the need to match workers to tasks.
In stable, large companies this was done with middle managers and human resources departments, which meant that you nominally got to keep the same "job". Remove that, and there's still a need to allocate resources, that now will be filled with things like the API's the article talks about, or "freelance-like" human resources companies.
Workers will still keep a stable relation to the APIs they know (as learning a new one takes time and effort). The only thing lost in this name change is the safety network of a legal work contract.
In stable, large companies this was done with middle managers and human resources departments, which meant that you nominally got to keep the same "job". Remove that, and there's still a need to allocate resources, that now will be filled with things like the API's the article talks about, or "freelance-like" human resources companies.
Workers will still keep a stable relation to the APIs they know (as learning a new one takes time and effort). The only thing lost in this name change is the safety network of a legal work contract.
Instead of waiting for the unions, startups usually just drop the degree requirement.
Because it suits them at the time. Not because they are egalitarian endeavors hell-bent on human welfare and equality.
Because it makes sense to ditch an inefficient company structure when starting from scratch. Why would the motive matter anyway?
Why would the motive matter anyway?
Because we have absolutely no reason to believe they won't change their minds down the road. Which is exactly what usually happens.
Because we have absolutely no reason to believe they won't change their minds down the road. Which is exactly what usually happens.
Once you have a large enough volume of candidates, not differentiating between the candidates based on a degree is ignoring a useful signal.
And once you are sufficiently large, you can probably afford to immediately turn away anyone w/o a degree (or whatever other signals yield high return).
Complex systems don't give a shit, and it sadly makes sense.
And once you are sufficiently large, you can probably afford to immediately turn away anyone w/o a degree (or whatever other signals yield high return).
Complex systems don't give a shit, and it sadly makes sense.
As a process improvement expert, one of the most significant modern breakthroughs was leveraging the intellect and experience of front line employees.
This was fundamental in enabling Toyota to go from cheap unreliable Japanese garbage to the biggest most reliable car manufacturer.
Reach out to me if you'd like to know more, we can have a chat or I can recommend some reading.
This was fundamental in enabling Toyota to go from cheap unreliable Japanese garbage to the biggest most reliable car manufacturer.
Reach out to me if you'd like to know more, we can have a chat or I can recommend some reading.
The path is not hard to find. Ask the graduates what they did and copy that.
Getting more stuff done with less human effort is a good thing. However, combining that with an economic system which sets your ability to feed yourself and your families based on the effort you put in is a bad thing.
Capitalism which was a great 2th century economic system, is not suited for the 21st century where there really aren't any jobs left for humans to do.
The benefits of automation only accrue to the owners of capital, while everyone else gets completely left out. Since the owners of capital are an increasingly smaller number of people (not surprising since capital accrues capital exponentially while labor only accrues it linearly) our economic systems are headed for collapse.
Capitalism which was a great 2th century economic system, is not suited for the 21st century where there really aren't any jobs left for humans to do.
The benefits of automation only accrue to the owners of capital, while everyone else gets completely left out. Since the owners of capital are an increasingly smaller number of people (not surprising since capital accrues capital exponentially while labor only accrues it linearly) our economic systems are headed for collapse.
Those very same APIs that create the incentive to make human labor obsolete also destroy existing business models, where old money is parked.
You vastly underestimate how hard it is to stay rich. Most families are back to square 1 after 3 generations.
You vastly underestimate how hard it is to stay rich. Most families are back to square 1 after 3 generations.
The difference between today and before is that old money is rarely parked in a single business model. The sophistication in finance, and the spread of public companies means the Waltons don't only stay rich as long as Walmart is successful. In fact, I'd bet their wealth is affected far less by Walmart than it is by the tens or hundreds of hedge funds and VC firms they are invested in.
Money is rarely parked at any one place today, but rather, is largely distributed throughout the economy.
Money is rarely parked at any one place today, but rather, is largely distributed throughout the economy.
Which raises the question of whether 2nd generation rich are actually bad for overall wage growth. The industries that typically have the highest wages are the cutting-edge technologies; these are also typically industries that rely on a large pools of capital to fund high-risk investments.
Venture capitalists have played a huge role in the story of the technology industry over the past 15 years, but where do VC's get their money? From the hedge funds of rich people like the Waltons.
Venture capitalists have played a huge role in the story of the technology industry over the past 15 years, but where do VC's get their money? From the hedge funds of rich people like the Waltons.
Here's what I could find on maintaining wealth over time:
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Sweden%202... - A study of Swedish surnames since 1700s suggested that wealth regressed to the mean quite slowly (the statistical measure b), finding significant differences between those holding noble and common names after hundreds of years http://www.eea-esem.com/files/papers/EEA-ESEM/2013/1862/SUwp... - Another study of Swedish intergenerational wealth transfer finds similarly. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Clark%20Cu... - A study of rare British surnames since 1800s finds a similar rate of regression to the mean.
And taking a different tack, studying lottery winners with modest sums: http://www.econ.pitt.edu/papers/Mark_lottery.pdf - only 3 years after winning 50-150k people have regressed to the mean rate of bankruptcy http://www.nber.org/papers/w19348 - land seized from Cherokee people in 1832 was given away in a lottery. The land was valued at between 20k and 150k in modern terms, depending on how you count - inflation vs relative value of unskilled labor. Sons of lottery recipients had no better adult outcomes than the sons of eligible men who received nothing.
So, all of these do find a significant regression to the mean and not a permanent upper class, but for large wealth and social status differences it can take hundreds of years. For more moderately sized random windfalls it happens rather quickly.
I'm out of time to write this comment further, but I'd like to look next for research on what happens a generation or two after a family makes a very large move, i.e. rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags.
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Sweden%202... - A study of Swedish surnames since 1700s suggested that wealth regressed to the mean quite slowly (the statistical measure b), finding significant differences between those holding noble and common names after hundreds of years http://www.eea-esem.com/files/papers/EEA-ESEM/2013/1862/SUwp... - Another study of Swedish intergenerational wealth transfer finds similarly. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Clark%20Cu... - A study of rare British surnames since 1800s finds a similar rate of regression to the mean.
And taking a different tack, studying lottery winners with modest sums: http://www.econ.pitt.edu/papers/Mark_lottery.pdf - only 3 years after winning 50-150k people have regressed to the mean rate of bankruptcy http://www.nber.org/papers/w19348 - land seized from Cherokee people in 1832 was given away in a lottery. The land was valued at between 20k and 150k in modern terms, depending on how you count - inflation vs relative value of unskilled labor. Sons of lottery recipients had no better adult outcomes than the sons of eligible men who received nothing.
So, all of these do find a significant regression to the mean and not a permanent upper class, but for large wealth and social status differences it can take hundreds of years. For more moderately sized random windfalls it happens rather quickly.
I'm out of time to write this comment further, but I'd like to look next for research on what happens a generation or two after a family makes a very large move, i.e. rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags.
> Most families are back to square 1 after 3 generations.
Any sources to back this up?
Any sources to back this up?
It's a common cycle. The saying is "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations." https://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/family-wealth-heir-chil... http://www.cnbc.com/id/101837456
We still have the democratic system, as things get tighter and people poorer they'll start voting for a tax on capitol.
In the UK the the proposal of a mansion tax keeps popping up, this is really the future of owning capital, just owning it will have a cost. Which is actually a great capitalist strategy because if a 10 room mansion is being under utilised the owner is going to be compelled to use it more efficiently.
In the UK the the proposal of a mansion tax keeps popping up, this is really the future of owning capital, just owning it will have a cost. Which is actually a great capitalist strategy because if a 10 room mansion is being under utilised the owner is going to be compelled to use it more efficiently.
> We still have the democratic system
Not really, not anymore, we're an oligarchy now, money gets what money wants now that we have unlimited contributions.
> as things get tighter and people poorer they'll start voting for a tax on capitol.
No they won't, the rich are in control, this is an oligarchy, they aren't going to do this to themselves.
Not really, not anymore, we're an oligarchy now, money gets what money wants now that we have unlimited contributions.
> as things get tighter and people poorer they'll start voting for a tax on capitol.
No they won't, the rich are in control, this is an oligarchy, they aren't going to do this to themselves.
Then what would be the right way forward? We've known capitalism is broken since at least the times of Karl Marx.
There are a few ideas, such as basic income that can be tried. Personally I think that there is a need for extremely well funded organisations with a mission to acquire money now against the problem of actually creating a humane society in the future when this stuff really kicks off.
The key problem is what was mentioned above - capital accrues capital exponentially, labour accrues capital linearly. The only way to fix this is to give everyone significant stakes in capital (or for the Marxists, the 'means of production'). The Norwegian pension fund, which owns about 1% of global equity is exactly the kind of thing that will be required to create any kind of future. Governments aren't the only organisations that can do this kind of work though. Any organisation that is giving workers the same kind of leverage that capital gets or sees that as part of its long term mission is part of the solution.
I see this as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity over the next few decades.
The key problem is what was mentioned above - capital accrues capital exponentially, labour accrues capital linearly. The only way to fix this is to give everyone significant stakes in capital (or for the Marxists, the 'means of production'). The Norwegian pension fund, which owns about 1% of global equity is exactly the kind of thing that will be required to create any kind of future. Governments aren't the only organisations that can do this kind of work though. Any organisation that is giving workers the same kind of leverage that capital gets or sees that as part of its long term mission is part of the solution.
I see this as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity over the next few decades.
19th century capitalism was quite free and rampant. States acknowledged this and engaged in legislation to humanize the system, e.g. through banning child labour and other things.
I would not say capitalism is broken, but that it needs occasional strict bounds by government to make living bareable. Market is not suitable as the only economic controller - state intervention is needed as well in the form of taxes and legislation to provide basic human conditions for the majority.
Recent decades have seen the rise of free market liberalism. I hope it is fairly obvious by now that unbridled this will lead to human suffering for many.
I would not say capitalism is broken, but that it needs occasional strict bounds by government to make living bareable. Market is not suitable as the only economic controller - state intervention is needed as well in the form of taxes and legislation to provide basic human conditions for the majority.
Recent decades have seen the rise of free market liberalism. I hope it is fairly obvious by now that unbridled this will lead to human suffering for many.
And indeed one of Marx key predictions was that capitalism through increasing efficiency would eventually lead to an overproduction/under-employment crisis.
You don't get to keep waiting for a prediction to finally come true when it doesn't come with a deadline. It already didn't happen despite all our labor saving technology so far (we don't even weave cloth by hand anymore!). Sure it might happen in another 100 years, or another 1000. But that's almost a given for most predictions.
>We've known capitalism is broken since at least the times of Karl Marx.
By what measure is it broken when it's produced literally orders of magnitude more improvement in human living conditions than anything in the thousand years prior to the advent of capitalism?
By what measure is it broken when it's produced literally orders of magnitude more improvement in human living conditions than anything in the thousand years prior to the advent of capitalism?
... including Marxism. I mean, Marx's ideas are great on paper, but they have actually been tried, and they just don't work. East vs West Germany, North vs South Korea, Cuba vs Miami, the world has seen plenty of controlled experiments in this field.
They're not great on paper. They ignore some powerful personal human motivation that we know exists. Perhaps you should say "They're great for robots that can be programmed to think in whatever way is convenient for the academic imagining them".
Well, yes, the same could be said of Chomsky.
IMHO the biggest mistake and "the root of all evil" of marxist and capitalistic countries was that people with:
- capitalistic mindset were not allowed to get out; (marxist countries)
- communist mindset were allowed to stay in. (capitalistic countries)
This created discontentment and abuses, undermining the system and his initial followers: "If they are taking advantage, I am stupid if I don't do the same"
[edited]
- capitalistic mindset were not allowed to get out; (marxist countries)
- communist mindset were allowed to stay in. (capitalistic countries)
This created discontentment and abuses, undermining the system and his initial followers: "If they are taking advantage, I am stupid if I don't do the same"
[edited]
That has been tried too, in Britain in the 1960s the govt introduced punitive taxation but didn't close the borders. What happened next was the origin of the phrase "brain drain".
