Post by: tomsang on January 22, 2014, 08:09:20 AM
Interesting article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2542113/Will-robot-jobocalypse-make-YOU-obsolete-2014-year-droid-takes-job-say-experts.html
Post by: hybrid on January 22, 2014, 08:29:31 AM
And there are always going to be jobs that robotics cannot provide for in the foreseeable future. People that work with their hands outside of an assembly line job are very difficult to replace. There are no robot plumbers, HVAC mechanics, auto mechanics, construction workers, etc. There is still plenty of good work in the future for people who do not want to work a desk job.
Robotics will help generate even more wealth over time. 100 years ago 1 in 3 Americans worked on a farm, today 2 in 100 do, freeing up 31 people to do something else while still producing more than enough food. This principle carries forward with robotics. Yes, it will be disruptive in the short term for people who are displaced but arguably the people being displaced are often in overseas manufacturing facilities.
Another interesting trend is how more and more service jobs are being done away with. All you younguns out there may not be aware that at one time in the US people did not pump their own gas at the service station (it was called a service staion for a reason, and it was highly inefficient compared to today). The same sorts of things are happening throughout retail. People are scanning their own items, fast food restaurants are rolling out terminals where people order and pay for their own food, doing away with the need for cashiers. Banks need less tellers as the switch to online banking becomes more and more prevalent.
This is scary stuff for the person whose job is becoming an anachronism, much like the service station attendant of yore. But in the long run everyone benefits from greater efficiencies. This is one reason why I am so bullish on Costco. They have developed a fabulous system for selling goods at a deep discount by doing away with many of the inefficiencies that plague retailers while simultaneously paying their staff handsomely compared to their retail counterparts.
Greater efficiency benefits everyone in the long term.
Post by: AlanStache on January 22, 2014, 08:50:51 AM
I think there is a free pdf version. http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/
It has been a while so I am sure I have forgot the details but basically he argues that a good percent of the population will be paid to read/write, educate themselves and others without much tangible or commercial to show. But there will always be a subset of people that will work there butt off and innovate and create wealth and they will have a higher standard of living but people will have the option to have an OK standard of living by getting four Phd's over the coarse of there life time. This will be a gradual transition obviously perhaps taking as long as a few centuries...
I am mostly in the "This Time It Is Different" camp as 'machines' are able to do more and more intellectually 'creative' work replacing doctors, lawyers, accountants and other who have significant intellectual training. Only saving grace that may keep us humans in the game is augmenting our brains directly with computers-and enter the Matrix.
The Lights in the Tunnel is a good read, strongly recommend. Cant agree with it all but worth the time.
Post by: GuitarStv on January 22, 2014, 09:37:06 AM
Post by: AlanStache on January 22, 2014, 09:57:29 AM
Post by: tomsang on January 22, 2014, 10:33:27 AM
And there are always going to be jobs that robotics cannot provide for in the foreseeable future. People that work with their hands outside of an assembly line job are very difficult to replace. There are no robot plumbers, HVAC mechanics, auto mechanics, construction workers, etc. There is still plenty of good work in the future for people who do not want to work a desk job.
Greater efficiency benefits everyone in the long term.
I agree with most of what you said, and specifically your last sentence. Based on what I am seeing, I believe that plumbers, HVAC mechanics, automechanics, construction workers, will be replaced by robots within 30 years and most likely within 15 years. Currently cars are being made by robots, see the Tesla Video http://video.wired.com/watch/the-window-tesla-inside-a-tesla-model-s-electric-car
Robotic technology and its use is growing exponetially. The simplistic robotics of 15 years ago are the thing of the past. Boeing just signed a 10 year agreement with their union. I believe a major portion of that is that robotic technology is going to be ready in 10 years to replace the workers. Robotics are currently doing the precision and challenging working in the factories, but the amount of robotics in the construction of a plane is accelerating. Factories are incorporating robotics into every aspect of the process. They work longer, faster and are much much more accurate. They don't make mistakes and they don't demand healthcare and raises.
The areas of the workforce that will be out of work with self driving cars/trucks: Taxi drivers, delivery drivers(see Amazon's drone delivery), longhaul drivers, bus drivers, etc. This will occur within the next 15 years. At some point it will be illegal to drive your car as you will be too dangerous.
As more buildings, equipment, boats, machines are designed on CAD/CATIA type computer generated design platforms the easier it is to transfer that data to an automated robot to build the final project. You will not have architects complaining that their construction crew screwed up their building as the robots will be following their drawings down to the millimeter.
From what I hear, Amazon is building and renovating completely automated factories. All those grandmas and grandpas that help out during the holidays are not going to be welcome in 2 to 5 years. You can't have them being run over by a robot that is 100 times faster and more accurate.
Interesting thoughts. I think a lot of Mustachian behavior will help the transition, but when I hear that you don't need a higher education then you better plan on being off the grid. For our kids if they are not getting a STEM type education then I think the future is going to be challenging. Those glory jobs of doctors, lawyers, pilots, are going to be replaced by the guy running the machine. Having a nurse to take your bp, temp, weight, etc. is going to be gone within 10 years. A robot can do that and upload all the information into the computer. No mistakes, no salary, fairly simple robot.
3d printers are looking more like Star Trek! Next thing we don't need factories!
For us, having the capital to buy the stocks that control the technology will be beneficial. As they squeeze those who are not deemed productive because they were replaced by robots, profits will increase. Until no one is needing anything. That is when having a government that can support the changes and deal with inequality will be needed.
Like everything it goes back to the essential needs. Food, Shelter, and Love. Robotics are on their way in all of those categories. Which of the crazy Matrix, Terminator, Star Trek or other sci-fi movie will we evolve or devolve into?
Post by: Le Dérisoire on January 22, 2014, 10:37:30 AM
Jobs that didn't require any particular knowledge or skill were all taken by slaves. The uneducated Roman citizens could not find a job because they required a salary and so were more expensive to hire.
To keep these people occupied, the state would give free food to every citizen (bread) and would organize free circus games and other kind of entertainment. Otherwise, the hungry and idle plebeian would have revolted.
Post by: tomsang on January 23, 2014, 11:55:37 AM
“We were lucky and steadily rising productivity raised all boats for much of the 20th century,” he says. “Many people, especially economists, jumped to the conclusion that was just the way the world worked. I used to say that if we took care of productivity, everything else would take care of itself; it was the single most important economic statistic. But that’s no longer true.” He adds, “It’s one of the dirty secrets of economics: technology progress does grow the economy and create wealth, but there is no economic law that says everyone will benefit.” In other words, in the race against the machine, some are likely to win while many others lose.
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
New technologies are “encroaching into human skills in a way that is completely unprecedented,” McAfee says, and many middle-class jobs are right in the bull’s-eye; even relatively high-skill work in education, medicine, and law is affected. “The middle seems to be going away,” he adds. “The top and bottom are clearly getting farther apart.” While technology might be only one factor, says McAfee, it has been an “underappreciated” one, and it is likely to become increasingly significant.
Post by: AlanStache on January 23, 2014, 12:17:05 PM
You can make more money by automating away a lawyer or legal assistant than you can automating away a hotel maid and in the law you dont have to worry about emulating a human hand or bending over to an awkward corner of a room, more of the work and inputs are already digital.
Also it is not an all or nothing deal, if this year you can automate 6 legal assistants down to 5, then a few years latter down to 4 all the while doing more volume for less cost everyone but the out of work assistants are making more money. Some argue that those two legal assistants would then get better jobs writing software for the bots but I find argument this unpersuasive.
Post by: tomsang on January 23, 2014, 01:39:29 PM
Yep the middle class jobs are a definite target, in The Lights in The Tunnel, they look at how it is economically worth it to try to automate good paying jobs especially those that require less manipulation of the real world.
Thanks AlanStache! I started reading the book you recommended and it is eye-opening. If anyone want the free PDF, here is the link.
http://ieet.org/archive/LIGHTSTUNNEL.PDF
I will let you know what I think after I finish the read.
Post by: Leisured on January 25, 2014, 10:11:10 PM
In the future, we expect to see automation displacing labor on a large scale, and this idling of labor can be seen as a form of market failure, in this case the labor market. Rich countries accept that in it is appropriate for the government to intervene in the case of partial market failure. All rich countries have state supplied education and (except for one country) national health insurance, because education and health are not always satisfactorily supplied by the private sector. These government interventions are seen as legitimate. I suggest that, in the future, rich countries will provide a universal Basic Income to overcome the problem of permanent, automation induced unemployment, and such a move will also be seen as legitimate.
US GDP is about $50K for every man, woman and child in the country, and all these goods and services were purchased. Assume a Basic Income of $20K for all Americans 18 and over, and this means that about a third of GDP will be purchased with the Basic Income, allowing for the fact that children will not receive the Basic Income. This means a large tax increase for the wealthy, and will hurt, but economically the Basic Income is possible. It is more of a social and political matter.
There is no pressing need for a Basic Income now. I am looking ahead 15 years, by which time US per capita GDP will be substantially higher, in real terms.
Post by: Ian on January 25, 2014, 10:22:53 PM
Post by: Khan on January 26, 2014, 06:27:36 AM
I'm not sure how much I subscribe to the singularity, as I think that there is a finite limit to the speed of technological progress, which is the speed of manufacturing at a minimum, but I think it's something worth thinking over. The speed of technological progress is something that everyone should realize by now. Almost any smartphone today can connect to Google or Apple's servers, and do speech recognition. OCR has followed a similar path. Driverless cars as well, from not even passing the DARPA Grand Challenge in a desert 10 years ago to millions of miles travelled in cities today.
This will all be a great boon to humanity, as we live better lives then the kings of the past, but without controlling that inequality problem, allowing the boons of all of this technological advancement to go primarily to the owners of capital, we may move into a terrible society.
Manna, a look at two societies in the future:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Paul Krugman, where the productivity went:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/where-the-productivity-went/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Paul Krugman, where are the manufacturing jobs?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/opinion/krugman-profits-without-production.html
Four futures article:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures/
Post by: tomsang on January 26, 2014, 06:36:49 PM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/robots-replace-troops-battlefield-111500084.html
"If more advanced robots are used in battle, it would be years down the line. Lt. Gen. Keith Walker told Defense News that widespread use of robots could not occur until the “deep future” - sometime between 2030 and 2040."
So like in 16 years we could be using Terminator in our wars!
Post by: marty998 on January 26, 2014, 08:14:19 PM
We're boned.
Post by: Leisured on January 27, 2014, 04:16:25 AM
I suspect that many, perhaps most people, will react to the prospect of large sale automation by obstructing it. From what I have seen, it appears that there are unspoken rules to such obstruction. Machines which do heavy lifting, or dangerous work, are allowed to do their tasks. Computers which do boring work such as storing and retrieving records, and adding up columns of numbers, will also be allowed to do their tasks. I suspect that in the future, organized labor will move to suppress, or in some cases roll back, the automation of certain tasks. These tasks could include back office work for accountants, architects, engineers and lawyers.
I have witnessed two examples of resistance to automation, one in the financial industry, and the other in manufacturing. This resistance was not sabotage, more obstruction. Existing computers or existing machines were not allowed to perform certain tasks. It is not a serious problem now, but could become more widespread in the future.
Such obstruction will seem like common sense to most people, but will be seen as absurd by more intelligent, scientifically minded people.
I see an advanced society being a combination of H G Wells and Jane Austen, that is gracious living supported by an automated economy. Jane Austen’s gentry were supported by workers and peasants, and in an advanced modernist society, machines will replace workers and peasants, and will, over time, make possible a wealthy, leisured society.
I suspect that in the future many people will refuse to accept such gracious living.
Post by: Khan on January 27, 2014, 04:56:55 AM
Possible apologies to anyone with a conservative bent(DailyKos is a... very progressive website):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/26/1272199/-What-is-the-path-to-an-America-beyond-capitalism
http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/working-for-the-few-economic-inequality
And that's really the crux of the matter I think. Sure prices will drop as the cost of labor, warehousing, and transportation drop due to improved automation, reduced labor inputs(automated trucks, automated warehouses), but to benefit from that you kind've have to be have some access to money to begin with.
But to benefit from this in today's society, you have to be employed, or have capital working for you. Anyone who hasn't already bought into the system(what is Mustachianism if not that?) needs to attempt to gain the capital to buy into the system.
And subsidizing the cost of low-wage employers with government benefits...
As Bill Maher said. Either Colonel Sanders pays his employees enough to live on, or Uncle Sam will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4InCis9FH6c
Edit:
Quote
In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90% became poorer.
Post by: Chuck on January 27, 2014, 05:15:36 AM
I think that we'll see a return to that soon. In my area (DC) it's already starting to happen. More nannies and Au Pairs than you can shake a stick at around here.
Edit: Also, the arts will make a big time comeback.
Post by: tomsang on January 27, 2014, 03:53:33 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101362018
"At the beginning I was kind of nervous, but now I like it, I got used to it," she said. "I have extra time now to do other stuff." She may end up having lots of extra time in the next few years as the technology advances.
"Budnick, who paid $25,000 for Baxter, said he would have paid more. The robot has increased his company's productivity so he can bid on more jobs—and hire more employees to meet increased demand."
Replace a worker for $25k! He throws in that they can hire more employees because they are more competitive. Which means that his competition goes out of business or invests in a robot so they can be more efficient. In the big scheme of things employees are being replaced which effects someone. It may be eliminating jobs overseas as the work can be competively done within the US, but overall jobs ar being eliminated, which will be disruptive to those currently doing the grunt work.
"The economic disruption that we have seen in the past 10 years is really just a small glimmer compared to what we will see in the next 10 years," Brynjolfsson said. "If we do it right, it will be mostly a good story. We will have much better health, we will be able to solve a lot of economic problems that we couldn't have solved before, but it is not going to be a smooth ride."
By preparing oneself for the changes in the future, it avoids being a frog slowly boiling in a pot on the stove.
Post by: Leisured on February 02, 2014, 03:07:33 AM
Post by: ch12 on February 02, 2014, 04:34:08 AM
I wrote my senior thesis on the migration of production from overseas to back home. Everyone talks about how there used to be good manufacturing jobs, but now they are gone.
Skills Gap
Some are coming back, but there's a skills gap; my generation hasn't been raised to become machinists. Obama's trying to change that, and there was a bit of hullabaloo when he was in Wisconsin right after SOTU to underline the initiative to train workers for the jobs that exist. http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/president-obama-lands-in-milwaukee-for-visit-to-waukesha-plant-b99194747z1-242766711.html?subscriber_login=y
Rana Faroohar is a big proponent of the six-year high school model, where kids graduate with a high school diploma and an associate's degree. http://business.time.com/2013/10/25/foroohar-to-compete-america-needs-6-year-high-schools/
Automation
Beyond the skills gap, automation is one reason why people can afford to bring manufacturing back. Tesla is a prime example; how else could you manufacture cars efficiently near Silicon Valley? Manufacturing is coming back, but it's not a magic cureall for unemployment. Robots are getting a good portion of those jobs.
Income inequality is going to widen, as we've already seen. Some will own the robots. Others will be replaced by robots. You want to be on the right side of the line.
Post by: tomsang on February 23, 2014, 01:14:05 PM
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/robots-google-ray-kurzweil-terminator-singularity-artificial-intelligence
Post by: jordanread on February 23, 2014, 02:45:41 PM
Post by: Tyler on February 23, 2014, 03:36:47 PM
Easy to replicate manual labor will definitely be automated. But so will easy to replicate white collar jobs, and those are arguably even easier to replace in many cases. Think about all the high-paying engineering jobs being outsourced to Asia -- those are the real targets of the robot inventors, not the barista down the street.
Post by: ch12 on February 23, 2014, 07:06:57 PM
Robots will definitely change job roles in the future, but the tipping point will not be when someone invents a relatively expensive robot to do flexible manual labor. It will be when AI reaches the point where "knowledge workers" are out of a job due to formless and basically free software . For example, a lot of formerly very well off people will be out looking for manual labor gigs once Google invents a virtual engineer floating in a server array that can write new code.
Easy to replicate manual labor will definitely be automated. But so will easy to replicate white collar jobs, and those are arguably even easier to replace in many cases. Think about all the high-paying engineering jobs being outsourced to Asia -- those are the real targets of the robot inventors, not the barista down the street.
Yep.
Speaking of manual labor being replaced by technology - There's a guy who invented 3D printed houses, and he talked about it in a TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehnzfGP6sq4
He envisions houses printed in 20 hours replacing today's slums, which house 1 billion people. NASA is funding his research, since they're interested in sending robots to the moon which will be capable of building hangars and the like. I'm very interested in his work from the perspective of cutting cost and environmental waste, which is a value that Mr. Money Mustache has and many Mustachians share.
My brother-in-law is an energy engineer (job=making large companies/universities more energy efficient), and he did a project on a net-zero house. A few years ago, when he dreamed it up (alongside other project members), the cost was prohibitive around $350,000. I talked to my BIL about prefab houses that were net zero, and he liked the idea. Clayton had some at 160,000 (since discontinued), which he thought was great.
Frankly, baristas have already been automated out of a job.
http://www.hometone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bemoved-coffee-machine-douwe-egberts_EYffT_1822.jpg
I first saw a Douwe Egberts machine in a Delta SkyLounge, and I fell in love then. I foresee a coffee shop model where you get unlimited superb coffee (mocha cappucinos, anyone?) for a set monthly price. You'd also be able to park and work, like many people do in coffee shops everywhere. It's like renting an office, except the space is centered around the experience, and less about the utmost productivity from you.
There are things that humans do better than machines. Knowing your neighborhood barista is an experience that you don't get with a machine, regardless of how beautiful, efficient, and effective it is. My job has already been automated, and yet I still have a Quality Assurance job at a software company. Being able to talk to the person who found a bug is easier than digging up other stuff.
Post by: tomsang on March 03, 2014, 11:53:03 PM
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc895d54-a2bf-11e3-9685-00144feab7de.html#axzz2uyStDWm3
Post by: greentea on March 04, 2014, 01:01:07 AM
www.futuretimeline.net (http://www.futuretimeline.net)
What fascinates me most is the "intelligence enhancement" that this website discusses.
Post by: soccerluvof4 on March 04, 2014, 03:53:46 AM
Post by: BlueMR2 on March 04, 2014, 04:08:34 PM
White collar, blue collar they all can be replaced.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc895d54-a2bf-11e3-9685-00144feab7de.html#axzz2uyStDWm3
Link no worky for me. However, it's very true that all color collars are in danger. Supercomputers can already out think CEOs, lawyers will not be far behind. Service robots are very rapidly approaching the ability to replace nurses. Diagnostic apps are already better than human doctors. Given those abilities, it wouldn't be much further along until the robots could build/maintain/upgrade themselves fast/better than we can, so even technology isn't safe.
So, what's left for us? A life of leisure and arts? Sure, until the robots decide that we're wasting valuable resources.
I just don't see any way that this can end other than in a very bad way for us. I love transhumanism fiction, but I don't see that happening. By the time the upload capacity is there for our brains, there'd be no point, we'd drag the system down. The singularity may happen, but it's unlikely people will make the jump...
Post by: tomsang on March 04, 2014, 06:18:19 PM
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dc895d54-a2bf-11e3-9685-00144feab7de.html
Post by: tomsang on March 12, 2014, 05:29:47 PM
"These transitions have happened before," "What's different this time is that technological change is happening even faster, and it may affect a greater variety of jobs."
"The advances, coupled with mobile robots wired with this intelligence, make it likely that occupations employing almost half of today's U.S. workers, ranging from loan officers to cab drivers and real estate agents, become possible to automate in the next decade or two, according to a study done at the University of Oxford in the U.K."
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/03/12/smarter-computers-and-robots-may-take-half-of-americas-jobs/
Post by: MrCash on March 12, 2014, 05:32:51 PM
Post by: MrFancypants on March 13, 2014, 02:56:07 PM
(http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.96871.1313902790!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_635/gal-riv-sico-a-jpg.jpg)
Post by: greaper007 on March 14, 2014, 12:27:00 PM
http://www.digyourowngrave.com/saturday-night-live-old-glory-robot-insurance/
Post by: tomsang on April 27, 2014, 11:05:31 AM
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140427/NEWS/304279955/as-robots-take-jobs-experts-ask-if-humans-will-keep-up
Edited to fix bad link
Post by: arebelspy on April 27, 2014, 11:11:36 AM
Interesting article. Oxford University say that robots could replace half of the current workforce in the next 10-20 years. It is coming, make sure you and your children have an education/career that will be in demand in the future.
http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2014/04/26/dont-panic-your-retirement-number-is-lower-than-yo.aspx
I think you cut and paste the wrong link. :)
Post by: tomsang on April 27, 2014, 11:15:49 AM
Interesting article. Oxford University say that robots could replace half of the current workforce in the next 10-20 years. It is coming, make sure you and your children have an education/career that will be in demand in the future.
http://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2014/04/26/dont-panic-your-retirement-number-is-lower-than-yo.aspx
I think you cut and paste the wrong link. :)
Thanks for the heads up I think I fixed the link. Darn technology!
Post by: JamesL on April 27, 2014, 12:34:39 PM
Post by: deborah on April 27, 2014, 05:17:52 PM
As each community would only need 1 3D printer, communities could be smaller to receive a high standard of equipment. The problems that people in remote regions have getting anything (a huge problem in as sparsely settled a place as Australia) would be reduced, encouraging a reversal of cities sucking people from the country.
Contrary to other writers, I think people providing services will increase.
Post by: warfreak2 on April 28, 2014, 06:22:37 AM
Some people have mentioned 3D printing. I think this will be the real revolution. Imagine - going to your local 3D print store, and getting exactly the washing machine you want, with only the cycles you actually use, the exact size to take your normal wash. The next customer might want a bicycle, or a couch or even another 3D printer.Cutting down on the amount of air being shipped is not going to reduce costs, because most of those costs are associated with weight rather than size. A lorry can pull a shipping container full of washing machines, but not a shipping container full of solid steel pellets. Also, carrying air is much more efficient than heating every single gram of every material in an object to melting point and assembling it in liquid form one wafer-thin layer at a time.
Post by: AlanStache on April 28, 2014, 07:00:41 AM
Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson): did not really care for it myself, but N.S. is one of my top five favorite authors.
Post by: deborah on April 28, 2014, 02:56:07 PM
Shipping will change (as against lorries). I didn't say it would reduce costs - just that it would be a revolution, because it will change the entire production line, and probably the entire consumable culture. It could also reduce pollution and energy consumption.Some people have mentioned 3D printing. I think this will be the real revolution. Imagine - going to your local 3D print store, and getting exactly the washing machine you want, with only the cycles you actually use, the exact size to take your normal wash. The next customer might want a bicycle, or a couch or even another 3D printer.Cutting down on the amount of air being shipped is not going to reduce costs, because most of those costs are associated with weight rather than size. A lorry can pull a shipping container full of washing machines, but not a shipping container full of solid steel pellets. Also, carrying air is much more efficient than heating every single gram of every material in an object to melting point and assembling it in liquid form one wafer-thin layer at a time.
- It makes obsolete the cost efficiency of making millions of exactly the same thing.
- It changes the distribution system
- It is often touted as reducing waste in manufacture, as everything that is used in a 3D print is part of the product, or is still gloop, and can just go back into the machine to be used in the next print. Manufacturing waste is often about half of the materials used or more!
- Nothing is created until it is actually required by the consumer - manufacture-on-demand. I know that when we introduced print-on-demand (printers not printing paper until the person was actually at the printer and said they wanted the document) it saved more than half the paper consumption.
- Just the previous two items will reduce transportation significantly
- If you had a recycling (a gloop extraction unit for articles not needed any more) next to the 3D printer, you would get the majority of your gloop on site, and not need to transport much gloop
Post by: warfreak2 on April 28, 2014, 03:51:09 PM
It makes obsolete the cost efficiency of making millions of exactly the same thing.This is the main problem - it never will. 3D printing just requires so much energy. If you're making steel out of molten iron, it's much more efficient to form it into the shapes you want while it's still molten, rather than cutting it into pellets, letting them cool, and then melting and remolding the pellets later. You talk about waste, but what about wasted energy?
3D printing fills an important niche, which will surely grow over time, but it will never economically compete with centralised mass production and distribution.
Post by: deborah on April 28, 2014, 05:28:28 PM
3D printing fills an important niche, which will surely grow over time, but it will never economically compete with centralised mass production and distribution.Sorry to disagree, but it already is. For instance, 3D printing of clothes is occurring, and a high percentage of clothing made from polyesters rather than natural fibres. Clothing is one of the major manufacturing industries in which waste is astronomical.
There have been recent advances with metal and 3D printing that look very promising. But, metal is only part of what we use, and the amount of metal in products has steadily declined over the years.
Post by: AlanStache on April 28, 2014, 06:18:22 PM
Post by: Ian on April 28, 2014, 06:23:00 PM
Most people who believe one seem to discount the other. I wish I could find thinkers or communities considering the confluence of these trends.
Post by: sol on April 28, 2014, 08:02:38 PM
This is scary stuff for the person whose job is becoming an anachronism, much like the service station attendant of yore.
One of my sisters is attached to a mechanical watch repairman, and my other sister is attached to a manual typewriter repairman. Both of these dudes are making a living working on outdated obsolete technologies, in jobs that were once deemed dying professions.
3D printing just requires so much energy.
In the very long run, Earth has a much larger supply of energy than it does of raw materials.
Post by: Leisured on April 30, 2014, 06:12:32 AM
Is automation a threat or an opportunity? It is easy to overlook the point of automation, which is to live the Good Life, a Mustachian life. A society living the Good Life explores the furthest reaches of knowledge, art and experience, lives in surroundings and landscapes of beauty and grandeur, and is supported by an automated economy. Machines and human labour are interchangeable, and an advanced society will exploit machines to the full. The road is open.
I see an advanced society being a combination of H G Wells and Jane Austen, that is gracious living supported by an automated economy.
How does one live, when work and a career are no longer important? Aristocrats have lived such lives since the days of the pharaohs. Dornford Yates was a British novelist of the twenties and thirties, and his comic novels are similar to the comic novels of Wodehouse, but with an edge to them. His characters lived off investments and did not work. Dornford Yates was a snob, but now, machines are replacing the working class, or soon will, so any distaste felt about Yates’ snobbery becomes irrelevant. Try ‘The house that Berry Built’, ‘And Berry Came Too’, and ‘Jonah and Co.’
Post by: sol on April 30, 2014, 09:12:04 AM
Manna, a look at two societies in the future:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
This was an interesting read, for a piece of speculative fiction. Which isn't usually my thing.
It's 8 web-page sized chapters long, and I wasn't terribly happy with ending, but the larger theme of how automation and robotics strongly influencing the direction of capitalism is a meaty one. You could easily write a much larger book based on this little story.
The summary for people who can't be bothered: As software and robots start to replace management jobs, instead of just manual labor jobs, the traditional roles of people controlling computers will be reversed and people essentially become the laborers being controlled by computers. This leads to phenomenal increases in productivity and standard of living for some people, but ever larger portions of the population end up in these minimum wage jobs that don't require any thinking because a computer is telling you what to do all day.
This greatly stratifies the distribution of wealth in the country, and eventually leads to a corporate elite with untold wealth and the bulk of the population basically living in high tech slums, with robot-supplied food and housing like the "guaranteed income" we have discussed here before. These people are sectioned off from rich society because nobody likes to look at homeless people, so they can't really leave. They are not exactly oppressed, just effectively confined because they lack the means to live anywhere else.
This is the society of our automated capitalist future, where almost everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator. By contrast, the later chapters focus on an alternative system of collectivism where nobody owns anything or has any privacy, but everyone shares the benefits of the collective and this greatly raises the standard of living for people who are allowed to participate in it because robots are doing all of the work. The story makes this sound like a fantasy heaven without really exploring the negative consequences of such an arrangement, which is why I think there is a much larger book to be written based on these ideas.
Post by: 401Killer on April 30, 2014, 09:37:08 AM
=D
Post by: tomsang on April 30, 2014, 10:32:16 AM
<-- Is a FANUC robot specialist at a major car manufacture. FANUC is the world leader in industrial robots. I'm not worried about my career going away.
=D
What is your thoughts on those who are not STEM gifted or are in careers that may be affected by robots? I will be comfortably retired and owning stocks in corporations making or using robots, so this scenario is probably a positive for my personal wellbeing. The concern I have is for my children, some whom are STEM gifted and some that are not STEM gifted. How do you educate and encourage them to place themselves into a path of success?
The other big issue, is what role is government in creating a fair playing field where everyone rises vs. just the owners or STEM gifted. Part of me sees the benefit in government ensuring that all parties are better off. I think our current government oversight will create an environment where the top 1% will own everything and have no real use for those that are not STEM useful. Visiting other 3rd world countries has shown me the crazy poverty next to huge mansions with guards to keep the riff-raff out. Even though I am in the 1%, I don't want to create a future where you have the multi billionaire wealthy and those barely surviving day to day.
The concern or the opportunity is to limit or discourage the capitalistic predators who feel like money is everything. Also to empower and herald those who see money as a means to make the world a better place. I believe the Giving Pledge and other peer pressure may limit the desire to screw over the world to extract out every penny from society, but I think government may need to be empowered to limit the predators.
Post by: greaper007 on April 30, 2014, 11:00:58 AM
What we've always been good at as a country is not completely destroying a child's creativity, unlike many of the Asian or communist block countries. I was listening to an NPR segment yesterday where a speaker made a compelling argument against competing with other countries for children's math and science scores on standardized tests. He referenced a 1958 article from Life magazine that showed Soviet children were beating American children in the same areas. Yet, we won the cold war and we've been prosperous innovators for nearly the entire industrial and post-industrial era.
I think it's still best to encourage your children to learn all they can, and follow their passions. I can't think of anyone that's done this and hasn't been able to support themselves by their mid-30s.
Post by: ch12 on April 30, 2014, 05:53:12 PM
There's always a role for creativity and critical thinking. I think we get too enamored by the STEM or hard science path as a means of immediate career placement. Yet, I know lots of successful people that didn't follow this path.
What we've always been good at as a country is not completely destroying a child's creativity, unlike many of the Asian or communist block countries. I was listening to an NPR segment yesterday where a speaker made a compelling argument against competing with other countries for children's math and science scores on standardized tests. He referenced a 1958 article from Life magazine that showed Soviet children were beating American children in the same areas. Yet, we won the cold war and we've been prosperous innovators for nearly the entire industrial and post-industrial era.
I think it's still best to encourage your children to learn all they can, and follow their passions. I can't think of anyone that's done this and hasn't been able to support themselves by their mid-30s.
+1 to most of the above
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/01/26/its-not-a-contest/
Frankly, I'm Asian. Growing up with a cadre of Asian friends, I was a little embarrassed when I was a pre-teen and all my friends were taking calculus. I told my mother, and she asked me if I wanted to take calculus. I said no.
I still turned out ok. (I hope.) I got a job in the software industry. I plan on investing in the robot makers. Don't push your kids into STEM. It's not 100% essential to success.
TANGENT: Following your passion is crock.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cal-newport/follow-your-passion-is-bizarre_b_4350869.html
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/09/182403459/i-know-im-supposed-to-follow-my-passion-but-what-if-i-dont-have-a-passion
My favorite article http://blogmaverick.com/2012/03/18/dont-follow-your-passion-follow-your-effort/ in which Mark Cuban says in the comments:
Quote
Get any job that interests you and pays the bills. you will be getting paid to learn a business and to learn about yourself as well. That job and the next job and the next will pay you to learn far more about yourself than you will learn paying for more education. There will come a time when you will hopefully have it figured out, the day you graduate is not that time
Post by: jordanread on April 30, 2014, 08:26:25 PM
Manna, a look at two societies in the future:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
This was an interesting read, for a piece of speculative fiction. Which isn't usually my thing.
It's 8 web-page sized chapters long, and I wasn't terribly happy with ending, but the larger theme of how automation and robotics strongly influencing the direction of capitalism is a meaty one. You could easily write a much larger book based on this little story.
The summary for people who can't be bothered: As software and robots start to replace management jobs, instead of just manual labor jobs, the traditional roles of people controlling computers will be reversed and people essentially become the laborers being controlled by computers. This leads to phenomenal increases in productivity and standard of living for some people, but ever larger portions of the population end up in these minimum wage jobs that don't require any thinking because a computer is telling you what to do all day.
This greatly stratifies the distribution of wealth in the country, and eventually leads to a corporate elite with untold wealth and the bulk of the population basically living in high tech slums, with robot-supplied food and housing like the "guaranteed income" we have discussed here before. These people are sectioned off from rich society because nobody likes to look at homeless people, so they can't really leave. They are not exactly oppressed, just effectively confined because they lack the means to live anywhere else.
This is the society of our automated capitalist future, where almost everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator. By contrast, the later chapters focus on an alternative system of collectivism where nobody owns anything or has any privacy, but everyone shares the benefits of the collective and this greatly raises the standard of living for people who are allowed to participate in it because robots are doing all of the work. The story makes this sound like a fantasy heaven without really exploring the negative consequences of such an arrangement, which is why I think there is a much larger book to be written based on these ideas.
I just borrowed this from the Prime Lending Library. I'll read it, and provide my own viewpoints (maybe even in a blog post) after that, but as part of my PSRG project regarding an ideal society (post-zombie-apocalypse), I've become incredibly interested in the idea of a highly advanced society made up of Renaissance Men. May be a topic for it's own thread, but curious about your viewpoint, and the role education and societal norms play in this idea.
Personally, I think that is a major thing missed with these types of scenarios. It's rough, because we have certain norms that influence how we think, and how people act. Not getting too much into politics here, but if a populace was raised with a certain understanding of what they could depend on, immediately changing to a policy of rewarding handling stuff on your own wouldn't work. I'll expand some more later, since this is a great topic that I'm very interested in, but just thought I'd ask here.
Post by: 401Killer on May 01, 2014, 06:20:51 AM
<-- Is a FANUC robot specialist at a major car manufacture. FANUC is the world leader in industrial robots. I'm not worried about my career going away.
=D
What is your thoughts on those who are not STEM gifted or are in careers that may be affected by robots? I will be comfortably retired and owning stocks in corporations making or using robots, so this scenario is probably a positive for my personal wellbeing. The concern I have is for my children, some whom are STEM gifted and some that are not STEM gifted. How do you educate and encourage them to place themselves into a path of success?
The other big issue, is what role is government in creating a fair playing field where everyone rises vs. just the owners or STEM gifted. Part of me sees the benefit in government ensuring that all parties are better off. I think our current government oversight will create an environment where the top 1% will own everything and have no real use for those that are not STEM useful. Visiting other 3rd world countries has shown me the crazy poverty next to huge mansions with guards to keep the riff-raff out. Even though I am in the 1%, I don't want to create a future where you have the multi billionaire wealthy and those barely surviving day to day.
The concern or the opportunity is to limit or discourage the capitalistic predators who feel like money is everything. Also to empower and herald those who see money as a means to make the world a better place. I believe the Giving Pledge and other peer pressure may limit the desire to screw over the world to extract out every penny from society, but I think government may need to be empowered to limit the predators.
Well firstly I don't even know what "STEM gifted" is. With industrial robots its all about manufacturing, these are not the robots on TV that are going to replace bar tenders and clean your house. These are automated systems that repeat the same operation over and over. The angle that FANUC and other industrial robot manufactures take on the replacement of people is that you simply have to automate, and I agree. If you don't automate the entire plant is going to close because it can't compete with other countries, their labor rates and other costs. At least if you install a few machines and robots the plant can continue stay competitive.
I've been mildly messed with when I worked for FANUC Robotics installing a new robot. People would come up to me and say that this robot replaced one of their friends. One of the things I started to say is that it was your company that bought it, so please don't blame me, most were generally cool with it. They would then name the robot after the person/people it replaced.
If I had children or could direct someone, anyone at all really I would push them into Controls Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering and the main trades such as Electrician, Millwright etc... If a company is making something, its NEEDS, without any question a Controls Engineer, Electrician, Millwright, ME etc... Some type of skilled workforce to maintain and upgrade it.
My career fell into my lap and got a job with my Associates degree as a Controls Engineer at 20 years old. This job was the job that got me the rest. I've been massively lucky with my career and have been doing it with a community college degree in my pocket for 15 years.
Below is a system that I helped build and install at Caterpillar in IL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnlzl6sBOsA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnlzl6sBOsA)
This video is just an example of high speed pill sorting by color. It uses a camera to tell the robot where the pill is and what color it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mThmeC_K6Vo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mThmeC_K6Vo)
Post by: greaper007 on May 01, 2014, 08:00:42 AM
Post by: tomsang on May 04, 2014, 09:37:57 AM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2618434/Artificial-intelligence-worst-thing-happen-humanity-Stephen-Hawking-warns-rise-robots-disastrous-mankind.html
Post by: Albert on May 04, 2014, 02:00:45 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
Every single job could conceivably be replaced with the one or the other in the medium term (2-3 decades). Your best best is probably police officer or a primary school teacher.
Post by: Mr Mark on May 04, 2014, 02:18:48 PM
200k invested when a kid is 20 should have them FI by about 35...