I'm not aware of any capitalist society that erected barriers to members wanting to go and live in a communist country. Weirdly, they didn't want to. Take the late Eric Hobsbawm for example, wouldn't stop banging on about how great the USSR was. But for himself, he preferred the life of a wealthy author in the West...
I'm not aware of any capitalist society that erected barriers to members wanting to go and live in a communist country. Weirdly, they didn't want to. Take the late Eric Hobsbawm for example, wouldn't stop banging on about how great the USSR was. But for himself, he preferred the life of a wealthy author in the West...
I live in South Europe. Here we want the best of both worlds: the best of Marxism and the best of Capitalism. IMHO, this is the root of our problems because this mindset is not sustainable. Just have a look on Greece. Tsipras (the Greek people) wants to follow both. This indecision will undermine them.
It's not just Capitalism that has good things, Marxism have good things also (I have lived in East Europe where you can still feel the marxist mindset presence and believe me, some things are MUCH better than in the West). But I am not even arguing which direction to take, it's just not possible to follow both.
It's not just Capitalism that has good things, Marxism have good things also (I have lived in East Europe where you can still feel the marxist mindset presence and believe me, some things are MUCH better than in the West). But I am not even arguing which direction to take, it's just not possible to follow both.
Tax proceeds of capitalism & redistribute.
>The benefits of automation only accrue to the owners of capital
If that was so why would consumers purchase automated goods (or services)?
Fundamentally consumers buy a product if it is perceived to be better, cheaper or both than some existing alternative[1] or if they prefer the brand[2]. If the product is better or cheaper then the consumer benefits (and the poorest consumer benefits the most) and if the product is neither better nor cheaper, why would they buy it at all?
[1] this isn't necessarily a product or service: the alternative to driving may be walking or riding a bike, the alternative to buy some specific item of amazon may be to do without it.
[2] throwing the label "hand-made" on a product may increase its value, it is hard how to see throwing "made without human hands" on a product could increase its value, so this would be a point against automation.
If that was so why would consumers purchase automated goods (or services)?
Fundamentally consumers buy a product if it is perceived to be better, cheaper or both than some existing alternative[1] or if they prefer the brand[2]. If the product is better or cheaper then the consumer benefits (and the poorest consumer benefits the most) and if the product is neither better nor cheaper, why would they buy it at all?
[1] this isn't necessarily a product or service: the alternative to driving may be walking or riding a bike, the alternative to buy some specific item of amazon may be to do without it.
[2] throwing the label "hand-made" on a product may increase its value, it is hard how to see throwing "made without human hands" on a product could increase its value, so this would be a point against automation.
>However, combining that with an economic system which sets your ability to feed yourself and your families based on the effort you put in is a bad thing.
This would be great. The problem is, reward has little to do with effort. Lots of effort can still leave someone broke and little effort (with a lot of capital) can make someone millions. Imagine a system where hard workers were always rewarded appropriately regardless of what they worked in, regardless of the capital they previously possessed.
This would be great. The problem is, reward has little to do with effort. Lots of effort can still leave someone broke and little effort (with a lot of capital) can make someone millions. Imagine a system where hard workers were always rewarded appropriately regardless of what they worked in, regardless of the capital they previously possessed.
The day when there are machines smart enough to do all the service jobs that humans currently do will be the day machines are smart enough not to work for free.
>an economic system which sets your ability to feed yourself and your families based on the effort you put in
As opposed to an economic system in which your ability to feed yourself is based on the effort others put in? Such a system requires some entity to prevent you from reaping the gains of your own effort and/or take the fruits of others' efforts to give to you, and historically such entities are prone to realising that the power they have allows them to just take everyone's stuff for themselves.
>The benefits of automation only accrue to the owners of capital, while everyone else gets completely left out.
This is absurd: compare someone born to a household in the bottom income quartile today to someone born in that quartile a hundred years ago, the difference in quality of life is ridiculous. All the technology that exists today is the result of automation and capital accumulation: without any, we'd all still be subsistence farmers. It doesn't matter if one doesn't own any capital, one can still buy the things produced by the world's accumulated capital.
>an economic system which sets your ability to feed yourself and your families based on the effort you put in
As opposed to an economic system in which your ability to feed yourself is based on the effort others put in? Such a system requires some entity to prevent you from reaping the gains of your own effort and/or take the fruits of others' efforts to give to you, and historically such entities are prone to realising that the power they have allows them to just take everyone's stuff for themselves.
>The benefits of automation only accrue to the owners of capital, while everyone else gets completely left out.
This is absurd: compare someone born to a household in the bottom income quartile today to someone born in that quartile a hundred years ago, the difference in quality of life is ridiculous. All the technology that exists today is the result of automation and capital accumulation: without any, we'd all still be subsistence farmers. It doesn't matter if one doesn't own any capital, one can still buy the things produced by the world's accumulated capital.
The OPs question was whether Capitalism as we understand it now, is suited for the future when we expect most kinds of labour to be done by machines.
We don't need fully self-aware machines to get to that point. For example, when self-driving cars become pervasive, they'll remove a source of livelihood for a large section of human population. Driving has a low barrier to entry and can be done by most able-bodied humans irrespective of their level of acquired intelligence. This description works for most jobs that are going to be automated away.
Typically any automation problem we solve rolls out globally at a staggering rate. It puts people out of jobs faster than they can skill up. Also, social and economic mobility is externally constrained (and changes can only happens over 2 or 3 generations), and not everyone can move up even if they try. Which means automation will give rise to an increasing number of people who cannot undertake non-automatable knowledge-work, and thus become doomed to be unemployed, and leads to a self-reinforcing cycle out of which they cannot escape. This is a problem that the civilization has to confront, and our current way of thinking about economics will not work there.
The so-called 'fruit of others labour' notion is something that made most sense in the pre-industrialized era. Applying it today in its entirety without considering how much of an inter-dependent society we have become is simplistic. This is as true in technology (open-source software that powers commercial entities) as in other fields (research that builds on top of pre-existing knowledge, industrialized economies impacting global ecosystem, ..).
If we consider that each of us is beholden to the collective past of entire humanity, the idea of ownership and 'fruits of labour' becomes just a social construct. This construct nevertheless is required today and for the foreseeable future as the only practical way to divide resources. However it is a complicated and probably intractable idea, and is not at all axiomatic as you seem to make it out to be.
We don't need fully self-aware machines to get to that point. For example, when self-driving cars become pervasive, they'll remove a source of livelihood for a large section of human population. Driving has a low barrier to entry and can be done by most able-bodied humans irrespective of their level of acquired intelligence. This description works for most jobs that are going to be automated away.
Typically any automation problem we solve rolls out globally at a staggering rate. It puts people out of jobs faster than they can skill up. Also, social and economic mobility is externally constrained (and changes can only happens over 2 or 3 generations), and not everyone can move up even if they try. Which means automation will give rise to an increasing number of people who cannot undertake non-automatable knowledge-work, and thus become doomed to be unemployed, and leads to a self-reinforcing cycle out of which they cannot escape. This is a problem that the civilization has to confront, and our current way of thinking about economics will not work there.
The so-called 'fruit of others labour' notion is something that made most sense in the pre-industrialized era. Applying it today in its entirety without considering how much of an inter-dependent society we have become is simplistic. This is as true in technology (open-source software that powers commercial entities) as in other fields (research that builds on top of pre-existing knowledge, industrialized economies impacting global ecosystem, ..).
If we consider that each of us is beholden to the collective past of entire humanity, the idea of ownership and 'fruits of labour' becomes just a social construct. This construct nevertheless is required today and for the foreseeable future as the only practical way to divide resources. However it is a complicated and probably intractable idea, and is not at all axiomatic as you seem to make it out to be.
What jobs that we'd like computers and robots to do require self awareness?
> The OPs question was whether Capitalism as we understand it now, is suited for the future when we expect most kinds of labour to be done by machines.
Capitalism "as we understand it now" is not pure capitalism, it's capitalism accompanied by a welfare system. Why is that not scalable to a future where most labour is not done by machines; what's qualitatively different between 70% of the population working with 30% on welfare, and 10% of the population working with 90% on welfare?
>Which means automation will give rise to an increasing number of people who cannot undertake non-automatable knowledge-work, and thus become doomed to be unemployed, and leads to a self-reinforcing cycle out of which they cannot escape. This is a problem that the civilization has to confront, and our current way of thinking about economics will not work there.
How is it a problem? If they're less productive than robots in every way, why not just put them on welfare? Current economics handles this perfectly.
>If we consider that each of us is beholden to the collective past of entire humanity, the idea of ownership and 'fruits of labour' becomes just a social construct. This construct nevertheless is required today and for the foreseeable future as the only practical way to divide resources. However it is a complicated and probably intractable idea, and is not at all axiomatic as you seem to make it out to be.
'Fruits of labour' is axiomatic in the sense that rejecting it necessarily entails violence. Eg, if Joe picks an apple, but is not allowed to keep the fruits of his labour, this necessarily entails violence or the threat thereof to take the apple away from Joe. If Aaron sings a song and Camelia offers him a pumpkin in exchange for this, but they're not allowed to trade freely, this necessarily implies some violence or threat thereof against them to prevent them from making the exchange. If Martha builds a car for Fred and Fred offers Martha a house in exchange, but then it's decided Fred shouldn't be allowed to keep the car, violence or the threat thereof is necessarily required to take the car from Fred. Unless Fred wanted to give it away freely, for instance charity, but he's perfectly capable of doing this anyway under a 'fruits of one's labour' system.
Capitalism "as we understand it now" is not pure capitalism, it's capitalism accompanied by a welfare system. Why is that not scalable to a future where most labour is not done by machines; what's qualitatively different between 70% of the population working with 30% on welfare, and 10% of the population working with 90% on welfare?
>Which means automation will give rise to an increasing number of people who cannot undertake non-automatable knowledge-work, and thus become doomed to be unemployed, and leads to a self-reinforcing cycle out of which they cannot escape. This is a problem that the civilization has to confront, and our current way of thinking about economics will not work there.
How is it a problem? If they're less productive than robots in every way, why not just put them on welfare? Current economics handles this perfectly.
>If we consider that each of us is beholden to the collective past of entire humanity, the idea of ownership and 'fruits of labour' becomes just a social construct. This construct nevertheless is required today and for the foreseeable future as the only practical way to divide resources. However it is a complicated and probably intractable idea, and is not at all axiomatic as you seem to make it out to be.
'Fruits of labour' is axiomatic in the sense that rejecting it necessarily entails violence. Eg, if Joe picks an apple, but is not allowed to keep the fruits of his labour, this necessarily entails violence or the threat thereof to take the apple away from Joe. If Aaron sings a song and Camelia offers him a pumpkin in exchange for this, but they're not allowed to trade freely, this necessarily implies some violence or threat thereof against them to prevent them from making the exchange. If Martha builds a car for Fred and Fred offers Martha a house in exchange, but then it's decided Fred shouldn't be allowed to keep the car, violence or the threat thereof is necessarily required to take the car from Fred. Unless Fred wanted to give it away freely, for instance charity, but he's perfectly capable of doing this anyway under a 'fruits of one's labour' system.
>How is it a problem? If they're less productive than robots in every way, why not just put them on welfare? Current economics handles this perfectly.
Does it really handle it perfectly? I assume perfectly handling it will mean those who do live on this welfare system have their basic needs met, is that the case in the current economy?
Does it really handle it perfectly? I assume perfectly handling it will mean those who do live on this welfare system have their basic needs met, is that the case in the current economy?
>I assume perfectly handling it will mean those who do live on this welfare system have their basic needs met, is that the case in the current economy?
In most Western Countries it is. America seems to be an exception in terms of having relatively lower welfare payment rates.
In most Western Countries it is. America seems to be an exception in terms of having relatively lower welfare payment rates.
>what's qualitatively different between 70% of the population working with 30% on welfare, and 10% of the population working with 90% on welfare?
The government receives less tax revenues because 20% of the population is no longer working (and paying taxes). At some point if enough of the population is no longer contributing, unless there are massive changes in how we manage the economy, the country will become insolvent and won't be able to afford the welfare payments as tax revenue decreases.
The government receives less tax revenues because 20% of the population is no longer working (and paying taxes). At some point if enough of the population is no longer contributing, unless there are massive changes in how we manage the economy, the country will become insolvent and won't be able to afford the welfare payments as tax revenue decreases.