Post by: greaper007 on May 04, 2014, 10:10:47 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
Every single job could conceivably be replaced with the one or the other in the medium term (2-3 decades). Your best best is probably police officer or a primary school teacher.
I guess you've never seen Robo-Cop. Or Kindergarten Cop (to be fair I do think that Arnold was an American citizen by that time, his accent wasn't very convincing though).
Post by: tomsang on May 09, 2014, 07:26:58 AM
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/05/08/poll-1-in-5-people-would-have-sex-with-android-10-percent-want-robot-child/
Post by: matchewed on May 09, 2014, 07:30:53 AM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
Every single job could conceivably be replaced with the one or the other in the medium term (2-3 decades). Your best best is probably police officer or a primary school teacher.
I guess you've never seen Robo-Cop. Or Kindergarten Cop (to be fair I do think that Arnold was an American citizen by that time, his accent wasn't very convincing though).
Why do I suddenly have a vision of a robotic proctologist screaming "IT'S NOT A TUMOR" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTO8_KNcuo) at me while he's got a probe up my ass?
Post by: Insanity on May 09, 2014, 07:32:29 AM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
Post by: tomsang on May 09, 2014, 11:00:51 PM
http://m.bbc.com/news/technology-27343076
Post by: wtjbatman on May 09, 2014, 11:46:12 PM
UN, for the first time talking about the rules around robots and the autonomous kill function.
http://m.bbc.com/news/technology-27343076
Oh thank god. Once the UN speaks, you just know everyone is going to listen.
Post by: Nords on May 10, 2014, 12:13:26 AM
I'm glad for all of the personal productivity improvements, especially Moore's Law and factory automation, but I think the slope of the curve is less exponential than the popular media predicts. Before we get all excited about AIs I want a reliable machine to clean toilets and weed the nutgrass out of our yard.
Of course I'll happily buy a long-term care robot. I wonder if it'll cost less than the insurance premiums for a full-care facility staffed by humans...
Post by: deborah on May 10, 2014, 02:57:24 AM
Call me skeptical, even cynical, but this entire thread reminds me of 1960s Popular Mechanics articles about flying cars and personal jetpacks.It's easy to be skeptical/cynical - remembering the Jetsons and how the world was to change after the first moon landing (we were to have colonies on Mars by now). And, yes, this does hark back to Popular Mechanics. However, the future is probably sooner than we think. Work over the past 50 years has progressed toward making these things real - probably even in our lifetimes. I recently read an article by Isaac Asimov where he predicted the world in 2010? - not sure of the exact year - and it was amazingly accurate.
I'm glad for all of the personal productivity improvements, especially Moore's Law and factory automation, but I think the slope of the curve is less exponential than the popular media predicts. Before we get all excited about AIs I want a reliable machine to clean toilets and weed the nutgrass out of our yard.
Of course I'll happily buy a long-term care robot. I wonder if it'll cost less than the insurance premiums for a full-care facility staffed by humans...
I don't think we will see a martian colony.
Post by: Apocalyptica602 on May 10, 2014, 09:29:26 AM
There was a project I was a part of in which we were prototyping something to see if it was feasible as a product before we invest a few hundred thousand dollars retrofitting our equipment with new high end vision systems and robotic pick and places. For lack of a better solution within the timeframe, we had to use ~10 associates manipulating, inspecting, and placing the widgets into a secondary (mostly automated) process.
It was like pulling teeth - people made mistakes, got careless, slowed down and sped up, needed to take regular breaks (rightfully so), wanted to take breaks at different times etc.
It took a week of 24 hour rotating shifts to produce the same amount of parts the new system would have made in less than 8 hours, and these were 10 associates being paid $15-20/hour each.
Now this was just feasibility and prototyping work hand-in-hand with R&D, and I do understand the plight of those being replaced by robotics... but once you're used to that level of efficiency, it's agonizing to take a step backward, and I'm not even one of those corporate decision makers with a balance sheet!
Post by: Albert on May 10, 2014, 11:48:50 AM
Post by: LalsConstant on May 10, 2014, 01:08:18 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
Any job that relies on an opinion, risk weighing, reasonableness, and making educated guesses in a field where every situation is unique. Robots/computers are great at things that can be reduced to a reliable, repeatable algorithm. Everything else not so much.
Post by: DoubleDown on May 10, 2014, 05:32:45 PM
Call me skeptical, even cynical, but this entire thread reminds me of 1960s Popular Mechanics articles about flying cars and personal jetpacks.
I'm glad for all of the personal productivity improvements, especially Moore's Law and factory automation, but I think the slope of the curve is less exponential than the popular media predicts. Before we get all excited about AIs I want a reliable machine to clean toilets and weed the nutgrass out of our yard.
Of course I'll happily buy a long-term care robot. I wonder if it'll cost less than the insurance premiums for a full-care facility staffed by humans...
Ha, I'm with you Nords. How many times have wee seen this play out? It's right up there with predictions of Christ's Second Coming, when some evangelist claims to know the date and time, then that date passes and they pull out the new correct prediction. I recall just a few years ago some well known futurist (maybe Ray Kurzweil?) claiming we were about to reach the point when the machines were inevitably going to become self aware and destroy us all. Yeah, that came and went around 2012 I think -- so far my toaster hasn't destroyed me (just my toast).
Post by: tomsang on May 10, 2014, 07:29:18 PM
Call me skeptical, even cynical, but this entire thread reminds me of 1960s Popular Mechanics articles about flying cars and personal jetpacks.
I'm glad for all of the personal productivity improvements, especially Moore's Law and factory automation, but I think the slope of the curve is less exponential than the popular media predicts. Before we get all excited about AIs I want a reliable machine to clean toilets and weed the nutgrass out of our yard.
Of course I'll happily buy a long-term care robot. I wonder if it'll cost less than the insurance premiums for a full-care facility staffed by humans...
Ha, I'm with you Nords. How many times have wee seen this play out? It's right up there with predictions of Christ's Second Coming, when some evangelist claims to know the date and time, then that date passes and they pull out the new correct prediction. I recall just a few years ago some well known futurist (maybe Ray Kurzweil?) claiming we were about to reach the point when the machines were inevitably going to become self aware and destroy us all. Yeah, that came and went around 2012 I think -- so far my toaster hasn't destroyed me (just my toast).
I don't think that you have to believe that robots are going to overthrow humans to see that they are replacing jobs that were occupied by well paid humans. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but when corporations are making decisions based on profits and they have the ability to extract and retain the profits to those developing the technology or those that own the capital you have a potential for a disrupted society. The gap between haves and have nots will need to be defined by government regulations as corporation will not care about those uneducated employees. They will become a burden. Current Mustachians will be fine as they will own the companies that control the technology. Their kids hopefully will situated to take advantage of the future as well.
It should be an amazing future!!!
Post by: Insanity on May 10, 2014, 07:45:44 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
Any job that relies on an opinion, risk weighing, reasonableness, and making educated guesses in a field where every situation is unique. Robots/computers are great at things that can be reduced to a reliable, repeatable algorithm. Everything else not so much.
self driving cars, computerized chess systems that can beat pros, directed computer advertising...
These are all things that are which use AI or rules based engines. Neural networks does exist, and ultimately everything that you referenced is based on reliable algorithms and weights.
Post by: tomsang on May 11, 2014, 08:10:02 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101638702
"If you can print out food, components of homes, body parts as we age, it points to a really interesting future," he speculates. "We'll be treating animals in a humane way, rewriting the rules of society. What if we really don't need to work? In the hands of 7 billion creative people—we can't even begin to imagine how people will use this technology."
As I think about technology and the future, I keep coming back to society's need to define what is fair, what is safe, and how the amazing changes are going to impact all members of society. With corporations fighting to be considered people and with their significant influence on our laws due to lobbying and dollars, we may see the inequities growing between the haves and have nots. As a society we would be smart in defining our future now vs. waiting until the problem is too large to control.
Post by: Insanity on May 12, 2014, 06:49:07 AM
Interesting article on 3d printing
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101638702
"If you can print out food, components of homes, body parts as we age, it points to a really interesting future," he speculates. "We'll be treating animals in a humane way, rewriting the rules of society. What if we really don't need to work? In the hands of 7 billion creative people—we can't even begin to imagine how people will use this technology."
As I think about technology and the future, I keep coming back to society's need to define what is fair, what is safe, and how the amazing changes are going to impact all members of society. With corporations fighting to be considered people and with their significant influence on our laws due to lobbying and dollars, we may see the inequities growing between the haves and have nots. As a society we would be smart in defining our future now vs. waiting until the problem is too large to control.
Between AI and 3D printing, you'll have everything thing being a commodity over the long run.
I'm looking into some 3D printing companies to buy stock in. They are truly a disruptive service.
Post by: ChrisLansing on May 12, 2014, 07:19:02 AM
Yes, I think about this quite a bit. I think there is quite a bit of good news in regards to further developments in automation. For starters, the less labor it takes to produce something, the more other cosrts come into play in regards to how much it costs to produce, distribute, and sell a good. For example, labor is dirt cheap in developing countries but transportation costs from those countries are often not cheap (China is nearly half a world away after all). As such there is a small but growing trend toward onshoring many manufacturing jobs that left the US over the past decades, as robotics can provide competitive labor costs when the discounted transportation costs are factored in. That's good news for American workers going forward.
And there are always going to be jobs that robotics cannot provide for in the foreseeable future. People that work with their hands outside of an assembly line job are very difficult to replace. There are no robot plumbers, HVAC mechanics, auto mechanics, construction workers, etc. There is still plenty of good work in the future for people who do not want to work a desk job.
Robotics will help generate even more wealth over time. 100 years ago 1 in 3 Americans worked on a farm, today 2 in 100 do, freeing up 31 people to do something else while still producing more than enough food. This principle carries forward with robotics. Yes, it will be disruptive in the short term for people who are displaced but arguably the people being displaced are often in overseas manufacturing facilities.
Another interesting trend is how more and more service jobs are being done away with. All you younguns out there may not be aware that at one time in the US people did not pump their own gas at the service station (it was called a service staion for a reason, and it was highly inefficient compared to today). The same sorts of things are happening throughout retail. People are scanning their own items, fast food restaurants are rolling out terminals where people order and pay for their own food, doing away with the need for cashiers. Banks need less tellers as the switch to online banking becomes more and more prevalent.
This is scary stuff for the person whose job is becoming an anachronism, much like the service station attendant of yore. But in the long run everyone benefits from greater efficiencies. This is one reason why I am so bullish on Costco. They have developed a fabulous system for selling goods at a deep discount by doing away with many of the inefficiencies that plague retailers while simultaneously paying their staff handsomely compared to their retail counterparts.
Greater efficiency benefits everyone in the long term.
I suppose it depends on your definition of efficiency. There is something to be said for having the customer do the work without pay, as in pumping gas or scanning items at the store. It's "efficient" from a business point of view. It is kind of an apples/oranges comparison though. My 83 year old mother would like someone to pump the gas and check the oil and other fluids. She can sometimes get someone out to pump for her, but not always. One of us kids has to take her car to fill it up for her, and one of us has to check the fluids periodically. That seems damned inefficient to me. A a recent trend in restaurants is not only to serve yourself, but to do the cooking too. Remind me why I came to a restaurant? I can do my own cooking at home much cheaper, I go to a restaurant when I want someone else to cook. I'll scan my own items when the stores start paying me to do it, until then I don't use the self-scan lines.
The service has been removed and customers are providing their own service, for free.
Post by: AlanStache on May 12, 2014, 08:57:24 AM
Quote
Any job that relies on an opinion, risk weighing, reasonableness, and making educated guesses in a field where every situation is unique. Robots/computers are great at things that can be reduced to a reliable, repeatable algorithm. Everything else not so much.
Also keep in mind that computers dont have to be 'better' only good enough and cheap enough. If a computer costs 5% what a human does but is 90% as 'good' and can work 24/7, well in many applications that would be a great improvement and worth switching or trying to have to computer do what it is good at and the human do the rest.
Post by: AlanStache on May 12, 2014, 09:09:00 AM
Quote
or trying to have to computer do what it is good at and the human do the rest.
picked up "Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better" in an airport book store-hard cover (yeah sorry was despite), he has some interesting ideas on the mixing of human and computer intelligence (not quite like the Borg). Shows some examples of where average humans and average computers worked together to beet the best of the best that were 100% human or 100% computer. only 100 pages in but seems worth reading. As with all pop-sci books it might be a bit lite on citations or fully proving a point or cheery picking data. but still.
-sorry for the self quote :-)
Post by: DoubleDown on May 12, 2014, 11:41:19 AM
Post by: Insanity on May 12, 2014, 12:08:53 PM
But are robots or automation any different than just about any other technology over the ages that has made someone's job obsolete? Weaving looms, printing presses, automobiles, tractors, telephones -- no doubt very one of those, plus 1 Million other inventions we could think of, made someone's job or entire industry obsolete. I guess I'm saying there's really nothing new here, and any doom and gloom predictions about humans becoming obsolete is right up there with "News of my death has been greatly exaggerated." There's always something for humans to do. But sure, people need to be flexible, and if you're in an industry facing a revolutionary upheaval, better start polishing up on some new skills.
I'm not doom and gloom about it. I'm actually highly optimistic about it. I'd love for it to happen as if it does the way I hope, everything would be a commodity and present day economics will just get spurned on its head. You'll have a whole different set of skill sets.
By the way: 3D printed bicycles for the win.
Post by: LalsConstant on May 12, 2014, 12:43:02 PM
There's a finite number of games of chess, a computer is always going to be able to discern the optimal play.
Advertising isn't a great example, you can use a computer to direct and target ads yes but human judgment at the front end is how we know to put ads for X with Y, even if you figure that out purely by correlations between things ordered at Amazon (for example).
The driving is probably the situation where you are the most likely to encounter something truly unique (everyone has a story of something strange encountered while driving), and in those instances, what you're probably going to have is a safety heuristic in the algorithm. In any decision the heuristic cannot address however (are we going to program cars to take cover against machinegun fire for instance), I don't see good things happening for the driver. This will be an application where people will realize the odds and take their chances, like air travel now.
All I am saying is:
Write the algorithm that can determine whether the accused was justified in stabbing the victim by claiming self defense.
Write the algorithm that can motivate a sick and depressed person to get treatment for their chronic disease.
Write the algorithm that can determine if a book is good or not.
Write the algorithm that can judge which dress is more in fashion this season.
Write the algorithm that can help a victim of child abuse getting therapy in his thirties move past his inner demons.
Show me the robot that can look at two photographs of the same woman with two different hair colors (same style) and determine whether she looks better blonde or redheaded.
Hell, forget all that. Program a sense of humor.
The worst robots can do is shift demand and supply. Jobs like my old gigs painting walls and stacking stuff on shelves and filling orders, those are in danger.
Post singularity, When robots spontaneously mock each other, debate the nature of the universe, and make purely subjective judgments with no discernible criteria, then I'll consider everyone on the chopping block.
Post by: Insanity on May 12, 2014, 01:13:28 PM
Write the algorithm that can determine whether the accused was justified in stabbing the victim by claiming self defense.
Write the algorithm that can motivate a sick and depressed person to get treatment for their chronic disease.
Write the algorithm that can determine if a book is good or not.
Write the algorithm that can judge which dress is more in fashion this season.
Write the algorithm that can help a victim of child abuse getting therapy in his thirties move past his inner demons.
Show me the robot that can look at two photographs of the same woman with two different hair colors (same style) and determine whether she looks better blonde or redheaded.
Hell, forget all that. Program a sense of humor.
The worst robots can do is shift demand and supply. Jobs like my old gigs painting walls and stacking stuff on shelves and filling orders, those are in danger.
Post singularity, When robots spontaneously mock each other, debate the nature of the universe, and make purely subjective judgments with no discernible criteria, then I'll consider everyone on the chopping block.
Anything subjective is going to be subjective. I know many people who don't like Shawshank Redemption even though it is one of the best (if not the best movie) I have ever seen and lots of people love it. I know many who find Jar Jar Binks tolerable even though many can't stand him (myself included). Hell, I know many who find women unattractive and prefer men. And as far as fashion? I'll settle for T's and Jeans any day of the week, so I couldn't care less. I know some people who think that Jerry Seinfeld is hilarious, I personally can't stand him. Maybe I'm a robot?
Reviews are going to be weighted ,and that's where neural networks and rules come into play.
As for that self defense case - well, let's ask OJ's victims how they felt about him being let off because the jury really couldn't grasp certain scientific technologies.
You don't think psychology is an algorithm? I've been through it when I was a kid and am going through marriage counseling now.
Chronic Illness? I'd rather have a robot treating me then my previous GI.
Post by: AlanStache on May 12, 2014, 02:19:38 PM
wrt- the list:
>> crime: maybe a computer could track down a dollar the defendant had and prove it was spent on the other side of town when the crime happened. or use facial recognition to do the same.
>> to lazy to google it now but I thought I had read that simple chat bots were doing some physiological good talking to people. again computers may augment if not replace.
>> google has admitted that they digitized a 100tons of books 'not for humans to read'.
>> the red head is always hotter, any neural net would learn that in the first 10 minutes of training :-p
algorithms will keep getting better at predicting what you will like (see amazon/netflix/google), but as Insanity said it is very hard to say any thing subjective is good, there will always be disagreement.
LalsConstant also if you are going to try to list things computers cant do there is an obligatory link :-) http://xkcd.com/1002/ (http://xkcd.com/1002/)
The computers and robots are coming for the medical doctors in a big way. I personally have had good results with the MayoClinic symptom checker. http://www.mayoclinic.org/symptom-checker/select-symptom/itt-20009075 (http://www.mayoclinic.org/symptom-checker/select-symptom/itt-20009075)
Post by: Insanity on May 12, 2014, 02:43:04 PM
The computers and robots are coming for the medical doctors in a big way. I personally have had good results with the MayoClinic symptom checker. http://www.mayoclinic.org/symptom-checker/select-symptom/itt-20009075 (http://www.mayoclinic.org/symptom-checker/select-symptom/itt-20009075)
I hope it is better than WebMD which seems to always think I have cancer, gastritis, or diabetes.
Post by: Ian on May 12, 2014, 08:02:26 PM
Post by: Primm on May 13, 2014, 12:24:38 AM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
I'm a NICU nurse. I'd like to think my technical skills combined with my clinical assessment and judgement lead to me being (relatively) indispensable, but I could be wrong.
Post by: Insanity on May 13, 2014, 07:31:11 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
I'm a NICU nurse. I'd like to think my technical skills combined with my clinical assessment and judgement lead to me being (relatively) indispensable, but I could be wrong.
before I go on, let me say that you have probably one of the emotionally toughest jobs in the world and thank you for doing that. having to deal with the emotional draining situations you have to, I can't fathom.
Unfortunately, though, medical is something that can be done. there maybe more need for human interaction on the support/translation side of it - after all, who wants to be consoled by a robot/AI? But the reality is, if that becomes an acceptable things and as AIs learn more appropriate and comforting things to say, it may become more accepted. I don't know.
But again, the job you do is a tough job and thank you for doing it.
Post by: Primm on May 14, 2014, 06:11:26 AM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
name on job that can't?
I'm a NICU nurse. I'd like to think my technical skills combined with my clinical assessment and judgement lead to me being (relatively) indispensable, but I could be wrong.
before I go on, let me say that you have probably one of the emotionally toughest jobs in the world and thank you for doing that. having to deal with the emotional draining situations you have to, I can't fathom.
Unfortunately, though, medical is something that can be done. there maybe more need for human interaction on the support/translation side of it - after all, who wants to be consoled by a robot/AI? But the reality is, if that becomes an acceptable things and as AIs learn more appropriate and comforting things to say, it may become more accepted. I don't know.
But again, the job you do is a tough job and thank you for doing it.
Why thank you. :)
While I don't disagree that the actual baby care side of what I do could to some extent be palmed off to an artificially intelligent device, it's the emotional side of parent care and counselling that I think I'm safe with for the moment. Let's face it, a 25 weeker doesn't give a shit whether I as a nurse love it, it just needs warmth, nutrition and ventilation. Which could all most probably be more efficiently provided by a machine, with a complex series of algorithms allowing for immediate adjustments to the machines we already use.
However we're a very long way from machines providing emotional care. Actually that's probably not strictly true, we're a very long way off the *acceptance* of machines providing emotional care. So for that part of my job I think will last for a long time. Coincidentally (or not?) that's the part of my job that I would love to spend more time on but don't have time due to the technical requirements. So it could even be a win-win. More time for me to spend with parents, less time needing to be spent on the mundane "machine care" side of my work.
ETA: By the time this happens I hope to be well and truly retired!
Post by: davisgang90 on May 14, 2014, 07:14:09 AM
Post by: zachd on May 14, 2014, 02:55:14 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
I test software and automation is cutting the need for manual testing. If I don't learn automation, it will be harder and harder to find a job in my field.
So just saying, it's not only people who do manual labor or work in a warehouse whose jobs may be replaced by automation.
I'm not that worried about it personally I'll either learn to do some programming or hopefully find a job doing something I like better.
Post by: jordanread on May 14, 2014, 03:46:08 PM
Post by: Insanity on May 14, 2014, 06:32:34 PM
I've always thought that if you're job could be replaced by a robot or an illegal alien, it's probably time to get a new job or more education. To a lesser extent that goes for off-shoring too.
I test software and automation is cutting the need for manual testing. If I don't learn automation, it will be harder and harder to find a job in my field.
So just saying, it's not only people who do manual labor or work in a warehouse whose jobs may be replaced by automation.
I'm not that worried about it personally I'll either learn to do some programming or hopefully find a job doing something I like better.
If you have a QA mind and test by trying to break things, I highly recommend you look into software security. While there are automated analyzers, there is still quite the need for a human to be involved due to so complexities that are simply right now well out of reach for automated scanners. This isn't to say they can't be automated, just that they aren't there yet (or businesses don't want to spend the money configuring the software to do the tests automatically).
Post by: CarDude on May 14, 2014, 07:19:48 PM
Post by: Primm on May 14, 2014, 07:40:55 PM
I'm looking forward to when robots (i.e., computers) do our driving for us. Things will get a lot safer.
+1.
As a cyclist, I can't wait until the day the bogan tradies in their white utes can't swerve towards me at 6am in an effort to run me off the road, because the software in their car won't let them. Seriously, who does that? [/rant]
Post by: Bakari on May 15, 2014, 09:40:10 AM
Call me skeptical, even cynical, but this entire thread reminds me of 1960s Popular Mechanics articles about flying cars and personal jetpacks.
I'm glad for all of the personal productivity improvements, especially Moore's Law and factory automation, but I think the slope of the curve is less exponential than the popular media predicts...
You have to understand that Moore's law is an exponential curve.
This article explains that extremely well, with an analogy and a cartoon:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/robots-artificial-intelligence-jobs-automation
It is on exactly the original topic - how soon robots are likely to be able to take most human jobs, and then what the impact on society and the economy and the distribution of wealth is likely to be.
Quote
"Until a decade ago, the share of total national income going to workers was pretty stable at around 70 percent, while the share going to capital—mainly corporate profits and returns on financial investments—made up the other 30 percent. More recently, though, those shares have started to change. Slowly but steadily, labor's share of total national income has gone down, while the share going to capital owners has gone up. The most obvious effect of this is the skyrocketing wealth of the top 1 percent, due mostly to huge increases in capital gains and investment income.[/size]
According to this chart made by Stuart Staniford, our robot overlords will take over soon.
In the economics literature, the increase in the share of income going to capital owners is known as capital-biased technological change. Let's take a layman's look at what that means.
The question we want to answer is simple: If CBTC is already happening—not a lot, but just a little bit—what trends would we expect to see? What are the signs of a computer-driven economy? First and most obviously, if automation were displacing labor, we'd expect to see a steady decline in the share of the population that's employed.
Second, we'd expect to see fewer job openings than in the past. Third, as more people compete for fewer jobs, we'd expect to see middle-class incomes flatten in a race to the bottom. Fourth, with consumption stagnant, we'd expect to see corporations stockpile more cash and, fearing weaker sales, invest less in new products and new factories. Fifth, as a result of all this, we'd expect to see labor's share of national income decline and capital's share rise.
These trends are the five horsemen of the robotic apocalypse, and guess what? We're already seeing them"
Any job that relies on an opinion, risk weighing, reasonableness, and making educated guesses in a field where every situation is unique. Robots/computers are great at things that can be reduced to a reliable, repeatable algorithm. Everything else not so much.
You're looking at current computers. As the article I linked points out, we have been making slow, but steady and serious progress towards true AI. The human brain isn't infinitely intelligent, we have a specific amount of processing power and memory. When computers hit that point, they should be able to do literally any mental task a human can do. They already do a much better job at risk weighing and educated guesses than we do, because they don't fall prey to the (many, powerful) cognitive biases we do.
Robotics will help generate even more wealth over time...
Greater efficiency benefits everyone in the long term.
They do definitely generate more wealth, as do all increases in efficiency, but greater efficiency does NOT necessarily benefit everyone. In fact, that basically came to a full stop a couple decades ago, and technology advances is one of the largest reasons. The other big one is political. Under a free market, increases in efficiency are likely to benefit everyone. But under capitalism, they only benefit investors, at the expense of labor. US politics have been undermining the free market and supporting capitalism to an ever greater extent in recent years, with the predictable result that median income has flatlined while the top 0.1% has grown exponentially:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2014/04/free-market-vs-capitalism-current-state.html
In theory, having robots do almost everything, and having humans do just those few things that robots couldn't possibly do (not sure what those things are, but lets assume there are some), could mean that every human has a 1 hour work week and a 10 years working career, and they earn an inflation adjusted $1000 per hour for the work that they do. The economy would be able to support it.
But as long as the politics and laws are as they are now, we're more likely to have 97% unemployment, and 3% private security forces.
Post by: AlanStache on May 15, 2014, 09:47:13 AM
Quote
The other big one is political. Under a free market, increases in efficiency are likely to benefit everyone. But under capitalism, they only benefit investors, at the expense of labor
Can you explain or link the difference between free market and capitalism? I would have thought them about synonymous. Or did you have crony capitalism or our bastardized protectionist capitalism in mind?
Post by: Bakari on May 15, 2014, 09:55:06 AM
@Bakari:QuoteThe other big one is political. Under a free market, increases in efficiency are likely to benefit everyone. But under capitalism, they only benefit investors, at the expense of labor
Can you explain or link the difference between free market and capitalism? I would have thought them about synonymous. Or did you have crony capitalism or our bastardized protectionist capitalism in mind?
Can I ever! I just recently finished writing a ten part series on that: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2014/04/free-market-vs-capitalism.html
everyone seems to think they are synonymous - which I suspect was deliberate political PR by capitalists. Not only are they not synonymous, they are actively opposed.
The original free-market economist, Adam Smith, was very clear about the difference, but people who quote him most often conveniently ignore those parts.
And, sure, corruption can make it even worse, but that's a whole separate thing.
Post by: arebelspy on May 15, 2014, 11:45:38 AM
Can I ever! I just recently finished writing a ten part series on that
Just a comment on that. When you call it a 10 part series it sounds daunting and this big tome. I put off reading it for like 5 days until I had time to sit down and do so. Then the whole thing took about 20 minutes.
It could easily have fit into one long blog post, but you may dissuade some people who might otherwise read it when they hear "ten part series." "...I wasn't THAT interested" but if they knew each part was a quick two minute read, they may read it.
Post by: Bakari on May 15, 2014, 05:21:00 PM
Can I ever! I just recently finished writing a ten part series on that
Just a comment on that. When you call it a 10 part series it sounds daunting and this big tome. I put off reading it for like 5 days until I had time to sit down and do so. Then the whole thing took about 20 minutes.
It could easily have fit into one long blog post, but you may dissuade some people who might otherwise read it when they hear "ten part series." "...I wasn't THAT interested" but if they knew each part was a quick two minute read, they may read it.
:P
hmm, well... I kept getting complaints that my regular posts were too long. Can't win.
Post by: arebelspy on May 15, 2014, 06:17:12 PM
Can I ever! I just recently finished writing a ten part series on that
Just a comment on that. When you call it a 10 part series it sounds daunting and this big tome. I put off reading it for like 5 days until I had time to sit down and do so. Then the whole thing took about 20 minutes.
It could easily have fit into one long blog post, but you may dissuade some people who might otherwise read it when they hear "ten part series." "...I wasn't THAT interested" but if they knew each part was a quick two minute read, they may read it.
:P
hmm, well... I kept getting complaints that my regular posts were too long. Can't win.
I'm fine with it being split up.. just letting you know how it sounded to me when I heard "ten part series." :)
Post by: Insanity on May 15, 2014, 08:38:35 PM
@Bakari:QuoteThe other big one is political. Under a free market, increases in efficiency are likely to benefit everyone. But under capitalism, they only benefit investors, at the expense of labor
Can you explain or link the difference between free market and capitalism? I would have thought them about synonymous. Or did you have crony capitalism or our bastardized protectionist capitalism in mind?
Can I ever! I just recently finished writing a ten part series on that: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2014/04/free-market-vs-capitalism.html
everyone seems to think they are synonymous - which I suspect was deliberate political PR by capitalists. Not only are they not synonymous, they are actively opposed.
The original free-market economist, Adam Smith, was very clear about the difference, but people who quote him most often conveniently ignore those parts.
And, sure, corruption can make it even worse, but that's a whole separate thing.
I have to say, I only read parts of it. And I think why I only read parts of it is because the writing style and layout just was a bit distracting. The content itself was interesting, just hard to focus on with those changes. Then again, I'm easily distracted.
Post by: tomsang on June 10, 2014, 09:00:24 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101728464
Post by: Insanity on June 10, 2014, 08:16:08 PM
The first sequenced human genome was complete in 2003 at a cost of nearly $3 billion, and it took 13 years. Just a decade later we can do the same in a few days for less than $1,000.
I have noted to my wife that it seems more and more teens are coming up with medical advances faster than some of the larger pharmaceuticals. This is one of the reasons why. While robots might take jobs, information is what provides the ability to gain wealth. The question is what will wealth mean in 20-30 years from now.
And how will that impact FIRE :)
Post by: tomsang on June 12, 2014, 10:47:25 AM
Google futurist and engineering director.
Computers will achieve human level intelligence and the ability to have human level emotional relationship with them by 2029.
"My timeline is computers will be at human levels, such as you can have a human relationship with them, 15 years from now," he said. Kurzweil's comments came at the Exponential Finance conference in New York on Wednesday.
3D printing of clothing by 2020.
Solar power is underrated.
Medicine - We will be able to reprogram our cells, which will allow us to reprogram away from cancer, heart disease, including aging in the near future.
Personal digital assistants in the next five to 10 years.
What does this mean to mustachians?
Portfolios may need to be built to survive to infinity, having the resources to buy/pay for the technology that may be controlled by corporations, how to assist your kids/grandkids to take advantage of these changes, and understanding how laws and society develops to share the wealth with the huge technology gains that will be occurring within the next 20 years.
Post by: jordanread on June 12, 2014, 12:04:05 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101751468
Google futurist and engineering director.
Computers will achieve human level intelligence and the ability to have human level emotional relationship with them by 2029.
"My timeline is computers will be at human levels, such as you can have a human relationship with them, 15 years from now," he said. Kurzweil's comments came at the Exponential Finance conference in New York on Wednesday.
3D printing of clothing by 2020.
Solar power is underrated.
Medicine - We will be able to reprogram our cells, which will allow us to reprogram away from cancer, heart disease, including aging in the near future.
Personal digital assistants in the next five to 10 years.
What does this mean to mustachians?
Portfolios may need to be built to survive to infinity, having the resources to buy/pay for the technology that may be controlled by corporations, how to assist your kids/grandkids to take advantage of these changes, and understanding how laws and society develops to share the wealth with the huge technology gains that will be occurring within the next 20 years.
I'm finding more and more stuff like this popping up wherever I look. It definitely makes things interesting. I'm about to engage in a discussion about this very topic. I already know the guy thinks that those in power wouldn't want some type of post-scarcity society to come about, since scarcity keeps them in power. I also need to read Bakari's stuff on this, and a couple of other books, but get my thoughts down on return. This stuff is pretty exciting though, and I really enjoy the thought exercise.
Post by: MrsPete on June 12, 2014, 06:59:11 PM
- In the past I've seen a kiosk selling Proactive (acne medicine) at the mall. Recently I saw that it's been replaced with a vending machine. Put in your credit card, out comes your purchase . . . just like a soda.
- At Panera Bread, I recently saw that they've installed iPads in the stores, and you can walk up to one, place your order, and pay with a credit card . . . then pick up a thingy that'll beep when your order is ready at the counter.
Post by: Insanity on June 12, 2014, 07:10:22 PM
Two things I've seen lately that foretell changes in the way we shop:
- In the past I've seen a kiosk selling Proactive (acne medicine) at the mall. Recently I saw that it's been replaced with a vending machine. Put in your credit card, out comes your purchase . . . just like a soda.
- At Panera Bread, I recently saw that they've installed iPads in the stores, and you can walk up to one, place your order, and pay with a credit card . . . then pick up a thingy that'll beep when your order is ready at the counter.
Red Robin uses kiosks at tables for ordering drinks and appetizers, not to mention you can pay your bill that way so you don't have to wait for a check.
One contract that I am working on is dealing with things going into Amazon Web Services (the cloud environment). The amount of computing power they work with is just incredible. The fact they can manage the type of things they do, automatically, with infrastructure of virtual machines. I firmly believe anything is possible with computers. Anything. You don't have to worry about scarcity, the entire definition of economy is going to change.
How? Who knows. I just know that I am in information security and at least until that time happens where people don't care about information being out there - I'll have a job until the robots do take over everything.
Post by: matchewed on August 14, 2014, 05:57:09 PM
Great video from CGP Grey. Worth taking a look see.
Post by: greaper007 on August 15, 2014, 04:17:38 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Great video from CGP Grey. Worth taking a look see.
Necro-poster!!!
Post by: tomsang on August 16, 2014, 06:43:05 AM
http://m.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2014/08/13/many-are-working-how-many-people-will-be-replaced.html?r=full
Post by: matchewed on August 16, 2014, 08:01:37 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Great video from CGP Grey. Worth taking a look see.
Necro-poster!!!
Guilty as charged. Suspend me mods, I've done wrong. :)
Post by: tomsang on August 16, 2014, 09:40:52 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Great video from CGP Grey. Worth taking a look see.
That was an interesting video. They didn't really address the big question that they posed of what to do with the huge amount of people that are unemployed.
Post by: matchewed on August 16, 2014, 10:17:20 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
Great video from CGP Grey. Worth taking a look see.
That was an interesting video. They didn't really address the big question that they posed of what to do with the huge amount of people that are unemployed.
I'm fond of CGP's videos in general. He is much more of an explainer of complex issues and their impact. He is not necessarily an advocate of any specific course of action. And you can get a note of, not fatalism, but inevitability in his presentation.
Regarding the what to do with the inevitable unemployed, well I think that will be up to us to decide. There is a bit of a catch-22 going on here where if you have massive unemployment there is no one to buy the things and no incentive to make the things therefore you even have "unemployed", or rather, unused robots. A great deal of money invested in unproductive assets. It certainly will be a challenge and I can think of a few potential (I don't want to call them solutions because I'm not sure if we can call the situation a problem, now in our time of excess and luxury do we really consider the fact that so few people are needed to provide food for a great number of people a "problem"? I think not, there are problems it creates but it is not a problem in of itself) mitigating actions.
While a form of this has happened time and time again this may be the time where it truly is different. We're not going to free up people to do "other" work. We're finally replacing people with not people in a broad spectrum of jobs. Probably most jobs in the next 20-50 years. That will take cultural, legal, governmental, and infrastructure changes to the countries that adopt this. And most countries will that can as it won't be the countries but the businesses. It may seem fantastical but science fiction is a great place to look to see where this sort of society can bring us. And much like a source for inspiration to science may be the source of inspiration on how to deal with the side effects of said science.
Post by: ch12 on August 23, 2014, 09:54:31 PM
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs/
Post by: Leisured on August 27, 2014, 02:10:09 AM
The laws of Nature allow automatic operation. If I stand up, my heart and breathing increase a little, automatically. I do not need to push buttons or pull levers. If I look away from the computer screen and look out of the window, my eyes automatically change focus for long sight. My body digests food automatically. My body is a miniature automated economy.
These matters have been known to science since the 1950s, and Mother Nature has set us an intelligence test; automate the economy. We have been climbing up from barbarism over the last 8000 years, and the next step in this progress is for people in an automated economy to move up to the level of a leisured class, and draw a Basic Income from the economy. This not an easy task, but it is more of a political and social matter than an economic matter. The emergence of advanced machinery is likely to open the door to the transition to a largely automated economy in about 20 years. Will people walk through the door?
In the past, science writers and commentators assumed that most people would eventually pass Mother Nature’s test, but it now looks as though most people will fail the test, and will not even know there is a test. It will not surprise me if, in 20 years, most voters demand restrictions on the use of advanced machinery to retain jobs. Is this intelligence or stupidity?
Post by: Bakari on August 27, 2014, 07:21:18 AM
It will not surprise me if, in 20 years, most voters demand restrictions on the use of advanced machinery to retain jobs. Is this intelligence or stupidity?
Of whom? The voters?
Its a consequence of setting up a capitalist system in which those who own the advanced machinery get 100% of the profit, and those who are replaced by them get 0%
It would obviously be smarter to change the system of economic distribution, but that would be much harder to do. It would mean changing a huge part of the most fundamental parts of our concept of ownership and value and rights.
Post by: arebelspy on August 27, 2014, 10:58:11 AM
Post by: RichLife on August 27, 2014, 11:13:25 AM
Post by: Leisured on August 31, 2014, 12:08:33 AM
It will not surprise me if, in 20 years, most voters demand restrictions on the use of advanced machinery to retain jobs. Is this intelligence or stupidity?
Of whom? The voters?
Its a consequence of setting up a capitalist system in which those who own the advanced machinery get 100% of the profit, and those who are replaced by them get 0%
It would obviously be smarter to change the system of economic distribution, but that would be much harder to do. It would mean changing a huge part of the most fundamental parts of our concept of ownership and value and rights.
My father told me that during the Great Depression – he was a boy at the time – there were families camped in public gardens, and plenty of rental houses empty. The landlords wanted tenants, and the campers wanted to rent houses, but the money system had temporarily broken down.
The parallel that is emerging today is that owners of capital need customers for their products, otherwise there will be no sales. Workers are the most numerous customers, but workers need paid jobs to buy things. It is in the interests of both owners and workers to support the idea of a Basic Income. This point is what I had in mind when I wondered about intelligent behaviour.
There was a General Strike in England in 1926, which was partly about wages and condition in coal mines. Winston Churchill was a senior politician at the time, and was part of efforts to break the deadlock in talks between miners and mine owners. He said that he met the miners first, and thought they were the most stupid men in England. Then he met the mine owners…
Post by: arebelspy on August 31, 2014, 12:24:02 AM
There was a General Strike in England in 1926, which was partly about wages and condition in coal mines. Winston Churchill was a senior politician at the time, and was part of efforts to break the deadlock in talks between miners and mine owners. He said that he met the miners first, and thought they were the most stupid men in England. Then he met the mine owners…
Presumably at the time Mr. Churchill wasn't being paid by the owners, a slight problem we have today regarding politicians...
Post by: tomsang on September 02, 2014, 06:57:40 PM
I for one welcome our new robot overlords ;)
I saw this on yahoo and thought of your quote!
‘Robot overlords’: Coming our way soon?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101962796
Post by: tomsang on September 04, 2014, 11:21:24 PM
his "device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8#ixzz3CPpGmri1
I like the bluntness of this guy.
Post by: theadvicist on September 05, 2014, 08:20:30 AM
I have a question, and it might well be a very stupid one, but here goes: What is the exact difference between a robot and a machine? Eg. newspapers are printed by machine, I'm sure we've all seen video footage of that. But cars are now being built by robots. What makes them robots and not machines, and the printing press a machine and not a robot? Are all robots also machines, but not all machines robots?
Post by: matchewed on September 05, 2014, 11:04:24 AM
This is a really interesting thread!
I have a question, and it might well be a very stupid one, but here goes: What is the exact difference between a robot and a machine? Eg. newspapers are printed by machine, I'm sure we've all seen video footage of that. But cars are now being built by robots. What makes them robots and not machines, and the printing press a machine and not a robot? Are all robots also machines, but not all machines robots?
More of a semantic discussion than anything. But in general a robot would be defined as (if you go by wikipedia) a machine which is made in such a way as to duplicate a specific function of a human or animal. Basically a mechanical version of something we already have; arms, legs...etc.
A machine is a tool that does an action but may not replicate a specific human or animal function.
Or for more examples - robot.
(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT_buRtMjNVBZbOUAGOMYqwCeENg72lgkjdrHj-fD3aszSJ_PaZUg)
Machine
(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQmfa7sexq7ctMDnmS5Pt5o6qh4dhlxgBgJ4xW34wLQy24uZWLf)
One will be very intuitively understood what function it serves. The other... probably not.
Post by: theadvicist on September 08, 2014, 01:45:52 AM
Post by: tomsang on September 11, 2014, 09:49:49 PM
http://www.wisebread.com/robots-will-take-over-these-5-jobs-soon-is-one-of-them-yours
Post by: tomsang on September 13, 2014, 09:53:19 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/nancy-pelosi-civilization-know-jeopardy-124400035.html
Big claims, but as others mentioned Robots will improve GDP and the quality of life but the question is where do those benefits reside. Will all tides rise or will robots be used to benefit the 1% and be used to protect them from the 99%. The laws that are written today will impact how the technological advances benefit society in the future. Thoughts on the types of laws that should be made?
Post by: tomsang on September 17, 2014, 08:14:29 AM
http://io9.com/10-horrifying-technologies-that-should-never-be-allowed-1635238363
Post by: jordanread on September 17, 2014, 10:11:28 AM
Interesting and scary article about technology.
http://io9.com/10-horrifying-technologies-that-should-never-be-allowed-1635238363
I'm always torn when I see articles like this. Some of the questions need to be addressed for sure, but I don't think that potential for misuse is a reason to not pursue something. I suppose when it comes to technology, I'm a bit of an optimist. I believe that technology can be part of a drastic change that could really make things a hell of a lot better (and considering how good we have it now...that's saying something). Could it be worse, too? Absolutely. As I'm typing this, I just had a thought:
So sometimes the argument is that the collective 'we' shouldn't pursue a technology, because there is the potential that 'they' could misuse it, and cause massive and irreparable harm. However, 'we' not pursuing it doesn't necessarily mean 'they' won't. Now it's beginning to sound like justification for an arms race, which bugs me, but I think my brain is trying to take me down the path that 'we' might as well get the good things out of technology, instead of being run by fear. Granted, for this to work, there needs to be a shift in thinking. We are still caught up in this imperialist mind set. This us against the world style thinking (and it doesn't really matter who you are, or what criteria you use to define 'us', I haven't found very many exceptions to this rule). I think big-picture thinking will have to win out. We need to realize we are all part of a whole, and doing something that benefits all of us...well, that is where the benefits of technology will truly shine. Fear is an awful reason to [not] act. That gets people stuck in ruts. Kind of reminds me of the study with the monkeys, the ladder, and the hose.
What do you think?
[...]
Will all tides rise or will robots be used to benefit the 1% and be used to protect them from the 99%. [...]
I think this ties in with the shift in thinking I mentioned above. Did you read the Manna story upthread? This doesn't quite go the route I think we should go, but it does draw some interesting comparisons with two separate 'entities', one in which profits and benefits go to the 1%, and one in which a more global thought pattern is addressed.
As far as the laws go, I don't hold out much hope, or put much stake in it truly effecting technology (maybe only how quickly it comes to benefit people). I mean, we still can't even agree that the Internet should be common carrier...but that's neither here nor there. I don't think any government can truly keep up with technology, so I think we currently need to make sure we police ourselves, and use the power we do have to ensure things don't go all crazy.
Just general musings first thing in the morning.
Post by: jordanread on September 17, 2014, 01:30:37 PM
http://intelligence.org/2013/09/12/how-well-will-policy-makers-handle-agi-initial-findings/ (http://intelligence.org/2013/09/12/how-well-will-policy-makers-handle-agi-initial-findings/).
Post by: tomsang on September 20, 2014, 11:31:36 AM
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/09/19/mcdonalds-tablets-automate-ordering-living-wage-fight/
Interesting watch this play out.
Post by: tomsang on September 22, 2014, 05:05:33 PM
https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/mercedes-benz-reveals-future-truck-2025--the-optimus-prime-of-self-driving-semis-204305500.html
Post by: Cyrano on September 22, 2014, 05:39:06 PM
Post by: ch12 on September 26, 2014, 02:40:58 PM
http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/Public_Sector/The_Great_Decoupling?cid=mckq50-eml-alt-mkq-mck-oth-1409
Some of it's fluff, to be sure, and not new to most people who are on this thread. Still, it's an enjoyable and relatively short article.
Post by: Albert on September 27, 2014, 07:59:32 AM
Mercedes newest self driving trucks! It will be interesting to see how quickly they displace the current drivers.
https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/mercedes-benz-reveals-future-truck-2025--the-optimus-prime-of-self-driving-semis-204305500.html
The question is will they for legal reasons ever be allowed to have no human in the truck at all (driving or not). Until that is a case there is no reduction in employment.
Post by: tomsang on September 27, 2014, 08:54:58 AM
The question is will they for legal reasons ever be allowed to have no human in the truck at all (driving or not). Until that is a case there is no reduction in employment.
Four years ago it was illegal to have an autonomous car. Today it is legal in four states. Google's newest car has no steering wheel nor pedals. There have been two reported accidents after 700,000 miles of driving. In one accident the car was rear ended while stopped at a stoplight and the other accident was when the car was being driven manually. Both obviously were human error. The most likely scenario will be that it will be illegal to drive a car manually in a few decades as it is too dangerous.
When you have freight and people moving around with no accidents nor breaks the laws will follow. There is nothing safe about human drivers.
I would predict that within 10 years that it will be legal in all 50 states and within 25 years it will be illegal to drive your own car. Your grandchildren will think it is crazy that people used to manually control an object weighing thousands of pounds moving 60 miles an hour. Very unsafe!!!
Post by: Leisured on September 27, 2014, 08:59:26 AM
This has all happened before; it is known as feudalism. As advanced machines take over jobs, the ‘nobles’, that is people, extract an unearned income from the peasants and workers, who are now machines. Feudalism Phase 1 emerged in the ancient world thousands of years ago. Feudalism Phase 2 will emerge within ten years, where all humans are regarded as ’nobles’, and who generally do not work, and machines take the place of peasants and workers. I have mentioned this many times before. Why is this hard to understand?
In Mississippi in 1800 sugar planters harvested sugar cane with slave labor. In 1900 they used paid labor. Now they use machines. Slave labor, paid labor and machines are interchangeable. We do not want slave labor, and we will in the future prefer machines to paid labor. Why is this hard to understand?
Consider Jane Austen’s novels, where landowners drew an unearned income from owning land, and other investments. Earning an income from owning land was regarded as a ‘legitimate’ way of drawing an income, and still does. You will notice that I use the word ‘draw’ rather than the word ‘earn’. The day will come when drawing an income from taxing robots will also be regarded as a legitimate way of drawing an income.
This has been known to science, as a long term matter, since the fifties. Are people clever enough to understand these matters, or will these matters turn out to be an intelligence test which only a minority will understand? Science offers all people in the world the opportunity to move up to the noble level, in time. Will they even understand what is on offer?
Post by: matchewed on September 27, 2014, 09:59:47 AM
This has all happened before; it is known as feudalism. As advanced machines take over jobs, the ‘nobles’, that is people, extract an unearned income from the peasants and workers, who are now machines. Feudalism Phase 1 emerged in the ancient world thousands of years ago. Feudalism Phase 2 will emerge within ten years, where all humans are regarded as ’nobles’, and who generally do not work, and machines take the place of peasants and workers. I have mentioned this many times before. Why is this hard to understand?
In Mississippi in 1800 sugar planters harvested sugar cane with slave labor. In 1900 they used paid labor. Now they use machines. Slave labor, paid labor and machines are interchangeable. We do not want slave labor, and we will in the future prefer machines to paid labor. Why is this hard to understand?
Consider Jane Austen’s novels, where landowners drew an unearned income from owning land, and other investments. Earning an income from owning land was regarded as a ‘legitimate’ way of drawing an income, and still does. You will notice that I use the word ‘draw’ rather than the word ‘earn’. The day will come when drawing an income from taxing robots will also be regarded as a legitimate way of drawing an income.
This has been known to science, as a long term matter, since the fifties. Are people clever enough to understand these matters, or will these matters turn out to be an intelligence test which only a minority will understand? Science offers all people in the world the opportunity to move up to the noble level, in time. Will they even understand what is on offer?
Let's take this one paragraph at a time. First, it is not a guarantee that what has happened will happen again. That is just a claim you are making. Your analogy isn't hard to understand, some people just happen to disagree with it. Your premise that all people will suddenly turn into nobility is just an assumption. If you disagree with the assumption then you don't necessarily come to the same conclusion.
I totally agree that we'll use machines in the future. That isn't hard to understand. And I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that premise.
In order to tax the robots, as you put it, they will need to be earning wages. Or you're just working off of a corporate tax. Well if no actual people have jobs, who's buying the stuff that is required for the corporations to pay the taxes? Whether you say draw or earn is meaningless. The money has to originate from somewhere, it doesn't magically appear. Money is exchanged for labor, when people no longer labor where do they get their money?
What has been known to science? Could you lay out the unspoken theory or hypothesis you're referring too? Looking back at history is not necessarily science but history. Science is done with repeat experiments and doesn't offer anything other than pure knowledge, it is how people choose to use knowledge that makes the world. There is no guarantee for the fuzzy happy land picture you're painting.
Post by: tomsang on October 23, 2014, 02:45:18 PM
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2014/10/21/new-boeing-777x-wing-plant-a-lot-of-automated.html?page=all
"If you think that Boeing's new 1.3 million-square-foot 777X wing plant will be teeming with Boeing workers, think again."
I have seen the automation. Very impressive in accuracy, lack of downtime, and elimination of employees.
Post by: tomsang on October 25, 2014, 10:22:17 AM
Elon Musk says "AI is like summoning the demon"
Interesting comments from a tech guy that has a completely automated factory.
Post by: MoneyCat on October 25, 2014, 02:22:39 PM
Post by: arebelspy on October 25, 2014, 03:47:29 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
Hoard my cash? Why wouldn't I invest it in all those companies that are going to be making all the money? Seems smarter to own some of those than be part of the labor...
Post by: ch12 on October 25, 2014, 05:43:35 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
Hoard my cash? Why wouldn't I invest it in all those companies that are going to be making all the money? Seems smarter to own some of those than be part of the labor...
+1
Two sides: ones who own the robots and the ones who are displaced by the robots. I choose to own. Thanks for reminding me to go do my homework on that. I'm invested in a fair amount of software, but I need to look specifically into the top robotics manufacturers.
Post by: jordanread on October 26, 2014, 10:08:14 AM
As far as displacement of workers, though, I think I've decided that given the current structure of things (i.e. a huge wealth gap, an active public market, a consumer-centric society), arebelspy is right in the course of action to take. Mustachians are going to be totally fine. I don't know that any of the '1%' have fully privately held fortunes, so we can completely get our slice of that via owning bits of the companies. Mustachianism for the win!!
Personally, the only thing I would change would be to try to get my hands on one of the 3D house printers (they are still working on it). All of the labor costs go straight into your pocket (minus the discount you provide people), since your costs are so much lower. Other than that, I think I'm solid with my plan. I also think that REITs might wind up being a decent way to go as well (and Vanguard has a fund) as opposed to bonds. Real Estate will only go down when a bubble pops, and those short term things don't matter for us.
Post by: Albert on October 26, 2014, 10:27:39 AM
Post by: rocketpj on October 26, 2014, 11:13:17 AM
I think automation is going to happen, extremely rapidly. I think it has already happened in ways most of us don't really recognize (did anyone send their dictation down to the typing pool to get it entered onto this forum?).
I think some of the professions we currently cannot imagine as possible to automate will be done better by machines. Family doctor seems like one of those things - a single doctor could probably focus on operating dozens or hundreds of patient interfaces, and spend their time dealing with the things that are not immediately obvious to a machine. Really, what percentage of a typical doctor's day is spent dealing with the same sets of problems (flu, colds, bumps and scrapes, minor fractures, headaches). For that matter, I'd bet that most of the 'bad' interactions with the medical system happen when a doctor pigeonholes a particular issue because they've seen it 1000 times already that month.
Almost every profession could be automated in that way - with actual humans getting further away from the point of contact as automation and problem solving improves. Lawyers are similarly doomed - most basic contracts can already be done automatically (if we let ourselves do it). How much of a typical real estate transaction could be done by a bot, if we take a step back and really think about it?
All that said, we are human beings. As humans we instinctively seek to build our 'status', and culturally we do that right now through wealth and displays of wealth. Not all of us, but the vast majority of us. Current trends in automation are likely to dramatically exacerbate wealth inequities, leading to a Gilded Age contrast between ridiculous absurd extremes of ostentation and abject poverty for the majority. Humans being human, the wealthy will convince themselves they are naturally smarter than the rest - especially those who are born into wealth and have no meaningful idea of how the world works.
That system will reach a breaking point fairly quickly (probably a decade or so, rather than the historical century or two it usually takes). I am very curious to see what comes afterwards. What will we do with a society that can and does produce more than enough to keep every human healthy, happy and with all their needs met, but does not really require more than a very few to direct all that production?
In the Victorian era, the wealthy used to spend their time on ostentatiously useless pursuits (i.e. ancient languages, epic poetry, extensive butterfly collections etc.). I suspect we'll do the same. In some ways we already are - it is not a desperately poor person who decides to become an artisanal cheesemaker or make a living selling weird knitting shapes on Etsy.
Post by: Albert on October 26, 2014, 11:46:59 AM
Post by: sol on October 26, 2014, 12:48:54 PM
In the Victorian era, the wealthy used to spend their time on ostentatiously useless pursuits
Like this? http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/watch-google-exec-set-record-near-space-skydive-n233716
Or maybe like this? http://www.yachtingworld.com/blogs/elaine-bunting/428165/keel-surfing-the-story-behind-the-shot
Or how about this? http://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan-and-andrew-maclean/richard-branson-balloon-flight.html
We're already doomed.
Post by: aschmidt2930 on October 26, 2014, 01:55:37 PM
1) We improve education to produce more workers with the skill sets to fill the next gen job.
2) Unemployment rates begin to rise, and tax rates increase to support the percentage of the population who cannot find jobs.
I pick 1.
Post by: Albert on October 26, 2014, 01:57:58 PM
I see two options:
1) We improve education to produce more workers with the skill sets to fill the next gen job.
2) Unemployment rates begin to rise, and tax rates increase to support the percentage of the population who cannot find jobs.
I pick 1.
All this thread is about a hypothetical situation where #1 is impossible. Maybe we are wrong and it never happens, but if it does extra education will not be an answer.
Post by: MoneyCat on October 26, 2014, 02:22:44 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
Hoard my cash? Why wouldn't I invest it in all those companies that are going to be making all the money? Seems smarter to own some of those than be part of the labor...
That's all well and good until the guillotines come out and play.
Post by: arebelspy on October 26, 2014, 08:30:33 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
Hoard my cash? Why wouldn't I invest it in all those companies that are going to be making all the money? Seems smarter to own some of those than be part of the labor...
That's all well and good until the guillotines come out and play.
You think the guillotines will come out for someone holding <1% share of a giant publically traded company?
I'm not so worried.
Post by: tomsang on October 28, 2014, 11:42:01 AM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/not-science-fiction--lowe-s-to-debut-robotic-shopping-assiciates-150411173.html
“The downside is you don’t need a human begin on the floor of your store now if you can do this…” and while there will still be a person in the store assisting via video conference, this means “one human being with a job but there are a lot of human beings who used to be on the floor and now don’t have jobs.”
“If you’re an employer and you look at this OSHbot, which apparently costs $50,000, you're saying a minimum-wage worker plus benefits is maybe going to cost me $25,000 to $30,000-a-year, but this robot is never going to take a sick day, is never going to want to go on vacation…”
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 12:03:46 PM
On Yahoo - Lowe's replacing (some) humans with robotsCool. Maybe the service will improve.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/not-science-fiction--lowe-s-to-debut-robotic-shopping-assiciates-150411173.html
“The downside is you don’t need a human begin on the floor of your store now if you can do this…” and while there will still be a person in the store assisting via video conference, this means “one human being with a job but there are a lot of human beings who used to be on the floor and now don’t have jobs.”
“If you’re an employer and you look at this OSHbot, which apparently costs $50,000, you're saying a minimum-wage worker plus benefits is maybe going to cost me $25,000 to $30,000-a-year, but this robot is never going to take a sick day, is never going to want to go on vacation…”
Post by: AlanStache on October 28, 2014, 12:29:16 PM
On Yahoo - Lowe's replacing (some) humans with robotsCool. Maybe the service will improve.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/not-science-fiction--lowe-s-to-debut-robotic-shopping-assiciates-150411173.html
“The downside is you don’t need a human begin on the floor of your store now if you can do this…” and while there will still be a person in the store assisting via video conference, this means “one human being with a job but there are a lot of human beings who used to be on the floor and now don’t have jobs.”
“If you’re an employer and you look at this OSHbot, which apparently costs $50,000, you're saying a minimum-wage worker plus benefits is maybe going to cost me $25,000 to $30,000-a-year, but this robot is never going to take a sick day, is never going to want to go on vacation…”
I am dubious about the on-board 3d printing part of this but otherwise this will happen. I have no issues with 3d printing in it self and do think it will come to Lowes/HD/etc but would seem better to have that at a fixed point (or two) in the store rather than mobile.
Just hope there is a mute for the adds running on its back, those things at the gas station drive me up a wall.
Post by: VirginiaBob on October 28, 2014, 12:40:05 PM
Post by: MrFancypants on October 28, 2014, 12:49:46 PM
I was reading an article that stated that 1/3 of the jobs in the country are related to transportation. If we were to automate truck driving and loading only, we would lose something like 8.7 million jobs.
I believe this is why changes of this magnitude need to happen slowly so society can adjust. We can't just have 8.7 million people become unemployed over the course of a couple of years and expect it to go well. Converting over 15-20 years would give people time to retool their skills and find a new path.
Either that or provide extremely good unemployment benefits to those who are affected. I suppose increases in efficiency and the associated savings would allow tax rates on transportation companies to increase while still lowering the bottom line. But then again, not increasing taxes could lead to lower prices on the products which are transported, bringing the cost of living for everybody down a bit.
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 01:11:34 PM
So are you saying we should artificially slow down progress because it might be disruptive?I was reading an article that stated that 1/3 of the jobs in the country are related to transportation. If we were to automate truck driving and loading only, we would lose something like 8.7 million jobs.
I believe this is why changes of this magnitude need to happen slowly so society can adjust. We can't just have 8.7 million people become unemployed over the course of a couple of years and expect it to go well. Converting over 15-20 years would give people time to retool their skills and find a new path.
Either that or provide extremely good unemployment benefits to those who are affected. I suppose increases in efficiency and the associated savings would allow tax rates on transportation companies to increase while still lowering the bottom line. But then again, not increasing taxes could lead to lower prices on the products which are transported, bringing the cost of living for everybody down a bit.
Post by: MrFancypants on October 28, 2014, 01:38:57 PM
So are you saying we should artificially slow down progress because it might be disruptive?
Basically, yes.
Converting our transportation services to automated may ultimately be a net positive. But losing 8.7 million jobs over a short period of time, and not trying to draw it out a bit to allow for the landscape to compensate, becomes a huge negative.
8.7 million jobs and their families.... that's in the tens of millions of people who are now without income and struggling to survive. Add a charismatic and convincing leader and that's the stuff that violent revolutions are made of. Because the advice of "pull up your bootstraps and get to lookin' for another job" doesn't work when there are 8.7 million people competing with you for the few jobs that may actually be available.
I'm not saying stand on the brakes and prevent progress. I'm just saying that it needs to be carefully measured.
Post by: LibrarIan on October 28, 2014, 02:28:01 PM
So are you saying we should artificially slow down progress because it might be disruptive?
Basically, yes.
Converting our transportation services to automated may ultimately be a net positive. But losing 8.7 million jobs over a short period of time, and not trying to draw it out a bit to allow for the landscape to compensate, becomes a huge negative.
8.7 million jobs and their families.... that's in the tens of millions of people who are now without income and struggling to survive. Add a charismatic and convincing leader and that's the stuff that violent revolutions are made of. Because the advice of "pull up your bootstraps and get to lookin' for another job" doesn't work when there are 8.7 million people competing with you for the few jobs that may actually be available.
I'm not saying stand on the brakes and prevent progress. I'm just saying that it needs to be carefully measured.
This.
Post by: arebelspy on October 28, 2014, 02:45:23 PM
Post by: MrFancypants on October 28, 2014, 02:49:35 PM
I'm not sure I agree. Countries that are willing to go through the painful transition will rocket ahead of those that won't.
Right, but there's a difference between "painful transition" and "suicide."
We have to trust that the people with the information to make rational decisions are making the right ones.
I couldn't tell you what the exact right balance is here. I don't know how fast too fast is because I'm not that smart. But I do know that there is such a thing as "too fast."
Post by: AlanStache on October 28, 2014, 03:06:46 PM
I'm not sure I agree. Countries that are willing to go through the painful transition will rocket ahead of those that won't.
Right, but there's a difference between "painful transition" and "suicide."
We have to trust that the people with the information to make informed decisions are making the right ones.
I couldn't tell you what the exact right balance is here. I don't know how fast too fast is because I'm not that smart. But I do know that there is such a thing as "too fast."
Not just countries but also states and city's.
From a practical point of view I would favor helping those displaced (among others) rather than govt trying to control the pace of innovation. Mykl-maybe I am just more cynical than you, dont know what govt you live within, but I have little confidence Uncle Sam could ease the transition to an automated/AI economy if it wanted to and it only takes a minority group in one of our two parties to stop everything (see Tea Party) and given both parties are largely controlled by Mega-Corp who would (in the short term at least) profit from AI I just cant see our leaders directing a slow down of tech innovation. (sorry for run on).
Post by: MrFancypants on October 28, 2014, 03:17:16 PM
Not just countries but also states and city's.
From a practical point of view I would favor helping those displaced (among others) rather than govt trying to control the pace of innovation. Mykl-maybe I am just more cynical than you, dont know what govt you live within, but I have little confidence Uncle Sam could ease the transition to an automated/AI economy if it wanted to and it only takes a minority group in one of our two parties to stop everything (see Tea Party) and given both parties are largely controlled by Mega-Corp who would (in the short term at least) profit from AI I just cant see our leaders directing a slow down of tech innovation. (sorry for run on).
Traditionally I believe this is done via the application of taxes on whatever it is you want to see slowed down. Trying to legislate a slow down of technical innovation seems like a losing idea, generally speaking. Except in this case, legislation might actually be useful.... requiring these companies to keep a warm body in the automated truck in case of emergencies could preserve jobs for a while to ease the transition. This could also be useful in that it would build public trust of this technology, because I'm guessing the average person might be a little leery of the idea of driverless freight trucks at first.
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 03:21:09 PM
So are you saying we should artificially slow down progress because it might be disruptive?
Basically, yes.
Converting our transportation services to automated may ultimately be a net positive. But losing 8.7 million jobs over a short period of time, and not trying to draw it out a bit to allow for the landscape to compensate, becomes a huge negative.
8.7 million jobs and their families.... that's in the tens of millions of people who are now without income and struggling to survive. Add a charismatic and convincing leader and that's the stuff that violent revolutions are made of. Because the advice of "pull up your bootstraps and get to lookin' for another job" doesn't work when there are 8.7 million people competing with you for the few jobs that may actually be available.
I'm not saying stand on the brakes and prevent progress. I'm just saying that it needs to be carefully measured.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing the impact of it. I agree wholeheartedly. The only thing I don't think is realistic is slowing it down as a solution. These types of disruptions are going to come faster and faster as technology advances. I don't think slowing things down would work, though. I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and I'm not sure what the best way to manage this would be. However, here is kind of what I've come up with as far as why slowing things down wouldn't really work (I think).
The publicly run companies couldn't just wait to implement this (assuming it wasn't cost-prohibitive) in the current system. They have a responsibility to their stake-holders to increase the bottom line, and there is no actual argument that this technology wouldn't do it (hence the reason it's such an issue). If our current driverless cars are any indication, just the reduction in accidents would be worth it. But let's put that aside. Let's say that all the companies choose not to implement this policy. The 8.7M figure is for american companies (I assume). What about the rest of the world? Even if 90% of the producers decided to not do this, that remaining 10% would have such decreased costs that they would very quickly start grabbing up a good chunk of that market share. I'd think something like 5-15% per year.
I'd have to dig through some of my available data to attempt to find something resembling a historical precedent, but even those numbers wouldn't necessarily be accurate due to the increased speed in which we can roll something like this out. So I'm pretty much pulling these numbers out of my ass, but conservatively.
Then what happens? Profits for the companies abstaining from this new technology would take a major financial hit, and have to do layoffs. The people are out of the job anyway, but the stakeholders suffer, and the entire market would probably be negatively effected as well. That would start screwing with a much larger number of people (mainly non-mustachians who pay attention to the short term).
And all of this would happen pretty damn quickly, too.
And all that is assuming that the first step would be taken to begin with. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't happen out of some type of understanding of the issues and the desire to prevent that from happening (there isn't any profit in it) which would leave us with essentially two options that I can see. First, the consumer of products uses the power of their wallet to make a difference. The problem with this is that people have been historically shitty at doing this. Otherwise, once wal-mart started reducing the quality of their merchandise in order to increase profit margins, people would have stopped. When people were outraged over Nike using sweatshops (at least I think it was Nike), they took a small hit, completely disproportionate to the amount of 'outrage' over it. And they are still around today. Second, the government steps in. How a bill of any kind gets through the partisan bullshit going on in Washington is anyone's guess, but I'm pretty sure it has very little to do with the good of the people. And besides, it would never happen quick enough to actually stop anything. But let's say somehow it does happen, what would that look like? I think the most realistic thing would be an extra tax on those using the new tech. Perhaps some type of new CDL-A tax credit, so that money gets back to those directly impacted. I'm going to do some back of the napkin math real quick.
Let's just say that the tax rebate for out of work drivers is the median (although I doubt it would get much past minimum wage). It's currently $51K/pa (http://www.indeed.com/salary/Truck-Driver.html). Let's just round that to $50K.
Now let's look at how many people would be directly affected (immediate family). A quick google search (https://www.google.com/search?q=average+household+size+united+states&rlz=1C1KAFB_enUS603US603&oq=average+household+size&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.6690j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8)shows that it is 2.55. So 8.7M * 2.55 = 22,185,000.
Now there are currently 177,199,652 registered voters, and while the gov't reports show a much smaller number, some places on the first page of google results state that 40% of registered voters don't vote, leaving 106,319,791 people who would vote. That means that even if everyone directly affected by the layoffs did vote, that is slightly less than 21%. With all of the noise about entitlements and raising the minimum wage (for the first time in 5 years), could you really expect the additional 29% of the needed votes? I just don't think it would happen at $15K (minimum wage), let alone the median of $50K.
Post by: zoltani on October 28, 2014, 03:22:30 PM
http://www.bunkerportsnews.com/News.aspx?ElementId=89d0c983-0d2e-4824-b06f-9d17f94f90f5
In this case, AFAIK, the US is already being surpassed by asia as far as port efficiency and automation goes. They make our ports look like they are stuck in the stone age.
Good or bad? Who knows, I certainly do not.
Post by: Albert on October 28, 2014, 04:03:33 PM
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 04:31:16 PM
Isn't it a bit different in this case? A new legislation is needed which would allow driverless trucks on public roads instead of the other way around.
Now that is an interesting direction I didn't think of. Granted, we already have 4 states that allow it. I think it'll probably get approved just because people will want it for personal use. Shit, I know I do. Plus those cars are better at dealing with bikes than actual drivers. As long as you are bigger than a squirrel...you're good.
Granted, after a touch more research, for the most part it's not actually illegal, just because the laws didn't envision it. The 4 states I mentioned above have laws that specifically mention autonomous vehicles. And apparently my for-the-most-part-awesome state actually rejected it last year. Grrr.
Post by: MrFancypants on October 28, 2014, 04:46:28 PM
So are you saying we should artificially slow down progress because it might be disruptive?
...
Just wanted to say that I read your post, and it's well reasoned, and I don't really have much to respond with.
Regarding what Albert just said.... he has a good point.
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 05:24:22 PM
Just wanted to say that I read your post, and it's well reasoned, and I don't really have much to respond with.
Regarding what Albert just said.... he has a good point.
Damn. I was looking for some other ideas. :-) This has become a kind of passion for me lately. These changes are going to happen more and more often. I can't help but think that there are only two ways it's going to go. The oligarchy are going to use this to essentially create a slave state. Now, as much as I am convinced that people for the most part are dumb enough to fall for this, I know that the person for the most part is smart enough not to, and it's just a matter of not allowing the herd mentality to take over. The other side is going to be a major shift in society. It's a move towards, if not necessarily post-scarcity, something close to it. Something where your time is more valuable than your stuff, mostly because the cost of stuff is so low. Now, the idea of post-scarcity is such a fundamental shift that it won't happen all at once. People aren't smart enough for that drastic of a move. Once we get rid of the idea of 'entitlements' and the associated stigma, it won't be such a huge jump to just assume that basic needs are going to be handled, whether that be from your state, your federal government, or some type of community. It's some interesting times that we live in, and I really look forward to watching this all play out.
One of the things that really made my start down this track is the Manna story. Mykl, have you read it?
Post by: The Architect on October 28, 2014, 05:55:00 PM
Personally, the only thing I would change would be to try to get my hands on one of the 3D house printers (they are still working on it). All of the labor costs go straight into your pocket (minus the discount you provide people), since your costs are so much lower.
I'm of the opinion that much news about 3d printing is overblown hype. I've seen the video demonstrations of the whole-house 3d printers, they're slow and still require human intervention to build the foundation, route mechanical, install windows & doors, apply finishes, and etc; in addition to the constant baby-sitting and maintenance. Basically it can only replace the framing, which is basically the shortest part of any build when you're using people to do the building. Replacing the shortest portion of the build time with a long, energy-intensive, printing time doesn't sound like money gained to me. Then you'd still need to pay someone to make the 3d model - much building today is *not* done with proper 3d models for printing. I suppose setting that up for a few limited models or modular construction elements wouldn't be that hard, but it's still a cost.
Using a 3d printer/robot to build a foundation would be great, if someone could figure out how to automate digging, mechanical connection placement, and reinforce the concrete while pouring it. You'd save on site positioning, loads of labor, waste material in form-works, and maybe time since if machine could go 24/7. There might need to be some more tech that doesn't exist yet for that to happen though - I'm not sure how the machine would position itself to the globe, and goodness help you if your CAD tech drew the thing wrong.
One of the printers I've seen can't even build a whole house yet, it must build fairly small pieces which are then hoisted into place later. Structurally insulated panels are probably a better bet and have been in use for years now.
Post by: jordanread on October 28, 2014, 06:33:20 PM
That's a very real possibility. Granted, I don't look at how 3D printing is portrayed in the media, so it probably is over hyped. That being said, the potential and the things that are actively being worked on could already change how we build, but we only have proofs of concept at this point. Also bear in mind that I'm not talking about the ridiculously fragile style of building that seems to be the norm, I'm talking about construction methods that capitalize on the technology (and are way better by any measure). Even the open source CNC plans would reduce costs by a huge margin.Personally, the only thing I would change would be to try to get my hands on one of the 3D house printers (they are still working on it). All of the labor costs go straight into your pocket (minus the discount you provide people), since your costs are so much lower.
I'm of the opinion that much news about 3d printing is overblown hype. I've seen the video demonstrations of the whole-house 3d printers, they're slow and still require human intervention to build the foundation, route mechanical, install windows & doors, apply finishes, and etc; in addition to the constant baby-sitting and maintenance. Basically it can only replace the framing, which is basically the shortest part of any build when you're using people to do the building. Replacing the shortest portion of the build time with a long, energy-intensive, printing time doesn't sound like money gained to me. Then you'd still need to pay someone to make the 3d model - much building today is *not* done with proper 3d models for printing. I suppose setting that up for a few limited models or modular construction elements wouldn't be that hard, but it's still a cost.
Using a 3d printer/robot to build a foundation would be great, if someone could figure out how to automate digging, mechanical connection placement, and reinforce the concrete while pouring it. You'd save on site positioning, loads of labor, waste material in form-works, and maybe time since if machine could go 24/7. There might need to be some more tech that doesn't exist yet for that to happen though - I'm not sure how the machine would position itself to the globe, and goodness help you if your CAD tech drew the thing wrong.
One of the printers I've seen can't even build a whole house yet, it must build fairly small pieces which are then hoisted into place later. Structurally insulated panels are probably a better bet and have been in use for years now.
Post by: Leisured on October 28, 2014, 10:31:17 PM
Matchewed asked: ‘Money is exchanged for labor, when people no longer labor where do they get their money?’
I did comment on this. Being paid for labor is seen as a ‘legitimate’ form of making money – understandably. Receiving rents and dividends from investments is also seen as legitimate. If advanced machinery – or robots if you prefer – take most jobs in the future, then taxing companies and distributing this tax as income will have to be seen as a legitimate way of receiving an income.
Thomas Paine, late eighteenth century, suggested the idea of a basic income, and regarded everyone in a nation as entitled to a share of the bounty of nature, regardless of whether they owned land or not. Today, advanced machinery provides a bounty of machine production, and it is inappropriate for people not to share in this bounty just because they do not own the means of production.
Such an idea is a major economic change, but not a major economic problem. The problem is political and social. People have to accept that advanced machinery can promote them to what is, in effect, a rentier class. In my previous post, I suggested this would be Feudalism 2, where machines take the place of flesh and blood serfs, and all people in a nation are seen as belonging to the rentier class. People, workers and business people alike, can choose to allow this to happen, or they can choose to foul things up.