>The government receives less tax revenues because 20% of the population is no longer working (and paying taxes).
The assumption is that machines exist that are more productive than all these people no longer working. If these machines didn't exist, then these people would still be productively employed.
The assumption is that machines exist that are more productive than all these people no longer working. If these machines didn't exist, then these people would still be productively employed.
Ahh yes, then we shall tax the machines!
The machines don't make money, the owners make the money. So we will end up taxing the owners - which will already happen under the current system.
Except if consumers don't have jobs they won't be able to purchase the products made by machines, therefore the owners will NOT make the money, and the economy will enter into a "death spiral".
If you'd ever been on welfare for an extended amount of time, you'd realise that it's actually seriously scary. You worry that at any moment, the Government might take away some of your benefits, when you're literally at $0 at the end of every month.
If the problem is benefits being taken away, doesn't that mean the problem is not with welfare but with the lack of it?
Well, the problem is mostly that some significant number of voters hate the idea that their money is being spent on keeping someone else alive and well, so the Government is constantly changing who gets it and how much.
The problem is that when you're living off someone else's goodwill - even if that someone is the Government - you're entirely dependent on them, and they can put you through whatever hardship they please.
The problem is that when you're living off someone else's goodwill - even if that someone is the Government - you're entirely dependent on them, and they can put you through whatever hardship they please.
> The day when there are machines smart enough to do all the service jobs that humans currently do will be the day machines are smart enough not to work for free.
The self-checkout at my supermarket is smart enough to demand pay? Wow, I didn't know that.
Actually, you could quite easily automate an entire store with robotics that haven't been state-of-the-art in years. The main issue is up-front capital, not scaring people, and having one person in the shop to deal with complaints/loss prevention.
It'd be even easier for McDonald's - picking things out of crates, going through pre-set steps to cook them, and packaging them, isn't exactly very hard. You could have one human for quality control if you really wanted.
So, retail as a sector will, at the same time as growing, employ fewer and fewer people. I'm sure you can pick out examples of existing technology that's not very hard to apply to most sectors, aside from capital concerns.
The self-checkout at my supermarket is smart enough to demand pay? Wow, I didn't know that.
Actually, you could quite easily automate an entire store with robotics that haven't been state-of-the-art in years. The main issue is up-front capital, not scaring people, and having one person in the shop to deal with complaints/loss prevention.
It'd be even easier for McDonald's - picking things out of crates, going through pre-set steps to cook them, and packaging them, isn't exactly very hard. You could have one human for quality control if you really wanted.
So, retail as a sector will, at the same time as growing, employ fewer and fewer people. I'm sure you can pick out examples of existing technology that's not very hard to apply to most sectors, aside from capital concerns.
Well, then you have Amazon's automated warehouses, where humans are already reduced to the role of flexible actuator. The only thing they do is take things marked by a laser pointer, put in a proper container and press "DONE" button. Even the actual product search handles itself, a worker doesn't have to move around at all.
I see a contradiction... explain the last bit mate..
How does one buy things produced if one doesn't own any capital.
How does one buy things produced if one doesn't own any capital.
Capital generally means accumulated savings/investment. One can still have cash without having capital, and this is actually pretty common (or even people having negative capital, like student debt).
In short, one buys things by doing/making things for people who do have capital, or for people who don't have capital but have themselves acquired money by doing things for people with capital.
In short, one buys things by doing/making things for people who do have capital, or for people who don't have capital but have themselves acquired money by doing things for people with capital.
If that was as simple as you write, then we wouldn't have unemployment and there would be no need for welfare - after all, you don't have to go hungry when you're jobless, you can always "do/make things for people with capital or" someone like you closer to them in the chain.
I have been thinking about this exact thing for a while now.
With Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, the resource utilization of a business is simply an algorithm, which can use any number of APIs to return profit and grow the entity.
All of these APIs we are creating for various functions may soon replace us. Many APIs already do directly dispatch humans to do certain tasks. The scary part is that when someone is providing a service to you, they may not be aware of whether their superior is a human or an algorithm.
A minimum viable autonomous corporation could be a lemonade stand that is managed entirely by an algorithm; with virtual currency it can hire a person to set up a lemonade stand at a certain datetime, and take a cut of earnings. If sales are slow, it could hire someone to design a poster, and another to post them in the area; or even an analyst to decide what the best course of action is. Over time, with many locations and employees, it would be able to learn the best locations and conditions for optimal profit. Perhaps also deciding which employees to continue working with and which ones to fire.
These "management algorithms" would likely need to be developed by someone. But what if the algorithm hired the person to write the algorithms, updates, and performance tweaks?
There could be a bootstrap algorithm that is simply an idea (these could be automatically generated based on search trends, market fluctuations, etc). These seeds would be open to the public for investment with virtual currency (bitcoin could be used to allocate the cap table as well), the program would be able to hire talent to build out the idea, and the investors would receive dividends.
I see this evolving as a kickstarter for viral autonomous businesses. And I don't see why it couldn't be viable with today's technologies and APIs.
With Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, the resource utilization of a business is simply an algorithm, which can use any number of APIs to return profit and grow the entity.
All of these APIs we are creating for various functions may soon replace us. Many APIs already do directly dispatch humans to do certain tasks. The scary part is that when someone is providing a service to you, they may not be aware of whether their superior is a human or an algorithm.
A minimum viable autonomous corporation could be a lemonade stand that is managed entirely by an algorithm; with virtual currency it can hire a person to set up a lemonade stand at a certain datetime, and take a cut of earnings. If sales are slow, it could hire someone to design a poster, and another to post them in the area; or even an analyst to decide what the best course of action is. Over time, with many locations and employees, it would be able to learn the best locations and conditions for optimal profit. Perhaps also deciding which employees to continue working with and which ones to fire.
These "management algorithms" would likely need to be developed by someone. But what if the algorithm hired the person to write the algorithms, updates, and performance tweaks?
There could be a bootstrap algorithm that is simply an idea (these could be automatically generated based on search trends, market fluctuations, etc). These seeds would be open to the public for investment with virtual currency (bitcoin could be used to allocate the cap table as well), the program would be able to hire talent to build out the idea, and the investors would receive dividends.
I see this evolving as a kickstarter for viral autonomous businesses. And I don't see why it couldn't be viable with today's technologies and APIs.
The 'Daemon' dream falls down in the fact of fraud and/or entropy. Ask PayPal about their 100% automated fraud detection algorithm (did not work) or Google about driving on umapped roads or through snow.
Will humans on the "receiving" side of an API remain unaugmented, i.e. operating at human speeds with a slow touchscreen interface? Or will they develop their own automation, so that millisecond-speed algorithms broker between the "manager" and "worker"?
How much ad and click revenue today is actually human? Bookstores did not sit idly by when Amazon decided to take on the entire industry, how is Amazon's publishing imprint doing? Humans do eventually wake up and compete with algorithms.
Will humans on the "receiving" side of an API remain unaugmented, i.e. operating at human speeds with a slow touchscreen interface? Or will they develop their own automation, so that millisecond-speed algorithms broker between the "manager" and "worker"?
How much ad and click revenue today is actually human? Bookstores did not sit idly by when Amazon decided to take on the entire industry, how is Amazon's publishing imprint doing? Humans do eventually wake up and compete with algorithms.
What a great book. I love it because even though everything in it is currently future-tech, almost everything seems almost within reach. It all seems so plausible.
Accelerando by Charles Stross is also a fun book. Stross recently commented, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8939946
"My opinions have shifted in the past 10-15 years and I now think that permitting autonomous corporations to exist -- or even continuing the doctrine of corporate personhood -- are a terrible idea for humanity (because they're effectively AIs that compete with us, and not in a good way)."
Book is free online, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
"My opinions have shifted in the past 10-15 years and I now think that permitting autonomous corporations to exist -- or even continuing the doctrine of corporate personhood -- are a terrible idea for humanity (because they're effectively AIs that compete with us, and not in a good way)."
Book is free online, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...
Rats! I was going to make the Accelerando connection too! While we are on the subject of being outcompeted, Saturn's Children is also a pretty good read.
Thanks for the pointer!
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/07/crib-she...
"A society that runs on robot slaves who are, nevertheless, intelligent by virtue of having a human neural connectome for a brain, is a slave society ... The human society underpinning "Saturn's Children" got into bad trouble, relying on robot slaves as labour and disappearing up its own arse in the pursuit of virtual luxury."
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/07/crib-she...
"A society that runs on robot slaves who are, nevertheless, intelligent by virtue of having a human neural connectome for a brain, is a slave society ... The human society underpinning "Saturn's Children" got into bad trouble, relying on robot slaves as labour and disappearing up its own arse in the pursuit of virtual luxury."
Which book? I didn't see a book (title) referenced above.
> Ask PayPal about their 100% automated fraud detection algorithm (did not work)
...yet.
...yet.
True, they have only been working on the problem for 15 years. The challenge is that human adversaries are creative.
Human-level performance in this domain will probably take more than 15 years to be created, but I'm pretty confident it will be done. We did solve chess, after all.
> We did solve chess, after all.
Nitpick: We solved nim. We created an algorithm that, when applied, guarantees the first player a win if some conditions are met, and the second player a win otherwise.
There is no equivalent for chess. Instead, we created programs that can apply more general game-theoretic algorithms with ad hoc modifications for chess (for example, minimax with alpha-beta pruning and lookup tables to recognize book openings, closings, and common scenarios) which can, at current CPU speeds and RAM capacities, reliably beat the top-ranked human players.
It is mathematically possible to beat the best computer chess player; it might not, however, be humanly possible. OTOH, it is mathematically impossible to beat a simple nim program which has been programmed with the perfect play algorithm, assuming the game is such that the program will win if it applies that algorithm.
My point is, if something is solved, an adversary throwing more computing power at the process is meaningless. It would merely hasten the inevitable. However, for a problem like chess, an adversary suddenly getting better computers could be a game changer.
Nitpick: We solved nim. We created an algorithm that, when applied, guarantees the first player a win if some conditions are met, and the second player a win otherwise.
There is no equivalent for chess. Instead, we created programs that can apply more general game-theoretic algorithms with ad hoc modifications for chess (for example, minimax with alpha-beta pruning and lookup tables to recognize book openings, closings, and common scenarios) which can, at current CPU speeds and RAM capacities, reliably beat the top-ranked human players.
It is mathematically possible to beat the best computer chess player; it might not, however, be humanly possible. OTOH, it is mathematically impossible to beat a simple nim program which has been programmed with the perfect play algorithm, assuming the game is such that the program will win if it applies that algorithm.
My point is, if something is solved, an adversary throwing more computing power at the process is meaningless. It would merely hasten the inevitable. However, for a problem like chess, an adversary suddenly getting better computers could be a game changer.
Super excited for the potential of DAOs to reshape the world.
Something I've been thinking about with any blockchain technology is that it will likely end up sitting on top of the current Internet platforms, but still behind the scenes and hidden from both enterprise and consumers.
If so, will new blockchain-based startups disrupt industries and create their own competing consumer services, or will the incentive to dramatically cut costs (labour mostly) push existing industries to transition their operations to run on a blockchain?
eg the average user should never come across the word "bitcoin", they just continue to transact and pay with "dollars" as they already do. But behind the scenes, the entire financial system operates on a blockchain.
eg2 existing companies looking to cut costs could automate much of their staff by transitioning their core database and systems to run on a blockchain. However all customer-facing UI and interactions would operate as normal. A company like Uber could run entirely on the blockchain as a DAO, and have a small team responsible for maintaining the consumer-facing apps
Something I've been thinking about with any blockchain technology is that it will likely end up sitting on top of the current Internet platforms, but still behind the scenes and hidden from both enterprise and consumers.
If so, will new blockchain-based startups disrupt industries and create their own competing consumer services, or will the incentive to dramatically cut costs (labour mostly) push existing industries to transition their operations to run on a blockchain?
eg the average user should never come across the word "bitcoin", they just continue to transact and pay with "dollars" as they already do. But behind the scenes, the entire financial system operates on a blockchain.
eg2 existing companies looking to cut costs could automate much of their staff by transitioning their core database and systems to run on a blockchain. However all customer-facing UI and interactions would operate as normal. A company like Uber could run entirely on the blockchain as a DAO, and have a small team responsible for maintaining the consumer-facing apps
see peertracks.com for an example of what you are describing. its launching march 2015. Users will buy songs in usd and the usd will be turned into noteUSD on the blockchain. All song sales and streams etc will also be tracked on the blockchain. The frontend that interacts with consumers will be run traditionally through a private company etc.
> All of these APIs we are creating for various functions may soon replace us.
Good. Then we can get that promise of more leisure time that's been hanging around since the 50s.
Imagine if everyone had more time to learn another language, play guitar and ponder the meaning of life. APIs and robots can grow my food and wash my clothes for me, I have better things to be doing.
Good. Then we can get that promise of more leisure time that's been hanging around since the 50s.
Imagine if everyone had more time to learn another language, play guitar and ponder the meaning of life. APIs and robots can grow my food and wash my clothes for me, I have better things to be doing.
The promise have been around since the 1840's or before. The origin of socialism was the idea that the rise of industrialisation would increase efficiency to the point that scarcity would eventually become a thing of the past - at least for everything needed to meet normal human needs. People like Saint Simon, Fourier, Owens, Marx, Proudhon and many others started with those assumptions.
Large parts of Marx entire theory of how socialist revolutions would come about is based around the combination of this idea and the idea that the capitalists won't willingly grant it.
Large parts of Marx entire theory of how socialist revolutions would come about is based around the combination of this idea and the idea that the capitalists won't willingly grant it.
>scarcity would eventually become a thing of the past - at least for everything needed to meet normal human needs.
We're really there aren't we. Almost everyone in the industrialised parts of the world have access to food, shelter and other basic human needs. Damn, in Western Europe even the romanian beggars have iPhones.
Even the poorest have a less poor life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdDkF0Lw-ag
We're really there aren't we. Almost everyone in the industrialised parts of the world have access to food, shelter and other basic human needs. Damn, in Western Europe even the romanian beggars have iPhones.
Even the poorest have a less poor life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdDkF0Lw-ag
> APIs and robots can grow my food and wash my clothes for me, I have better things to be doing.
No, they're do that for their owners, the capital holders; you'll be left out in the cold to starve. This is a labor based world, no labor, no share of the pie.
No, they're do that for their owners, the capital holders; you'll be left out in the cold to starve. This is a labor based world, no labor, no share of the pie.
This only works if the mechanisms capturing productivity gains distribute it as economic surplus.
> But what if the algorithm hired the person to write the algorithms, updates, and performance tweaks?
The "person" may hijack the algorithm. So it could only hire a trustworthy person, which is a tough if not impossible to distinguish.
The "person" may hijack the algorithm. So it could only hire a trustworthy person, which is a tough if not impossible to distinguish.
Contract work on modular functions, not a monolithic code base. Spawn a child, apply contractor's code, watch what happens. It would be a mixture of Genetic programming (fitness tests) and intelligent design :)
Up to a point; often the module boundaries are wrong (I've worked in a company that failed mostly for this reason - team A worked hard on module A, team B worked hard on module B, but neither was able to challenge the insanity of calls that had to ping-pong back and forth between A and B several times over to get a result). And you can't touch the genetic programming structure itself; the program can optimize itself, but it can't optimize its optimizer, and ultimately it may be outcompeted by programs with better optimizers.
In traditional capitalism the buck stops with the board, and the shareholders will fire them if they're losing too much money (something that's become more important in recent years, even as more and more day-to-day stock trading is algorithmic). Who takes that role in the case of an autonomous algorithm - would the algorithm itself be a director?
In traditional capitalism the buck stops with the board, and the shareholders will fire them if they're losing too much money (something that's become more important in recent years, even as more and more day-to-day stock trading is algorithmic). Who takes that role in the case of an autonomous algorithm - would the algorithm itself be a director?
> ... would the algorithm itself be a director?
Yes, a self owning autonomous agent:
http://youtu.be/Pu4PAMFPo5Y
Yes, a self owning autonomous agent:
http://youtu.be/Pu4PAMFPo5Y
When I think of a minimum viable autonomous corporation I think of a bot that crawls twitter for trending slogans; puts the trending slogans on shirts; sell the shirts on Amazon; place manufacturer orders for shirts only after they sell on Amazon. It can branch out in to other merchandise from there.
Improvement 1: use sentiment analysis to figure out tone of slogan and use that to select color/font etc
Improvement 2: Figure out what the slogan is about and find relevant images
Improvement 2: Figure out what the slogan is about and find relevant images
This is a paradox rooted in capitalism itself, as Karl Marx pointed out in 1858:
"Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth."
"Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth."
I think that has more to do with striking contrast between the "laissez-faire" makeup of capitalism and the strict power structure of corporations, which has surprisingly changed little since Karl Marx's time.
It's not too far fetched to imagine A.I. subsidized corporations competing against each other in an open marketplace.
It's not too far fetched to imagine A.I. subsidized corporations competing against each other in an open marketplace.
I wonder if Marx considered that labour could shift to serve new markets.
> I wonder if Marx considered that labour could shift to serve new markets.
Really... you wondered if one of the great minds of history overlooked the simplest of things?
Really... you wondered if one of the great minds of history overlooked the simplest of things?
What he didn't think of was productivity increases. See Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century.
Yes, he did. His entire ideology is based around the premise that capitalism would lead to productivity increases sufficient that redistribution would lift everyone out of poverty.
Already in The German Ideology (1845) he specifically made the point that the productivity increases inherent in a capitalist economic system was a prerequisite for a successful socialist revolution as otherwise redistribution would just make want common, and the same class struggles would start all over again as people fight to get out of poverty (like what happened in the Soviet Union, China, where the party organisations became the new upper class).
In the Communist Manifesto he and Engels spelled out how they saw capitalist productivity increases eventually lead to over-production and under-employment, and that this, according to Marx, is what will eventually lead to an intensification of class struggle and finally enable a socialist revolution as economic productivity under capitalism reaches its peak.
Already in The German Ideology (1845) he specifically made the point that the productivity increases inherent in a capitalist economic system was a prerequisite for a successful socialist revolution as otherwise redistribution would just make want common, and the same class struggles would start all over again as people fight to get out of poverty (like what happened in the Soviet Union, China, where the party organisations became the new upper class).
In the Communist Manifesto he and Engels spelled out how they saw capitalist productivity increases eventually lead to over-production and under-employment, and that this, according to Marx, is what will eventually lead to an intensification of class struggle and finally enable a socialist revolution as economic productivity under capitalism reaches its peak.
I definitely think he did
It is specifically mentioned in chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto, a large part of which is talking about the past expansion of capitalism through conquering new market and extending that tendency into the future. Here's one mention:
> The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones.
> The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones.
I would argue that the shift to "Cogs in a giant automated dispatching machine" already happened with living in an industrialized society, except it's software instead of bureaucracy.
In either case, the organizational "middleware" is under the control of its owners.
In either case, the organizational "middleware" is under the control of its owners.
Agreed. It feels like we're merely changing the means, not the ends, ie. the system is doing what it's always done, just now it is more efficient.
It already happens to some degree, when you consider how strongly companies treat their stock price as an indicator of what is and isn't working and how much stock trading is automated these days. The companies dance to tunes increasingly played by algorithms.
This is effectively the industrial revolution of knowledge workers & the mobile workforce.
We found things for everyone to do, but if history may be a guide, we could be in for 30-80 years of adjustment.
We found things for everyone to do, but if history may be a guide, we could be in for 30-80 years of adjustment.
This guy should see how a Google datacenter works.
Need something done in a datacenter? Open a ticket and people respond. Common tickets become standardized by making them API calls that schedule the people. The most common API calls are eventually automated completely.
I saw this for requesting a machine be power cycled (ticket -> API call -> automated).
The people that work at the datacenter are great, but I feel sorry for them because their job becomes less and less interesting as time goes on.
When Google opened a datacenter in [redacted] there was an article about how local people were signing up for Community College classes on computer science topics. I felt terrible... the skills that datacenter would be hiring for were more akin to a warehouse than a startup.
-- Tom -- Ex-Goolger
Need something done in a datacenter? Open a ticket and people respond. Common tickets become standardized by making them API calls that schedule the people. The most common API calls are eventually automated completely.
I saw this for requesting a machine be power cycled (ticket -> API call -> automated).
The people that work at the datacenter are great, but I feel sorry for them because their job becomes less and less interesting as time goes on.
When Google opened a datacenter in [redacted] there was an article about how local people were signing up for Community College classes on computer science topics. I felt terrible... the skills that datacenter would be hiring for were more akin to a warehouse than a startup.
-- Tom -- Ex-Goolger
There isn't a lot going on creativity-wise but there is a lot operations-wise. Tightly measuring, controlling, and iterating on critical systems to eke out the last 1 or 2% is really important in mature industries like grocery stores or datacenter management! I feel like it's too easy to ignore how hard it is to get things under statistical control, and how important a role that plays in many industries.
Automation/systemisation is how productivity & profitability grows. Everyone should be clear on this - and be ready to retrain, ideally before time!
Obligatory link to "Humans Need Not Apply": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU I highly recommend giving it the full 15 minutes if you haven't already seen it.
We as a society need to figure out how to handle a future where the majority of people are no longer compatible with the economy.
We as a society need to figure out how to handle a future where the majority of people are no longer compatible with the economy.
There's a thought error in here: "the economy", as an unmovable construct, does not really exist. As an example, a good shirt does not cost thousands of dollars anymore, because we have automated weaving looms and a whole textile industry. We're not poorer from it, though, because we shifted from weaving shirts to doing construction work or working in finance.
If we can automate simple manual labor, people will shift to different tasks; the non-beneficial changes is that now the energy needed for that task is consumed directly by the machine, and also the investment that has been done to get the machine there in the first place. Beyond that, people who did simple tasks before may perform tasks that require conscience or risk-awareness (for example, machines injuring or killing humans cannot be fired or fined, so someone has to be responsible), that require empathy and human attention; or people will resort to being burglars or robbers or revolutionaries or salesmen.
If we can automate simple manual labor, people will shift to different tasks; the non-beneficial changes is that now the energy needed for that task is consumed directly by the machine, and also the investment that has been done to get the machine there in the first place. Beyond that, people who did simple tasks before may perform tasks that require conscience or risk-awareness (for example, machines injuring or killing humans cannot be fired or fined, so someone has to be responsible), that require empathy and human attention; or people will resort to being burglars or robbers or revolutionaries or salesmen.
> We're not poorer from it, though, because we shifted from weaving shirts to doing construction work or working in finance.
the video specifically has a refutation for the argument you made - that technological improvement is not necessarily always augmented by better jobs that people could do. Their example with the horses and automobiles is quite pertinent.
The point about jobs that require human empathy is moot - if the cost of hiring the human is much higher than a machine, the machine will win.
the video specifically has a refutation for the argument you made - that technological improvement is not necessarily always augmented by better jobs that people could do. Their example with the horses and automobiles is quite pertinent.
The point about jobs that require human empathy is moot - if the cost of hiring the human is much higher than a machine, the machine will win.
You're arguing from a frame where there is a demand for a constant set of things ("jobs") and people capture the money that can be exchanged for that set of things. This assumes that a number of parameters in the market are fixed, and that you can "create" or "destroy" jobs with economic actions that are partly independent of the non-economic world.
Looking at historical economics, another way of looking at this is to see an economy as things going in (sunshine, non-renewable resources consumed, loot acquired in wars) and things going out (people eating, garbage produced, etc.), and the ways of distributing the flow between these.
It turns out that you can have a "surplus", when you suddenly have more money/resources than you had before. There are different means of getting rid of surplusses, including wars, social programs, or simply population growth (consider how New York's area used to sustain about a hundred people).
Looking back at the demise of weaving and spinning as jobs, you see that the immediate effect of that was a higher concentration of wealth in the hands of some individuals, which (in Europe) led to counter-movements involving democratization and social issues.
The real problem is not that it's possible to find more effective ways to do some jobs than employing people for it, the real problem consists in the readjustment of power relationships that becomes necessary when you remove resposibilities from lots of people and put them in the hands of relatively few people.