I expect that in the long term, Feudalism 2 will emerge.
Post by: Leisured on October 28, 2014, 11:18:30 PM
I have written elsewhere that automation can promote everyone in a society to what is, in effect, a rentier class. This would be Feudalism 2, where machines take the place of flesh and blood serfs and workers, and all people in a nation are seen as belonging to the rentier class. Science writers sketched these ideas in the sixties, when I became aware of them. It was seen as a long term project. I assumed at that time that people would be attracted to this possibility, but I now see that even an attractive change still needs acts of political will. People can choose to support Feudalism 2, or choose to support the idea of Business As Usual, which may include Myki’s idea of slowing or even stopping automation. I saw a quote recently: ‘The Luddites were not wrong, just two hundred years too early’.
The future may see a two level world, the intelligent and scientifically knowledgeable minority living in Feudalism 2, and the majority living in Business As Usual – by choice.
Post by: MrFancypants on October 29, 2014, 08:01:29 AM
People can choose to support Feudalism 2, or choose to support the idea of Business As Usual, which may include Myki’s idea of slowing or even stopping automation. I saw a quote recently: ‘The Luddites were not wrong, just two hundred years too early’.
Whoa, easy there.... please don't misrepresent my argument.
The word "stop" is nowhere to be found in anything I have to say about the subject. I am entirely for progress, I see the benefits of automation, and I am all for it. We absolutely should NOT stop moving forward.
I'm only suggesting that we try to be smart about it. Try to do it in a way, and at a pace that minimizes the pain of transition.
Post by: VirginiaBob on October 29, 2014, 12:39:51 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
One of my coworkers says the same thing about why he doesn't invest in the stock market, and hoards his cash in bonds. He believes that we are approaching the 300 year life of our country and we are going to fall soon just like the Roman Empire did. I always respond and say, if true, what good will having all your money in government bonds from the soon to be former United States of America? Heck, at least my money is invested in companies that do business Internationally that aren't necessarily tied to any particular country.
Post by: jordanread on October 29, 2014, 03:30:42 PM
Robots will inevitably take over almost all unskilled and then skilled jobs. The numbers of unemployed will increase and wages will decrease due to the massive labor pool. At that point, pressure will build until there is revolt. A lot of people will get hurt. It's happened before and will happen again. The current era reminds me a lot of what I've read about the "Gilded Age" from the late 1800s-early 1900s. Hoard your cash because it's all going to come tumbling down again.
One of my coworkers says the same thing about why he doesn't invest in the stock market, and hoards his cash in bonds. He believes that we are approaching the 300 year life of our country and we are going to fall soon just like the Roman Empire did. I always respond and say, if true, what good will having all your money in government bonds from the soon to be former United States of America? Heck, at least my money is invested in companies that do business Internationally that aren't necessarily tied to any particular country.
My initial reaction when people say stuff like "You should hoard cash/gold/silver/bonds/diamonds because XXXXXX is going to come crashing down", my initial thought is that regardless of what comes crashing down, one should always hoard toilet paper and recreational drugs. Those will be way better than cash. :-)
I'm going to break down your comment below Leisured, since there are a couple of things I want to address specifically. Overall, I think we are pretty much on the same page, but for some reason, I really don't like your verbiage (rentiers and Feudalism 2). I'll try to figure out why as I respond point by point. Also, as I respond point by point, bear in mind that I'm not talking about "eventually". I am of the opinion that eventually stuff will happen, and it will be awesome or it will suck. This philosophy has been right 100% of the time, so I'm sticking with it ;-).
My main concern, and where I come from, is what Mykl touched on: How to manage the transition. The transition will happen, but how it happens is more important than anything else. In Mustachian terms, it's control vs. concern. I'm not in control of the eventual outcome, because the transition has to happen first, and that is what I can have an influence on.
And I'm going to do it in a separate post.
Post by: Leisured on October 31, 2014, 04:59:53 AM
On further thought, I will push beyond your position, Myki, and suggest that, for many people, a neo Luddite society is not as silly as it sounds. I have already suggested a two level world, where a minority lives in an advanced, automated society, and a majority lives in a Business As Usual society, with restrictions on automation.
In twenty years, the BRIC countries, (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will live roughly near the level we do now. Sweeping automation will affect existing rich countries, and BRIC countries, at about the same time, so all these countries will be in the same boat. Faced with mass starvation because so many people are out of work, society has two choices. A huge income redistribution scheme, as suggested by Cyrano in Sept; or a neo Luddite scheme, winding back automation to, say, the 1980 level. This latter approach will include outlawing driverless vehicles.
Now comes the interesting part. There is no need to limit advances in medicine, because medical advance has little effect on employment. There is no need to limit technical advance in improving the aerodynamic efficiency of vehicles, including aircraft, nor is there any need to limit technical advance in wind and solar power.
I have spent most of my working life in the science industry, and have come to believe that most people do not care much about science and technology, and are not averse to limiting technical advance in select industries, if such limits would solve social problems.
Post by: Leisured on October 31, 2014, 05:03:36 AM
Jordanread, you do not like my terms; ‘Feudalism 2’, and ‘rentier’. I am not thrilled by these terms either, but we do need descriptors. Under Feudalism 1, a thousand years ago, a lord might seize some agricultural land, with its serfs, from another lord, and become a rentier. The serfs grow wheat and sell it, paying a share to the lord as rent. Under Feudalism 2, all people in a society become ‘lords’ and ‘force’ robots and other advanced machinery to work for them, so becoming ‘rentiers’. Functionally, Feudalism 2 is almost identical to Feudalism 1, which is why I use the term Feudalism 2. Do not let these terms bother you.
I am Australian, and know that Americans can be sensitive to these ideas, believing, correctly, that America has progressed beyond feudalism. America has certainly progressed beyond Feudalism 1, but I have already made the point that there is nothing wrong with feudalism if the flesh and blood serfs and workers are replaced by machines. Hence Feudalism 2.
Post by: jordanread on October 31, 2014, 06:17:05 AM
I am Australian, and know that Americans can be sensitive to these ideas, believing, correctly, that America has progressed beyond feudalism. America has certainly progressed beyond Feudalism 1, but I have already made the point that there is nothing wrong with feudalism if the flesh and blood serfs and workers are replaced by machines. Hence Feudalism 2.
I'm glad you commented as you did (I noticed I haven't responded like I initially meant to, so sorry about that). Funnily enough, the thing you mentioned above is absolutely not the reason I have issues with the terms. I think it's along the lines of elevating the machines to something besides tools which people can and do own. I think that is what is rubbing me the wrong way. It's just not a valid comparison, I think. One is not capitalizing on the work done by others, as in feudalism, one is having increased gains of efficiency. The feudalism concept doesn't address the owners of the machines (besides relatively generically). I hope I'm making sense, it's early. :-)
As far as having an issue with feudalism, I always thought Lord Jordan had a nice ring to it.
Post by: Leisured on November 04, 2014, 11:46:49 PM
Thank you for your reply, Jordanread.
Numerically controlled machine tools emerged in the late fifties, and replaced skilled machinists. A numerically controlled machine tool sculpts a metal part from a billet of metal, and so is ‘elevated’, to use your term, to the equivalent of a skilled machinist. Is this a problem? If so, why? Motorized vehicles and farm tractors replaced horses, and horses, if they were able to think about these matters, would regard these machines as being ‘elevated’ to the level of horses.
As advanced machinery displaces human workers, the machinery reminds us that work is just work. This has never bothered me, but I suspect that some people are bothered by the idea that a gadget can replace their work contribution.
You state correctly that feudal lords of old appropriated the production of serfs and workers. Under Feudalism 2, we, the ‘lords’, appropriate the production of machinery. There is no difference. Talk of increased efficiency or productivity is a misunderstanding. Under Feudalism 1, serfs and workers live close to subsistence level, under Feudalism 2, machinery get the fuel, electric power and spare parts they need, and no more. Machinery exists at subsistence level. I see no difference between Feudalism 1 and 2, except that flesh and blood serfs and workers are replaced by machines.
I am glad that you like your promotion to Lord Jordan.
Post by: AlanStache on November 05, 2014, 08:22:36 AM
Quote
You state correctly that feudal lords of old appropriated the production of serfs and workers. Under Feudalism 2, we, the ‘lords’, appropriate the production of machinery. There is no difference. Talk of increased efficiency or productivity is a misunderstanding. Under Feudalism 1, serfs and workers live close to subsistence level, under Feudalism 2, machinery get the fuel, electric power and spare parts they need, and no more. Machinery exists at subsistence level. I see no difference between Feudalism 1 and 2, except that flesh and blood serfs and workers are replaced by machines.
I might quibble with some of this, I suspect 'machines' will be 'given' the resources to 'reproduce', 'evolve' and 'better themselves'. Self improving AI is a current goal of research. But given a power shortage it will likely be the machines whose 'lights' go out and not the humans.
Post by: Leisured on November 06, 2014, 04:52:37 AM
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/WASCUR
25% of US GDP is paid as state, federal and municipal taxes, see link below, first para.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States#State_administrations
If, in the future, technological unemployment reaches 50% and stays there, then nearly half of $7.5 trillion dollars of wages and salaries will be displaced by automation. I know that the unemployed will on average be less well paid than those still in employment. I do not know the discrepancy, so I assume that the Basic Income will replace $3.5 trillion dollars, or 21% of GDP. This sum will have to be raised by a combination of taxes, and when added to the existing 25% of GDP paid in taxes, will drive taxes to 46% of GDP. The Basic Income will replace existing welfare payments and age pension payments, so the actual percentage of GDP paid in taxes will be less than 46%.
The last time the US saw taxes on this scale was during WW2. It is achievable, but will need a stiff dose of political will.
Post by: Chuck on November 06, 2014, 03:08:09 PM
The issue, as in all utopias, is the transition. How do you get legislation through congress to allow the automation of vehicles on federal roads when so many people are truckers? Their unions are a huge bastion of Democratic support. I think it will eventually happen, as with the dockworkers, but it will be slow and they will go screaming.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the next great political divide, since the culture wars are essentially over: The Technocratic Republicans (hopeful for the future but heartless about the present) vs. Luddite Democrats (loath automation because people). That would be one hell of a political shakeup.
Post by: jordanread on November 06, 2014, 05:41:47 PM
Ultimately capital will be in the hands of a few, and most people will subsist upon a basic income collected from those wealthy as taxes. I haven't heard a single endgame scenario that makes even 1/10 as much sense as this.Is that sustainable, though? You mention below that the issue is transition. I don't see anything like this being more than a transition. Do you really think those few would be okay with this setup for long?
The issue, as in all utopias, is the transition. How do you get legislation through congress to allow the automation of vehicles on federal roads when so many people are truckers? Their unions are a huge bastion of Democratic support. I think it will eventually happen, as with the dockworkers, but it will be slow and they will go screaming.I don't think it's going to be that slow. The wonderful thing about the time we live in is that things move a hell of a lot faster than they used to. People comment on the similarities between gay and interracial marriage. There is some interesting data (that I started researching based on an XKCD comic (http://www.xkcd.com/1431/)) that shows that the actual approval rate vs. legalization. While the comparison was fun, what I realized was how much faster we can get things done (at least at the state level) in this day and age. Shit, we already have 4 states that specifically mention automated vehicles.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the next great political divide, since the culture wars are essentially over: The Technocratic Republicans (hopeful for the future but heartless about the present) vs. Luddite Democrats (loath automation because people). That would be one hell of a political shakeup.
That is something that I've never looked at before. It's pretty funny.
Post by: tomsang on November 11, 2014, 09:28:58 AM
"Customers on average are now visiting banks 85% less than they did in 1995, but for every Starbucks in the U.S., there are nine bank branches, and they cost billions to maintain. Big banks like Lloyds and Citibank are responding by announcing the reduction of branches."
This is interesting for many reasons. We have discussed the effect on people, but the other issue relates to commercial real estate. There are many prime expensive commercial locations that become a nuisance vs. the go to profit place. How do you stay on the right side of the tracks? Malls, Banks, Shops, Movie Theaters, Restaurants, and many others could become obsolete in the next 20 years. Thoughts?
Post by: rocketpj on November 11, 2014, 10:06:16 AM
Ultimately capital will be in the hands of a few, and most people will subsist upon a basic income collected from those wealthy as taxes. I haven't heard a single endgame scenario that makes even 1/10 as much sense as this.Is that sustainable, though? You mention below that the issue is transition. I don't see anything like this being more than a transition. Do you really think those few would be okay with this setup for long?
Though we've somehow managed to forget it here in North America over the last few decades, taxes are arguably a form of wealth insurance for the rich. Look at some of the other countries in the world for examples: In most countries with massive concentration of wealth and a huge number of people in poverty, the rich spend a lot of time and money maintaining security guards, avoiding being kidnapped and otherwise being afraid of the people.
The few will no doubt complain mightily about having to pay any taxes at all, that is what people do - especially those with lots of money. But they might we more willing to pay taxes than to be paying ransom for their kids every couple of years.
An example from Vancouver. Violent crime is very low in Vancouver (a few drug dealers kill each other once in awhile, but that's about it). For a city of >2 million, it has very little violence. What it does have is a highly concentrated group of homeless, mentally ill addicts living on the streets in the 'Downtown East Side'. It's a really apocalyptic neighbourhood. Not dangerous necessarily, but very uncomfortable to pass through. Lots of desperate people means lots of petty property crime.
I used to live a few blocks from the worst of it (some of the best neighbourhoods are nearby). It was a rule of thumb - never leave anything in plain view in your car. Never, ever, leave your home unlocked. If you leave a bike outside, use at least two heavy duty locks - and don't leave it overnight. Property insurance was relatively quite high (my contents insurance on my 2nd floor apt was higher than my total insurance on a 1400 sq. ft house now). Vehicle insurance was 50% higher than I am currently paying, mostly because of break-ins. Lots of things just are not covered by insurance - basically anything that gets left outside and is not heavy.
Now, I'd much prefer to pay higher taxes that go towards effective mental health, addictions and housing support than pay higher home insurance and still have my house broken into several times (5 in total over 2 homes). I am not rich, but I would see those taxes as wealth insurance - much better and with a lower deductible than my home and car insurance were.
Before anyone leaps to stereotypes about homeless, mentally ill and addicted people, I should caution that I used to work in that field and not one of us would ever want to change places with one of them - especially not their early life.
Basically, those few would have to be OK with supporting the rest with a basic income, or the rest would end up just taking it - one way or another.
Post by: sol on November 11, 2014, 10:11:48 AM
but for every Starbucks in the U.S., there are nine bank branches, and they cost billions to maintain. Big banks like Lloyds and Citibank are responding by announcing the reduction of branches."
This was a huge flap back in the 90s about how ATMs were going to cause an economic recession because all of the bank tellers would suddenly be unemployed. It was just another case of "robots are stealing our jobs". I'm totally fine with 80% of those bank branches closing down. I visit a physical bank about twice a year.
Quote
the other issue relates to commercial real estate. There are many prime expensive commercial locations that become a nuisance vs. the go to profit place. How do you stay on the right side of the tracks? Malls, Banks, Shops, Movie Theaters, Restaurants, and many others could become obsolete in the next 20 years. Thoughts?
I agree this is a huge problem. We have a vast and complex urban infrastructure designed around physically visiting brick and mortar stores, usually by car. As most of those stores become obsolete, either because their services have been replaced by robots or their products are easier to obtain online or from a big box store, many downtown urban cores are turning into wastelands.
There's an obvious answer, though: housing. Downtown cores have available pre-built real estate with profitable densities, easy access to the remaining shops and restaurants, and good public transportation. I think we should be rehabbing those empty buildings into condos. And while we're at it, let's turn all of that useless asphalt parking space into microparks.
Post by: anisotropy on November 11, 2014, 11:55:58 AM
Humans need not apply ! It's coming for all of us ! weeeeee
Post by: arebelspy on November 12, 2014, 07:08:42 AM
but for every Starbucks in the U.S., there are nine bank branches, and they cost billions to maintain. Big banks like Lloyds and Citibank are responding by announcing the reduction of branches."
This was a huge flap back in the 90s about how ATMs were going to cause an economic recession because all of the bank tellers would suddenly be unemployed. It was just another case of "robots are stealing our jobs". I'm totally fine with 80% of those bank branches closing down. I visit a physical bank about twice a year.
And that twice a year will be like visiting the DMV. Since there will be so few branches, the lines will be long.
And it probably won't save you anything, but will just add extra profit into the owners pockets.
I'm okay with it too though. Just won't be too fun.
Post by: Albert on November 12, 2014, 11:36:27 AM
This is interesting for many reasons. We have discussed the effect on people, but the other issue relates to commercial real estate. There are many prime expensive commercial locations that become a nuisance vs. the go to profit place. How do you stay on the right side of the tracks? Malls, Banks, Shops, Movie Theaters, Restaurants, and many others could become obsolete in the next 20 years. Thoughts?
Not at all what I observe here and I live in a rich country too. Our downtown is still very much a go to place for entertainment, eating and shopping (upscale, but not exclusively). Apartments in the old town are very expensive. As for a more distant future malls and banks might diminish, but place for entertainment including restaurants will not. In fact I expect even more of that in prime locations.
Post by: tomsang on November 19, 2014, 12:44:23 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/welcome-aboard-you-must-go-to-the-bar-with-the-102936190122.html
Post by: tomsang on December 02, 2014, 12:48:15 PM
‘Artificial Intelligence Could Spell The End Of The Human Race’
If we can make robots smarter than humans, they can out-invent human researchers and out-manipulate human leaders, “developing weapons we cannot even understand,” in Hawking’s words.
Post by: jordanread on December 02, 2014, 03:11:13 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/stephen-hawking-artificial-intelligence-could-150024478.html#Pdy07Al
‘Artificial Intelligence Could Spell The End Of The Human Race’
If we can make robots smarter than humans, they can out-invent human researchers and out-manipulate human leaders, “developing weapons we cannot even understand,” in Hawking’s words.
Don't forget that Elon Musk said something similar. However, we've gotten away from the robots part and started getting into the idea of a singularity and broad AI. I'm totally down to discuss that if you want (and probably not even if you want...it's a wonderful subject that I absolutely love), but it might be better to create a new topic more specific to that discussion.
Post by: tomsang on December 03, 2014, 08:44:46 AM
Interesting article and video. The video show that there is still a number of people that are involved in the process. It looks like automation has a few more years. Also it sounds like they have only automated a few of their distribution centers. I would think that within 5 years that most of these positions will be eliminated/automated.
Post by: jordanread on December 04, 2014, 11:49:13 AM
Not new, but nice to see.
Post by: tomsang on December 07, 2014, 01:14:42 PM
Security guards at $6.25 per hour. R2D2 is protecting the mall. Interesting about scanning license plates and other data collection to predict crime.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102240810
Post by: tomsang on December 21, 2014, 01:19:48 AM
Post by: jordanread on December 23, 2014, 10:21:11 AM
Post by: tomsang on February 03, 2015, 06:41:42 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102380523
Post by: arebelspy on February 03, 2015, 03:09:22 PM
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
Post by: scottish on February 03, 2015, 05:21:37 PM
I'm going to take the opposing view and argue that artificial intelligence isn't going to keep improving on an exponential curve as Tim Urban speculates.
The first problem is that exponential growth curves don't last in the real world. The growth rate quickly becomes so extreme that it encounters physical limits. Tom Murphy has a good blog post on this topic here.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/ruthless-extrapolation/ (http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/ruthless-extrapolation/)
The second problem is that intelligence requires a feedback loop. Your spam filter has a feedback loop to learn what you consider spam - every time you mark an e-mail as spam it updates rules that it uses to categorize an e-mail as spam or not spam. This feedback loop is one of the reasons for the success of 'artificial narrow intelligence'. All of these systems have sufficiently narrow scope that its easy - for degrees of easy - to design a feedback loop that allows them to learn.
But what about artificial general intelligence? To achieve this type of intelligence, you need a much 'broader' feedback loop, much as a child has while growing up. But computers system have neither the wide range of inputs (touch, hearing, sight, taste, smell) of a child, nor do they have the wide range of outputs - the ability to interact with the world and observe what happens. Without these two elements, a machine will be unable to develop an equivalent intelligence to a person, roughly Tim Urban's definition of artificial general intelligence. And these two elements require many more technological advances than processing power.
I know there are lots of engineers and computer scientists on this forum. What do you say?
Post by: arebelspy on February 03, 2015, 08:55:56 PM
The first problem is that exponential growth curves don't last in the real world. The growth rate quickly becomes so extreme that it encounters physical limits.
Absolutely, and that's the first thing I thought of reading part 1. Even if you build AGI to where it can improve itself, and it can work out the calculations more or less instantly to optimize itself, then it needs to get built to the new specs. As soon as that's turned on, it comes up with a new version, but again, needs to be built. Unless it has a way to build itself, but 3D printing isn't that exact yet.
Still, that's a relatively small problem. Compared to the scale of issues we're talking.
I fall southeast of anxious avenue in part 2: I think there's a small chance of soon, but I'm optimistic on it. Right about in the middle of quadrant 4, or slightly left of the middle of that box.
Post by: trishume on February 03, 2015, 10:20:19 PM
There's a couple things the author didn't mention that are worth thinking about.
One is that the initial leap from kinda intelligent to super intelligent might be very difficult. If I suddenly gave you the ability to change the connections of any specific neuron in your brain at will, would you be able to make yourself smarter? If I gave you a thousand years? No, you'd probably end up dead. In order for an AI to make itself smarter it has to gain at least a basic understanding of itself. That's also the reason AI is so hard, we can't comprehend what the "algorithm" is for intelligence.
Also the whole premise of general A.I being possible in the near future is that exponential growth continues. This is briefly mentioned but IMO did not get the treatment it deserves. Reckless extrapolation of Moore's law can't alter fundamental facts of physics that may block our progress very shortly.
Another is what if general AI requires a breakthrough in physics or philosophy instead of computing? It's easy to say that brains are masses of neurons of which we can determine the functionality and emulate, but I certainly don't feel like a mass of chemicals as I observe and feel my surroundings and think my thoughts, although that's a very poor description of what it feels like to be conscious but it's a fundamentally difficult thing to describe. It's possible (perhaps unlikely) that what makes us intelligent is linked to what makes us conscious and it would be astronomically difficult to recreate in silicon.
Post by: sol on February 04, 2015, 12:18:56 AM
It would be neat if he had labelled the axes on his graphs!
They weren't really graphs because there weren't really any quantifiable variables on most of those axes. More like conceptual diagrams.
As soon as that's turned on, it comes up with a new version, but again, needs to be built. Unless it has a way to build itself, but 3D printing isn't that exact yet.
I'm pretty sure he would argue that your tiny human brain has failed to grasp the ways in which it might iteratively improve itself. Why would you 3D print a new brain when you can just have your nanobots make one? Why build a physical prototype of your new brain at all when you can just run a computer simulation of a million new brains at once and see which ones work the best? Why bother to simulate new brains when you can quantum realize all possible new brains simultaneously? And that's just my tiny human brain thinking, surely a superintelligent being has better ideas than I do.
I certainly don't feel like a mass of chemicals as I observe and feel my surroundings and think my thoughts
Then you must believe that your consciousness resides somewhere other than inside of your body? Because your body is definitely made of organized matter and energy, and that organization sure looks to me like it creates everything you have ever thought or felt. You're a very complex machine, but still a machine.
Post by: jordanread on February 04, 2015, 05:03:17 AM
1. I will work my ass off to enjoy life and position myself to do so by catching FIRE
2. I will catch FIRE
3. I will enjoy life
4. AGI (or equivalent) will happen
5. Life will change dramatically
6. If it changes in a bad direction, we'll all be extinct, but at least I got to enjoy my retirement
7. If it changes in a good direction, there wouldn't be a huge reason that we wouldn't live a hell of a lot longer, and if the concept of money and scarcity even exists at that point, I will have to look at my assets and figure out how to make them last indefinitely
More stuff later.
Post by: arebelspy on February 04, 2015, 07:39:49 AM
As soon as that's turned on, it comes up with a new version, but again, needs to be built. Unless it has a way to build itself, but 3D printing isn't that exact yet.
I'm pretty sure he would argue that your tiny human brain has failed to grasp the ways in which it might iteratively improve itself. Why would you 3D print a new brain when you can just have your nanobots make one? Why build a physical prototype of your new brain at all when you can just run a computer simulation of a million new brains at once and see which ones work the best? Why bother to simulate new brains when you can quantum realize all possible new brains simultaneously? And that's just my tiny human brain thinking, surely a superintelligent being has better ideas than I do.
Sure, once it's at that point. I'm saying I think there are some physical limitations to it getting to that point. It won't necessarily slow it up a lot, but it may stop the instantaneous rocketship upwards.
Post by: tomsang on February 04, 2015, 09:29:56 AM
Post by: jordanread on February 04, 2015, 11:04:01 AM
Thanks for the links ARS. Very interesting.
You get a chance to read that book?
Post by: tomsang on February 04, 2015, 11:21:22 AM
Thanks for the links ARS. Very interesting.
You get a chance to read that book?
I am traveling this week so I have it on my todo list. Good airplane reading.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 04, 2015, 11:52:56 AM
Post by: CCCA on February 04, 2015, 12:37:55 PM
Wait But Why just had a great two part blog post on AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html)
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html (http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html)
That was quite a read. Very, very interesting. Not sure how much I totally buy all the arguments, especially about how soon it will come but it is interesting to think about how different the world might be with human level intelligence in everything and then moving beyond that to super intelligence.
I wonder if the "goals" of AI beings will necessarily be constant and rapid improvement or if they will get satisfied and say "You know what, I think I'll just relax and enjoy this existence".
Post by: arebelspy on February 04, 2015, 01:04:22 PM
That was quite a read. Very, very interesting. Not sure how much I totally buy all the arguments, especially about how soon it will come but it is interesting to think about how different the world might be with human level intelligence in everything and then moving beyond that to super intelligence.
Ditto. As I said above, I think there's a small chance of it happening soon.
I also recognize that I'm not an expert, and find it interesting that the experts in the area think it will happen much sooner than I do (based on their median and long term guesses). I recognize that I should probably defer to their expertise on the estimate, even despite my skepticism.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 04, 2015, 02:23:40 PM
Post by: arebelspy on February 04, 2015, 02:27:09 PM
With the possibility of ASI and immortality just around the corner has anyone rerun the numbers on the 4% rule to see if it still holds up
Money becomes pretty irrelevant with ASI cause you'll likely be knocked off the balance beam.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 04, 2015, 02:30:08 PM
With the possibility of ASI and immortality just around the corner has anyone rerun the numbers on the 4% rule to see if it still holds up
Money becomes pretty irrelevant with ASI cause you'll likely be knocked off the balance beam.
That's an article for martketwatch - "The Balance Beam and the 4% Rule, what you need to do NOW"
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 04, 2015, 02:33:26 PM
Computing power is expected to continue to follow Moore's Law, so imagine being able to live anywhere, at any time, communicating with anybody and everybody, in an experience that is tailored to your preferences. Would it be such a horrible outcome to live a much longer life in a virtual reality that was as optimized as possible to your interests (albeit it once that is totally divorced from our physical reality, aging, atrophying, etc.).
And before you dismiss all of this as reactionary, I originally listened to Nick Bostrom on EconTalk last December discuss all of the same points (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/nick_bostrom_on.html) and also a more calming follow-up podcast on AI with Gary Marcus (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/gary_marcus_on.html).
I'm agnostic as to when or if Kurzweil's 'singularity' will occur, but optimistic that any outcome will be 'the right one'. Article's like the end of Part 1 and most of Part 2 make me wonder why stir up worry? All of Part 1 basically says this will happen in the blink of an eye and be beyond our comprehension, that it is inevitable we will either go extinct or be immortalized in exchange for our free will, so if you take that as a given, then what does worrying about it accomplish? Unless you think all of humanity is, say, going to hit the stop button, and somehow voluntarily and forever become some sustainable, peaceful Amish super-race...
So which future would you prefer I guess: The Matrix or The Amish?
(Sorry, this stuff is really fun to discuss and hear other people's thoughts on, so with this I'm finally subscribing to this thread!!)
EDIT: I thought when ARS said 'south-east', that was the 'pessimistic' quadrant on the chart, but it is 'less chance of happening soon' and east was optimistic.
Post by: arebelspy on February 04, 2015, 02:40:28 PM
Interesting read (I love the graphics!), but I'm not sure why all the anxiety Rebs.
Huh? I have no anxiety around any of this. I clearly stated above I'm in the optimistic camp, so I don't know where you got that from.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 04, 2015, 02:42:33 PM
Interesting read (I love the graphics!), but I'm not sure why all the anxiety Rebs. For instance, one very plausible outcome would be similar to what the Matrix concept was all about (I highly doubt the 'synthetic humans living forever on Earth' outcome described in the article). Virtual Reality is on the cusp of becoming 'a real thing', and you only have to look around to notice younger people love interacting with screens as opposed to nature when faced with 'down time'.
Computing power is expected to continue to follow Moore's Law, so imagine being able to live anywhere, at any time, communicating with anybody and everybody, in an experience that is tailored to your preferences. Would it be such a horrible outcome to live a much longer life in a virtual reality that was as optimized as possible to your interests (albeit it once that is totally divorced from our physical reality, aging, atrophying, etc.).
And before you dismiss all of this as reactionary, I originally listened to Nick Bostrom on EconTalk last December discuss all of the same points (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/nick_bostrom_on.html) and also a more calming follow-up podcast on AI with Gary Marcus (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/12/gary_marcus_on.html).
I'm agnostic as to when or if Kurzweil's 'singularity' will occur, but optimistic that any outcome will be 'the right one'. Article's like the end of Part 1 and most of Part 2 make me wonder why stir up worry? All of Part 1 basically says this will happen in the blink of an eye and be beyond our comprehension, that it is inevitable we will either go extinct or be immortalized in exchange for our free will, so it you take that as a given, then what does worrying about it accomplish? Unless you think all of humanity is, say, going to hit the stop button, and somehow voluntarily and forever become some sustainable, peaceful Amish super-race...
So which future would you prefer I guess: The Matrix or The Amish?
(Sorry, this stuff is really fun to discuss and hear other people's thoughts on, so with this I'm finally subscribing to this thread!!)
I'm on board with the "not worry about it" stance. As I see it ,my timeline suggests that personal extinction is likely to occur around the time of AGI to be followed soon by ASI and immortality, so get f@cking on with it already.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 04, 2015, 02:43:06 PM
Interesting read (I love the graphics!), but I'm not sure why all the anxiety Rebs.Huh? I have no anxiety around any of this. I clearly stated above I'm in the optimistic camp, so I don't know where you got that from.
I added my EDIT as quick as I could! Edit to add 'one more thing' (since no-one has responded yet, but I wish we got the same 'warning - while you were typing others have posted' for these modifications / Edits...). I probably wouldn't have typed up a response if I had thought the consensus on ASI was 'optimistic', funny those unintended consequences :)
Post by: scottish on February 04, 2015, 03:16:54 PM
Quote
Computing power is expected to continue to follow Moore's Law,
It's the opposite. Computing power is reaching physical limits and will stop following Moore's law soon. For the last several years many of the advances in computing power have been achieved by parallelism. Which also has its limits.
Is Nick Bostrom a philosopher?
Post by: rocketpj on February 04, 2015, 04:00:11 PM
Post by: sol on February 04, 2015, 07:14:38 PM
It would suck far too much to be the last person to die before the species suddenly became immortal.
They made a whole movie about this: Mr. Nobody (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485947/). It's about the very last human being to ever die of natural causes.
Post by: Chuck on February 06, 2015, 12:07:13 PM
I would enjoy being a robot. Unfortunately I think the odds of living to see that day are very, very small. Perhaps if I save enough 'stache my kids could be early adopters in their old age though.
Post by: tomsang on February 09, 2015, 10:57:17 AM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 09, 2015, 02:21:44 PM
(http://escapevelocity2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Robots.jpg)
Post by: OSUBearCub on February 09, 2015, 03:28:55 PM
I'm just going to leave this one right here...
Post by: Leisured on February 10, 2015, 02:42:35 AM
Some other poster pointed out that no matter how intelligent machines become, we can always switch off power if we have to. It reminds me of a comment made about the Daleks in Dr Who; run up a flight of stairs. We do not need to make ourselves vulnerable to intelligent machines. We do not need to build very intelligent machines that are free to move about. Mobile robots only need to be intelligent enough to do a narrow range of tasks.
Consciousness is as much a mystery today as it was in the past. Giant computers predict weather and help design new aircraft, but they are not conscious and follow code to the letter. There is no reason to suppose that computers that learn, and so are not entirely predictable, are conscious either.
Research into artificial intelligence is unregulated, but it might be regulated in the future, in the way that pharmaceutical drugs are regulated.
Post by: jordanread on February 10, 2015, 08:35:40 AM
So I'll go ahead and thank rebs for the outstanding link that picked this back up. That was a pretty well written article. I had to be careful not to go down a rabbit hole on that site. :)
So I said I will follow up, and here I am. First, I will provide some responses to a couple of the things brought up. Then I will provide some background on my foray into this field.
The first thing was brought up by several people, and it's a somewhat valid point. The physical limitations. But let's think about that for a moment. I'm not even talking about ASI at this point (that comes later), but rather AGI. For those of you who didn't read the articles, or aren't familiar with the term, that means an artificial intelligence that matches a human in computations and understanding, Artificial General Intelligence. So let's break out the facts from the speculation.
- Narrow AI, or AI that does something specific (i.e. Watson, Google, Google Now, Siri) currently exists
- Narrow AI gets better every day (although technically it gets better with every use).
- Our current and recent breakthroughs and benchmarks in computing power and capability are in large part due to parallelism, not fitting more transistors on a board.
- Our ability to manipulate matter at the molecular level is primitive at best.
If you've used a phone made in the past couple of years, you should know that the cool features behind it are made possible by narrow AI. We use it all the time, and when it works, it's practically invisible. Have you ever scanned a document into Word and made it editable? Uploaded it to Google Docs? Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is what makes that possible, and it was only able to reach the current level of accuracy because it was coded to learn how to read written characters...it wasn't coded to read written characters. Think about that for a moment. We didn't have the time, the skill, the patience, and the ability to handle all of the different kinds of hand writing that exist. So we didn't bother. As the price of processing power continued to drop, we stopped being limited by the time it would take to learn. So those first two already exist, and I know that I use them multiple times per day (not so much OCR, because seriously...who deals with the hand written word anymore?).
So some people mentioned that exponential growth may not continue, and we don't see it coming because humans are very good at extrapolating patterns, even when there aren't any. The Ruthless Extrapolation article made some really good points, and had some pretty cool examples of when that was proven wrong. I don't know that it necessarily applies in this case, but rather than argue with it, let's assume we are wrong, and Moore's Law does not continue. Remember that Moore's Law (or the extrapolative version of that, Ray Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns (http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns)) was initially based on the physical. The pure number of transistors that could be fit in the same amount of space. However, as someone pointed out, the fact that we are still meeting the estimated processing power has been in part due to parallelism. Some use this to show that this level can't continue since the underlying assumptions based on hardware are expected to slow (at least with out current method of manufacturing). That could be a valid point. Even Moore himself says:
Quote from: Gordon Moore
It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens"However, I would posit that in this particular case, it's not actually relevant to the technology required. Rackspace, Google Cloud Services, Amazon Web Services can all provide incredibly cheap and incredibly fast processing power. We already have enough linked and parallel processing power to power an AGI, we just haven't coded it yet. So the physical things that people worry about, and the arguments they raise against them are valid for now. However, that does not mean that damage can't be done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash) to our society and our way of life, even without physical bodies.
I have some actual work to do now, so I will come back later and address some other points that were brought up. Namely (and so I don't forget):
- Feedback and inputs required
- Anecdotal points regarding different fields and their progress
- Black box systems and examples
- Goal oriented programming
- Friendly AI
- Regulation
- Ethics
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 10, 2015, 09:09:48 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/robot-vacuum-attacks-south-korea-housewife-hair-article-1.2108334
I'm just going to leave this one right here...
So it began
Post by: OSUBearCub on February 10, 2015, 09:16:49 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/robot-vacuum-attacks-south-korea-housewife-hair-article-1.2108334
I'm just going to leave this one right here...
So it began
Skynet became self-aware. (It's only 16.5 years late.)
Post by: arebelspy on February 10, 2015, 12:04:12 PM
Some other poster pointed out that no matter how intelligent machines become, we can always switch off power if we have to.
I guess you didn't read the Wait But Why article. I no longer believe this is true. ASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO.
We do not need to make ourselves vulnerable to intelligent machines. We do not need to build very intelligent machines that are free to move about. Mobile robots only need to be intelligent enough to do a narrow range of tasks.
Sure, we don't need to. But we already are trying to make them capable of moving through all obstacles. And when these machines are often built to be mobile killing units (via the military), such as drones, we are inherently making ourselves vulnerable.
Post by: Grid on February 10, 2015, 03:17:08 PM
As computing power grows, we'll see neural networks, support vector machines, and random forests evolve into more complex chains and pipelines of data flow (similar to the brain's architecture). I say this mostly based off of Michael Jordan's comments on his AMA on Reddit about 5 months ago here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/2fxi6v/ama_michael_i_jordan (http://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/2fxi6v/ama_michael_i_jordan)
Current models that people (including myself) build in general have one rule, and that's to reduce the model's error on a given set of "training" data. The model is given this data, and it trains itself until it has reached a global or local error minimum.