Maybe some governments institute a robot tax, which augments the cost of robots by a percentage not high enough to consider other alternatives (e.g. moving off-shore, which has been possible with production jobs but not with manufacturing jobs), and use these funds towards things that society as a whole regards as beneficial (such as building nice parks, everyone getting a university degree, or every city having an opera and a theater, or war or terrorism or spying on your citizens, if those are what a society thinks it wants).
Standard "capitalist" economic doctrine wants us to believe that surplusses always belong to the innovators or those taking associated risks, and both historically and currently this has only been partly true. Maybe those surplusses will just be destroyed in the next "AI" bubble, maybe they will be used to create a post-democratic oppressive state, maybe they will be used to create a modern-day utopia. We don't know yet what will happen, but we sure should not let others reframe the issue as technocrats-vs-luddites, because that is not what it is.
Looking at historical economics, another way of looking at this is to see an economy as things going in (sunshine, non-renewable resources consumed, loot acquired in wars) and things going out (people eating, garbage produced, etc.), and the ways of distributing the flow between these.
It turns out that you can have a "surplus", when you suddenly have more money/resources than you had before. There are different means of getting rid of surplusses, including wars, social programs, or simply population growth (consider how New York's area used to sustain about a hundred people).
Looking back at the demise of weaving and spinning as jobs, you see that the immediate effect of that was a higher concentration of wealth in the hands of some individuals, which (in Europe) led to counter-movements involving democratization and social issues.
The real problem is not that it's possible to find more effective ways to do some jobs than employing people for it, the real problem consists in the readjustment of power relationships that becomes necessary when you remove resposibilities from lots of people and put them in the hands of relatively few people.
Maybe some governments institute a robot tax, which augments the cost of robots by a percentage not high enough to consider other alternatives (e.g. moving off-shore, which has been possible with production jobs but not with manufacturing jobs), and use these funds towards things that society as a whole regards as beneficial (such as building nice parks, everyone getting a university degree, or every city having an opera and a theater, or war or terrorism or spying on your citizens, if those are what a society thinks it wants).
Standard "capitalist" economic doctrine wants us to believe that surplusses always belong to the innovators or those taking associated risks, and both historically and currently this has only been partly true. Maybe those surplusses will just be destroyed in the next "AI" bubble, maybe they will be used to create a post-democratic oppressive state, maybe they will be used to create a modern-day utopia. We don't know yet what will happen, but we sure should not let others reframe the issue as technocrats-vs-luddites, because that is not what it is.
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> If we can automate simple manual labor, people will shift to different tasks
You aren't understanding the scenario, you're presuming there's always other tasks to switch to because you're presuming a labor based economy. This must change as AI will ensure there aren't other tasks to switch to, not enough for everyone anyway.
The scenario everyone else is discussing is what happens when there are more people than available jobs. That's the scenario you need to address; the answer is not just do another job.
You aren't understanding the scenario, you're presuming there's always other tasks to switch to because you're presuming a labor based economy. This must change as AI will ensure there aren't other tasks to switch to, not enough for everyone anyway.
The scenario everyone else is discussing is what happens when there are more people than available jobs. That's the scenario you need to address; the answer is not just do another job.
That video always get trotted out and it's very strange, it's just a rehash of the technoutopia that was parodied in The Jetsons, 50 years ago.
Go read something like Paleofuture[1] and come to the real world, where people have been saying that for hundreds of years and it's all vaporware.
[1]: http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com
[1]: http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com
There's a political imperative to tell this story this time. A lot of people are angry that finding a decent, well paid job is hard in 2015 and they want to know why. It wasn't that hard in 2007.
Techno-utopian futurism about us not needing menial labor any more because robots provides a believable "safe" explanation for that meaning that the real, "unsafe" reasons (trade policy; steady de-unionization; financialization of the economy) that are politically contentious can be more easily concealed from the public eye.
Techno-utopian futurism about us not needing menial labor any more because robots provides a believable "safe" explanation for that meaning that the real, "unsafe" reasons (trade policy; steady de-unionization; financialization of the economy) that are politically contentious can be more easily concealed from the public eye.
I watched the video before and from what I remember argues that this hasn't actually happened before and cites that very few jobs were invented since industrialization.
It's not about inventing new jobs. It's about shifting the workforce to other jobs. Doesn't matter if they are new or we had people doing it before. Did we have mathematicians, professors, teachers, doctors, etc. before the industrialization? You bet! Total percentage of the population working those jobs?
It's not about inventing new jobs. It's about shifting the workforce to other jobs. Doesn't matter if they are new or we had people doing it before. Did we have mathematicians, professors, teachers, doctors, etc. before the industrialization? You bet! Total percentage of the population working those jobs?
> The gap in training and social groups above and below could mean that new automation technology causes sudden, large-scale unemployment.
This also scares me. I've often wondered, what will happen to people in a largely automated world (which could be reality in next 40-50 years). Will there be riots as employment will be unprecedented? Will it open new industries or entirely new period of creativity for humanity (e.g. industrial age giving birth to age of information)?
When we transitioned to industrial age, I believe people had similar concerns but somehow things worked out well. Can we repeat that?
This also scares me. I've often wondered, what will happen to people in a largely automated world (which could be reality in next 40-50 years). Will there be riots as employment will be unprecedented? Will it open new industries or entirely new period of creativity for humanity (e.g. industrial age giving birth to age of information)?
When we transitioned to industrial age, I believe people had similar concerns but somehow things worked out well. Can we repeat that?
The idea that "work" is somehow good and noble is outdated, and serves only to trap workers into undesirable situations for the profit of the capitalist class. Work isn't noble, it's just something we do so that we can do other stuff (and eat).
So preserving work in the face of massive changes in the economy would be an incredibly unfortunate thing to do. Why not simply allocate social resources such that people who are not needed for work simply don't have to work? Allow them to have food, and shelter, and healthcare, and let them explore whatever it is that brings them happiness, without having to worry about spending their days performing some menial task because someone has decided that they must "work" for their meals.
So preserving work in the face of massive changes in the economy would be an incredibly unfortunate thing to do. Why not simply allocate social resources such that people who are not needed for work simply don't have to work? Allow them to have food, and shelter, and healthcare, and let them explore whatever it is that brings them happiness, without having to worry about spending their days performing some menial task because someone has decided that they must "work" for their meals.
This. We are already living in a post-scarcity world, but we keep pretending that we aren't. Eventually the number of unemployed people will be so large that we won't be able to ignore the problem of excess labor.
what evidence do you have that we are in a post scarcity world?
Petroleum is running out, lots of places are being desertified, and arable land is shrinking, leading to places with food shortages. Until the day a very cheap, completely renewable (or effectively infinite) source of energy is found (such as cold fusion, or vacuum energy), there will be no post-scarcity.
Petroleum is running out, lots of places are being desertified, and arable land is shrinking, leading to places with food shortages. Until the day a very cheap, completely renewable (or effectively infinite) source of energy is found (such as cold fusion, or vacuum energy), there will be no post-scarcity.
citation-needed for all the above claims.
Peak oil predictions have been made since the 1880s. Technology and better ecological understanding keep providing us with better methods to fight against desertification. Food production capabilities are growing exponentially. etc.
I think that the major evidence for our post scarcity world is that, in developed countries, a small fraction of the population is actually involved in agriculture and manufacturing (and that percentage is shrinking).
To quote Gibson "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed".
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_secto...
I think that the major evidence for our post scarcity world is that, in developed countries, a small fraction of the population is actually involved in agriculture and manufacturing (and that percentage is shrinking).
To quote Gibson "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed".
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_secto...
Work can be ennobling, morally beneficial, etc. but instances in which this is actually the case tend to be few and far between. The ones that do exist invariably grant the worker a high degree of autonomy and decent living wage.
If good jobs like these are available to everyone then sure, denigrate the people who are reluctant to work for a living. But as long as most work is shit work for shit managers done for shit wages, then insisting that people work for a living on moral grounds is, in fact, the antithesis of morality.
If good jobs like these are available to everyone then sure, denigrate the people who are reluctant to work for a living. But as long as most work is shit work for shit managers done for shit wages, then insisting that people work for a living on moral grounds is, in fact, the antithesis of morality.
Why not simply allocate social resources such that people who are not needed for work simply don't have to work?
There's been quite some hand wringing over this issue in the UK in recent years with people on long term sickness welfare or other long term welfare programs.
The populist view is that these people "should" be working and don't "deserve" to be subsidized full time because they haven't "contributed" to the system. But if they are genuinely of as little use to the workforce as it seems, does such a stigma to not working really make any sense?
There's been quite some hand wringing over this issue in the UK in recent years with people on long term sickness welfare or other long term welfare programs.
The populist view is that these people "should" be working and don't "deserve" to be subsidized full time because they haven't "contributed" to the system. But if they are genuinely of as little use to the workforce as it seems, does such a stigma to not working really make any sense?
> But if they are genuinely of as little use to the workforce as it seems, does such a stigma to not working really make any sense?
in the natural world, if they are genuinely of as little use, they "should die", for the resources to keep them alive is more than the "profit" that they can generate. This is becoming more and more true with more and more automation - the cost of resources to keep somebody alive is getting to a point where their contributions don't really cover it. I dont know if there is a real solution to this problem.
in the natural world, if they are genuinely of as little use, they "should die", for the resources to keep them alive is more than the "profit" that they can generate. This is becoming more and more true with more and more automation - the cost of resources to keep somebody alive is getting to a point where their contributions don't really cover it. I dont know if there is a real solution to this problem.
The issue (well there are lots of issues but this one is pertinent to this discussion) with that line of thinking is when people in general become so inefficient compared to machines that it's more efficient and profitable to get rid of the people entirely since machines are so much more efficient.
And yet, in the natural world, you will find that taking their lives will be quite difficult, and will reveal the forgotten strength they possess which the modern industrial economy does not value: survival.
It is easy to get caught up in hypotheticals, and forget that we are all primates in rags scrambling to survive.
It is easy to get caught up in hypotheticals, and forget that we are all primates in rags scrambling to survive.
We tried that. It ended in disaster.
People thinking like this really makes me furious. This is such a narcisistic thinking, that I feel disgusted.
Human beings are driven by incentives. From drinking a glass of water, to writing a book it is all incentive based. If you have your basic needs covered, you have no incentives. When you make policy, you have to think about the lowest common denominator, not the select few top speciments. It is extremely vain and naive to think removing incentives to educate yourself and work will end in anything other than disaster. Apart from that, the model you describe fosters enormous corruption at every level of society. From the factory workers who go drunk to work and steal, because when everyone is a principal, noone is a principal, to the political leaders who engage in atrocities to keep and grow their power.
PLEASE stop trying to make communism happen. It has destroyed so many lives already.
People thinking like this really makes me furious. This is such a narcisistic thinking, that I feel disgusted.
Human beings are driven by incentives. From drinking a glass of water, to writing a book it is all incentive based. If you have your basic needs covered, you have no incentives. When you make policy, you have to think about the lowest common denominator, not the select few top speciments. It is extremely vain and naive to think removing incentives to educate yourself and work will end in anything other than disaster. Apart from that, the model you describe fosters enormous corruption at every level of society. From the factory workers who go drunk to work and steal, because when everyone is a principal, noone is a principal, to the political leaders who engage in atrocities to keep and grow their power.
PLEASE stop trying to make communism happen. It has destroyed so many lives already.
If you have your basic needs covered, you have no incentives.
Self-betterment is an incentive. Betterment of everyone else is an incentive. The idea that people must be forced to work to make money or else they won't do anything else is a capitalist ideal, NOT absolute fact.
Wouldn't it be nice if people could actually do things that interest them instead of worrying about putting food on the table?
Self-betterment is an incentive. Betterment of everyone else is an incentive. The idea that people must be forced to work to make money or else they won't do anything else is a capitalist ideal, NOT absolute fact.
Wouldn't it be nice if people could actually do things that interest them instead of worrying about putting food on the table?