Here's what I find interesting, that no one has really mentioned yet. The change to a model's structure when it gets a guess "wrong" is known ahead of time. The model adjusts its parameters in a known fashion so that it is more correct on the data the next time around. The model has no inherent desires, and if you want to put a human spin on it, it's selflessly serving the programmer's wishes to have a hunk of code that can make some nice predictions.
I think once we add "wants" and "needs" into the equation for an AI we will start to have problems. We humans are machines, and we're programmed from birth to like food, sleep, and sex, among other things. We develop our entire lives around these ideas, but the machines we're building have no desires yet. Once we build the concept of self into an AI, I think we should start to get worried. Unfortunately, I think the idea of a machine with its own desires is intriguing for many, and may even be the only way to achieve ASI. We'll just have to be careful.
Some other poster pointed out that no matter how intelligent machines become, we can always switch off power if we have to.
I think the problem comes when the machines will actively not want us to switch off their power.
Post by: scottish on February 10, 2015, 04:01:32 PM
Quote
ASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO
Free/really cheap energy? That would solve a lot of problems.
Post by: arebelspy on February 10, 2015, 04:48:23 PM
QuoteASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO
Free/really cheap energy? That would solve a lot of problems.
Quite possibly. Though remember "problems" for us aren't necessarily problems that ASI would care about at all.
Post by: jordanread on February 10, 2015, 05:04:41 PM
QuoteASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO
Free/really cheap energy? That would solve a lot of problems.
Quite possibly. Though remember "problems" for us aren't necessarily problems that ASI would care about at all.
I actually had a post written in response to that earlier. Most of the research being done is to create something that can take a goal and solve it. I would think that our goals and the machines (assuming covert A[G|S]I) would line up nicely. Plus I would guess that something decentralized would be preferred (based on a study I read a few years back regarding utility infrastructures).
Post by: arebelspy on February 10, 2015, 06:13:40 PM
QuoteASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO
Free/really cheap energy? That would solve a lot of problems.
Quite possibly. Though remember "problems" for us aren't necessarily problems that ASI would care about at all.
I actually had a post written in response to that earlier. Most of the research being done is to create something that can take a goal and solve it. I would think that our goals and the machines (assuming covert A[G|S]I) would line up nicely. Plus I would guess that something decentralized would be preferred (based on a study I read a few years back regarding utility infrastructures).
That's fine, but if it solves that problem just before it hits ASI or after, and that goal is finished for it?
Post by: jordanread on February 10, 2015, 06:45:48 PM
Then we wouldn't be able to shut it off. I think that focusing on the ASI aspect is irrelevant post-AGI. The question is more of how we would react. If it's friendly, or covert, we would take the win and give it another goal. Perhaps genetic engineering for immortality. If it's not so friendly, we'll try to get it turned off, fail miserably, and die horribly. At that point, let's just hope the AI has a fondness for a diverse ecosystem, so that our little planet can keep being blue, green and awesome.QuoteASI will be able to power itself without us, IMO
Free/really cheap energy? That would solve a lot of problems.
Quite possibly. Though remember "problems" for us aren't necessarily problems that ASI would care about at all.
I actually had a post written in response to that earlier. Most of the research being done is to create something that can take a goal and solve it. I would think that our goals and the machines (assuming covert A[G|S]I) would line up nicely. Plus I would guess that something decentralized would be preferred (based on a study I read a few years back regarding utility infrastructures).
That's fine, but if it solves that problem just before it hits ASI or after, and that goal is finished for it?
Post by: Leisured on February 11, 2015, 11:12:00 PM
Grid pointed out that ‘The model has no inherent desires, and if you want to put a human spin on it, it's selflessly serving the programmer's wishes to have a hunk of code that can make some nice predictions.’
Good way of putting it. And later Grid suggests:
‘I think the problem comes when the machines will actively not want us to switch off their power.’
We have all had the experience of thinking about a problem, and then the solution pops into our heads. We are not aware of thinking, and our brain is ‘selflessly’ (to use Grid’s term) solving our problem for us. Our bodies selflessly digest our food, our hearts and lungs automatically and selflessly work a little harder if we climb stairs, and our eyes selflessly alter focus if we concentrate on something at a distance.
I have goals and desires, but do not fear that my brain or any other part of me might take me over. We need to watch developments in AI, but I do not expect that advanced machinery will ever get to the point that they ‘actively not want us to switch off their power,’ or take us over.
AI is an interesting research project, but it is not clear to me that we need machines cleverer than we are. We need servants, nothing more. If we made a metal Jeeves, he might be a threat, but do we want a metal Jeeves?
Post by: matchewed on February 12, 2015, 05:05:44 PM
Grid pointed out that ‘The model has no inherent desires, and if you want to put a human spin on it, it's selflessly serving the programmer's wishes to have a hunk of code that can make some nice predictions.’
Good way of putting it. And later Grid suggests:
‘I think the problem comes when the machines will actively not want us to switch off their power.’
We have all had the experience of thinking about a problem, and then the solution pops into our heads. We are not aware of thinking, and our brain is ‘selflessly’ (to use Grid’s term) solving our problem for us. Our bodies selflessly digest our food, our hearts and lungs automatically and selflessly work a little harder if we climb stairs, and our eyes selflessly alter focus if we concentrate on something at a distance.
I have goals and desires, but do not fear that my brain or any other part of me might take me over. We need to watch developments in AI, but I do not expect that advanced machinery will ever get to the point that they ‘actively not want us to switch off their power,’ or take us over.
AI is an interesting research project, but it is not clear to me that we need machines cleverer than we are. We need servants, nothing more. If we made a metal Jeeves, he might be a threat, but do we want a metal Jeeves?
You seem to be proposing two different things here (let me know if I don't have it correct).
a) That AI will merely be an extension of ourselves and therefore cannot hurt us. I think this line is demonstratively false as we as humans have made many things that are literally without a concept of self and many of them have caused harm. How are the two concepts (selflessness and capability to take over) connected? This could cause harm in a manner which doesn't involve a "take over". The eternal example of the AI programmed to make paperclips. And it then turns everything, even people, into paperclips. That is not servitude that the AI just did, just doin' its job.
b) The need for machines being (and I think you chose the wrong word here using clever) smarter than us isn't there, we just need servants. No offense but you and I both live in the same world right? GPS, the computer that you typed your message on, the internet which allowed you to have the platform for your message, in fact most modern conveniences for the last 30 years or so have come about from a revolution in being able to generate systems (programs) which can do things better than we can. And frankly it's just another example of humans doing it for other aspects of what some call human actions being replaced by X. It would sound silly to say why do we need mass production, we don't need machines that are more precise than we are, we just need servants. Why do we need cars to drive us places, we don't need cars that can go further and faster w/out getting tired, just need those trusty servants. My point being is that you seem to gloss over the amazing things that can come about with building, teaching, and then learning from a machine much more capable at learning than we are.
You've also glossed over the last bit of what he Grid said. You just right it off as if it's not possible but there is nothing to suggest that consciousness is a unique human feature. If it isn't unique to us then can't it be generated in other machinery (biological or not)? The answer is yes as far as I can tell. I'm pretty sure there are several animals on earth we could agree on being conscious. So given enough technological advancement why can't that be replicated in programming? After all isn't DNA just programming?
Post by: Leisured on February 14, 2015, 03:56:02 AM
Nobody worries that cars or telephones will 'take over' our society, but the discussion of AI makes people fear that smart robots could 'take over' our society. That is the difference. I drew a parallel with Wooster and Jeeves, and me and a robot Jeeves.
We do not know how to program a robot to be conscious. My point is we do not need to try and program consciousness, or robot wants and desires. The giant computers that predict weather are servants, and are not conscious. Make each of these computers a thousand times more powerful, and they are still just computers.
I follow what is known as 'Lady Lovelace's conjecture', where Ada, Countess Lovelace, worked with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine in the 1840s, in England. She was adamant that the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer, did exactly what it was programmed to do, no less - and no more. She had had a computer language, Ada, named after her.
The Analytical Engine did perform computations, but was impractical. Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, of all people. Clever lady.
Post by: matchewed on February 14, 2015, 07:00:27 AM
Spectacular misunderstand, Matchewed, but it might have been my fault in not making myself clear. Of course we need machines like mass production, cars, aircraft, GPS, telephones! These devices are not smarter than we are , but they are much better. Better to ride in a car than walk - of course. By servants I meant all the machines we use can be seen as servants, like a toaster, electric kettle, computer, telephone.
Nobody worries that cars or telephones will 'take over' our society, but the discussion of AI makes people fear that smart robots could 'take over' our society. That is the difference. I drew a parallel with Wooster and Jeeves, and me and a robot Jeeves.
We do not know how to program a robot to be conscious. My point is we do not need to try and program consciousness, or robot wants and desires. The giant computers that predict weather are servants, and are not conscious. Make each of these computers a thousand times more powerful, and they are still just computers.
I follow what is known as 'Lady Lovelace's conjecture', where Ada, Countess Lovelace, worked with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine in the 1840s, in England. She was adamant that the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer, did exactly what it was programmed to do, no less - and no more. She had had a computer language, Ada, named after her.
The Analytical Engine did perform computations, but was impractical. Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, of all people. Clever lady.
I think you're missing the point of what I wrote. You're saying we do not need conscious machines. Why?
At some point and time before any technology X came about someone probably said we do not need technology X. And they were probably right in the "need" sense of the word but were wrong with how it impacts society. Technology X may not have been a necessity but it has been beneficial. So why is the technology of AI different?
So are you saying it is impossible to make consciousness? I'm not sure what you're driving at with your conjecture.
There are for more things going on than just making computers more powerful in the field of AI research. There are people literally looking into developing consciousness. It's not about computations a second anymore. It's about teaching how to learn and that possibly giving a device that doesn't need to sleep the capability of learning and the goal of learning that it could become way smarter than any number of people in a very short time. We may not "need to try" but people are trying. And that's central to this discussion. Do you think we won't succeed at these attempts?
Post by: Leisured on February 16, 2015, 04:19:13 AM
There is an ethical issue here. Suppose we make a weather forecasting computer conscious; the machine will get bored and miserable being forced to work round the clock forecasting weather. So why do it?
Post by: jordanread on February 16, 2015, 06:37:34 AM
Yes, I am saying we do not need conscious machines. Why should we? So we make a weather forecasting computer conscious? Why? Just because a computer learns does not make it conscious. Consciousness is as enigmatic now as it was in the past. We certainly do not need to risk making machines which might supplant us, and I see this as common sense. I do not doubt that people are trying to make machines conscious, but I predict that they will fail.
There is an ethical issue here. Suppose we make a weather forecasting computer conscious; the machine will get bored and miserable being forced to work round the clock forecasting weather. So why do it?
I'd agree that we wouldn't necessarily need intelligent and conscious machines. But we also didn't need to go to the moon, or land a machine on a comet, or map the genome, or invent vaccines, or domesticate dogs, or...
Consciousness is a mystery, and like all mysteries, we intend to solve it. Humanity as a whole is a curious beast, and we like to understand. What better way to understand consciousness than to try to create it? As far as your ethical issue, it seems to stem from anthropomorphizing a completely different type of consciousness. I don't think boredom will really be a factor. I mean, it might, but we have no clue how this is going to look. One thing that is pretty much widely agreed upon in the field is that we aren't really sure how a conscious machine will look, act, feel, etc. Most of the stuff people are doing are building better goal-oriented systems, and if it's goal was to forecast weather, how would it get bored by achieving it's purpose? Once again though, who knows how it will act. It's something we'll have to do to be sure. Also, when we do create a conscious machine (by some measure) I highly doubt that we will put it to a mundane task. Maybe we would instruct it to build a narrow AI system that has a 99% success rate in predicting the weather for a given square foot on the planet. Once that was done, we would have it do something else.
Oh, and to chime in real quick about the Lady Lovelace Objection, she would be correct if we were actually directly programming consciousness (which we can't do right now, since we aren't sure what it is at that level). The biggest thing to remember here is that we are not doing a line by line code of how the computer reacts. We are building a machine that can, on it's own, figure out the answer to a goal. Some of the most successful demonstrations of these goal oriented systems have come up with perfect answers in a Black Box type system. Meaning that we have no idea how, specifically, it came up with the solution.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 02:35:51 PM
Before you throw stones, I just think you need to think about the two intransigent issues: what is intelligence / what is consciousness. Neither is easily emulated or solved by computers, but which would you want a computer to have? QED.
Post by: arebelspy on February 16, 2015, 02:48:03 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 04:01:47 PM
Computers already have intelligence.
Huh? I thought we were hoping to artificially give intelligence. They already have it? O...M....G! ARS is AI! I knew it!!!
Post by: matchewed on February 16, 2015, 04:22:12 PM
I think consciousness isn't a silly question. We're not exactly sure what consciousness is but that doesn't mean it can't happen in an artificial system. There are several important questions that will need to be answered on how we will treat a conscious AI. I would look at the parallel with attempts to give chimpanzees personhood, or looking at corvid intelligence, elephants....etc. Like I said before, and you may disagree with it, but I think several animals would classify as conscious. Why does that make consciousness an impossible feat? It's not unique to humans, we're nothing special. We're discussing some fairly rough concepts here but given evolution why couldn't we program a program to evolve (much like the wait but why post) and for it develop consciousness?
As for if it is "needed"? Like I said, given the definition of that word... no. But would it be beneficial... possibly. It will take good smart people to make it beneficial.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 05:05:43 PM
Also, if we are starting to blur the meaning of intelligence to just mean computations per second or whatever, please understand that intelligence is the ability to interpret and infer things using many parallel methods. It is what distinguishes our thought process from any other in existence - that we walk on uneven terrain without struggling to understand how we do it, find others attractive without knowing why, and enjoy certain things but dislike others, without any predictable pattern. This is why machine-based learning seems like a 'moon shot', certainly could be possible if we can simulate neural networks and give it all sufficient power (possible in theory), but also seems impossible having not done it yet (thus far impossible in practice)...
Post by: matchewed on February 16, 2015, 05:16:09 PM
We're not the only animals that walk uneven terrain, choose based on attractiveness, and like things but not others. I think you may be underestimating how far we are down this path. I may be beating a dead horse here but not if... when.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 06:01:57 PM
Post by: arebelspy on February 16, 2015, 06:49:50 PM
Depending on how you define intelligence yes ARS is right.
Exactly. As Part 1 of the WBW article, ANI is everywhere.
A computer is much more intelligent than I at finding the best route to a place, even if I were given maps.
A computer is much more intelligent than I at chess, or recommending what someone should buy based on their past purchases.
There's a lot of intelligence computers already have.
If you want to tag something to the moving goalposts of "artificial intelligence," well, I have no interest in that. You use terms like "real intelligence" - whatever that means.
Did you read the WBW article with the three levels of intelligence? We very clearly have tons of ANI all around us.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 08:08:00 PM
The fact that I confuse you when I use a term 'real intelligence' does make me wonder why you struggle to comprehend 'artificial and real' intelligence, and defend ANI as 'real'. ARS must be an AI, and I'm quite proud to have failed him on a modified Touring test!
Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to Ramona 4.2 (http://www.kurzweilai.net/Ramona4.2/ramona.html)
Post by: sol on February 16, 2015, 08:37:57 PM
No, this stuff is all just really good search engines and human manipulated algorithms that still make completely ridiculous, 'unintelligent' errors.
What do you think your brain is? It's a really good search engine running heuristic algorithms on a neural network. Coupled to a robot, of course, but I don't think anyone thinks that part is really necessary.
I don't think it makes any difference whether the neural network in question is wet chemistry or dry chemistry. It's all electrons and switches, either way.
I'm fairly confident that we'll one day discover that consciousness is an illusion. Your brain thinks it is self aware because it has been programmed to think that it is self aware, because there is an adaptive advantage to that belief. I suspect that any sufficiently challenged cooperative social species with the right hardware would develop "consciousness" if given enough time, we just happen to be the only remaining species on earth to still have it.
But all of that is just an aside. Most of the current writing about AI isn't worried it will become self aware, just that whatever limited and specific intelligence it does have (like spam filters or chess) will be sufficiently capable of self improvement that we won't be able to slow it down. It doesn't matter if Skynet is really self aware or not, if it kills people they're still dead.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 08:49:42 PM
No, this stuff is all just really good search engines and human manipulated algorithms that still make completely ridiculous, 'unintelligent' errors.
What do you think your brain is? It's a really good search engine running heuristic algorithms on a neural network. Coupled to a robot, of course, but I don't think anyone thinks that part is really necessary.
I don't think it makes any difference whether the neural network in question is wet chemistry or dry chemistry. It's all electrons and switches, either way.
I'm fairly confident that we'll one day discover that consciousness is an illusion. Your brain thinks it is self aware because it has been programmed to think that it is self aware, because there is an adaptive advantage to that belief. I suspect that any sufficiently challenged cooperative social species with the right hardware would develop "consciousness" if given enough time, we just happen to be the only remaining species on earth to still have it.
But all of that is just an aside. Most of the current writing about AI isn't worried it will become self aware, just that whatever limited and specific intelligence it does have (like spam filters or chess) will be sufficiently capable of self improvement that we won't be able to slow it down. It doesn't matter if Skynet is really self aware or not, if it kills people they're still dead.
I highly value open discussion. But hey, I don't think my brain is a great search engine or algorithm connected to a robot. It is actually a pretty impressive piece of hardware, given the paces I have put it through in my childhood, endocrine-riddled teenage years, and successive 20's and 30's.... it's quite amazing that I can still think a coherent thought, let alone postulate on what intelligence might actually be.
What is it about me that makes me want to raise my son and daughter 'properly'? These are the little distinctions that are lost on AI. For machine language, it has one specific goal and 'ruthlessly' pursues that until everything is destroyed. That is no 'utopia', so why are we seeking it?
(but I will answer my own question, real quick. We seek ASI because, if we do happen to live through AGI, then ASI will be awesome!)
Post by: sol on February 16, 2015, 09:06:39 PM
I don't think my brain is a great search engine or algorithm connected to a robot.
What do you think it is?
By "robot", or course, I just mean a physical system capable of movement. But people who are fully paralyzed in an iron lung can still have perfectly functional brains, and we think of them as self aware. I was just trying to highlight that the "intelligence" part and the robot part aren't necessarily interdependent.
Post by: Grid on February 16, 2015, 09:24:14 PM
yeah mathew'ed, I think we're talking past each other at this point. I was just making the distinction about how hard it is to get a program to create 'real intelligence' (like how the economy 'figures out the best price for things', that is an artificial construct also, but comes out of our numerous interactions to create 'spontaneous order', etc.). Machine learning is only fascinating right now in the fact that it makes something that is innate in us to look like 'intelligence' in something without our hardware, but it takes a lot of pre-programming and computing power. FWIW, I took a grad-level LISP AI course in college and tried to get a machine to solve a simple problem of getting a simulated monkey to use a ladder to get a banana. I had to give it all of the possible starting points and ways to make solutions; it was a pathetic 'magic trick' to be honest. The field is further ahead, but is moving at a snail's pace, compared to how much more powerful computers are today.
We humans can do some impressive stuff, but even as adults, we are absolute idiots from all sorts of perspectives. Also, our babies take all sorts of pre-programming (genetics) and computing power (brains, fueled successfully only by eating a whole bunch of stuff for many years), before they can perform the intelligent operations we adults can. Toddlers have years of learning under their belts, and they can still be pretty dumb sometimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg)
Also, EV2020, I will disagree that some of the things you mention we can do are really "intelligence" at all:
"It is what distinguishes our thought process from any other in existence - that we walk on uneven terrain without struggling to understand how we do it, find others attractive without knowing why, and enjoy certain things but dislike others, without any predictable pattern."
Finding others attractive without knowing why makes us sound stupid, and what we enjoy or don't is usually just related to what will increase our odds of passing our genes to the next generation. If some of our likes and dislikes are in fact an "unpredictable pattern", we're probably just too dumb to figure the pattern out.
Post by: arebelspy on February 16, 2015, 09:26:23 PM
The fact that I confuse you when I use a term 'real intelligence' does make me wonder why you struggle to comprehend 'artificial and real' intelligence, and defend ANI as 'real'.
Or maybe you should understand that your definitions are not universal, and not everyone agrees with them.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 09:27:20 PM
Post by: arebelspy on February 16, 2015, 09:39:31 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 16, 2015, 10:00:21 PM
Not sure how that's relevant; AI and VR aren't mutually exclusive.OK, so now I am really confused. VR is pretty much going to dominate the foreseeable future (and wow people with how crazy life has become, etc.) I see this distraction as being the 70" flat screen people aspired to in my young adulthood. But AI, 'real artificial intelligence', that would be a generation-skipping advance. I honestly don't see it happening anytime 'soon'.
Post by: arebelspy on February 16, 2015, 10:03:44 PM
Not sure how that's relevant; AI and VR aren't mutually exclusive.OK, so now I am really confused. VR is pretty much going to dominate the foreseeable future (and wow people with how crazy life has become, etc.) I see this distraction as being the 70" flat screen people aspired to in my young adulthood. But AI, 'real artificial intelligence', that would be a generation-skipping advance. I honestly don't see it happening anytime 'soon'.
Yes, we appear not to be talking about the same thing.
I fail to see how an entertainment distraction is relevant to the progression of AI.
Just as TV being developed didn't distract smart people enough to prevent them from making computers (and improving them), VR won't distract smart people enough to be relevant to the progress of AI.
Post by: matchewed on February 17, 2015, 06:45:52 AM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 17, 2015, 08:57:57 AM
Post by: tomsang on February 25, 2015, 06:43:52 PM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-clever-robots-mean-for-jobs-151203478.html
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 26, 2015, 11:28:29 AM
http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU (http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU)
(OT - found the clip via CGP Grey being a featured Patreon.com member, having ~2,000 people voluntarily pay ~$5,500 per video and thus not feel too guilty about ad-blocking on his YouTube video).
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 26, 2015, 08:32:05 PM
Quote
Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Emma Brunskill, who also wasn't part of the study, said this learning despite lack of customization "brings us closer to having general purpose agents equipped to work well at learning a large range of tasks, instead of just chess or just 'Jeopardy!'"
...
But to some ways of thinking, Deep Q wasn't even as smart as a toddler because it can't transfer learned experiences from one situation to another and it doesn't get abstract concepts, Hassabis said.
Post by: arebelspy on February 27, 2015, 08:32:44 AM
Pretty sobering overview and some new thoughts on YouTube...
http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU (http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU)
(OT - found the clip via CGP Grey being a featured Patreon.com member, having ~2,000 people voluntarily pay ~$5,500 per video and thus not feel too guilty about ad-blocking on his YouTube video).
That was a good introduction to someone completely unfamiliar with the topic of robot automation. I have a few people I'm going to send it to. Thanks for posting!
Post by: jordanread on February 27, 2015, 09:07:02 AM
Also thought this was kind'a interesting: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27597173/google-artificial-intelligence-program-can-beat-you-atQuoteCarnegie Mellon University computer science professor Emma Brunskill, who also wasn't part of the study, said this learning despite lack of customization "brings us closer to having general purpose agents equipped to work well at learning a large range of tasks, instead of just chess or just 'Jeopardy!'"
...
But to some ways of thinking, Deep Q wasn't even as smart as a toddler because it can't transfer learned experiences from one situation to another and it doesn't get abstract concepts, Hassabis said.
Okay, that was pretty awesome. I knew they were doing a bunch of stuff ever since they bought Deep Mind (http://deepmind.com/) (fun fact: they wouldn't sell to Google unless they created an AI Ethics Board (http://www.forbes.com/sites/privacynotice/2014/02/03/inside-googles-mysterious-ethics-board/)), but hadn't really followed what they were doing after that. This is some awesome progress being made.
To those who didn't read the article, this is one of the most broad implementations of AI (read that: opposite of narrow AI). They didn't teach the system to play atari games, they taught the system how to learn how to play games!! Also, I love the fact that one of the games they want to teach it is Civilization. I'd be very curious as to what strategy it chooses.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 27, 2015, 10:04:42 AM
... Also, I love the fact that one of the games they want to teach it is Civilization. I'd be very curious as to what strategy it chooses.
If you really want to geek out, here's the official publication in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html (Received 10 July 2014 Accepted 16 January 2015 Published online 25 February 2015). So maybe it's already done with Civilization?
Quote
We set out to create a single algorithm that would be able to develop a wide range of competencies on a varied range of challenging tasks — a central goal of general artificial intelligence that has eluded previous efforts. To achieve this, we developed a novel agent, a deep Q network (DQN), which is able to combine reinforcement learning with a class of artificial neural network known as deep neural networks.
Notably, recent advances in deep neural networks, in which several layers of nodes are used to build up progressively more abstract representations of the data, have made it possible for artificial neural networks to learn concepts such as object categories directly from raw sensory data. We use one particularly successful architecture, the deep convolutional network, which uses hierarchical layers of tiled convolutional filters to mimic the effects of receptive fields—inspired by Hubel and Wiesel’s seminal work on feed-forward processing in early visual cortex — thereby exploiting the local spatial correlations present in images, and building in robustness to natural transformations such as changes of viewpoint or scale...
Digging into the details, it's even more mind-blowingly close to AGI! Like, holy shit!!
Post by: jordanread on February 27, 2015, 11:57:40 AM
... Also, I love the fact that one of the games they want to teach it is Civilization. I'd be very curious as to what strategy it chooses.
If you really want to geek out, here's the official publication in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html (Received 10 July 2014 Accepted 16 January 2015 Published online 25 February 2015). So maybe it's already done with Civilization?QuoteWe set out to create a single algorithm that would be able to develop a wide range of competencies on a varied range of challenging tasks — a central goal of general artificial intelligence that has eluded previous efforts. To achieve this, we developed a novel agent, a deep Q network (DQN), which is able to combine reinforcement learning with a class of artificial neural network known as deep neural networks.
Notably, recent advances in deep neural networks, in which several layers of nodes are used to build up progressively more abstract representations of the data, have made it possible for artificial neural networks to learn concepts such as object categories directly from raw sensory data. We use one particularly successful architecture, the deep convolutional network, which uses hierarchical layers of tiled convolutional filters to mimic the effects of receptive fields—inspired by Hubel and Wiesel’s seminal work on feed-forward processing in early visual cortex — thereby exploiting the local spatial correlations present in images, and building in robustness to natural transformations such as changes of viewpoint or scale...
Digging into the details, it's even more mind-blowingly close to AGI! Like, holy shit!!
Yeah. We live in an awesome time. I'll dig more into that article a bit later today.
Post by: Grid on March 02, 2015, 09:01:24 PM
Post by: arebelspy on March 03, 2015, 10:41:48 AM
http://www.itworld.com/article/2888014/digital-religion-and-artificial-wisdom.html
Post by: arebelspy on March 03, 2015, 11:16:16 AM
https://chronicle.com/article/The-Believers/190147/
Post by: jordanread on March 03, 2015, 11:33:00 AM
I came back here to post the Google DeepMind article, and forgot that I heard about it here first. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ha ha. I did that on another thread about cycling a bit ago.
Religious AI?
http://www.itworld.com/article/2888014/digital-religion-and-artificial-wisdom.html
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I'd be interested to see how they would try to convert an artificially created life form. Would they have to convince themselves that they have a soul or something? And then would they have to convince the AI that it has a soul?
The author did touch on something that I thought would be interesting. I definitely think that anthropomorphizing AI is a mistake, but the idea of an empathetic AI is interesting.
Post by: sol on March 03, 2015, 12:32:42 PM
I'd be interested to see how they would try to convert an artificially created life form. Would they have to convince themselves that they have a soul or something? And then would they have to convince the AI that it has a soul?
Not just convince it that it has a soul, and that said soul needs saving, but also that the only path to salvation is the forgiveness of a benevolent third party.
And that this forgiveness can only be achieved through sacrificial bloodshed, so apparently the third party is benevolent but not too benevolent. It's not really forgiveness if someone has to die, is it?
I'd like to believe that any superintelligence we create is smart enough to see through this kind of obvious logical fallacy. It takes a certain kind of humanity to fall for this stuff.
Post by: arebelspy on March 03, 2015, 01:18:15 PM
I'd be interested to see how they would try to convert an artificially created life form. Would they have to convince themselves that they have a soul or something? And then would they have to convince the AI that it has a soul?
Not just convince it that it has a soul, and that said soul needs saving, but also that the only path to salvation is the forgiveness of a benevolent third party.
And that this forgiveness can only be achieved through sacrificial bloodshed, so apparently the third party is benevolent but not too benevolent. It's not really forgiveness if someone has to die, is it?
I'd like to believe that any superintelligence we create is smart enough to see through this kind of obvious logical fallacy. It takes a certain kind of humanity to fall for this stuff.
Beliefs can be programmed into computers even easier than they are in humans. An AI that can get past what it's programmed though, that's the bind blowing idea. I barely understand what that means.
Post by: AlanStache on March 04, 2015, 10:49:38 AM
Also thought this was kind'a interesting: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27597173/google-artificial-intelligence-program-can-beat-you-at
[/quote]
Interesting but the article does not specify how the AI observed the video game state, was there some human made custom interface for each game or did they point a web camera at a screen? The latter being much more impressive. May have to scan the publication. From my own work interfacing can be a huge pain.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on March 04, 2015, 11:06:03 AM
Interesting but the article does not specify how the AI observed the video game state, was there some human made custom interface for each game or did they point a web camera at a screen? The latter being much more impressive. May have to scan the publication. From my own work interfacing can be a huge pain.
The details (and then some) are in the 'Nature' article I cited a post or two later... "If you really want to geek out, here's the official publication in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html "
Quick answer, the AI 'read the pixels' directly from the screen (so it sorta has an inherent advantage over humans there).
Post by: AlanStache on March 04, 2015, 11:55:44 AM
Interesting but the article does not specify how the AI observed the video game state, was there some human made custom interface for each game or did they point a web camera at a screen? The latter being much more impressive. May have to scan the publication. From my own work interfacing can be a huge pain.
The details (and then some) are in the 'Nature' article I cited a post or two later... "If you really want to geek out, here's the official publication in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html "
Quick answer, the AI 'read the pixels' directly from the screen (so it sorta has an inherent advantage over humans there).
cool, thanks. Running at 60Hz (or what ever) is also a bit of an advantage, I cant press a button half that fast.
Post by: sol on March 04, 2015, 12:03:27 PM
cool, thanks. Running at 60Hz (or what ever) is also a bit of an advantage, I cant press a button half that fast.
Just one more reason why super intelligent machines will one day rule the world. The human operating system only runs on really slow and outdated hardware.
Post by: Grid on March 04, 2015, 12:14:08 PM
cool, thanks. Running at 60Hz (or what ever) is also a bit of an advantage, I cant press a button half that fast.
Just one more reason why super intelligent machines will one day rule the world. The human operating system only runs on really slow and outdated hardware.
"Outdated hardware" lol. New generations only come out once every 20-30 years, and it takes years to get a system up and running. If you want significant hardware improvements you'll have to a wait a few thousand years.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on March 04, 2015, 12:54:46 PM
Just one more reason why super intelligent machines will one day rule the world. The human operating system only runs on really slow and outdated hardware.Well, humans are still way ahead of AI when it comes to power consumption and processing potential...
(From Rebs' link - https://chronicle.com/article/The-Believers/190147/)
Quote
Many of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Post by: arebelspy on March 04, 2015, 01:52:38 PM
Well, humans are still way ahead of AI when it comes to power consumption and processing potential...
For now.
Quote
Many of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Yet.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on March 13, 2015, 09:23:25 PM
Post by: Bakari on March 18, 2015, 11:51:47 AM
Well, humans are still way ahead of AI when it comes to power consumption and processing potential...
For now.QuoteMany of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Yet.
The increases have been exponential every since the time of Alan Turing, and there is no sign that is changing.
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/robots-artificial-intelligence-jobs-automation (http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/robots-artificial-intelligence-jobs-automation)
Check out the animated infographic of filling Lake Michigan starting with one drop, and then doubling it every year to get a really good since of how dramatic a thing "exponential" actually is - and why, if the trend started in 1940 actually continues as it has for the past 75 years, we really should see real human level AI in our lifetimes.
It feels less dramatic in real time, because seeing each step makes it feel gradual, but Siri really is dramatically closer to passing Turing's test than Eliza was, and that was only 20 years.
Post by: KithKanan on March 18, 2015, 01:51:37 PM
It feels less dramatic in real time, because seeing each step makes it feel gradual, but Siri really is dramatically closer to passing Turing's test than Eliza was, and that was only 20 years.
Eliza was written in the mid-1960s, so more like 45 years. :)
Post by: jordanread on March 18, 2015, 01:54:25 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on March 18, 2015, 02:52:30 PM
Well, humans are still way ahead of AI when it comes to power consumption and processing potential...
For now.QuoteMany of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Yet.
The increases have been exponential every since the time of Alan Turing, and there is no sign that is changing.
...
I was only summarizing (from the WhatButWhy link) and quoting, I realize that AGI/ASI will eventually happen in some way shape or form, I guess I confused folks by still being impressed by the human brain. However, we should be discussing the real question - do we think ANI will go to AGI or ASI in our lifetime, and what is the reason to think so?
On a side note, Chappie is all about AI. I won't spoil, but basically it follows many mainstream thinkers in that immortality will be inevitable once consciousness can be created artificially. Like time travel, I can think of practical reasons as to why I believe this will never come to pass. Also, Kevin Kelly has an interesting 2008 article along these lines - http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/09/thinkism/
So maybe ASI/AGI will be like a new life form, pure intelligence without consciousness / emotions... So, ASI might just be a new tool for solving tasks, but not motivated to seek new tasks. Well, Kelly does a better job of explaining it -
Quote
The Singularity is an illusion that will be constantly retreating — always “near” but never arriving. We’ll wonder why it never came after we got AI. Then one day in the future, we’ll realize it already happened. The super AI came, and all the things we thought it would bring instantly — personal nanotechnology, brain upgrades, immortality — did not come. Instead other benefits accrued, which we did not anticipate, and took long to appreciate. Since we did not see them coming, we look back and say, yes, that was the Singularity.
Post by: Bakari on April 03, 2015, 06:14:07 PM
So maybe ASI/AGI will be like a new life form, pure intelligence without consciousness / emotions...
At first, sure, but is there any inherent reason to think that silicone neurons would be any more or less capable of consciousness or emotion than carbon ones?
I propose that to some sort of outside objective neutral observer, us humans would not look any different than complex AI. We don't need to presume "consciousness" to explain our behavior.
Emotion is how our DNA gets us to act in it's best interest even when it goes against our own best interest (altruism, for example, or caring for children) while still giving us the intelligence to solve complex problems.
I expand on that theory more here: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-last-big-question.html if anyone's interested...
I think its a bit like claiming cats and dogs don't have consciousness. There is no way to prove it either way, but it seems rather anthropocentric - or just conceited - to presume they don't.
Kubric's final movie, AI, explores the (potential) distinction to be made someday between androids that have a self-preservation instinct programmed in for practical reasons and androids that actually feel.
Maybe it won't happen, but what reason is there to think it couldn't??
Post by: Albert on April 04, 2015, 12:04:50 AM
Just one more reason why super intelligent machines will one day rule the world. The human operating system only runs on really slow and outdated hardware.
Maybe for pure thinking, but otherwise our "hardware" is still superior. It's highly autonomous and very reliable. There aren't any artificial systems yet which could run for 60-70 years non-stop and operate at peak performance for 30-40 years without any serious maintenance. We are very adaptable to the surrounding environment, perhaps more than any other multicellular organism as evidenced by our range. Is the human advantage over other animals just our superior brain? Would dogs rule the world if someone transplanted brains twice as powerful as ours to replace theirs? I don't see it because their bodies are not suitable for anything other than running. Other than the brain (very important of course) our advantages include highly dexterous hands capable of manipulating tiny objects precisely, excellent 3D eyesight and ability to make complex sounds for communication. Of course I'm not saying a robot couldn't do all those things (mimicking a human hand is still very difficult), but you would need the whole ecosystem with an appropriate energy source. The energy source probably being the most challenging issue. Perhaps the solution could be not something human like, but a swarm of semi-autonomous tiny objects (like ants or bees) who would be intelligent only when take as a whole and supplemented by a supercomputer in a basement somewhere. Who knows what the future will bring, the only thing I'm sure about is that we won't live in boring times.
Post by: rocketpj on April 04, 2015, 11:35:44 AM
Quote
Many of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Of course the next logical statement is that if it is 1000 times the size of a few years ago, it may well be another 1000 times that size a few years from now.
Post by: arebelspy on April 04, 2015, 12:09:28 PM
QuoteMany of the dreams Rosenblatt shared in his news conference have come true. Others, like computer consciousness, remain distant. The largest neural nets today have about a billion connections, 1,000 times the size of a few years ago. But that’s tiny compared with the brain. A billion connections is a cubic millimeter of tissue; in a brain scan, it’d be less than a voxel. We’re far from human intelligence. Hinton remains intrigued and inspired by the brain, but he knows he’s not recreating it. It’s not even close.