Living in Norway taught me that faceless charity embitters and dissatisfies most recipients. Far from considering how to better themselves, too many internalize their implied uselessness, while blindly groping for someone or something to blame. An obvious path to self worth is then to view oneself as intelligent for taking from the hard working sheeple too dumb or deluded to win.
Charity to help someone achieve their goals is very different from payouts for having no aspirations or abilities.
Charity to help someone achieve their goals is very different from payouts for having no aspirations or abilities.
Living in Norway taught me that faceless charity embitters and dissatisfies most recipients. Far from considering how to better themselves, too many internalize their implied uselessness, while blindly groping for someone or something to blame.
What if that's the result of being charity (to those in need)?
Right now, there's a divide which separates the "useful" - who get a salary - from the "useless" - who get a pension -, which leads to those feelings of alienation and self-deprecation. But does anyone feel useless because they didn't have to work for the sunlight they get, or the air they breath?
I'm not affirming anything, but it'd interesting to know if the problem you identified would disappear if everyone got those resources, instead of just those "in need".
What if that's the result of being charity (to those in need)?
Right now, there's a divide which separates the "useful" - who get a salary - from the "useless" - who get a pension -, which leads to those feelings of alienation and self-deprecation. But does anyone feel useless because they didn't have to work for the sunlight they get, or the air they breath?
I'm not affirming anything, but it'd interesting to know if the problem you identified would disappear if everyone got those resources, instead of just those "in need".
Self-betterment is an incentive for you and maybe the people you are friends with.
It is an incentive for some amount of people - the larger question, how many, has insufficient data for a meaningful answer.
This mechanism of entitlements and requirements and such enshrined by capitalism is deeply engrained, but it is not above challenge.
This mechanism of entitlements and requirements and such enshrined by capitalism is deeply engrained, but it is not above challenge.
No, "we" didn't try anything. Please stop assuming that a few corrupt governments "trying" to do something vaguely similar to what was suggested half a century ago and failing implies that it simply doesn't work ever under any conditions.
Maybe not under any conditions but the conditions are not met, maybe never will be. Simply because you were born, doesn't mean you are entitled to anything. Is a lion entitled to anything when it is born? Yes, we humans strive to be better than lions. This doesn't mean we've achieved that yet.
> Maybe not under any conditions but the conditions are not met, maybe never will be.
Maybe so, but a key point is that the conditions have not been met anywhere where people tried to force socialist revolutions. The idea that you could manage to make socialist revolutions work in underdeveloped agrarian economies stems from people like Lenin and Mao, not Marx. Marx, on the contrary warned against it decades before.
> Simply because you were born, doesn't mean you are entitled to anything.
There you are in violent agreement with Marx.
Marx spent a lot of effort arguing against the idea of a welfare system that would give everyone the same without contributing. E.g. in. Critique of the Gotha Programme, he goes as far as pointing out that too much emphasis had been put on redistribution and "fair distribution" and points out various unintended consequences of the proposed program that he saw as counterproductive to the development of socialism and later communism.
One of the most famous tenets of Marxism is exactly "from each according to ability, to each according to need". There's nothing there about being entitled to anything just for being born. On the contrary, there is an expectation of duty. Only those totally unable to contribute are left off the hook if they want to expect society to in help.
The "welfare entitlement" comes from the social democrats - the beginnings of which were the main influence Marx was arguing against in Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Maybe so, but a key point is that the conditions have not been met anywhere where people tried to force socialist revolutions. The idea that you could manage to make socialist revolutions work in underdeveloped agrarian economies stems from people like Lenin and Mao, not Marx. Marx, on the contrary warned against it decades before.
> Simply because you were born, doesn't mean you are entitled to anything.
There you are in violent agreement with Marx.
Marx spent a lot of effort arguing against the idea of a welfare system that would give everyone the same without contributing. E.g. in. Critique of the Gotha Programme, he goes as far as pointing out that too much emphasis had been put on redistribution and "fair distribution" and points out various unintended consequences of the proposed program that he saw as counterproductive to the development of socialism and later communism.
One of the most famous tenets of Marxism is exactly "from each according to ability, to each according to need". There's nothing there about being entitled to anything just for being born. On the contrary, there is an expectation of duty. Only those totally unable to contribute are left off the hook if they want to expect society to in help.
The "welfare entitlement" comes from the social democrats - the beginnings of which were the main influence Marx was arguing against in Critique of the Gotha Programme.
>from each according to ability, to each according to need
I was born and live in a post-soviet country. Born exactly when the communist regime (supposedly) fell. I know this slogan very well. The problem with it is that when everyone is a principal, noone is a principal.
It's not about economic development, but philosophical one. People (and all of nature) is in constant movement. From trees spreading seeds, to endorphins in the human brain when you achieve success. If you remove this reward system from the social framework people just stop caring. If you don't have a carrot to chase, you stop walking. You see this very clearly when you manage people in any capacity. What you are left with then, is a very, very small group of people involved in making the decisions, contrary to any syndicalism thought. Soon those few people get intoxicated by the power and corruption, in all its forms, erodes the whole system. Slowly, but painfully.
When you make policy, you have to be very careful and cautious. It's one thing to have horizontal structure in Valve and 37signals, where pre-selection means you already are in the top 1% of speciments. Thinking you can translate that success to the other 99% of the population is naive and vain. Vanity is certainly devil's most favorite sin.
I was born and live in a post-soviet country. Born exactly when the communist regime (supposedly) fell. I know this slogan very well. The problem with it is that when everyone is a principal, noone is a principal.
It's not about economic development, but philosophical one. People (and all of nature) is in constant movement. From trees spreading seeds, to endorphins in the human brain when you achieve success. If you remove this reward system from the social framework people just stop caring. If you don't have a carrot to chase, you stop walking. You see this very clearly when you manage people in any capacity. What you are left with then, is a very, very small group of people involved in making the decisions, contrary to any syndicalism thought. Soon those few people get intoxicated by the power and corruption, in all its forms, erodes the whole system. Slowly, but painfully.
When you make policy, you have to be very careful and cautious. It's one thing to have horizontal structure in Valve and 37signals, where pre-selection means you already are in the top 1% of speciments. Thinking you can translate that success to the other 99% of the population is naive and vain. Vanity is certainly devil's most favorite sin.
> Simply because you were born, doesn't mean you are entitled to anything.
The United States and most of the rest of civilization disagrees with this statement. We call the things you are entitled to "human rights" and while there may be disagreement as to which rights ought to be applied, it is a completely radical view to claim that society should not offer any basic protections. It is from the complex interplay of society that we obtain our unique and impressive powers, this is why lions are not running shit on this planet.
The United States and most of the rest of civilization disagrees with this statement. We call the things you are entitled to "human rights" and while there may be disagreement as to which rights ought to be applied, it is a completely radical view to claim that society should not offer any basic protections. It is from the complex interplay of society that we obtain our unique and impressive powers, this is why lions are not running shit on this planet.
> It has destroyed so many lives already.
So has capitalism. What's your point?
Just because something was done poorly in the past doesn't mean we can't iterate and improve. Capitalism has no ready answer for some of the problems we are beginning to face. Eventually people like you are going to have to admit that Marx was definitely right about at least one thing: socio-economic class is a critical social cleavage that drives much of history.
So unless capitalism figures out a way to pull its stubborn head out of the sand and deal with its own shortcomings to prevent society from tearing itself apart, we're going to get a chance to find out whether Marx was right about anything else.
So has capitalism. What's your point?
Just because something was done poorly in the past doesn't mean we can't iterate and improve. Capitalism has no ready answer for some of the problems we are beginning to face. Eventually people like you are going to have to admit that Marx was definitely right about at least one thing: socio-economic class is a critical social cleavage that drives much of history.
So unless capitalism figures out a way to pull its stubborn head out of the sand and deal with its own shortcomings to prevent society from tearing itself apart, we're going to get a chance to find out whether Marx was right about anything else.
Communism lacks understanding of the human nature. It fails to recognize that humans are sometimes apathetic, vile and corrupt. Darwin's theory does not apply only to evolution pre homo sapiens. It manifests in all of nature. Communism refutes that theory at it's very core and removes the mechanism society rewards individuals for following their instinct. In fact, it punishes them for it.
Communism/socialsm has noble ideas. But those ideas live in a silo. When they touch reality everything shatters.
Communism/socialsm has noble ideas. But those ideas live in a silo. When they touch reality everything shatters.
The problem with your thinking is that you ignore the fact that socialist policies have been implemented successfully in all modern western democracies and somehow those societies haven't shattered yet. It's called a "mixed economy" and you're living in one right now.
The idea that we have to construct a society based on idealistic absolutes is nonsense. Some problems are more efficiently solved collectively, others are better solved by the power of the market. Let's harness the power of both.
If the day comes when AI abruptly puts huge percentages of the population out of work and our society faces collapse, one can easily envision a solution that implements structural changes that incorporates both the benefits of market forces and the efficiencies of collective resource pooling.
The idea that we have to construct a society based on idealistic absolutes is nonsense. Some problems are more efficiently solved collectively, others are better solved by the power of the market. Let's harness the power of both.
If the day comes when AI abruptly puts huge percentages of the population out of work and our society faces collapse, one can easily envision a solution that implements structural changes that incorporates both the benefits of market forces and the efficiencies of collective resource pooling.
Not sure full employment is any kind of worthy goal at all. How about: utopia, where we all have what we need and some of what we want, at no personal cost?
Agreed. But this takes two steps:
Step 1) Increase taxes on income above a certain level, create a floor that eliminates poverty (hunger, homelessness, etc). Continue to incentivize progress so that we continue on the path currently forged by science and technology (I don't believe this crowd requires me to expound on this)
Step 2) Use renewable energy and technology to provide "what we need and some of what we want, at no personal cost" to everyone.
Both transitions are going to be terribly painful.
Step 1) Increase taxes on income above a certain level, create a floor that eliminates poverty (hunger, homelessness, etc). Continue to incentivize progress so that we continue on the path currently forged by science and technology (I don't believe this crowd requires me to expound on this)
Step 2) Use renewable energy and technology to provide "what we need and some of what we want, at no personal cost" to everyone.
Both transitions are going to be terribly painful.
I enjoy Keynes on this in 1930 -- http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf -- remembering, of course, that unforeseen economic shocks make predicting the course of implementation nearly impossible. In his case, it was WW2.
While this may lead to a short term increase in unemployment if there is a massive shift from middle managers to a technology layer, it will increase efficiency, and hopefully, job satisfaction. Less middle managers to wonder what value they really add (often very little), and less employees asking the same question (and thinking they are smarter/more qualified than their boss).
Except the workers will be even more commoditised and have their wages driven to a minimum, leading to lower satisfaction.
And the middle-managers losing their jobs will accelerate the destruction of the middle classes, whose spending is what keeps the economy motoring.
Not sure where that plays out, short of either guaranteed incomes or new-feudalism
And the middle-managers losing their jobs will accelerate the destruction of the middle classes, whose spending is what keeps the economy motoring.
Not sure where that plays out, short of either guaranteed incomes or new-feudalism
The major roles of middle management are
1) Communicate the vision
2) Allocate resources
3) Set criteria for decisions of unequivocal data
4) Make judgement calls on equivocal data
5) Facilitate the voice of the worker being heard
Computers can only do 2 & 3
1) Communicate the vision
2) Allocate resources
3) Set criteria for decisions of unequivocal data
4) Make judgement calls on equivocal data
5) Facilitate the voice of the worker being heard
Computers can only do 2 & 3
Number 1) could just as easily be done by the top management, and 4) by the workers. That leaves middle management only facilitating the voice of the worker, which is often time only an illusion anyway.
I felt like a bit of anti-hype is needed:
1) Because engineers need translation
2) Not preventing teams from doing their work
3) A bit of arbitrage, fair
4) Flipping the coin based on the choices well-prepared by underlings
5) Politics, CEO will always only hear the board, which only cares about themselves; I bet anonymous feedback forms and a bit of cheap data mining would be a more sure bet
1) Because engineers need translation
2) Not preventing teams from doing their work
3) A bit of arbitrage, fair
4) Flipping the coin based on the choices well-prepared by underlings
5) Politics, CEO will always only hear the board, which only cares about themselves; I bet anonymous feedback forms and a bit of cheap data mining would be a more sure bet
So much this! Computers will not take over middle management. Any company that does this will suffer. Why? Because smarter companies will keep their management, which will USE the algos to assist their decision making. Will technology cut jobs? Certainly! Especially in the data processing. But right now the top comment is about a lemonade stand run by an algo... Nerd's wet dreams.
I have been thinking about this for a while now too.
I feel more troubled by the fact that folks in non-AI field don't see this as an imminent problem. They don't realize that with current advances in computing power that enables us to store more and more data cheaply, how much can be learnt from it and how much can be automated.
There don't seem to be any easy solutions. Training/teaching folks new skills would help but will not solve this for every person affected. I suspect the collateral damage from this will be big.
I feel more troubled by the fact that folks in non-AI field don't see this as an imminent problem. They don't realize that with current advances in computing power that enables us to store more and more data cheaply, how much can be learnt from it and how much can be automated.
There don't seem to be any easy solutions. Training/teaching folks new skills would help but will not solve this for every person affected. I suspect the collateral damage from this will be big.
There are people who do see this happen. I vaguely remember bill gates saying things about automation encroaching on low-skill jobs, and that many white-collar jobs would not be far behind. [0]
I don't think his solution is viable however, since it would only delay the inevitable. Even if you make humans dirt cheap, the power of computers and all the benefits of automation will still be cheaper, only later.
He extrapolates that our current take on our economy will soon be very outdated and that it needs to be rethought. Perhaps our star-treck economy will not be the result of space-travel, but automation. Imo this is the best possible outcome I can imagine.
[0]: http://bgr.com/2014/03/14/bill-gates-interview-robots/
I don't think his solution is viable however, since it would only delay the inevitable. Even if you make humans dirt cheap, the power of computers and all the benefits of automation will still be cheaper, only later.
He extrapolates that our current take on our economy will soon be very outdated and that it needs to be rethought. Perhaps our star-treck economy will not be the result of space-travel, but automation. Imo this is the best possible outcome I can imagine.
[0]: http://bgr.com/2014/03/14/bill-gates-interview-robots/
Someone needs to make a tshirt:
You can be replaced with a small REST API.
You can be replaced with a small REST API.
I assume a reference to this:?
http://www.kleargear.com/1474.html
http://www.kleargear.com/1474.html
Buying anything from that site is probably a bad idea. They fined people for bad reviews and turned them over to collections[1].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_v._Kleargear.com
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_v._Kleargear.com
Yep. Although I originally saw it as a perl script.
Go away or I will replace you with a small sparse autoencoder.
There is a potential dark side to this kind of automation:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/starbucks-w...
There could be a lot of turmoil in the next few decades as society adapts to this new world of increased automation.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/starbucks-w...
There could be a lot of turmoil in the next few decades as society adapts to this new world of increased automation.
That is certainly something to worry about, but it isn't a criticism of automated scheduling directly. Both a human and an algorithm can choose to either care about schedule consistency or not. We just have to make sure we choose to include those considerations when designing our AIs.
What doesn't get brought up enough in these discussions is the degree to which the advances in AI and resource distribution bring down costs and increase the accessibility of having your needs met.
For example, as Uber has advanced to UberX and now UberPool, the possibility of being car-free is much more feasible and potentially cheaper than ownership. So the labor hours required to own a car are cut out as a need for those workers. Similarly, craigslist, AirBNB etc. are impacting the renting vs. buying scenario and reducing costs in those areas.
Will this increase in accessibility happen at the same rate of labor loss? Probably not and there will be some turbulence, but I think the net result will be a realization of excess in western culture and an adjustment to more reasonable standards of living.
Sure, there will be 'above the api' haves, but there is reason to believe the accessibility of meeting basic needs will scale up as a long term net result after short/mid term turbulence.
For example, as Uber has advanced to UberX and now UberPool, the possibility of being car-free is much more feasible and potentially cheaper than ownership. So the labor hours required to own a car are cut out as a need for those workers. Similarly, craigslist, AirBNB etc. are impacting the renting vs. buying scenario and reducing costs in those areas.
Will this increase in accessibility happen at the same rate of labor loss? Probably not and there will be some turbulence, but I think the net result will be a realization of excess in western culture and an adjustment to more reasonable standards of living.
Sure, there will be 'above the api' haves, but there is reason to believe the accessibility of meeting basic needs will scale up as a long term net result after short/mid term turbulence.
> Similarly, craigslist, AirBNB etc. are impacting the renting vs. buying scenario and reducing costs in those areas.
If anything AirBnB has caused the price of property to go up. Where I live you could easily make enough to cover rent or a mortgage from letting a property on AirBnB for one or two weekends a month. The rest of the time it is empty, which means the demand for housing in the local area is higher, which means rents go up. In my 200 unit building I think around 5% of the properties are vacation rentals.
Really AirBnB isn't much different to holiday homes / timeshares, but what they have done is bring it to the masses. It will be interesting if / when they introduce surge pricing to combat this - right now the control is still with landlords, but eventually they'll just be another pawn in the game.
If anything AirBnB has caused the price of property to go up. Where I live you could easily make enough to cover rent or a mortgage from letting a property on AirBnB for one or two weekends a month. The rest of the time it is empty, which means the demand for housing in the local area is higher, which means rents go up. In my 200 unit building I think around 5% of the properties are vacation rentals.
Really AirBnB isn't much different to holiday homes / timeshares, but what they have done is bring it to the masses. It will be interesting if / when they introduce surge pricing to combat this - right now the control is still with landlords, but eventually they'll just be another pawn in the game.
Yes, scheduling is better done by machines than people, and we as a society will be better for it. Ironically, this will eventually lead to "higher end" shops, which retain the human touch.
This process happens over and over as technology improves, it hurts in the short run and opens lots of new doors in the long run.
This process happens over and over as technology improves, it hurts in the short run and opens lots of new doors in the long run.
Amazing conversation that really provokes us to think about who of us has it right? Those of us who are ambitious about creating opportunity, climbing the corporate ladder, etc? Or those of us who consciously decide to opt for autonomy and convenience (potentially undermining the structure of our capitalist system!). I've written a more detailed response and posted it to ProgrammableWeb since any conversation about APIs are so near and dear to our hearts http://www.programmableweb.com/news/do-apis-eliminate-middle...
Well, that describes a dream I have - to make all services function calls. I should be able to order a pizza by just issuing a POST request to some API endpoint, preferably without caring about anything else than the size and list of ingredients. I definitely should be able to install a local print shop as a system printer, so that instead of calling them and sending them e-mails and wiring money I could just do File->Print, change few options, click Print and have it at my doorstep the next day.
Come to think of it, a lot of services are but glorified function calls - it's just the API (i.e. having to talk to people) that's messy and too broken for any automated use.
Come to think of it, a lot of services are but glorified function calls - it's just the API (i.e. having to talk to people) that's messy and too broken for any automated use.
This article makes no sense. All those services mentioned are pretty much third-party marketplace-style thing. What’s the point in insisting a “path upwards” or whatsoever when in all manners the marketplace just exists to connect customers with service providers? I don’t think it’s the marketplace’s duty to cater to the service providers who simply use the marketplace, just like it’s not an office space's duty to ensure that the companies which loan a space live long and prosper. And anyways I don’t see normal taxi drivers having a clear “path upwards” either. The arguments are quite invalid and TBH a bit sensational.
Does anyone think that our whole economic meta-model might be overcome by 3D printing, permaculture and sufficiently efficient solar, etc.? (combined with sufficiently efficient energy use.)
Has anyone read Clifford Simaks' City?
There are technologies that automatically accrue the power to live in the other direction, or at least more widely and uniformly. Perhaps it's time to focus on those.
We can have a economy in which the true currency is only ideas. And the money economy is only for luxuries. And in which we are all a lot more free.
This has been going on for over fifty years. McDonalds replaced diners with standardized food and processes. WallMart replaces smaller stores, often locally privately owned. Through efficiency and standardization they decrease the amount of labor needed and in particular the skill of labor needed.
The mobile web lets you standardize mobile services (like delivery and taxis) and replace small companies owned by middle class people with leaner, larger, public ones.
The mobile web lets you standardize mobile services (like delivery and taxis) and replace small companies owned by middle class people with leaner, larger, public ones.
Thank god, we still need somebody to write that API.
Do we really?
And for how long do you think that job may be safe from automation?
And for how long do you think that job may be safe from automation?
I was thinking a while back that an obvious AI application would be to replace the entire management structure of a corporation.
All of it. All the way up to the C-Suite.
This would naturally improve efficiency, and in not a few cases it would probably apply a significant multiplier to overall profitability.
That doesn't mean it would be a good idea politically or socially - although depending on the value system and long-term strategic insight of the AI, it might be an improvement there too.
You could even have an automated YC, where a model of Paul Graham selects between different business models produced by a selection of AI agents.
This could just be a joke, but to be honest I'm not completely sure it's not a serious prediction.
All of it. All the way up to the C-Suite.
This would naturally improve efficiency, and in not a few cases it would probably apply a significant multiplier to overall profitability.
That doesn't mean it would be a good idea politically or socially - although depending on the value system and long-term strategic insight of the AI, it might be an improvement there too.
You could even have an automated YC, where a model of Paul Graham selects between different business models produced by a selection of AI agents.
This could just be a joke, but to be honest I'm not completely sure it's not a serious prediction.
As a programmer I already find most of my job consists of making better tools to do my "actual" job with. Directly implementing business functionality is <20% of my time. I'm much more productive than I was 5 or 10 years ago - but my job gets more interesting, not less, as I move up the parts I do "by hand" to a higher and higher level.
Automation aside, the upward trend in indie an self publishing will eventually impact the traditional publishing industry, decentralization of industries such as these will displace many middle class workers in New York city.
I think people are looking at this too drastically. Machines can only replace humans up to a certain point. They're ideal for easily quantifiable and scripted tasks, but past that there needs to be human contact and judgement involved. At worse, we'll just have new jobs for people to maintain these systems, one level of abstraction higher, and even then there will still be legacy systems and people who are slow to adopt.
For this specific example, I haven't been following AI that much, but from the news it doesn't seem to be advancing that far. Sure, we have self-driving cars, but a whole team went into creating them, and before that there were teams involved in image recognition, mapping, navigation, engineering, and more. Natural language processing has advanced pretty far though, I'll give you that. But there's a lot of stuff that happens in between the query "Siri, what's the Weather?" and the response and people will need to be involved in the processes in between.
For this specific example, I haven't been following AI that much, but from the news it doesn't seem to be advancing that far. Sure, we have self-driving cars, but a whole team went into creating them, and before that there were teams involved in image recognition, mapping, navigation, engineering, and more. Natural language processing has advanced pretty far though, I'll give you that. But there's a lot of stuff that happens in between the query "Siri, what's the Weather?" and the response and people will need to be involved in the processes in between.
> "can only replace humans up to a certain point"
But with advances in both hardware (3d memory, memresistors, neural network chips, graphite), and software(recent advances in CV, statistics, deep neural networks) that point is moving forward all the time.
Not too long ago we couldn't imagine that a computer could recognise house numbers and streets names in arbitrary fonts, but that is what powers google maps. Luckily in this case the technology has not replaced a huge workforce of would-be google-mappers. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done.
Technology, and especially AI has the potential to be enormously disruptive. And even if the risk seems remote, it's too big to ignore imo.
But with advances in both hardware (3d memory, memresistors, neural network chips, graphite), and software(recent advances in CV, statistics, deep neural networks) that point is moving forward all the time.
Not too long ago we couldn't imagine that a computer could recognise house numbers and streets names in arbitrary fonts, but that is what powers google maps. Luckily in this case the technology has not replaced a huge workforce of would-be google-mappers. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done.
Technology, and especially AI has the potential to be enormously disruptive. And even if the risk seems remote, it's too big to ignore imo.
Yes, I'm not disagreeing that we're making huge progress. My main argument was that it's only going to advance up to a certain point. For one thing, computing power is reaching it's limits. Many consider Moore's law to be dying [0], at that point the advent of the future will rely on the discovery or implementation of a new material like graphene or a quantum computer. Then we have limits in storage and computation, but of course those can be surmounted using smart software (RAID and hadoop come to mind). I'm not saying you're wrong, just that there's a limit to all of it.