Of course the next logical statement is that if it is 1000 times the size of a few years ago, it may well be another 1000 times that size a few years from now.
More than that, if it's exponential.
Post by: Grid on April 08, 2015, 10:29:17 PM
We've spent the last few decades working on developing the digital realm using the physical realm (building software), and we are now seeing a shift. The digital is becoming so well developed that we will now see how well we can develop the physical using digital technology (3d printing and robots for example).
Post by: matchewed on April 09, 2015, 07:57:28 AM
Was biking home from a workout today and had a (possible?) bit of insight about the way technology is headed.
We've spent the last few decades working on developing the digital realm using the physical realm (building software), and we are now seeing a shift. The digital is becoming so well developed that we will now see how well we can develop the physical using digital technology (3d printing and robots for example).
Sho nuff. We've spent the last X number of years (60,000?) conceptualizing the world through different methods. One of the most powerful being via mathematics; something that computers are exceptionally good at. As we've developed more precise and flexible tools we just give them over to our own physical representations of our conceptualization (computers). We're not at the point yet where we just ask for tea (earl grey hot), but we may be closer than we realize.
Post by: AlanStache on April 09, 2015, 08:10:02 AM
Was biking home from a workout today and had a (possible?) bit of insight about the way technology is headed.
We've spent the last few decades working on developing the digital realm using the physical realm (building software), and we are now seeing a shift. The digital is becoming so well developed that we will now see how well we can develop the physical using digital technology (3d printing and robots for example).
Sho nuff. We've spent the last X number of years (60,000?) conceptualizing the world through different methods. One of the most powerful being via mathematics; something that computers are exceptionally good at. As we've developed more precise and flexible tools we just give them over to our own physical representations of our conceptualization (computers). We're not at the point yet where we just ask for tea (earl grey hot), but we may be closer than we realize.
No need to shave your head and wear a jumpsuit,
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monsieur/monsieur-the-artificially-intelligent-robotic-bart (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monsieur/monsieur-the-artificially-intelligent-robotic-bart)
not sure if it is voice controlled or not but that part is becoming solved in other domains. And if it can do booze extending it to teas cant be that bad either.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on April 09, 2015, 10:17:07 AM
Quote
Published on Mar 31, 2015
Intelligent, powerful and autonomous. The all-new Audi Autonomous Office Chair is here. Equipped with the latest piloted driving technology from Audi, the Audi Autonomous Office Chair takes the drudgery and effort out of getting around the office.
Post by: forummm on April 12, 2015, 06:43:04 AM
Interesting but the article does not specify how the AI observed the video game state, was there some human made custom interface for each game or did they point a web camera at a screen? The latter being much more impressive. May have to scan the publication. From my own work interfacing can be a huge pain.
The details (and then some) are in the 'Nature' article I cited a post or two later... "If you really want to geek out, here's the official publication in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14236.html "
Quick answer, the AI 'read the pixels' directly from the screen (so it sorta has an inherent advantage over humans there).
cool, thanks. Running at 60Hz (or what ever) is also a bit of an advantage, I cant press a button half that fast.
That's the reason that Watson won on Jeopardy. The computer could ring in before the humans were able to. The rules state that you can't ring in until after a light goes off at the end of the question, and as a computer, Watson was able to beat the humans to the buzzer through reaction time. The humans knew the answers most of the time (if you watch the clips you can see them trying to buzz in on almost every question). So it was really rigged towards the strength of being able to push the button faster. It's impressive that the machine was able to answer so many of the questions. But at the time I remember feeling that the game was unfairly rigged because of the special preference Watson had to be allowed the first try at nearly every question. Humans could only buzz in first if Watson didn't know or if they anticipated when the light would trigger. But if they anticipated wrong, they would be blocked from answering for long enough that Watson would surely ring in in time. But this was basically a big ad for IBM, with lots of paid IBM ads, and a big ratings draw for the show, so it's not surprising Jeopardy! was so accommodating.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/83337/ibm-watson-computer-jeopardy
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-buzzer-factor-did-watson-have-an-unfair-advantage
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on April 12, 2015, 07:30:15 AM
Post by: forummm on April 17, 2015, 07:40:16 PM
http://io9.com/8-possible-alternatives-to-the-turing-test-1697983985
Post by: Bakari on April 19, 2015, 04:52:36 PM
(http://assets.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/LakeMichigan-Final3.gif)
People keep posting about how we aren't that close yet.
The thing about exponential growth is that it doesn't look close even one year before you get there.
Remember the riddle from elementary school?
"If a pond lily doubles everyday and it takes 30 days to completely cover a pond, on what day will the pond be 1/2 covered?[/size] [/color][/size]The answer is day 29.
We are here on day 26 saying "hey, the pond is barely 1/10th filled, we aren't close yet" even though we are only 4 days from total saturation.[/color]
Post by: forummm on April 25, 2015, 06:03:58 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/technology/robotica-cheaper-robots-fewer-workers.html
Post by: forummm on April 25, 2015, 06:46:18 AM
Here, so people don't have to click on a link:
(http://assets.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/LakeMichigan-Final3.gif)
People keep posting about how we aren't that close yet.
The thing about exponential growth is that it doesn't look close even one year before you get there.
Remember the riddle from elementary school?
"If a pond lily doubles everyday and it takes 30 days to completely cover a pond, on what day will the pond be 1/2 covered?[/size] [/color][/size]The answer is day 29.
We are here on day 26 saying "hey, the pond is barely 1/10th filled, we aren't close yet" even though we are only 4 days from total saturation.[/color]
This assume exponential trends will continue to infinity--something that doesn't happen in nature. Something always gets in the way. Maybe computational advances will continue at this rate for long enough to create the advances needed for AI exceeding human intelligence. Maybe not. There's a possibility, but don't take it as gospel truth.
Post by: scottish on April 25, 2015, 10:43:54 AM
Post by: matchewed on April 25, 2015, 10:48:56 AM
I've read the discussion about how AI is growing exponentially. But... how do you 'measure' AI? It sounds like we are using the number of neurons in a neural net as a proxy measurement for AI. Is this the case?
It's more that the capability of computers are growing exponentially. And if we consider that our computers are narrow AI then narrow AI capability is growing exponentially. There is still a barrier to the general side of it.
Consider it this way, in the 80's a computer would probably be able to be the "best tic-tac-toe" player in the world. Today a computer is the best chess player in the world. The complexity of the systems they are able to master is rising.
So it is not just number of neural net neurons, but our ability to program, computations a second, and precision with mathematical models which are measurements or benchmarks for AI growth. I wouldn't ever narrow it down to any one thing because then it's just way too simplified for discussion and is more demonstrable for showing.
Post by: scottish on April 25, 2015, 11:36:58 AM
It would be very interesting to find a way to quantitatively measure artificial intelligence. Maybe it grows linearly with the capability of a computer. Or maybe it's logarithmic (i.e. very sublinear). Like an IQ measurement for AI.
Post by: matchewed on April 25, 2015, 12:05:22 PM
Many computer engineers feel that Moore's law is finally coming to an end. Citation: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/23/moores_law_hits_50_intel/?page=3 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/23/moores_law_hits_50_intel/?page=3) I think this was mentioned before. We get closer to the physical limits on transistor size every year. And there's a big debate over parallelism, but this isn't very interesting to discuss.
It would be very interesting to find a way to quantitatively measure artificial intelligence. Maybe it grows linearly with the capability of a computer. Or maybe it's logarithmic (i.e. very sublinear). Like an IQ measurement for AI.
Let me pose it to you this way. Can you quantitatively measure human intelligence? You might want to jump in and answer IQ, but that only measures intelligence defined one particular way. A narrow oversimplification of what intelligence is isn't necessarily useful as a measurement. It may be interesting but it would be lacking. How do you measure synthesis of ideas given prior information? Is it the quantity of the ideas? The complexity? The "usefulness"?
It would get even more absurd if/when AI surpasses human intelligence. How do you measure something you can't even begin to understand?
Maybe we can stick with the human intelligence as an analogy. What measurement would you use to evaluate human intelligence from 60,000 years ago to today?
Post by: scottish on April 25, 2015, 05:16:32 PM
I'm feeling argumentative today. Taking the animated graphic of a pond filling at an exponential rate and applying it to machine intelligence bugs me.
Post by: matchewed on April 25, 2015, 05:26:24 PM
Post by: Bob W on April 25, 2015, 09:46:15 PM
Post by: arebelspy on April 25, 2015, 10:09:28 PM
Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Post by: forummm on April 26, 2015, 07:50:54 AM
Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is. Most of us are government workers or in businesses that owe their financial existence to government. The balance is in professions like banking, insurance, marketing and sales. Very few people work at jobs that actually make things. The number one thing sold by far in the US is debt. So I'm guessing at best robots can replace 8% of us. Of course once AI is fully in swing within 25 years most all jobs will be obsolete.
Pretty much all of us are in jobs that owe their existence to government. Without government there would be so much inefficiency due to having the overhead of defending our own property, not having a stable financial system, courts, etc. Government, with all its problems and inefficiencies, is what has allowed an environment where the markets could function in a way for us to go from 100% of people in agriculture to only 2%.
A lot of the jobs you mention aren't making physical objects, but they are facilitating the ability of people to make physical objects. Whether it's marketing those objects (because people wouldn't buy as much of them otherwise and the manufacturing jobs would decrease), providing finance (so the business could afford to start up in the first place), or government ensuring safety and property rights and recourse for damages of defective products (without which fewer people would be willing to buy and sell). There is inefficiency in the system for sure.
And I believe the biggest employment role in government is teachers. At 3.3 million, that's far more than the total number of all federal government employees combined (about 2 million). Those teachers are facilitating the production of all things made in the economy.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
Post by: Albert on April 26, 2015, 09:21:34 AM
And let me remind you all yet again that intelligence (or computing power if you wish) alone is not sufficient. If someone were to make a brain transplantation on every single cow on the planet making them as smart as the best among us there would still be no "cow civilisation"
Post by: matchewed on April 26, 2015, 09:38:13 AM
Computing power increasing exponentially has been a useful rule of thumb, but it's not a fundamental law of nature and quite obviously one day will not be true anymore. Will it before or after we achieve general AI I cannot say, though. Nothing in nature expands exponentially forever...
And let me remind you all yet again that intelligence (or computing power if you wish) alone is not sufficient. If someone were to make a brain transplantation on every single cow on the planet making them as smart as the best among us there would still be no "cow civilisation"
True but there is no entity behind the cows actively making them smarter either.
Post by: scottish on April 26, 2015, 01:46:31 PM
Post by: matchewed on April 26, 2015, 04:17:54 PM
I like the cow analogy. Cows would need the ability to use tools and machines and to communicate with each other beyond <moo>
But that's where the analogy fails, computers have those things.
Post by: Bob W on April 26, 2015, 08:17:46 PM
. Produce means to make things or food. http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About-Manufacturing/ this from the national association of manufacturers. Says 12 million people are employed directly in manufacturing. That is what? 3.6 % of the population. Take out those involved in munitions, manufacturing directly for the gov and the fudge factor of the Nam and we are at a realistic 2%. Throw in farmers and food processor s and we might arrive at 5%. Interesting enough we produce almost twice as much goods as we did 10 years ago with 1/2 the work force. Point is in 10 years we may double production again and halve the manufacturing work force. 22% of the us economy is medical (government), 90% of teachers are either direct or indirect government. All banks are quasi government. Good or bad that is reality. Farm and ranch families comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population. More than 21 million American workers (15 percent of the total U.S. workforce) produce, process and sell the nation's food and fiber.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Fast Facts About Agriculture - American Farm Bureau.
Post by: Bob W on April 26, 2015, 08:22:07 PM
interesting thoughts,Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is. Most of us are government workers or in businesses that owe their financial existence to government. The balance is in professions like banking, insurance, marketing and sales. Very few people work at jobs that actually make things. The number one thing sold by far in the US is debt. So I'm guessing at best robots can replace 8% of us. Of course once AI is fully in swing within 25 years most all jobs will be obsolete.
Pretty much all of us are in jobs that owe their existence to government. Without government there would be so much inefficiency due to having the overhead of defending our own property, not having a stable financial system, courts, etc. Government, with all its problems and inefficiencies, is what has allowed an environment where the markets could function in a way for us to go from 100% of people in agriculture to only 2%.
A lot of the jobs you mention aren't making physical objects, but they are facilitating the ability of people to make physical objects. Whether it's marketing those objects (because people wouldn't buy as much of them otherwise and the manufacturing jobs would decrease), providing finance (so the business could afford to start up in the first place), or government ensuring safety and property rights and recourse for damages of defective products (without which fewer people would be willing to buy and sell). There is inefficiency in the system for sure.
And I believe the biggest employment role in government is teachers. At 3.3 million, that's far more than the total number of all federal government employees combined (about 2 million). Those teachers are facilitating the production of all things made in the economy.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
Post by: arebelspy on April 26, 2015, 09:16:46 PM
. Produce means to make things or food.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Ah. Well I think that's way too narrow of a definition.
To say that a teacher's, or a firefighter's, or a librarian's job is non-productive is--while technically accurate under that definition--ridiculous, IMO.
Or, in other words, if you want to use that definition of productive, I'd say it's a good thing that most jobs aren't "productive," and I don't think most jobs should be productive. If all jobs were just making food or manufacturing things.. eh. Doesn't say much for that society, IMO.
Post by: matchewed on April 27, 2015, 05:32:58 AM
. Produce means to make things or food.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Ah. Well I think that's way too narrow of a definition.
To say that a teacher's, or a firefighter's, or a librarian's job is non-productive is--while technically accurate under that definition--ridiculous, IMO.
Or, in other words, if you want to use that definition of productive, I'd say it's a good thing that most jobs aren't "productive," and I don't think most jobs should be productive. If all jobs were just making food or manufacturing things.. eh. Doesn't say much for that society, IMO.
Best Korea takes umbrage at your comments.
Engage saber rattling in 3.. 2.. 1..
Post by: arebelspy on April 27, 2015, 07:42:05 AM
. Produce means to make things or food.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Ah. Well I think that's way too narrow of a definition.
To say that a teacher's, or a firefighter's, or a librarian's job is non-productive is--while technically accurate under that definition--ridiculous, IMO.
Or, in other words, if you want to use that definition of productive, I'd say it's a good thing that most jobs aren't "productive," and I don't think most jobs should be productive. If all jobs were just making food or manufacturing things.. eh. Doesn't say much for that society, IMO.
Best Korea takes umbrage at your comments.
Engage saber rattling in 3.. 2.. 1..
Ah, but see, if they did that, Dear Leader would have to admit his job is not productive... ;)
Post by: forummm on April 27, 2015, 10:38:53 AM
. Produce means to make things or food. http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About-Manufacturing/ this from the national association of manufacturers. Says 12 million people are employed directly in manufacturing. That is what? 3.6 % of the population. Take out those involved in munitions, manufacturing directly for the gov and the fudge factor of the Nam and we are at a realistic 2%. Throw in farmers and food processor s and we might arrive at 5%. Interesting enough we produce almost twice as much goods as we did 10 years ago with 1/2 the work force. Point is in 10 years we may double production again and halve the manufacturing work force. 22% of the us economy is medical (government), 90% of teachers are either direct or indirect government. All banks are quasi government. Good or bad that is reality. Farm and ranch families comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population. More than 21 million American workers (15 percent of the total U.S. workforce) produce, process and sell the nation's food and fiber.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Fast Facts About Agriculture - American Farm Bureau.
That's just manufacturing in the US. We've outsourced most of ours. If you look globally, the percent involved in agriculture and manufacturing and other things in your narrow definition of "productive" is going to be very high. Mostly because many things in your definiteion of productive are not lucrative, and are easy to outsource.
Post by: Bob W on April 27, 2015, 03:11:28 PM
. Produce means to make things or food. http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About-Manufacturing/ this from the national association of manufacturers. Says 12 million people are employed directly in manufacturing. That is what? 3.6 % of the population. Take out those involved in munitions, manufacturing directly for the gov and the fudge factor of the Nam and we are at a realistic 2%. Throw in farmers and food processor s and we might arrive at 5%. Interesting enough we produce almost twice as much goods as we did 10 years ago with 1/2 the work force. Point is in 10 years we may double production again and halve the manufacturing work force. 22% of the us economy is medical (government), 90% of teachers are either direct or indirect government. All banks are quasi government. Good or bad that is reality. Farm and ranch families comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population. More than 21 million American workers (15 percent of the total U.S. workforce) produce, process and sell the nation's food and fiber.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Fast Facts About Agriculture - American Farm Bureau.
That's just manufacturing in the US. We've outsourced most of ours. If you look globally, the percent involved in agriculture and manufacturing and other things in your narrow definition of "productive" is going to be very high. Mostly because many things in your definiteion of productive are not lucrative, and are easy to outsource.
I stand by my definitions of "to produce" things. The reason I do in this context is we are talking about robotics and not software or other soft products. Most people would say "we don't make anything anymore in this country" when that is just a too simple a way to look at it. Fact is we make more than every in the US but the robots, software and streamlined manufacturing has reduced the need for human labor year after year after year. So the correct saying in my mind should be "Robots make a heluva lot of stuff in the US."
Post by: matchewed on April 27, 2015, 03:21:51 PM
. Produce means to make things or food. http://www.nam.org/Newsroom/Facts-About-Manufacturing/ this from the national association of manufacturers. Says 12 million people are employed directly in manufacturing. That is what? 3.6 % of the population. Take out those involved in munitions, manufacturing directly for the gov and the fudge factor of the Nam and we are at a realistic 2%. Throw in farmers and food processor s and we might arrive at 5%. Interesting enough we produce almost twice as much goods as we did 10 years ago with 1/2 the work force. Point is in 10 years we may double production again and halve the manufacturing work force. 22% of the us economy is medical (government), 90% of teachers are either direct or indirect government. All banks are quasi government. Good or bad that is reality. Farm and ranch families comprise just 2 percent of the U.S. population. More than 21 million American workers (15 percent of the total U.S. workforce) produce, process and sell the nation's food and fiber.Only about 5 to 8 % of people in the US have "productive" jobs as it is.
Citation? And what does "productive" mean?
Fast Facts About Agriculture - American Farm Bureau.
That's just manufacturing in the US. We've outsourced most of ours. If you look globally, the percent involved in agriculture and manufacturing and other things in your narrow definition of "productive" is going to be very high. Mostly because many things in your definiteion of productive are not lucrative, and are easy to outsource.
I stand by my definitions of "to produce" things. The reason I do in this context is we are talking about robotics and not software or other soft products. Most people would say "we don't make anything anymore in this country" when that is just a too simple a way to look at it. Fact is we make more than every in the US but the robots, software and streamlined manufacturing has reduced the need for human labor year after year after year. So the correct saying in my mind should be "Robots make a heluva lot of stuff in the US."
Not sure if anyone would disagree with that last part, just in particular with attempting to narrowly define productive jobs.
Post by: scottish on April 27, 2015, 04:12:46 PM
Quote
But that's where the analogy fails, computers have those things.
That's true, but cows have many things computer don't. They have senses, and they use them to observe the world and what happens when they interact with it. They can reproduce, and they have a biological drive to do so.
To be fair, computers do have limited senses, such as vision. Some of them even have effectors and actuators and so on. So cows aren't everything.
Post by: matchewed on April 27, 2015, 05:51:37 PM
QuoteBut that's where the analogy fails, computers have those things.
That's true, but cows have many things computer don't. They have senses, and they use them to observe the world and what happens when they interact with it. They can reproduce, and they have a biological drive to do so.
To be fair, computers do have limited senses, such as vision. Some of them even have effectors and actuators and so on. So cows aren't everything.
Many robots have senses, we have software that can reproduce, robots build other robots, all that is lacking is that biological drive. The point of the analogy was that cows as smart as humans couldn't take over the world. But a world with every computer as intelligent as a human? Yeah they'd run the world. I'd bet by that point consciousness wouldn't be far behind.
Post by: Bob W on April 29, 2015, 08:34:19 AM
My conclusion was that most readers here will see ASI in their lifetimes much sooner than they think.
My second conclusion was that ASI has been around what we consider the Universe for way longer than we imagine (perhaps trillions of what we call years). and that the reason we perceive no other intelligent life in the Universe is that the entire universe as we perceive it is merely a holographic projection. (this is now a widely accepted thought in the physics community). It appears that Super Intelligence can do what ever it likes with just about anything. Especially if it has a few billion years to become smarter at a pace of doubling every hour. (this fits in well with the intelligent design folks)
It is very likely that Super Intelligence can do all sorts of cool stuff we can't imagine like go back in time and manipulate the 10 know dimensions.
So the likely outcome is that ASI will be that A. We are likely to become nonexistent. B. Be treated like a son of the already existing SI entities. C. Be sentient whatever that means.
Meanwhile back at the Robot Ranch here.
Prior to the ASI explosion we most definitely will see computers and robots in virtually every aspect of our daily lives.
Tim made the point that change is exponential at this point and I can attest to that.
My dad was born in 1919 -- Cars were already a thing by the time he was a teenager. So from 1920 to 1960 there wasn't a big leap or a whole lot of change. (Imagine my dad showing up in 1919 with a cell phone, tablet, flat screen TV, computer, digital video, digital everything and the internet. He would have been God like!)
I was born in 1959 - We had black and white broadcast TV with poor reception. We had a party line with a phone with a 5 foot cord. We did not have microwave ovens. In 1978 we had 1 computer in our high school with a little green screen that you had to program yourself.
So from 59 to 78 not much really changed. Cell phones were still a fantasy.
Thing started to move along a little quicker an as the 80s progressed we got huge brick cell phones -- 90s internet and real cell phones wow. 2000s smart phones, the cloud, damn near everything.
The period from 2007 to now has been a little slow and Tim explains this as the S curve way that the exponential shit happens. So I think in the next 3-5 years we will see a very huge "Next Thing" happen.
Smart cars and trucks seems like the logical deal. (Some people say that it may even be made illegal for humans to drive cars) The implications of 3D printing have yet to be fully revealed but this is some Star Trek shit for real. You may not print it at home but I can imagine going to your local 3D store and picking up the meat they just printed for you.
We are about 5 foot steps from all the really cool shit to come but just can't see it or wrap our head around it because we base our estimate of pace of change on what has happened recently.
Unfortunately, in the end it appears that ASI will rule the Universe as we know it and we as humans will become irrelevant or extinct as we now exist.
One thing for sure is that this stuff is damn fascinating for an old guy like me. I only hope I will make it to the promised 1945 date of ASI.
Post by: arebelspy on April 29, 2015, 09:30:09 AM
and that the reason we perceive no other intelligent life in the Universe is that the entire universe as we perceive it is merely a holographic projection. (this is now a widely accepted thought in the physics community).
[Citation needed.] (Not for the theory, but for its "wide" acceptance.)
My second conclusion was that ASI has been around what we consider the Universe for way longer than we imagine (perhaps trillions of what we call years).
...
It appears that Super Intelligence can do what ever it likes with just about anything. Especially if it has a few billion years to become smarter at a pace of doubling every hour. (this fits in well with the intelligent design folks)
It is very likely that Super Intelligence can do all sorts of cool stuff we can't imagine like go back in time and manipulate the 10 know dimensions.
So the likely outcome is that ASI will be that A. We are likely to become nonexistent.
This seems contradictory. If it's already existed for billions of years, why would it decide now to wipe us out?
Either ASI already exists, as you claim, and it's okay with us, or it doesn't yet exist, but when we create it it will not be okay with us and wipe us out, as you also claim. Which is it?
I only hope I will make it to the promised 1945 date of ASI.
Who's promising that?
Cause AFAIK, ASI wasn't invented around the end of WWII. Even if I assume that's a typo and you meant 2045, I still don't know who's promising anything around that timeframe...
Post by: Bob W on April 29, 2015, 03:36:39 PM
and that the reason we perceive no other intelligent life in the Universe is that the entire universe as we perceive it is merely a holographic projection. (this is now a widely accepted thought in the physics community).
[Citation needed.] (Not for the theory, but for its "wide" acceptance.)My second conclusion was that ASI has been around what we consider the Universe for way longer than we imagine (perhaps trillions of what we call years).
...
It appears that Super Intelligence can do what ever it likes with just about anything. Especially if it has a few billion years to become smarter at a pace of doubling every hour. (this fits in well with the intelligent design folks)
It is very likely that Super Intelligence can do all sorts of cool stuff we can't imagine like go back in time and manipulate the 10 know dimensions.
So the likely outcome is that ASI will be that A. We are likely to become nonexistent.
This seems contradictory. If it's already existed for billions of years, why would it decide now to wipe us out?
Either ASI already exists, as you claim, and it's okay with us, or it doesn't yet exist, but when we create it it will not be okay with us and wipe us out, as you also claim. Which is it?I only hope I will make it to the promised 1945 date of ASI.
Who's promising that?
Cause AFAIK, ASI wasn't invented around the end of WWII. Even if I assume that's a typo and you meant 2045, I still don't know who's promising anything around that timeframe...
Obvious typo on the 45 deal. 2045 is the date of median acceptance for AGI with ASI a few moments after that in some scenarios. Personally I feel that the date is much sooner than that. If we are 1 percent to AGI now, then the exponential S curve theory leads me to believe 15 years is the longest out. Yeah, this will probably fuck up a lot of people's retirement plans.
One assumption is that the US and China are behind the curtains pumping 10s of billions into this. If they aren't currently, one would assume that the Pentagon will be getting on this soon. At very least the NSA has all the information ever produced on this and is keeping a very close eye on it. It may be the NSA's primary focus now as it is the most likely big threat on the horizon.
You'll have to do your own research on the holographic universe theory. (I don't make this shit up as you know)
To simplify why ASI has probably been around for billions or trillions or more years.
The Fermi paradox clearly states we can't explain why we can't find any intelligent technologically advanced life in the universe? The probability of us being the only ones ever is as close to zero as one could get, given the size and age of the known Universe.
So therefore the opposite must be true --- that technologically advanced life must have existed before us. (I know we like to think we're special, but that probably isn't the case)
One would also surmise that exponentially advances in technology apply to other places besides the earth.
Therefore, even if an entity arrived at ASI just 20 years ahead of us anywhere on the quadrillion solar systems, it would now be at the point where it was trillions and trillions of times more intelligent.
Once you do your research on the holographic universe explanation, you will see that what we see as a reality is merely a holographic projection. So it must be projected from somewhere and that somewhere leads us to the SI entity whose existence is mathematically as close to certain as you can get. In the parallel universe theory it is a certainty by definition.
In our local time horizon when ASI pops it will mean either the end of humans or the end of our relevance. The idea of us melding our brains into SI is certainly a possibility and may in fact happen. That would allow SI to develop with a human conscious, soul, or be sentient. One would assume that most scientist would want to meld the SI with people who are generally "good" and have empathy. Of course they could botch it as well.
Will that entity ever reach the level where it can create, expand, constrict and travel back and fourth on the time dimension? Probably so. Will that entity reach a level where it can function on the existing known 10 dimensions. Probably so. Will it be able to create new dimensions as a fun game for a Saturday afternoon. Probably so. Will it be able to create what we perceive as an entire universe in its spare time? Yep, the exponential theory would lead us to believe that and that fits right in with the holographic universe thinking.
Probably our ASI child will meld into the existing SI at some point within a very short time.
You'll have to excuse me for a moment --- a bit of my brain just melted and dripped out of my ear.
I hope Tim writes about a few things in the future 1. Holographic Universe (which is even more interesting than AI) 2. Dark Matter 3. Dark Energy 4. The 10 living people whose father's "fought" in the civil war. 5. Do we actually "exist"
What a crazy interesting universe!
(I also wish there was a forum on Tim's site rather that that crazy 3000 comments per post thing)
Post by: matchewed on April 29, 2015, 03:50:00 PM
B) The Fermi Paradox does not explain why we don't see evidence of life beyond our earth. It only asks why, given the size and age of the universe, do we not see any evidence of life beyond earth. There are several hypothesis of the explanation, one being that they (other civilizations) tend to have a technological singularity. This tends to fragment into many other smaller interpretations as to what that technological singularity is, and one small narrow possibility is what you posted.
None of that is what I would call widely accepted. And there are other plausible explanations for the Fermi Paradox that do not invoke AI at all.
Post by: sol on April 29, 2015, 04:46:33 PM
The easiest explanation for dark matter is that most of the mass in the universe exists in luminescent stars that currently have all of their energy output that earth can see harvested. In that view, the tiny fraction of mass that constitutes the billions of stars that we can see is just the leftover table scraps that synthetic life has yet to fully colonize.
I expect that such a universe would eventually have each galaxy owned by a single synthetic intelligence or society, but that the distances between galaxies probably inhibit intergalactic conflict.
Human society is just a speed bump. If we ever do give rise to a superintelligence of our own, it's likely to be rapidly outnumbered or extinguished by the nearest existing superintelligence. I would expect such an entity would view human life as an interesting oddity, like we view deep sea hydrothermal vent communities, alien aberrations unlike everything else known.
The universe is approximately sixty five thousand times older than all human life. Whole generations of stars like our sun have come and gone before our solar system was even formed, and our little planet has only had intelligent life for a tiny fraction of its brief history.
The universe looks capable of continuing on in much its present form for much longer than the 13 billion years it has already existed. It took less than a billion years to go from single celled organisms to spacefaring intelligence. What will it look like in another thirteen billion years?
Post by: Albert on April 30, 2015, 11:36:14 AM
Post by: matchewed on April 30, 2015, 12:47:05 PM
It all sounds too much like a religion to me believing in this or believing in that... One of the key properties of a truly scientific theory that there should be a way to prove it wrong. That is if you propose a theory A there should be an experiment (preferably real, but could also be something we can't do technologically yet) which by giving result B would prove that theory A is invalid.
Well yeah, theory is being used two different ways here. The theory of evolution is used in a way which means we have a preponderance of evidence showing it happens. The idea that physicists have a theory that the world is just a hologram, is really a hypothesis one which we have no real method of testing right now.
I hate the phrase but this truly is a semantic issue rather than an actual one.
Post by: Albert on April 30, 2015, 12:56:01 PM
Post by: matchewed on April 30, 2015, 01:05:56 PM
If you can't test your hypothesis even theoretically then it's not a science anymore. At best it's a philosophy of the sort ancient Greeks engaged in with some chance of making a lucky guess (Democritus and his atoms, for example).
I'm not sure if I can agree 100% with that. You need the hypothesis. And just because we can't test today doesn't mean we can't test tomorrow. Theoretical physics is what led us to many major discoveries. Einstein was a theoretical physicist. I doubt anyone could say he wasn't a scientist.
Post by: Albert on April 30, 2015, 01:17:44 PM
I'm not sure if I can agree 100% with that. You need the hypothesis. And just because we can't test today doesn't mean we can't test tomorrow. Theoretical physics is what led us to many major discoveries. Einstein was a theoretical physicist. I doubt anyone could say he wasn't a scientist.
I think you didn't understand me correctly. Theoretical physics is a proper science because its theories are in principle testable. Pretty much everything Einstein proposed has been later verified, not by him and in some cases long after he died but that doesn't matter. When you propose something new whether it be in particle physics or in psychology of monkeys you also need to come up with some experiment which could in principle either verify or invalidate it. As I wrote before the best is if you could do it yourself or base it on earlier work, but if that is not possible and it wasn't for some of Einstein's stuff a thought experiment would suffice. Of course this also leaves your theory more open to later invalidation. The problem arises if your theory is so esoteric (as discussed upthread) that you can't come up even with a plausible thought experiment. Statistics and probability in this case is not good enough.
Post by: gimp on April 30, 2015, 04:32:42 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on May 01, 2015, 09:01:29 AM
On the other hand, from the Nature article, even with the amazing networked parallel processing of Deep Q, the real breakthrough was implementation of more simplistic algorithms to simulate 'motivation'. Basically, the computers were seeking a goal of the highest end state (score) with just the right amount of learning carried over from past trials. But it is this 'motivation' component that is still elusive.
I have been thinking about it, and it really is a hard thing to define or quantify (let alone express in mathematical terms). For instance, many of the people on this forum are 'motivated' to work and save and forego the immediate fruits of their labor in exchange for the promise of earlier retirement. Kinda makes sense, but if you tried to express that in simple, inflexible language to a computer, it would sound like you are doing what you don't want to be doing now so that you don't have to do it any more of it than you have to do.... So how much do you do? Solving a problem like this is (seemingly) possible for all of us here, but I can't even imagine how an AI would go about it... It can do the simulations (ANI) faster and faster each year (shave off another fraction of a second of all those complex calculations, woo-hoo!), but without understanding how to program 'motivation', it will never reach AGI.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on May 24, 2015, 12:35:10 AM
Quote
Using pattern recognition software designed by the interdisciplinary robotics team at the College Park campus, Julia the robot watched YouTube videos of people making salads to learn the steps, from cutting vegetables to tossing the ingredients and even pouring the salad dressing at the end.
Post by: Insanity on May 24, 2015, 08:39:58 AM
More systems will be smart and will learn. All learning is simply gaining rules and evaluating prioritization a based on another set of rules.
Motivation, emotion, they are all based on rules. That is it. That doesn't mean it is easy. But it is pretty simple.
Post by: scottish on May 24, 2015, 12:37:26 PM
Post by: Bob W on May 27, 2015, 10:20:09 AM
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/10/robots_are_coming_for_your_job_amazon_mcdonalds_and_the_next_wave_of_dangerous_capitalist_disruption/
It appears that McDonalds will be testing an almost fully robotic restaurant with a small crew to assist the robots. Makes sense. What next drones delivering your pizzas?!
Post by: tomsang on May 27, 2015, 11:19:24 AM
This just in ---
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/10/robots_are_coming_for_your_job_amazon_mcdonalds_and_the_next_wave_of_dangerous_capitalist_disruption/
It appears that McDonalds will be testing an almost fully robotic restaurant with a small crew to assist the robots. Makes sense. What next drones delivering your pizzas?!
Nice article. Comments are interesting as well.
Post by: forummm on May 27, 2015, 12:39:46 PM
Post by: arebelspy on May 27, 2015, 12:43:41 PM
Next they're going to create bots that post on Internet forums.
(http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb240/JoNuggs/Shifty20Eyes.gif)
Post by: brooklynguy on May 27, 2015, 12:47:57 PM
Next they're going to create bots that post on Internet forums.
As I've said before (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/quantum-computing-anyone-in-the-industry/msg651492/#msg651492), I think they already have.
Post by: arebelspy on May 27, 2015, 12:58:15 PM
Next they're going to create bots that post on Internet forums.
As I've said before (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/quantum-computing-anyone-in-the-industry/msg651492/#msg651492), I think they already have.
Tell me more about As I've said before.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on May 27, 2015, 01:04:24 PM
There's been a bit of that exponential stuff going on - 5Meg Hard Drive 1956Here, so people don't have to click on a link:
(http://assets.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/LakeMichigan-Final3.gif)
People keep posting about how we aren't that close yet.
The thing about exponential growth is that it doesn't look close even one year before you get there.
Remember the riddle from elementary school?
"If a pond lily doubles everyday and it takes 30 days to completely cover a pond, on what day will the pond be 1/2 covered?[/size] [/color][/size]The answer is day 29.
We are here on day 26 saying "hey, the pond is barely 1/10th filled, we aren't close yet" even though we are only 4 days from total saturation.[/color]
This assume exponential trends will continue to infinity--something that doesn't happen in nature. Something always gets in the way. Maybe computational advances will continue at this rate for long enough to create the advances needed for AI exceeding human intelligence. Maybe not. There's a possibility, but don't take it as gospel truth.
Post by: brooklynguy on May 27, 2015, 01:07:08 PM
Tell me more about As I've said before.
Not sure I follow...
If your point was I should stop recycling jokes I've already made, point taken.
If your point was I should stop speculating about that which I speculated, given that you are the most likely candidate to whom my statement applies, point taken :)
Post by: forummm on May 27, 2015, 01:09:29 PM
Post by: forummm on May 27, 2015, 01:11:12 PM
Tell me more about As I've said before.
Not sure I follow...
If your point was I should stop recycling jokes I've already made, point taken.
If your point was I should stop speculating about that which I speculated, given that you are the most likely candidate to whom my statement applies, point taken :)
<whispers> I think ARS is a bot </whispers>
Post by: sol on May 27, 2015, 01:41:13 PM
Tell me more about As I've said before.
Not sure I follow...
If your point was I should stop recycling jokes I've already made, point taken.
If your point was I should stop speculating about that which I speculated, given that you are the most likely candidate to whom my statement applies, point taken :)
He was just emulating the conversational tactics of chatbots. He's pretending to be a robot, but I'm pretty sure the joke backfires because bots can emulate humans but they can't emulate humans emulating bots. He's just proven his non-robotic nature.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on May 27, 2015, 01:42:26 PM
Tell me more about As I've said before.<whispers> I think ARS is a bot </whispers>
Back on Page 5 of this thread I pointed out that ARS is a bot... http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/robots-and-their-impact-on-the-future/msg558381/#msg558381
He is slightly more engaging than Romona 4.2 though (http://www.kurzweilai.net/Ramona4.2/ramona.html)
Post by: arebelspy on May 27, 2015, 01:43:10 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on May 27, 2015, 01:46:11 PM
The first thing I'd do, if I were programming a chat bot, is to have it create a joke about being a chatbot if it were accused of being one.
Or respond with a related gif... (http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb240/JoNuggs/Shifty20Eyes.gif)
Post by: brooklynguy on May 27, 2015, 01:46:26 PM
He was just emulating the conversational tactics of chatbots. He's pretending to be a robot, but I'm pretty sure the joke backfires because bots can emulate humans but they can't emulate humans emulating bots. He's just proven his non-robotic nature.
Ah, I get it. Sorry to have spoiled the joke by having had to have had it explained to me.
Of course, another possibility is that he is such an advanced robot that he only tricked us into believing that he has proven his non-robotic nature.
Arebelspy, the Turing-test passing chatbot.
Post by: arebelspy on May 27, 2015, 01:48:08 PM
The first thing I'd do, if I were programming a chat bot, is to have it create a joke about being a chatbot if it were accused of being one.
Or respond with a related gif...
(http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/Un5F2vt.gif)
Post by: brooklynguy on May 27, 2015, 02:11:58 PM
The first thing I'd do, if I were programming a chat bot, is to have it create a joke about being a chatbot if it were accused of being one.
The first thing I'd do is create an elaborate backstory for it, like maybe that it lives in a medium-sized city working as a school teacher but moonlighting as a real estate baron.
Seriously, this is getting creepy. You managed to respond to the related gif comment with another related gif before my browser could even load the initial comment, and reprogram the forum to change the time-stamp to make it look like a more reasonable (but still suspicious) two-minute delay between posts.
Post by: forummm on May 27, 2015, 02:46:17 PM
He was just emulating the conversational tactics of chatbots. He's pretending to be a robot, but I'm pretty sure the joke backfires because bots can emulate humans but they can't emulate humans emulating bots. He's just proven his non-robotic nature.
Ah, I get it. Sorry to have spoiled the joke by having had to have had it explained to me.
That's OK. Now you get to be the joke. :p
Post by: forummm on May 27, 2015, 02:47:58 PM
Post by: Insanity on May 27, 2015, 03:55:07 PM
Yeah. How does he have such an insane amount of posts while holding down a full-time job and maintaining his couple dozen rental properties? I don't get it.
He outsources everything.
Post by: tomsang on May 27, 2015, 05:54:50 PM
Interesting article about the law of accelerating returns.
Post by: arebelspy on May 27, 2015, 08:02:21 PM
Post by: mozar on May 27, 2015, 08:42:33 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/science/a-robot-that-can-perform-brain-surgery-on-a-fruit-fly.html
Post by: tomsang on June 07, 2015, 06:19:17 PM
Interesting article. It seems like the big issues is what to do with income inequality and how to distribute the technological gains to society. At some point, the technology will replace the need to work. Who controls or benefits from the advances in technology will be a major shift in the future.
As it stands, income inequality keeps getting larger as those that own the companies are pulling in a significant portion of the technological gains. We are seeing more and more industries where people are being replaced. If we transition well, this could be an amazing future. If those at top buy off politicians, Supreme Court judges, and other aspects of society to reap all of the rewards it could be a very tough future if you are not owners of companies and your life.
Post by: Big Boots Buddha on June 07, 2015, 10:29:17 PM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/robots-worried-120000777.html
As it stands, income inequality keeps getting larger as those that own the companies are pulling in a significant portion of the technological gains. We are seeing more and more industries where people are being replaced. If we transition well, this could be an amazing future. If those at top buy off politicians, Supreme Court judges, and other aspects of society to reap all of the rewards it could be a very tough future if you are not owners of companies and your life.
Since this is already the biggest problem in the world now, why would anyone think it should decrease as the remaining companies consolidate power and influence? Will energy, military industry, finance, big law etc lobbyists become better people when they have more power?
Post by: tomsang on June 09, 2015, 07:30:13 AM
Many of the semi-autonomous cars are expected to go on sale by the end of 2017.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102742521
Post by: partgypsy on June 09, 2015, 10:32:30 AM
and that the reason we perceive no other intelligent life in the Universe is that the entire universe as we perceive it is merely a holographic projection. (this is now a widely accepted thought in the physics community).
[Citation needed.] (Not for the theory, but for its "wide" acceptance.)My second conclusion was that ASI has been around what we consider the Universe for way longer than we imagine (perhaps trillions of what we call years).
...
It appears that Super Intelligence can do what ever it likes with just about anything. Especially if it has a few billion years to become smarter at a pace of doubling every hour. (this fits in well with the intelligent design folks)
It is very likely that Super Intelligence can do all sorts of cool stuff we can't imagine like go back in time and manipulate the 10 know dimensions.
So the likely outcome is that ASI will be that A. We are likely to become nonexistent.
This seems contradictory. If it's already existed for billions of years, why would it decide now to wipe us out?
Either ASI already exists, as you claim, and it's okay with us, or it doesn't yet exist, but when we create it it will not be okay with us and wipe us out, as you also claim. Which is it?I only hope I will make it to the promised 1945 date of ASI.
Who's promising that?
Cause AFAIK, ASI wasn't invented around the end of WWII. Even if I assume that's a typo and you meant 2045, I still don't know who's promising anything around that timeframe...
Obvious typo on the 45 deal. 2045 is the date of median acceptance for AGI with ASI a few moments after that in some scenarios. Personally I feel that the date is much sooner than that. If we are 1 percent to AGI now, then the exponential S curve theory leads me to believe 15 years is the longest out. Yeah, this will probably fuck up a lot of people's retirement plans.
One assumption is that the US and China are behind the curtains pumping 10s of billions into this. If they aren't currently, one would assume that the Pentagon will be getting on this soon. At very least the NSA has all the information ever produced on this and is keeping a very close eye on it. It may be the NSA's primary focus now as it is the most likely big threat on the horizon.
You'll have to do your own research on the holographic universe theory. (I don't make this shit up as you know)
To simplify why ASI has probably been around for billions or trillions or more years.
The Fermi paradox clearly states we can't explain why we can't find any intelligent technologically advanced life in the universe? The probability of us being the only ones ever is as close to zero as one could get, given the size and age of the known Universe.
So therefore the opposite must be true --- that technologically advanced life must have existed before us. (I know we like to think we're special, but that probably isn't the case)
One would also surmise that exponentially advances in technology apply to other places besides the earth.
Therefore, even if an entity arrived at ASI just 20 years ahead of us anywhere on the quadrillion solar systems, it would now be at the point where it was trillions and trillions of times more intelligent.
Once you do your research on the holographic universe explanation, you will see that what we see as a reality is merely a holographic projection. So it must be projected from somewhere and that somewhere leads us to the SI entity whose existence is mathematically as close to certain as you can get. In the parallel universe theory it is a certainty by definition.
In our local time horizon when ASI pops it will mean either the end of humans or the end of our relevance. The idea of us melding our brains into SI is certainly a possibility and may in fact happen. That would allow SI to develop with a human conscious, soul, or be sentient. One would assume that most scientist would want to meld the SI with people who are generally "good" and have empathy. Of course they could botch it as well.
Will that entity ever reach the level where it can create, expand, constrict and travel back and fourth on the time dimension? Probably so. Will that entity reach a level where it can function on the existing known 10 dimensions. Probably so. Will it be able to create new dimensions as a fun game for a Saturday afternoon. Probably so. Will it be able to create what we perceive as an entire universe in its spare time? Yep, the exponential theory would lead us to believe that and that fits right in with the holographic universe thinking.
Probably our ASI child will meld into the existing SI at some point within a very short time.
You'll have to excuse me for a moment --- a bit of my brain just melted and dripped out of my ear.
I hope Tim writes about a few things in the future 1. Holographic Universe (which is even more interesting than AI) 2. Dark Matter 3. Dark Energy 4. The 10 living people whose father's "fought" in the civil war. 5. Do we actually "exist"
What a crazy interesting universe!
(I also wish there was a forum on Tim's site rather that that crazy 3000 comments per post thing)
There are so many assumptions in this single post, not sure which one to even start with.
I enjoy science fiction, and theoretical physics, but I'm not going to based my life decisions on them. It is much much more likely that our civilization will be very degraded by climate change. There you go. Carl Sagan himself postulated that the reason we don't see a lot of non earth intelligent life, is that high levels of civilization exist for relatively short periods oftime. (temporaly self-limiting). Look at all the civilizations (so far) on our earth. If we do not or cannot transition from a fossil fuel economy, or cannot recover from the effects of basing our society on fossil fuels we will go back to an earlier technology (see Planet of the apes). So, talk to me once we are able to make that leap. Solar-powered self-repairing and generating robots? Yes that would be scary.
Post by: Bob W on June 10, 2015, 10:29:54 AM
He does talk about the threshold of civilizations, as in is there a point that we may no longer survive.
But that really doesn't address the Fermi Paradox because you see even in the 1800s we were emitting radio waves. Sure those waves only travel at the speed of light. So it cold take a billion or so years to arrive here. But with the quadrillion or more possible life supporting planets one would hope that at least one made it to a primitive radio wave level?
Who knows. What we do know is that robotics/computers will be human like powerful in less than 2 decades and then very quickly become much more intelligent.
The impact will be staggeringly huge.
Many jobs that now exist will no longer --- truck drives, car drivers, pilots, warehouse workers, factory workers, farmers (tractor drivers), programmers, etc.. Even McDonald employees will be impacted. WalMart workers? Sorry we only need a few. Wait do we even need stores?
In the US we manufacture twice as much with half as many workers as 10 years ago. Fast forward 10 more years and at that rate we will be manufacturing 6 times as much as 20 years previous with 1/5th the work force.
So yeah, is it that only 15% will need or have jobs?
With robotic cars will individual ownership be a thing of the past. Imagine you just press a button on your phone and within 1 minute a car shows up and takes you where you want to go. It then heads around the corner to pick up the next riders. No driver, no dispatcher, no fossil fuel. We are seeing the beginning of this with Uber.
The number of cars needed or wanted could be 10 times as few. Talk about mass transportation!
The cost for this robotic car transportation service? Perhaps 1/5th of what the average person currently pays for car usage.
With Uber the biggest cost remains the driver's time. Do away with that cost and your cost to operate drops to 70 cents per mile. Add in a solar rechargeable 200 mpg equivalent car and now your at 20 cents per mile. Factor in that there would be 1/10 the number of wrecks and insurance costs are irrelevant. So maybe 15 cents per mile?
So yeah my 12,000 annual miles might only cost me $150 per month. And I would be super safe.
I'm possibly very wrong. But hoping I'm very right and that we have the will power to take our car transportation to the next level quickly.
Post by: jordanread on June 10, 2015, 11:21:08 AM
Partgypsy --- Yes it is just crazy talk and has little relevance to our day to day lives. If you read Tim Urban's post on AI, it is interesting that theoretically one day we are living in a normal future and the next day AI has exploded.
He does talk about the threshold of civilizations, as in is there a point that we may no longer survive.
But that really doesn't address the Fermi Paradox because you see even in the 1800s we were emitting radio waves. Sure those waves only travel at the speed of light. So it cold take a billion or so years to arrive here. But with the quadrillion or more possible life supporting planets one would hope that at least one made it to a primitive radio wave level?
Who knows. What we do know is that robotics/computers will be human like powerful in less than 2 decades and then very quickly become much more intelligent.
The impact will be staggeringly huge.
Many jobs that now exist will no longer --- truck drives, car drivers, pilots, warehouse workers, factory workers, farmers (tractor drivers), programmers, etc.. Even McDonald employees will be impacted. WalMart workers? Sorry we only need a few. Wait do we even need stores?
In the US we manufacture twice as much with half as many workers as 10 years ago. Fast forward 10 more years and at that rate we will be manufacturing 6 times as much as 20 years previous with 1/5th the work force.
So yeah, is it that only 15% will need or have jobs?
With robotic cars will individual ownership be a thing of the past. Imagine you just press a button on your phone and within 1 minute a car shows up and takes you where you want to go. It then heads around the corner to pick up the next riders. No driver, no dispatcher, no fossil fuel. We are seeing the beginning of this with Uber.
The number of cars needed or wanted could be 10 times as few. Talk about mass transportation!
The cost for this robotic car transportation service? Perhaps 1/5th of what the average person currently pays for car usage.
With Uber the biggest cost remains the driver's time. Do away with that cost and your cost to operate drops to 70 cents per mile. Add in a solar rechargeable 200 mpg equivalent car and now your at 20 cents per mile. Factor in that there would be 1/10 the number of wrecks and insurance costs are irrelevant. So maybe 15 cents per mile?
So yeah my 12,000 annual miles might only cost me $150 per month. And I would be super safe.
I'm possibly very wrong. But hoping I'm very right and that we have the will power to take our car transportation to the next level quickly.
I actually find myself agreeing with you, which is an odd spot to be in (no offense, usually we just wind up on opposite sides...or I play devil's advocate to your points a lot). Without going into the details and theories of the Fermi Paradox, your views on the vehicle situation is spot on. I actually thought about it the other day, when I read something that stated that most people's vehicles sit idle 95% of the time. I can't wait until personal car ownership is a thing of the mostly past. I actually love the thought of how society would look then. Unfortunately, even the Mercedes self driving truck is being designed to have someone watch stuff, just to keep the peace with the pushback that drivers (teamsters I think) can bring.
I probably mentioned this a touch earlier, but may not have...this thread goes over some time, and I didn't read it all before posting. That being said, most vehicle laws don't account for autonomous vehicles[Quick Google-Fu - Stanford (http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/publications/automated-vehicles-are-probably-legal-united-states)], which is why they are being as widely used as they are without any groundbreaking legal barriers. It's the people that are going to cause issues. Personally, I don't fear change, and embrace it, even when it puts some of my power in other peoples' hands. However, I do take a huge amount of interest in where my money goes, so I only support companies (with my wallet) that I respect.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on June 10, 2015, 01:20:21 PM
Partgypsy --- Yes it is just crazy talk and has little relevance to our day to day lives. If you read Tim Urban's post on AI, it is interesting that theoretically one day we are living in a normal future and the next day AI has exploded.
He does talk about the threshold of civilizations, as in is there a point that we may no longer survive.
But that really doesn't address the Fermi Paradox because you see even in the 1800s we were emitting radio waves. Sure those waves only travel at the speed of light. So it cold take a billion or so years to arrive here. But with the quadrillion or more possible life supporting planets one would hope that at least one made it to a primitive radio wave level?
Who knows. What we do know is that robotics/computers will be human like powerful in less than 2 decades and then very quickly become much more intelligent.
The impact will be staggeringly huge.
Many jobs that now exist will no longer --- truck drives, car drivers, pilots, warehouse workers, factory workers, farmers (tractor drivers), programmers, etc.. Even McDonald employees will be impacted. WalMart workers? Sorry we only need a few. Wait do we even need stores?
In the US we manufacture twice as much with half as many workers as 10 years ago. Fast forward 10 more years and at that rate we will be manufacturing 6 times as much as 20 years previous with 1/5th the work force.
So yeah, is it that only 15% will need or have jobs?
With robotic cars will individual ownership be a thing of the past. Imagine you just press a button on your phone and within 1 minute a car shows up and takes you where you want to go. It then heads around the corner to pick up the next riders. No driver, no dispatcher, no fossil fuel. We are seeing the beginning of this with Uber.
The number of cars needed or wanted could be 10 times as few. Talk about mass transportation!
The cost for this robotic car transportation service? Perhaps 1/5th of what the average person currently pays for car usage.
With Uber the biggest cost remains the driver's time. Do away with that cost and your cost to operate drops to 70 cents per mile. Add in a solar rechargeable 200 mpg equivalent car and now your at 20 cents per mile. Factor in that there would be 1/10 the number of wrecks and insurance costs are irrelevant. So maybe 15 cents per mile?
So yeah my 12,000 annual miles might only cost me $150 per month. And I would be super safe.
I'm possibly very wrong. But hoping I'm very right and that we have the will power to take our car transportation to the next level quickly.
Goggle car will hopefully deal better with those pesky cyclists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvrkJkCdJg
Post by: jordanread on June 10, 2015, 03:11:05 PM
Goggle car will hopefully deal better with those pesky cyclists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvrkJkCdJg
They do...even back in 04/14 (https://youtu.be/csvt6JBAwBk). Also, as one of those pesky cyclists (who's never had the opportunity/desire to face off against a driver), I have to say, "I'm Wearing Tights!!!"
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on June 10, 2015, 03:18:48 PM
...
With robotic cars will individual ownership be a thing of the past. Imagine you just press a button on your phone and within 1 minute a car shows up and takes you where you want to go. It then heads around the corner to pick up the next riders. No driver, no dispatcher, no fossil fuel.
...
...your views on the vehicle situation is spot on. I actually thought about it the other day, when I read something that stated that most people's vehicles sit idle 95% of the time. I can't wait until personal car ownership is a thing of the mostly past. I actually love the thought of how society would look then.
...
You people do realize that this was already in Hot Tub Time Machine Part 2, right? The main characters go into the future (2025) where 'Smart Cars' that nobody owns roam around until someone needs one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Qlrv0y2FA)
Post by: AlanStache on June 25, 2015, 09:24:11 AM
Wait But Why just had a great two part blog post on AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
Finally got done with them, very good reads. May articles on AI assume humans will remain a static target where waitbutwhy.com correctly assumes that we will incorporate tech into ourselves. Or we may be killed off before we have the chance :-(
Re Fermi Paradox: I read somewhere that many of our basic/simple RF transitions become less powerful than the background noise relatively close to earth. This does not explain away most of the FP but the idea that aliens could be watching I Love Lucy is probably incorrect.
Post by: arebelspy on June 25, 2015, 01:31:57 PM
Wait But Why just had a great two part blog post on AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
Finally got done with them, very good reads. May articles on AI assume humans will remain a static target where waitbutwhy.com correctly assumes that we will incorporate tech into ourselves. Or we may be killed off before we have the chance :-(
Re Fermi Paradox: I read somewhere that many of our basic/simple RF transitions become less powerful than the background noise relatively close to earth. This does not explain away most of the FP but the idea that aliens could be watching I Love Lucy is probably incorrect.
Did you read the WBW on the Fermi Paradox? :)
Post by: AlanStache on June 25, 2015, 01:38:58 PM
Wait But Why just had a great two part blog post on AI.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html
Finally got done with them, very good reads. May articles on AI assume humans will remain a static target where waitbutwhy.com correctly assumes that we will incorporate tech into ourselves. Or we may be killed off before we have the chance :-(
Re Fermi Paradox: I read somewhere that many of our basic/simple RF transitions become less powerful than the background noise relatively close to earth. This does not explain away most of the FP but the idea that aliens could be watching I Love Lucy is probably incorrect.
Did you read the WBW on the Fermi Paradox? :)
Book marked but not started. Need to poke around wbw some too.
Post by: jordanread on June 25, 2015, 04:35:50 PM
Post by: arebelspy on June 25, 2015, 07:17:28 PM
Post by: theadvicist on June 26, 2015, 01:59:27 AM
He has made me a total Tesla / Musk convert. The revelation is similar to finding MMM for me. I'm walking round thinking why do all these cars have their own little petrol/diesel generators on board, it's so much more efficient to do it all centrally! Also we get much cheaper electricity at night, so I'd really like a powerwall battery thing. 92% efficiency, guaranteed for 10 years... it actually nearly stacks up for me today.
Post by: jordanread on June 26, 2015, 08:29:16 AM
(http://myreactiongifs.com/gifs/aceventurathumbsup.gif)
And since I've met you, I completely imagined you wearing that suit and making those gestures. Makes me giggle. You couldn't pull off that hair though. :)
Post by: AlanStache on June 26, 2015, 10:53:08 AM
Along the aliens theme I recommend the 'History Channels' 'documentary' "Ancient Aliens" is where Giorgio A. Tsoukalos' "Aliens" meme came from. Well worth the time if one were slothing about on NetFlix.
(http://i.imgur.com/XHMahvB.png)
Post by: arebelspy on June 26, 2015, 12:18:06 PM
And since I've met you, I completely imagined you wearing that suit and making those gestures. Makes me giggle. You couldn't pull off that hair though. :)
I can't, but Alan's post gives me something to shoot for!
Post by: AlanStache on June 26, 2015, 06:52:05 PM
And since I've met you, I completely imagined you wearing that suit and making those gestures. Makes me giggle. You couldn't pull off that hair though. :)
I can't, but Alan's post gives me something to shoot for!
Get a goFundMe going for the hairspray!
Post by: Insanity on June 28, 2015, 07:58:34 PM
Uber laying a big order on Tesla... If they can build the quantity of RoboCars needed by 2020. 4.5 years? Is it possible?
Post by: BlueHouse on June 29, 2015, 06:25:36 AM
Post by: AlanStache on June 29, 2015, 08:33:02 AM
I'm In a different group, but I sit with a bunch of roboticists. They speak with stilted, halting, prose and anytime they speak of interactions with the robot, they refer to themselves or others as "the human". Imagine hearing people speak in third person all day long using the term "the human". I seriously want to unplug them.
LOL. A lot of my work is on automatic systems but we refer to ourselves as being the robot. We work from the robots perspective to deal with human intruders.
Post by: tomsang on July 25, 2015, 05:34:39 PM
Daimler is planning on getting approval in the next few weeks for their trucks with some saying that the technology will be commercial by 2020.
Post by: forummm on July 25, 2015, 05:37:12 PM
Post by: tomsang on July 25, 2015, 06:14:46 PM
www.ted.com/talks/chris_urmson_how_a_driverless_car_sees_the_road
Love TED talks. Really interesting to see the problems that the cars have to deal with. Crazy number of miles that are dealt with through simulators.
Post by: brooklynguy on July 28, 2015, 08:14:17 AM
Apparently Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and hundreds of other informed individuals take the threat of "autonomous weapons" seriously enough to pen an open letter warning of the dangers and calling for a worldwide ban on them.
Post by: tomsang on July 31, 2015, 01:26:56 PM
Lack of organs is an unusual consequence of autonomous vehicles and their lack of accidents.
"Reduced demand married with AV safety would have surprising side effects. One could be a dramatic reduction in the supply of organs available for donation/transplants."
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/as-cars-roll-toward-self-driving-what-happens-to-125514634282.html
Post by: forummm on July 31, 2015, 01:52:56 PM
Article on the impact of self driving vehicles on the economy. From Insurance, car salespeople, manufacturers and all of the various people that sell, service, insure or use cars.
Lack of organs is an unusual consequence of autonomous vehicles and their lack of accidents.
"Reduced demand married with AV safety would have surprising side effects. One could be a dramatic reduction in the supply of organs available for donation/transplants."
https://www.yahoo.com/autos/as-cars-roll-toward-self-driving-what-happens-to-125514634282.html
Yes, many things have interesting unintended consequences. Hopefully medicine will figure out how to grow replacement organs more effectively. In the meantime:
http://freakonomics.com/2015/06/17/make-me-a-match-a-new-freakonomics-radio-episode/
Post by: tomsang on August 09, 2015, 02:48:25 PM
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-08-08
Post by: forummm on August 09, 2015, 03:53:25 PM
This forum topic came up as I was thinking about the educations my kids should pursue with the changes in technology. Scott Adams has the answer, Banker
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-08-08
I think robots make pretty good bankers already.
Post by: davisgang90 on August 10, 2015, 03:52:03 PM
I also really enjoyed the WBW articles on AI and am now delving into Tim's source material. I've also contacted Tim and asked him to speak to my seminar about AI. Fun/Scarey stuff!
Post by: AlanStache on August 10, 2015, 04:48:31 PM
I've started a new position as an assistant professor at the Eisenhower School for National Resource Strategy. I'm preparing to lead a Robotics and Autonomous Systems Industry Study. One of our repeat visits is to Carnegie Mellon. Last year Uber opened shop in Pittsburgh and rolled up on CMU offering to triple the salaries of many of their robot experts. Many took the bait.
I also really enjoyed the WBW articles on AI and am now delving into Tim's source material. I've also contacted Tim and asked him to speak to my seminar about AI. Fun/Scarey stuff!
Bait implies small fish, tripling a salary is real money by any definition. Actually let me think about it... Hell Pittsburgh cant get that cold in winter and really whatever bus standard Auto-Ubers* use cant be that much harder to understand then Arinc 429...
Auto-Ubers* did I just make that up, I really like it?
And if anyone has not read Saturdays Dilbert, go check it out.
Post by: forummm on August 10, 2015, 05:13:55 PM
I've started a new position as an assistant professor at the Eisenhower School for National Resource Strategy. I'm preparing to lead a Robotics and Autonomous Systems Industry Study. One of our repeat visits is to Carnegie Mellon. Last year Uber opened shop in Pittsburgh and rolled up on CMU offering to triple the salaries of many of their robot experts. Many took the bait.
I also really enjoyed the WBW articles on AI and am now delving into Tim's source material. I've also contacted Tim and asked him to speak to my seminar about AI. Fun/Scarey stuff!
Congrats! The job sounds like a lot of fun. I almost went to CMU for grad school. I met the guy who developed Stephen Hawking's voice and interface.
Pittsburgh is cheap to live in. Tripling the salary is some serious money for savings.
Post by: brooklynguy on August 11, 2015, 06:22:27 AM
Post by: theadvicist on August 13, 2015, 06:48:55 AM
I think robots make pretty good bankers already.
[/quote]
I do cash banking for a local organisation I'm involved with, and our bank branch has been converted to all 'robot' machines. You can pay in cash and cheques, and as well as printing out a scan of each cheque for you, it can read the amounts from people's handwriting and total it all up. There is still 1 staff member on hand for problems, but the old branch seemed to have 4 or 5 employees in branch at any time.
Post by: tomsang on August 13, 2015, 05:21:31 PM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-keep-your-job-in-a-world-of-automation-122831704.html#
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 13, 2015, 10:16:18 PM
http://time.com/3986185/virtual-reality-headset/
Yeah, it's a lame article and I won't quote anything from it although people mentioned are tossing millions of USD around. But I still hold my ground that VR will affect everyday life more pervasively in my lifetime than AI will. And that is what is great about living today, that either outcome could be so disruptive that we mis-predicted the outcome. Sadly, predicting outcomes is a much weaker force than affecting outcomes :)
Post by: matchewed on August 14, 2015, 05:45:16 AM
I still think VR will be more disruptive in the immediate future than AI
http://time.com/3986185/virtual-reality-headset/
Yeah, it's a lame article and I won't quote anything from it although people mentioned are tossing millions of USD around. But I still hold my ground that VR will affect everyday life more pervasively in my lifetime than AI will. And that is what is great about living today, that either outcome could be so disruptive that we mis-predicted the outcome. Sadly, predicting outcomes is a much weaker force than affecting outcomes :)
AI is already affecting your everyday life, VR is not. So are you sure of that position?
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 14, 2015, 06:55:54 AM
I've had a pretty damn good run being right on these things (got rich back in the 'internet' age, for instance buying Amazon IPO), so maybe I'm wrong this time, maybe it's just hubris. At this point, it doesn't really matter... Still, I think AI has hit a hard wall (as gene mapping and nano tech did, which are probably more trans-formative to AI, from a human-selfish perspective). Still, I'm speculating that VR will be on a tear in 2016... I don't know your background, so I'm not sure how I should try to back up my position, or even if you care if I do. I'm just putting out an opinion, at the end of the day. Until it becomes a fact.
Post by: jordanread on August 14, 2015, 08:09:54 AM
I guess we can just wait and 'see', Matthew.
I've had a pretty damn good run being right on these things (got rich back in the 'internet' age, for instance buying Amazon IPO), so maybe I'm wrong this time, maybe it's just hubris. At this point, it doesn't really matter... Still, I think AI has hit a hard wall (as gene mapping and nano tech did, which are probably more trans-formative to AI, from a human-selfish perspective). Still, I'm speculating that VR will be on a tear in 2016... I don't know your background, so I'm not sure how I should try to back up my position, or even if you care if I do. I'm just putting out an opinion, at the end of the day. Until it becomes a fact.
I think you are talking about AGI, while matchewed was referring to the narrow AI that we use regularly. I would agree that gene mapping and nanotech (at least insofar as longevity is concerned) would be super disruptive. The thing I like about disruptive technologies (or the potential) is that they aren't mutually exclusive. You could both be right. And I love the opinion until it's fact bit...that was great.
Tomsang, you finish that book yet?
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 14, 2015, 09:55:50 AM
I think you are talking about AGI, while matchewed was referring to the narrow AI that we use regularly.
Geeze, you and Rebelspy are so finicky about the WBW terminology! To me, 'AI' means true Machine Learning, as in an 'intelligence' that continues to improve itself until it surpasses human capacity, in whatever way it develops (probably much differently than our conception of 'intelligence', but also unrestricted by our using it to our own ends, like 'Siri' and 'Echo').
This whole segmenting of AI into 'ANI' and 'AGI' is like making a child look like they are making progress when they swim a few more feet with a paddle-board in the endless pool that is existence. Either we have AI or we don't'; leveraging hardware and software with the euphemism that we are creating 'neural networks' that approximate AI is deceptive.
Whew, that was fun to write! Sorry Jordanread, didn't mean to unload on you specifically in any way, just wanted to write.
Post by: jordanread on August 14, 2015, 10:40:13 AM
I think you are talking about AGI, while matchewed was referring to the narrow AI that we use regularly.
Geeze, you and Rebelspy are so finicky about the WBW terminology! To me, 'AI' means true Machine Learning, as in an 'intelligence' that continues to improve itself until it surpasses human capacity, in whatever way it develops (probably much differently than our conception of 'intelligence', but also unrestricted by our using it to our own ends, like 'Siri' and 'Echo').
This whole segmenting of AI into 'ANI' and 'AGI' is like making a child look like they are making progress when they swim a few more feet with a paddle-board in the endless pool that is existence. Either we have AI or we don't'; leveraging hardware and software with the euphemism that we are creating 'neural networks' that approximate AI is deceptive.
Whew, that was fun to write!
It was fun to read. And (while I can't speak for rebs) my terminology is based on the research I've done before I'd even heard of WBW. Narrow and General are accepted terms throughout the field (at least those I've had the pleasure of talking to - not here; I mean, good discussions, but that's not specifically what we're about). I can see how and why you feel that way. And while I'm just a crazy uncle, and most kid analogies go 'over my head' (seriously, they are just like dogs that can talk back :D), I can see where you are coming from. That idea, to me, explains why you feel the way you do regarding the narrow term. Without those terms, and thinking of AI as I think you do, that explains to me why you used the phrase ''hit a hard wall". With those terms in play, we are making progress. Without them, I can see how it seems that way. I actually feel similar about your statement regarding nanotech. I don't think we hit a hard wall, since for some damn reason (possibly the potential, the divide between reality and wishful thinking, and the over promising to venture capitalists) nanotech has a bad rap. We haven't made the progress that has been promised, and with the exception of a few teams, the under delivering and over promising has made for some slow public process. I'd be more than happy to discuss this further, it makes for a great conversation, and this is the right place for it on this forum. I personally think that the incredible progress that has been made is not being recognized for what it is, because of terminology (like you mentioned and attributed to WBW). That is a super dumb reason IMHO as to why progress shouldn't happen.
Now, VR is awesome, and I think AR is amazing progress, and will be the actual way that VR is implemented.
Post by: Albert on August 14, 2015, 11:06:36 AM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 14, 2015, 11:41:24 AM
It's very exciting to imagine what is possible for us, and fills me with hope that maybe future generations won't have to stand idly by while Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases run their course. Of course, our morals will stand in the way of progress - is it better to have the original as it is failing, or an repaired facsimile?
So as for 'pure AI' (or AGI), at least IMHO, it's like string-theory physicists blowing their minds with each finding or possibility... There is tremendous potential in so many directions, yet it will likely take several generations (in terms of tech, not human) to get comfortable with the onset of these new possibilities (as we currently are around GMO's, cloning, etc.. Not that that's a bad thing, but it is a thing).
Fun discussion, thanks!
Post by: BTDretire on August 14, 2015, 11:47:08 AM
When I graduated from HS 42 years ago, my mother had 'One word" for me.
Robotics
I didn't listen.
Post by: jordanread on August 14, 2015, 12:39:44 PM
Is it a necessary for general AI to surpass human intelligence to count as a "true" AI? Wouldn't just 30% (arbitrary number) and no further improvement be just as valid?
Could be, but the entire thing for me is based on whether or not the creation can create more AIs. That is the 'singularity', just due to the actual speed. If there is no further improvement, it's not what I would consider as true AGI.
Thanks for being easy on me and progressing the discussion JR [...]
You are very welcome!! This discussion is awesome, even as a thought experiment.
[...]While I'm not generally a 'black and white' thinker, sometimes it helps me stay out of the weeds and try to figure out what is happening. I do see massive potential for the next generations to combine disciplines, with that now including AI; when I graduated the next generation of geniuses were taking dual degrees in medicine and engineering so as to improve artificial hearts, joints, etc. My Dad is living a better life because of these people (at 75 years old and his best parts are a 3 year old hip, 10 year old dental implants, and 1 year old shoulder).
It's very exciting to imagine what is possible for us, and fills me with hope that maybe future generations won't have to stand idly by while Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases run their course. Of course, our morals will stand in the way of progress - is it better to have the original as it is failing, or an repaired facsimile?
So as for 'pure AI' (or AGI), at least IMHO, it's like string-theory physicists blowing their minds with each finding or possibility... There is tremendous potential in so many directions, yet it will likely take several generations (in terms of tech, not human) to get comfortable with the onset of these new possibilities (as we currently are around GMO's, cloning, etc.. Not that that's a bad thing, but it is a thing).
Fun discussion, thanks!
While we could totally get into the discussion regarding college and all that, I'll just take the win ;). I'm only 30 right now, and I have no idea what your age is. This conversation, or at least the thought process behind it, is probably (at the very least 'possibly') based on our current age (not challenging you to post or link to where you did, just saying). If you aren't involved in making AGI (like Elon Musk (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/10/24/elon-musk-with-artificial-intelligence-we-are-summoning-the-demon/) and Stehen Hawking (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540)...who are both awesome except for that), staying out of the weeds is probably a great way to go about it. Your black and white thinking will most likely serve you well here. I will post more about your actual comment on Monday, but I'll leave you with this quote I heard from someone somewhere in my life. Your comment touched on that, and provides an interesting perspective related to the "hit a hard wall" comment as well.
Potential is another way of saying NOT.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 14, 2015, 01:14:15 PM
... I'll just take the win ;). I'm only 30 right now
So for you it is a 'double win' - being formally trained in an interesting field AND being young enough to possibly witness the 'singularity'. When I graduated, the 'one word' whispered to me was 'plastics' (hence Chemical Engineer in Houston, not so bad but also not exactly changing the world either).
Quote
Potential is another way of saying NOT.
Or maybe just NOT YET ... I'm still a glass half full kinda guy on these things :)
Post by: jordanread on August 14, 2015, 02:51:59 PM
... I'll just take the win ;). I'm only 30 right now
So for you it is a 'double win' - being formally trained in an interesting field AND being young enough to possibly witness the 'singularity'. When I graduated, the 'one word' whispered to me was 'plastics' (hence Chemical Engineer in Houston, not so bad but also not exactly changing the world either).QuotePotential is another way of saying NOT.
Or maybe just NOT YET ... I'm still a glass half full kinda guy on these things :)
Oh, I'm a half glass full kinda guy too (Not yet is an amazing, incredible, and super productive way of looking at things). My opinion has always been that when ASI happens (and my optimistic nature makes me make think it's very much a when), one of two things will happen. It will be awesome, or it will kill us all. Either way, I won't care much unless things turn out well for us :=).
And I have very little formal training. However (and I have no idea why I latched on to the word "formal"), yes...I'm getting the best of all worlds. I am pretty sure I'll live more than 500 years. Or just be around for another 60/70 years.
Post by: tomsang on August 17, 2015, 09:22:01 AM
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/ibms-rodent-brain-chip-make-phones-hyper-smart/
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 17, 2015, 11:04:40 AM
Interesting article on IBM's rodent brain processor.
Don't know if you've ever read Stephen King's novel 'Cell'....
Post by: tomsang on August 17, 2015, 11:06:52 AM
Interesting article on IBM's rodent brain processor.
Don't know if you've ever read Stephen King's novel 'Cell'....
I haven't. I used to read all of his books, but haven't read one in 15 years. Is it worth the read?
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 17, 2015, 11:28:50 AM
In relation to the article you linked to, the reference to 'Cell' was my thought about AI coming from the other end (reducing human AGI) until it meets machine AI in the middle... it was a stretch, but it's only Monday. By Friday I'll have it all figured out again :)
Post by: jordanread on August 17, 2015, 11:33:58 AM
It's a lot different from his usual stuff (although King is amazing in the fact that he always seems to be writing stuff that isn't his 'usual stuff', I'm currently reading '11/22/63' and enjoying that immensely). Cell is a pretty breezy 'summertime' read, and I'd recommend it before many other things I've come across. Or you could just read the Wikipedia on it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(novel).