HN seems to be stuck on some singularity, but personally I just think it's a byproduct of futurology. Just look at the past and how they envisioned the future. Heck, we can study the industrial revolution and the reaction of Luddites, but people still have jobs today. Like I said, we might just have to move an abstraction higher, just like how we went from manual labor, to controlling machines that do manual labor.
Also, just a nitpick but all that google maps OCR was done by humans via Captcha.
[0]: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319330
HN seems to be stuck on some singularity, but personally I just think it's a byproduct of futurology. Just look at the past and how they envisioned the future. Heck, we can study the industrial revolution and the reaction of Luddites, but people still have jobs today. Like I said, we might just have to move an abstraction higher, just like how we went from manual labor, to controlling machines that do manual labor.
Also, just a nitpick but all that google maps OCR was done by humans via Captcha.
[0]: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319330
Fortunately by the time that point moves to "100% of human based endeavors" we will be yielding the planet to our new AI overlords and we can pat ourselves on the back for being the first species in history to execute its own extinction and successive lifeforms.
god.thank(foo);
Dispatches human to nearest place of worship to thank god for 'foo'.
Dispatches human to nearest place of worship to thank god for 'foo'.
Just to be safe...
var gods = celestialBeingRepository.Where(x => x.IsGod);
foreach (var god in gods) { god.Thank(); }
var gods = celestialBeingRepository.Where(x => x.IsGod);
foreach (var god in gods) { god.Thank(); }
For now.
Word on the street is IBM's Watson is getting pretty smart
If all you have is a resource allocation problem (e.g. scheduling, launching jobs, etc.) in a group of people lower than the Dunbar Number (i.e. ~150), then replacing middle management with an API is a reasonable choice, because you don't have an interesting management problem that requires critical thought or leadership.
I, for one, welcome our new algorithm overlords.
Option A - Work for a system run by an algorithm that hires, fires, and judges you based purely on the work you do.
Option B - Work for a system run by irrational humans that hires, fires, and judges you based on their own prejudices and ego.
Option A - Work for a system run by an algorithm that hires, fires, and judges you based purely on the work you do.
Option B - Work for a system run by irrational humans that hires, fires, and judges you based on their own prejudices and ego.
"Garbage in, garbage out" tells us that since the algorithms are made by irrational humans, the algorithms will too be irrational.
Basic Idea: In small groups management can be automated. If it can be automated well enough, a hierarchy is not necessary. Small groups need to be able to switch quickly beteween adhocracy and democracy while preserving fairness. The following principles are a first attempt to provide a framework for this.
Principle: An operating ageement should be written with a specific purpose, in very simple language or ideally in pseudocode or actual code. Corollary: This document should contain a way to programmatically deal with issues such as "there is no person to do job X", by random selection or by rotation or by whatever other method is agreed upon. Corollary: This document should contain a way to programmatically allocate revenue and split profits.
Principle: Job titles are optional. Hats worn are necessary. Everybody should list the jobs they are happy to do in order of expertise. Corollary: Hats needed should be specified as soon as the scope of the project is determined. Corollary: Any hats left unworn by unwillingness should be traded around with some frequency.
Principle: Everybody contributes to a common diary or blog, at least once a day, with at least one sentence, explaining what they did during that day. Corollary: Everybody should be able to identify at least one useful thing they did each day they are working. Corollary: Anybody wanting to not work for a time should let everybody know in advance.
Principle: Everybody gets one vote. Tie breaks are decided by whoever is wearing the largest hat in that area or as specified by the operating agreement. Corollary: Votes are called when there is a disagreement and resolved as close to immediately as possible. Corollary: Valid vote outputs are yes, no, don't care, don't know enough.
Principle: Every rule agreed upon after the starting document is generated should carry an explanation as to in response to what event it was made. Corollary: The reason for the starting document itself is assumed to be "To accomplish our primary goal", which should be specified. Corollary: The more a rule can be automated, the more it should be, but this machine must never override anybody.
Principle: Any procedure that gets in the way of the stated goal must be moved out of the way. Corollary: When in doubt between toss and keep, default to keep. Corollary: When in doubt between open and closed, default to open.
Principle: Nobody should create emergencies. Everybody should react to emergencies. Corollary: Emergencies should be definied strictly. Corollary: Emergency response is coordinated by anybody who is there and knows what they are doing.
(c)mkb2012
Principle: An operating ageement should be written with a specific purpose, in very simple language or ideally in pseudocode or actual code. Corollary: This document should contain a way to programmatically deal with issues such as "there is no person to do job X", by random selection or by rotation or by whatever other method is agreed upon. Corollary: This document should contain a way to programmatically allocate revenue and split profits.
Principle: Job titles are optional. Hats worn are necessary. Everybody should list the jobs they are happy to do in order of expertise. Corollary: Hats needed should be specified as soon as the scope of the project is determined. Corollary: Any hats left unworn by unwillingness should be traded around with some frequency.
Principle: Everybody contributes to a common diary or blog, at least once a day, with at least one sentence, explaining what they did during that day. Corollary: Everybody should be able to identify at least one useful thing they did each day they are working. Corollary: Anybody wanting to not work for a time should let everybody know in advance.
Principle: Everybody gets one vote. Tie breaks are decided by whoever is wearing the largest hat in that area or as specified by the operating agreement. Corollary: Votes are called when there is a disagreement and resolved as close to immediately as possible. Corollary: Valid vote outputs are yes, no, don't care, don't know enough.
Principle: Every rule agreed upon after the starting document is generated should carry an explanation as to in response to what event it was made. Corollary: The reason for the starting document itself is assumed to be "To accomplish our primary goal", which should be specified. Corollary: The more a rule can be automated, the more it should be, but this machine must never override anybody.
Principle: Any procedure that gets in the way of the stated goal must be moved out of the way. Corollary: When in doubt between toss and keep, default to keep. Corollary: When in doubt between open and closed, default to open.
Principle: Nobody should create emergencies. Everybody should react to emergencies. Corollary: Emergencies should be definied strictly. Corollary: Emergency response is coordinated by anybody who is there and knows what they are doing.
(c)mkb2012
>Any hats left unworn by unwillingness should be traded around with some frequency.
This reminds me of a useful reflection on social moral processes. If you have a group of people who all have agreed to achieve some goal, say, "everyone should be happy," then you have to support it with a rule: "Any person has the power to demand change, and no other person has the power to veto this."
So if one person is unhappy, they simply say "change," and something is required to change. Even if everybody else is happy and they all disagree. Even if all known changes result in fewer people being happy. The goal was not met. So implicitly, the real goal is that nobody demand change.
You can't get stuck in a local maximum if you're looking for a global maximum. You have to prove that you are at a global maximum to resist change, and you have to prove it to those who demand change.
The only way to get there is to find out what people actually want and need, and to deliver it.
This reminds me of a useful reflection on social moral processes. If you have a group of people who all have agreed to achieve some goal, say, "everyone should be happy," then you have to support it with a rule: "Any person has the power to demand change, and no other person has the power to veto this."
So if one person is unhappy, they simply say "change," and something is required to change. Even if everybody else is happy and they all disagree. Even if all known changes result in fewer people being happy. The goal was not met. So implicitly, the real goal is that nobody demand change.
You can't get stuck in a local maximum if you're looking for a global maximum. You have to prove that you are at a global maximum to resist change, and you have to prove it to those who demand change.
The only way to get there is to find out what people actually want and need, and to deliver it.
It's an interesting point to think about.
But my first thought was what would happen if you accidentally let a troll into your group. ie, someone who enjoys yelling "change" just to watch everyone else jump.
Heck, that person might be genuinely unhappy unless everyone is changing! Add in someone else who hates all change, and you have an unresolvable contradiction.
But my first thought was what would happen if you accidentally let a troll into your group. ie, someone who enjoys yelling "change" just to watch everyone else jump.
Heck, that person might be genuinely unhappy unless everyone is changing! Add in someone else who hates all change, and you have an unresolvable contradiction.
There is no such thing as a troll, they are fictional creatures. I'm talking about humans.
>Add in someone else who hates all change, and you have an unresolvable contradiction.
No, you have a meta-problem. One that can be solved by a suitable virtual reality pretty handily.
>Add in someone else who hates all change, and you have an unresolvable contradiction.
No, you have a meta-problem. One that can be solved by a suitable virtual reality pretty handily.
I'm aware that bridge-dwelling, toll-collecting trolls do not exist. I was referring to an internet-style troll, "a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people... with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. ... Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment." [1]
If one person is only happy when things change, and someone else is only happen when they don't change, I don't see how there is any way to resolve the difference. I'm curious what solution you see for this, and especially in how a virtual reality would help.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
If one person is only happy when things change, and someone else is only happen when they don't change, I don't see how there is any way to resolve the difference. I'm curious what solution you see for this, and especially in how a virtual reality would help.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
Yes, I know what you meant. I was being facetious, as I don't approve of the implication that 'trolls' are somehow fundamentally different from other people. There is no law of nature that says "if someone is a troll, they will never be happy unless others are unhappy." That's not a fact, and I'm not willing to pretend it is.
Either way, I've already given you a potential solution to that problem, and I see no reason to elaborate further. Use your imagination.
Either way, I've already given you a potential solution to that problem, and I see no reason to elaborate further. Use your imagination.
When I was writing my previous comment I was wondering if I was being trolled. Too bad I was right.
Oh, I see what you were saying. You were saying that you can know everything there is to know about a person from a few posts on the internet. No wonder you believe in trolls.
But If I were to follow that line of reasoning, I would be forced to conclude that your incompetence here is simply an innate part of your being. But I don't believe that, even if you think I should.
So try to do a little better, ok?
But If I were to follow that line of reasoning, I would be forced to conclude that your incompetence here is simply an innate part of your being. But I don't believe that, even if you think I should.
So try to do a little better, ok?
You're the only one here who seems to believe that "troll" is an indelible and unchanging character trait. I never said or implied that, and my point does not require it to be the case.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone could actually believe that, which is why I'm fairly certain you're trolling me. But I suppose it's possible that you're not particularly perceptive.
By the way, you still haven't mentioned your magical way to satisfy the conditions "X" and "Not X" (ie, "constantly changing" and "unchanging") at the same time.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone could actually believe that, which is why I'm fairly certain you're trolling me. But I suppose it's possible that you're not particularly perceptive.
By the way, you still haven't mentioned your magical way to satisfy the conditions "X" and "Not X" (ie, "constantly changing" and "unchanging") at the same time.
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The leap to self-driving cars will be a massive and painful and complicated one. Way too much faith in tech in these here parts.
I've been using the phrase "Machines should think, people should work" to describe this for some time. Amazon/Kiva order processing, where the humans are just arms for the computers, is well known. Uber has also been mentioned. Marshall Brain's "Manna" is the SF precursor of this concept.
This has been pointed out repeatedly since Adam Smith visited the pin factory in 1776, and wrote, in the Wealth of Nations "One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations."
Some people like it that way. Henry Ford, on assembly line labor management: "We shift men whenever they ask to be shifted and we should like regularly to change them—that would be entirely feasible if only the men would have it that way. They do not like changes which they do not themselves suggest. Some of the operations are undoubtedly monotonous—so monotonous that it seems scarcely possible that any man would care to continue long at the same job. Probably the most monotonous task in the whole factory is one in which a man picks up a gear with a steel hook, shakes it in a vat of oil, then turns it into a basket. The motion never varies. The gears come to him always in exactly the same place, he gives each one the same number of shakes, and he drops it into a basket which is always in the same place. No muscular energy is required, no intelligence is required. He does little more than wave his hands gently to and fro—the steel rod is so light. Yet the man on that job has been doing it for eight solid years. He has saved and invested his money until now he has about forty thousand dollars—and he stubbornly resists every attempt to force him into a better job!"
The history of auto labor relations indicates that task boredom isn't a big issue for many people. Workers have fought for higher wages, better benefits, shorter working hours, more breaks, and more dwell time between cycles. But not for job rotation.
A lot of people seem to be OK with dull, boring jobs, provided they get paid reasonably well for them and have enough time off.