In relation to the article you linked to, the reference to 'Cell' was my thought about AI coming from the other end (reducing human AGI) until it meets machine AI in the middle... it was a stretch, but it's only Monday. By Friday I'll have it all figured out again :)
Damn you EV2020. Now I actually have to read yet another Stephen King book. I am not a big fan of most of Stephen King's books, but got hooked on the Dark Tower series. And yeah, now I'll read cell. I will blame you if it sucks though :)
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on August 17, 2015, 11:40:50 AM
Post by: jordanread on August 17, 2015, 11:52:27 AM
@JR - it's the kind of book that sticks with you because it doesn't hold your hand and explain everything (or much of anything, crazy stuff just keeps happening, like real life - but thank goodness not). As long as you are up for that, it is a lot of fun.
I'll read it. May be a bit before I get around to it, but it's now on my list.
Edited: to fix stupid spelling mistakes.
Post by: tomsang on August 17, 2015, 12:16:02 PM
@JR - it's the kind of book that sticks with you because it doesn't hold your hand and explain everything (or much of anything, crazy stuff just keeps happening, like real life - but thank goodness not). As long as you are up for that, it is a lot of fun.
I will download it on my next trip. Thanks for the recommendation.
Post by: tomsang on August 17, 2015, 08:54:19 PM
Post by: mozar on August 17, 2015, 09:00:15 PM
Post by: tomsang on August 17, 2015, 09:19:16 PM
That article is basically about how the wage offensive won't speed up robot powered restaurants.
I laughed when I read those quotes from Fatburger. I don't think they want to go on record that they are going to replace all of the jobs. They want to do it in stealth mode. I look at what automotive, airplanes, etc. have done. They are replacing thousands of employees per year with automation, but they are not touting that this as the public, unions, and government would not like this thrown in their face. So they just quietly replace the jobs.
My teenage kids would rather order off an Iphone than dealing with the computer challenged cashiers. If you can make a tasty burger without minimum wage employees, I don't see people having any issues or hesitation.
Post by: jordanread on August 18, 2015, 10:45:37 AM
Also, even though I don't eat out that often, I'd rather have a burger sourced well and cooked by a robot. At least that's more consistent.
Post by: coppertop on August 18, 2015, 02:58:01 PM
Yep the middle class jobs are a definite target, in The Lights in The Tunnel, they look at how it is economically worth it to try to automate good paying jobs especially those that require less manipulation of the real world.I work for a law firm that has been in existence in one form or another since the 1800s. At one time, we had about double the staff as we had attorneys. Today, we have far fewer staff than attorneys. There are many offices in our buildings that use to house two or three secretaries, where there is now one. I head up the accounting department, where once we had five employees. Now I do the job with one assistant.
You can make more money by automating away a lawyer or legal assistant than you can automating away a hotel maid and in the law you dont have to worry about emulating a human hand or bending over to an awkward corner of a room, more of the work and inputs are already digital.
Also it is not an all or nothing deal, if this year you can automate 6 legal assistants down to 5, then a few years latter down to 4 all the while doing more volume for less cost everyone but the out of work assistants are making more money. Some argue that those two legal assistants would then get better jobs writing software for the bots but I find argument this unpersuasive.
Is this a good thing? It depends on your perspective. I am concerned about all those "undereducated" people out there and what will become of them when they cannot get jobs. I am afraid we will have rioting in the streets over it, and crime will escalate.
In general, legal assistants are not qualified to write software. At least, the ones here are not. Maybe it's different in New York City or Washington, DC.
Post by: tomsang on August 22, 2015, 10:59:47 AM
Interesting article.
"Whenever we see someone claiming new jobs are being created and will continue to be created so as to provide everyone a job, we need to look deeper and ask, "What kind of job? What are the skills required? How much does it pay for how many hours? Does it provide more security or less? What are the benefits it offers? Is the job really necessary? Does the job provide meaning to those tasked with it? Are jobs and work the same thing? Is there work to do that's more important than what the job involves? Is working in the job actually better than not working at all?""
"Those who moved into optimal jobs showed significant improvement in mental health compared to those who remained unemployed. Those respondents who moved into poor-quality jobs showed a significant worsening in their mental health compared to those who remained unemployed."
"There appears to be no happy ending to this story that doesn't involve universal basic income. So instead of continuing to ask if jobs are going to be automated in sufficient quantities to need basic income, let's instead start to increasingly ask if there's any job we can't automate so we're all more freed to live by it."
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 11, 2015, 02:11:13 PM
Oh the irony, workers can outsource their 401k retirement investing to automation, thereby eliminating jobs. Pretty soon the robots will be unemployed too :)
Quote
If it works, Betterment’s 401(k) bot may help add financial adviser to the list of human jobs soon to be co-opted by smarter machines.
Post by: forummm on September 11, 2015, 04:19:38 PM
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/get-ready-entrust-retirement-robot/
Oh the irony, workers can outsource their 401k retirement investing to automation, thereby eliminating jobs. Pretty soon the robots will be unemployed too :)QuoteIf it works, Betterment’s 401(k) bot may help add financial adviser to the list of human jobs soon to be co-opted by smarter machines.
This was already automated. It's call the Target Retirement 20XX Fund or the LifeCycle Fund, or Vanguard's online fund recommendations based on your risk tolerance and investment goals, etc. Betterment is just branding that gets them fees.
Post by: matchewed on September 11, 2015, 04:54:48 PM
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/get-ready-entrust-retirement-robot/
Oh the irony, workers can outsource their 401k retirement investing to automation, thereby eliminating jobs. Pretty soon the robots will be unemployed too :)QuoteIf it works, Betterment’s 401(k) bot may help add financial adviser to the list of human jobs soon to be co-opted by smarter machines.
This was already automated. It's call the Target Retirement 20XX Fund or the LifeCycle Fund, or Vanguard's online fund recommendations based on your risk tolerance and investment goals, etc. Betterment is just branding that gets them fees.
And arguably the algorithm whic maintains a total market fund is more impressive than one which maintains an asset allocation comprised of two such funds that changes over decades.
Post by: forummm on September 12, 2015, 07:04:28 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/business/automakers-will-make-automatic-braking-systems-standard-in-new-cars.html
Post by: mozar on September 12, 2015, 04:44:42 PM
That was a surprisingly good article from HuffPo.
Post by: forummm on September 12, 2015, 05:08:42 PM
Saved lives is great of course. In addition millions of people will lose their jobs due to to automated driving.And more people will get jobs because of increased efficiency and car insurance rates will go way down or even be eliminated and more people will get jobs creating and improving automated driving, etc.
That was a surprisingly good article from HuffPo.
And it was NYT, which generally has good articles. HuffPo generally does not, outside of their specialty of sideboob.
Post by: tomsang on September 12, 2015, 05:49:41 PM
Saved lives is great of course. In addition millions of people will lose their jobs due to to automated driving.And more people will get jobs because of increased efficiency and car insurance rates will go way down or even be eliminated and more people will get jobs creating and improving automated driving, etc.
That was a surprisingly good article from HuffPo.
And it was NYT, which generally has good articles. HuffPo generally does not, outside of their specialty of sideboob.
There are certain people that have the education and intellect to program, create, and develop automation and technology. Typically, those are not the taxi drivers, truck drivers, and average person. So to say that technology will create more jobs may be true, but it may be jobs that the bottom 90% can't do. Also, when you are wiping out 1,000 or 10,000 of jobs at a whack, it is highly unlikely that we will create that many additional technology jobs.
If technology is managed for the good, then the spoils of the bounty will be rise all boats. Otherwise the inequality will just grow. Fortunately, I and my family are on the right side of the line currently.
Post by: jordanread on September 12, 2015, 06:27:53 PM
[...][...]
That was a surprisingly good article from HuffPo.
And it was NYT, which generally has good articles. HuffPo generally does not, outside of their specialty of sideboob.
I think mozar was referring to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-santens/future-of-jobs_b_8011296.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Interesting article.
Saved lives is great of course. In addition millions of people will lose their jobs due to to automated driving.And more people will get jobs because of increased efficiency and car insurance rates will go way down or even be eliminated and more people will get jobs creating and improving automated driving, etc.
[...]
[...]
That approach kind of rubs me the wrong way. I think it has to do with a more fundamental way of viewing things (which I think is the most common reason for arguments). I personally always view disruptive technologies that may lose jobs as an indicator that computers can do a better job than people. It reminds me of an article I recently read about automation in planes and the FAA. They blamed the automation and technology for pilots falling asleep and missing the landings or crashing. I take the view that we just need to get better at automating the landings. Anyway, where I was initially going with this is that one of the most common arguments or discussion points when new tech replaces jobs is about how there will be new (albeit different) jobs created based on the tech. I look at this as a way of trying to keep the old thoughts and paradigms in place even though a shift in thinking should happen. I'm still working on what solution I think would be the best, but I do truly believe that more and different job creation is not the solution.
Post by: forummm on September 12, 2015, 07:37:41 PM
Post by: mozar on September 12, 2015, 09:06:29 PM
Quote
They blamed the automation and technology for pilots falling asleep and missing the landings or crashing.
Or that pilots should be allowed to sleep, instead of making them work back to back 12 hour shifts.
I do think its different this time. One of the reasons I think so is that work force participation peaked in 2000 and has been falling since. I don't have the stats on this, but some of the decrease in the unemployment rate over the past 7 years has been because of people giving up on looking. Our current rate is around 62% participation (so low!). I choose to interpret these facts as being related to increasing automation.
As for what to do, I actually did what the HuffPo article suggested, and signed the Basic Income petition.
Post by: forummm on September 13, 2015, 06:30:38 AM
QuoteThey blamed the automation and technology for pilots falling asleep and missing the landings or crashing.
Or that pilots should be allowed to sleep, instead of making them work back to back 12 hour shifts.
I do think its different this time. One of the reasons I think so is that work force participation peaked in 2000 and has been falling since. I don't have the stats on this, but some of the decrease in the unemployment rate over the past 7 years has been because of people giving up on looking. Our current rate is around 62% participation (so low!). I choose to interpret these facts as being related to increasing automation.
As for what to do, I actually did what the HuffPo article suggested, and signed the Basic Income petition.
The pilots crashing issue is still human error because the pilots ignored the computer saying "STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND> STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND> STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND>". Any pilot should know what to do immediately to get out of a stall. The human training needs to be adapted to deal with the new technology so that people's reflexes incorporate a better understanding of it. We now have pilots with rusty actual flying skills because they don't need to use them because the planes fly themselves.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta-automation-paradox-pt-1/
Increasing automation or increasing wealth or a trend towards RE or a trend towards single income household or... there are plenty of possibilities there.
Post by: AlanStache on September 13, 2015, 08:32:23 AM
QuoteThey blamed the automation and technology for pilots falling asleep and missing the landings or crashing.
Or that pilots should be allowed to sleep, instead of making them work back to back 12 hour shifts.
I do think its different this time. One of the reasons I think so is that work force participation peaked in 2000 and has been falling since. I don't have the stats on this, but some of the decrease in the unemployment rate over the past 7 years has been because of people giving up on looking. Our current rate is around 62% participation (so low!). I choose to interpret these facts as being related to increasing automation.
As for what to do, I actually did what the HuffPo article suggested, and signed the Basic Income petition.
The pilots crashing issue is still human error because the pilots ignored the computer saying "STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND> STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND> STALL STALL <ALARM SOUND>". Any pilot should know what to do immediately to get out of a stall. The human training needs to be adapted to deal with the new technology so that people's reflexes incorporate a better understanding of it. We now have pilots with rusty actual flying skills because they don't need to use them because the planes fly themselves.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta-automation-paradox-pt-1/
Increasing automation or increasing wealth or a trend towards RE or a trend towards single income household or... there are plenty of possibilities there.
Pilot skill degradation is a big problem, a middle eastern airline did a study and found that its pilots were flying for a total of like 30 seconds over 6 months, the rest of the time they the computer was flying waypoints or headings. Requiring pilots of automated airplanes to continue flying simple single engine airplanes could go a long way in aviation safety but will never happen.
Reguarding stalls specifically, this is one of the last few 'tall poles' in commercial aviation safety. The FAA is in the process of requiring recurrent stall training, in past airline pilots did not have to do any sort of stall work once they start flying anything with more than 4 seats (more or less). Some of the stall related incidents were due to bad simulators and bad training and very tired crew.
AirBus has in past activity calmed that there airplanes cant stall-this is monumentally stupid-all airfoils can stall. AirFrance 447 changed the company line. I have flown the 447 scenario in a full up simulator and even knowing what is happening it is VERY disorientating (half the instruments conflict with each other), still pilot error but eye opening. In a car it would be like having the gas petal all the way down, the rpm counter at 8000, but no engine noise, the speedometer reading -3333 and total darkness out the windscreen.
Post by: Bakari on September 14, 2015, 04:59:31 PM
People always feel like with disruptive technologies that "this time is different". We've always had industries get changed and lost many jobs from them. But people have always found something else to do. Maybe 98% people were farmers not long ago. Now, maybe 2% are. Tons of people used to be in the horse business. Now almost no one is. Telephone operators used to plug in the cables to make your calls. Now a computer does it. Maybe this time is different. But it never has been so far.
When most people were farmers, most people worked more or less sun up to sun down, 7 days a week - 4 on the farm, day of travel to the market, day at the market, a day of travel back (or something like that).
When the industrial revolution came around, and tractors started displacing human (and animal) labor, and the rise of cities began, workers typically worked 6-7 days a week, 60 hours if you were lucky, but more likely 80-100.
It was several decades after the rise of the (mechanical) machines that we had a major paradigm shift toward "8 for work, 8 for sleep, 8 for yourself" and this concept we all take for granted of a "weekend".
That change, where people (who weren't born into the upper class) have "free time" they can spend chatting on internet forums, that was a huge, society changing shift, which was hard fought. People literally died for it. Employers did everything they could to stop it.
In other words, when machines were invented, it really was different. There really were hundreds of thousands of jobs lost, and they were never replaced with anything. Which is why now everyone works less. Having fewer working hours means that the same number of jobs can be divided among more people.
If robots do most jobs, and 90% are eliminated and not replaced, we could all have 4 hour work weeks, but with the same total pay (i.e. everyone would make 10x the current hourly rate). The economy would support it. But with our current system of economics, private property, and of course overtime laws, what would happen is we would have 95% unemployment, and the last 5% of people would work 40 hour weeks.
Post by: theadvicist on September 15, 2015, 06:46:43 AM
If robots do most jobs, and 90% are eliminated and not replaced, we could all have 4 hour work weeks, but with the same total pay (i.e. everyone would make 10x the current hourly rate). The economy would support it. But with our current system of economics, private property, and of course overtime laws, what would happen is we would have 95% unemployment, and the last 5% of people would work 40 hour weeks.
You seem to be saying the last time automation really look off, the long-term effects were, for the majority of working people, a reduction in working hours to the 9-5. Free time, weekends etc. Jobs were lost, and never replaced, because we all just look more leisure time. I totally agree.
But, you are saying that when it happens again it would be different because of "our current system of economics, private property". But think of last time this happened. Ownership was concentrated among a tiny tiny elite. In Victorian England, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, landowners, and then an emerging bourgeois of business owners controlled everything, including voting rights.
So I don't understand what you think is different this time around? (not being argumentative, I actually can't understand). Is it unions? Because to me, wealth seems less concentrated than it used to be (pre-industrialisation, when the Aristocracy owned everything and we were just allowed to subsistence farm their land for a cut of the crops). I should fact check though, because perhaps I'm making an assumption and wealth is now more concentrated. Maybe the difference is corporations v. aristocratic families. Is that it? Corporations can build much more wealth, whereas the Duke of Devonshire can only own so much land before he meets the boundary of the Earl of Strafford*?
*locations not historically accurate because I'm mixing up time periods, but you get the idea.
Post by: Bakari on September 15, 2015, 08:38:24 AM
If robots do most jobs, and 90% are eliminated and not replaced, we could all have 4 hour work weeks, but with the same total pay (i.e. everyone would make 10x the current hourly rate). The economy would support it. But with our current system of economics, private property, and of course overtime laws, what would happen is we would have 95% unemployment, and the last 5% of people would work 40 hour weeks.
You seem to be saying the last time automation really look off, the long-term effects were, for the majority of working people, a reduction in working hours to the 9-5. Free time, weekends etc. Jobs were lost, and never replaced, because we all just look more leisure time. I totally agree.
But, you are saying that when it happens again it would be different because of "our current system of economics, private property". But think of last time this happened. Ownership was concentrated among a tiny tiny elite. In Victorian England, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, landowners, and then an emerging bourgeois of business owners controlled everything, including voting rights.
So I don't understand what you think is different this time around? (not being argumentative, I actually can't understand). Is it unions? Because to me, wealth seems less concentrated than it used to be (pre-industrialisation, when the Aristocracy owned everything and we were just allowed to subsistence farm their land for a cut of the crops). I should fact check though, because perhaps I'm making an assumption and wealth is now more concentrated. Maybe the difference is corporations v. aristocratic families. Is that it? Corporations can build much more wealth, whereas the Duke of Devonshire can only own so much land before he meets the boundary of the Earl of Strafford*?
*locations not historically accurate because I'm mixing up time periods, but you get the idea.
I'm not sure how to find data for pre-democracy empires and aristocracies (what with factoring not only inflation but exchanged rates to no-longer-in-existence-currencies - it is unlikely to have ever been much more unbalanced, because pre-industrialization there simply wasn't as much total wealth in exsistence) but we are in fact at the worst wealth inequality our nation has ever seen
(http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-03-31-at-11.42.56-AM.png)
The last time it was this bad, we did change the system.
We started regulating banks (Glass–Steagall, FDIC) and the stock market (SEC).
We created the social safety net - Social Security, food stamps, and the FHA.
This was when we outlawed child labor, instituted the 40-hour work week, and created the first minimum wage.
It was when unions started to be strong enough to have real influence.
Public Works was created, providing many major projects (the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel, La Guardia airport, hydroelectric dams, schools, hospitals, the nationwide electric network, etc) on the federal level.
In other words, really major reorganization of how we as a society handle economics, labor and wealth distribution.
Some of these changes lasted to this day - others have been repealed or gradually pushed back, which helped bring us back to where we were (and helped trigger our recent recession)
Obviously there was a long time between 1820 and 1920 - but the peak of the graph didn't happen overnight. Both the technology and the effects took time to fully establish (Ford's assembly line wasn't until 1913). Those steps 100 years after the revolution were a large part of what made the graph above peak, instead of continuing to climb.
What is different now is that while business and the rich strongly objected to those changes when they happened, a majority of ordinary middle class working Americans supported them.
Today half of Americans have principals with align with the interests of the rich - individualism over shared prosperity, and economic growth at all costs (regardless of how the benefits of that growth are distributed). I don't think, politically, something equivalent to the New Deal could happen today.
This time part of the run up of concentration of wealth is due to computers (along with political changes giving corporations and banks more freedom, repealing Glas-Stegal, encouraging outsourcing as "free trade", etc).
But so far robots have only been able to take fairly menial jobs.
We've still got some time before we get to 100 years from when this new revolution started
Its probably just a coincidence that the graph starts going back up the same year that the TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Apple II came out, but it is certainly a funny one to underline my argument!
Post by: Bob W on September 20, 2015, 08:46:25 AM
Post by: JetBlast on September 20, 2015, 12:31:11 PM
The "children of the magenta" video is great.
I know some airlines have more restrictive policies on automation use than others. At my airline the autopilot is only required above FL 200 (that's approximately 20,000 ft above sea level for non pilots). That time is basically the boring, fly straight ahead part of the flight. Many will hand fly up to that altitude while hand flying on descent widely varies. I don't think anyone would be close to 30 seconds in a day much less six months.
Pilot skill degradation is a big problem, a middle eastern airline did a study and found that its pilots were flying for a total of like 30 seconds over 6 months, the rest of the time they the computer was flying waypoints or headings. Requiring pilots of automated airplanes to continue flying simple single engine airplanes could go a long way in aviation safety but will never happen.
Reguarding stalls specifically, this is one of the last few 'tall poles' in commercial aviation safety. The FAA is in the process of requiring recurrent stall training, in past airline pilots did not have to do any sort of stall work once they start flying anything with more than 4 seats (more or less). Some of the stall related incidents were due to bad simulators and bad training and very tired crew.
AirBus has in past activity calmed that there airplanes cant stall-this is monumentally stupid-all airfoils can stall. AirFrance 447 changed the company line. I have flown the 447 scenario in a full up simulator and even knowing what is happening it is VERY disorientating (half the instruments conflict with each other), still pilot error but eye opening. In a car it would be like having the gas petal all the way down, the rpm counter at 8000, but no engine noise, the speedometer reading -3333 and total darkness out the windscreen.
Stall training has been required at every recurrent training for the eight years I've been in the industry, though the philosophy changed after Colgan 3407. No longer is anyone training to power out of it with minimum altitude loss. There's much more emphasis on lowering the nose which is a good change.
I'm not sure Airbus ever said their aircraft cannot be stalled, just that it wouldn't under normal operating conditions (normal flight control laws). When the instruments on Air France 447 failed the aircraft reverted to a more basic control law without stall protection and perhaps one of the pilots did not understand this. I agree that it's a very disorienting situation.
Post by: Landlord2015 on September 20, 2015, 04:18:17 PM
I think some of the example they provide will not hold up 10+ years down the road. There have been studies where people feel like robots are more empathetic than humans. If you have to pay a premium to use a human I think people would skip the salesperson, etc. Interesting concept though.The sales person in a shop might get replaced because they get so much
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-keep-your-job-in-a-world-of-automation-122831704.html#
customers and their time go to calculating food prices etc.
However I work currently in marketing/sales and I think you are dead wrong if you can replace a top salesman or saleswomen with a robot... specially if there is face to face interaction live and not through a computer screen.
In fact human connection jobs are in fact likely to last next 100 years at least! However can you program a robot to be more emphatic? Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot with high AI. In addition top salesmen or saleswomen can also fake emotions though no doubt many emotions are true also and in the long turn it is best if everyone is happy the customer and salesperson.
I want to post this again:
I'm a controls engineer that programs robots and PLC's I also do computer and web programming. I've had a older coworker mention that it's our job to take out other people's jobs. While that's true, I've worked in a lot of mostly empty buildings that used to be crammed full, I think people get stuck in this thought that a job becoming obsolete doesn't create jobs at the same time.Good post I agree with you though I live in Europe and use euro currency I must say sure true logic.
No body would be silly enough to get pissy today about the invention of the cotton gin removing tons of jobs, we've all found other jobs. It's the same in the computerized industrial world. If computers take the pressure of human processing, we as a culture just freed up a ton of manpower to do other things.
I would say there is a growing disparity in job types, generally either technical or not and paid semi ok or not. and there is a exponential growth difference between the .1%ers and us. This could be contributed to computers possibly.
Job's becoming obsolete though is one of the big reasons I try to use to convince friends and family save and invest more. I've heard many stories of people going from $80k/year to $40k or less with next to nothing saved.
I am an IT engineer and what job do I have now? Nothing even remotely related to IT and it is part time but the pay is fairly decent and it involves marketing/sales face to face human interaction.
I don't complain since I rent 3 apartments to other people and don't live on rent myself the income together with my part time job is good. I have worked for many years in iT before, but nowadays IT is among the top unemployed groups in my country.
Now robots can replace a lot and have already done in the industry/automation field but those harder to replace is customer service the pleasure factor.
When will robots replace the human interaction i.e soft touch meetings I use in marketing&sales every lawful nice touch to get the customer?
Let me give a more extreme example in my country prostitution is legal as it should be. When will robots replace prostitutes? My guess that will not happen for next 100 years because creating an exact human looking robot is possible, but extremely expensive. We will instead have an increase in human interaction jobs and prostitutes who work since the other jobs have been gradually replaced with robots.
Well of course I don't know for sure about next 100 years, but in prostitution field most customers want real humans and not robots. Oh I have seen documentary about today's sex robots, but they are not even near same level as elite prostitutes in my country and the western world.
Safe sex with Robots? Maybe, but today's deaths due to HIV happen mostly to people who don't treat it because there exist very effective medicine vs HIV and do not even try to compare that to an aggressive and lethal cancer.
Post by: AlanStache on September 21, 2015, 07:33:08 AM
...I know some airlines have more restrictive policies on automation use than others. At my airline the autopilot is only required above FL 200 (that's approximately 20,000 ft above sea level for non pilots). That time is basically the boring, fly straight ahead part of the flight. Many will hand fly up to that altitude while hand flying on descent widely varies. I don't think anyone would be close to 30 seconds in a day much less six months.
Stall training has been required at every recurrent training for the eight years I've been in the industry, though the philosophy changed after Colgan 3407. No longer is anyone training to power out of it with minimum altitude loss. There's much more emphasis on lowering the nose which is a good change.
I'm not sure Airbus ever said their aircraft cannot be stalled, just that it wouldn't under normal operating conditions (normal flight control laws). When the instruments on Air France 447 failed the aircraft reverted to a more basic control law without stall protection and perhaps one of the pilots did not understand this. I agree that it's a very disorienting situation.
Yes things very more than most outsiders would think between airlines flying the same airplanes and in the US/west vs else where.
Airbus did not put it in a press release but it was in a 'public' industry forum.
Your stall training is it to shaker/pusher/warring/etc or actually into stall; there is still a margin before proper stall break when you are at shaker/pusher? I have talked to experienced pilots that have said shaker is stall - no it is not. Minimizing altitude loss is (unless the trees are already big) f-ing stupid, high altitude stalls can take thousands of feet to recover from. Most/all commercial aircraft training sims do not model stall/post stall aerodynamics correctly, what I have seen out in the wild is wrong to the point of negative training when you get past shaker/pusher/warring. The sims show benign and controllable aircraft, where they really are anything but.
447: When it dropped into its degraded mode that pilot was flying a plane he had spend extremely few hours (minutes?) flying and it is extremely sensitive to pilot inputs.
Post by: JetBlast on September 21, 2015, 09:30:21 AM
Your stall training is it to shaker/pusher/warring/etc or actually into stall; there is still a margin before proper stall break when you are at shaker/pusher? I have talked to experienced pilots that have said shaker is stall - no it is not. Minimizing altitude loss is (unless the trees are already big) f-ing stupid, high altitude stalls can take thousands of feet to recover from. Most/all commercial aircraft training sims do not model stall/post stall aerodynamics correctly, what I have seen out in the wild is wrong to the point of negative training when you get past shaker/pusher/warring. The sims show benign and controllable aircraft, where they really are anything but.
447: When it dropped into its degraded mode that pilot was flying a plane he had spend extremely few hours (minutes?) flying and it is extremely sensitive to pilot inputs.
Our simulator training involves recovery at shaker in most cases, with usually one held until the pusher activates. If you get to the pusher you still aren't stalled, but you have to try to get there. It takes effort to actually stall when the controls are actively trying to prevent it. We also practice high altitude recovery yearly. As you said, it's usually around 4,000 feet to properly recover. Just messing around with extra time at the end of a session I've seen how the simulator models a stall and I don't believe it. It seems far too benign for a swept wing jet.
I don't have a problem with teaching recovery at the shaker and not going to a full stall because I don't want pilots getting used to the shaker being activated. I want the instinct when it activates to be immediately lowering the nose. I always thought it was a little strange when instructing in light aircraft that we taught over and over recovery from actual stalls and just told our students "good job, but remember, when you're out on your own recover at the first sign of an impending stall like buffeting or the horn activating." We do a great job of desensitizing student pilots to the cues of an impending stall while we practice full stalls and slow flight (stall horn blaring for minutes on end).
Really, it's amazing that something so basic is one of the remaining "tall poles" as you put it. I can think of three off the top of my head in the last decade that have to do with automation and pilots simply not flying the plane and monitoring airspeed. Both Turkish 1951 and Asiana 214 would have been prevented if the crew had simply turned off the automation and flown the airplane once things started looking off. Air France 447 would have been prevented with very, very basic airmanship but was probably due to a misunderstanding of the automation and it's protections and a breakdown in CRM that prevented the other crew members from recognizing the error on pilot was making until it was too late.
Post by: jordanread on September 21, 2015, 09:50:59 AM
So it seems that everyone is kind of in agreement with the FAA, in that automation in airplanes have a tendency to reduce either the pilot skill, or the pilot training. So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures. So do all of you think that we need less automation in airplanes, or better automation and remove the human from the equation?
Post by: AlanStache on September 21, 2015, 10:38:48 AM
Now I almost feel bad for mentioning the pilots and automation bit. This thread kind of went all off kilter. So I'll try to bring it back on topic. I didn't realize we had so many aerospace related people here.
So it seems that everyone is kind of in agreement with the FAA, in that automation in airplanes have a tendency to reduce either the pilot skill, or the pilot training. So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures. So do all of you think that we need less automation in airplanes, or better automation and remove the human from the equation?
IF we are to have a carbon based pilot at the pointy end then they need to be well trained and know how to turn the computer off and FLY THE DAMN PLANE. ELSE we need to be be putting more energies into more automation (end-to-end) with less reliance on carbon. There will always be someone with a smart uniform and nice hat that tells you the weather sitting in the cockpit but long term they will be doing less and less, IMHO.
"Just messing around with extra time at the end of a session I've seen how the simulator models a stall and I don't believe it. It seems far too benign for a swept wing jet." 100%. Problem is how many pilots see that messing around think that is real and dont fear the stall as they should.
Yep you have to fight to get past the pusher, you should not get into full stall but it has been done... Idea is that pilots should see what is there and have some experience with it. What I have seen is that pilots would train past shaker/pusher/etc into full stall then before exiting the sim do one or two with proper 'recover at shaker' technique.
"So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures." I think that 'blame' goes to far. Remember US commercial aviation is so safe it is almost hard to calculate failure rates! But we do know we have some problem areas that are related to human interaction and dependence on automation and that we have some pilots who have trouble with flying the damn airplane. (yes I know how scary that that last sentence sounds, but go reread the third sentence.)
Edit: Sorry for going so far OT. And if I did make you a bit afraid to fly know that I am literally right now heading to the airport for work travel.
Post by: jordanread on September 21, 2015, 10:54:03 AM
Now I almost feel bad for mentioning the pilots and automation bit. This thread kind of went all off kilter. So I'll try to bring it back on topic. I didn't realize we had so many aerospace related people here.
So it seems that everyone is kind of in agreement with the FAA, in that automation in airplanes have a tendency to reduce either the pilot skill, or the pilot training. So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures. So do all of you think that we need less automation in airplanes, or better automation and remove the human from the equation?
IF we are to have a carbon based pilot at the pointy end then they need to be well trained and know how to turn the computer off and FLY THE DAMN PLANE. ELSE we need to be be putting more energies into more automation (end-to-end) with less reliance on carbon. There will always be someone with a smart uniform and nice hat that tells you the weather sitting in the cockpit but long term they will be doing less and less, IMHO.
"Just messing around with extra time at the end of a session I've seen how the simulator models a stall and I don't believe it. It seems far too benign for a swept wing jet." 100%. Problem is how many pilots see that messing around think that is real and dont fear the stall as they should.
Yep you have to fight to get past the pusher, you should not get into full stall but it has been done... Idea is that pilots should see what is there and have some experience with it. What I have seen is that pilots would train past shaker/pusher/etc into full stall then before exiting the sim do one or two with proper 'recover at shaker' technique.
"So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures." I think that 'blame' goes to far. Remember US commercial aviation is so safe it is almost hard to calculate failure rates! But we do know we have some problem areas that are related to human interaction and dependence on automation and that we have some pilots who have trouble with flying the damn airplane. (yes I know how scary that that last sentence sounds, but go reread the third sentence.)
Edit: Sorry for going so far OT. And if I did make you a bit afraid to fly know that I am literally right now heading to the airport for work travel.
Didn't make me afraid to fly at all. I hate living my life in fear. As far as my blame comment goes, I was thinking more along the lines of how the FAA viewed it. I never said anything about who is actually at fault, but who gets the blame, that's all. And don't sweat going OT, it's still somewhat related, and actually provides a good insight as to views/fears on automation in this specific industry. Interestingly enough, there will be/is less discussion or thought out arguments when it comes to automation in consumer vehicles. :-)
Post by: AlanStache on September 21, 2015, 01:29:18 PM
...
Didn't make me afraid to fly at all. I hate living my life in fear. As far as my blame comment goes, I was thinking more along the lines of how the FAA viewed it. I never said anything about who is actually at fault, but who gets the blame, that's all. And don't sweat going OT, it's still somewhat related, and actually provides a good insight as to views/fears on automation in this specific industry. Interestingly enough, there will be/is less discussion or thought out arguments when it comes to automation in consumer vehicles. :-)
You should be afraid to fly-it is f-ing scary-thing can kill you in painful ways! :-) I am scared to fly, it is largely knowledge of statistics that lets me get on an airplane :-)
It is a bit like investing after you read the prospectus on an sp500 eft; your gut reaction is to run in the other way but hopefully your brain can over power it and let you buy the market for the long term.
Post by: JetBlast on September 21, 2015, 03:37:06 PM
Now I almost feel bad for mentioning the pilots and automation bit. This thread kind of went all off kilter. So I'll try to bring it back on topic. I didn't realize we had so many aerospace related people here.
So it seems that everyone is kind of in agreement with the FAA, in that automation in airplanes have a tendency to reduce either the pilot skill, or the pilot training. So one could draw a line blaming our current implementation of automation to failures. So do all of you think that we need less automation in airplanes, or better automation and remove the human from the equation?
Sorry if I derailed the thread a bit. I think automation will drastically change the profession over the next 50 years. The first step will be single pilot airliners. Based on trends in aviation I'm guessing this could be only a couple decades away from becoming a reality. Much more reliance on automation, with a pilot there to monitor and take over in the case of major failures and deal with issues like deciding whether to divert for passenger disruptions or medical issues. Basically just a supervisor for the aircraft. Eventually, once automated cargo drones are commonplace and advanced communications systems allow, the pilot will be sitting on the ground like drone operators today. Maybe they'll monitor a few flights at a time, able to remotely control the aircraft if necessary.
Post by: Bakari on September 22, 2015, 09:40:06 AM
The more features get added - from seatbelts and airbags and anti-lock brakes, to lane correction and brake assist, the more reckless and careless drivers are.
I know with antilock brakes specifically, tests show they improve stopping distance and emergency braking control significantly, but statistics show zero reduction in accidents or fatalities. People just drive faster, tailgate more, and start stopping later, because they feel confident they can stop.
It won't be until the robots take over 100% from people that accident rates actually start going down.
And, just like with planes, a lot of this has to do with grossly inadequate training. We just don't take driving seriously. There isn't any requirement for simulated accident avoidance at all to get a drivers license.
Planes seem scarier because they are up in the air, but the fatality rate for driving a car is way higher by any measure (per mile, per hour, per trip), than for scheduled commercial flights on major airlines.
Post by: tomsang on September 22, 2015, 04:48:14 PM
I think some of the example they provide will not hold up 10+ years down the road. There have been studies where people feel like robots are more empathetic than humans. If you have to pay a premium to use a human I think people would skip the salesperson, etc. Interesting concept though.The sales person in a shop might get replaced because they get so much
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-keep-your-job-in-a-world-of-automation-122831704.html#
customers and their time go to calculating food prices etc.
However I work currently in marketing/sales and I think you are dead wrong if you can replace a top salesman or saleswomen with a robot... specially if there is face to face interaction live and not through a computer screen.
In fact human connection jobs are in fact likely to last next 100 years at least! However can you program a robot to be more emphatic? Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot with high AI. In addition top salesmen or saleswomen can also fake emotions though no doubt many emotions are true also and in the long turn it is best if everyone is happy the customer and salesperson.
The title I used in this thread was not as succinct as it could have been. I was truly talking about technology replacing jobs. I am not exactly sure what you are saying, but if you are saying that technology will not replace salespeople, I think you are dead wrong. It currently is wiping out salespeople today. Have you heard of Amazon and all of the ecommerce sites? Those sales used to be sold by salespeople. Nordstroms, Macy's, Malls, etc. that are using brick and mortar stores are fighting a battle with Ecommerce. But how will we know if the product is high quality, the specs, what it is used for, etc. Well it is crazy, but it is all listed online. Usually, with independent reviews from real users of the product vs. a salesperson getting a commission.
My son currently thinks it is amusing to talk to a salesperson or do get information from a salesperson. Why not just pull out your phone and order it. Amazon can have it to you tomorrow or in some cases within the hour. What can the salesperson tell you that Google can't find in .52 seconds? Who do you trust more the salesperson or the information you find online?
Now if you are talking about highly educated salespeople like stockbrokers. Different answers right? Nope. People are transitioning to Robo Advisors for their low fees and better performance. Stockbrokers have always been salespeople made to look like financial advisors. People are starting to realize that they are not worth the huge fees that they have been charging.
What about car salespeople. People are buying cars online. I can't think of a purchase I wouldn't buy online if the price and quality were better. People are also selling their cars directly to the next purchaser through Craigslist and other services.
House sales. Would you rather buy the house online and save $20,000 or deal with a salesperson? I am confident that within 15 years, people will laugh about paying real estate agents tens of thousands of dollars to babysit people when the information is all online.
Vacations, cruises, airline tickets, etc. all used to be sold by highly compensated people. All automated, with a robo chat help. Very easy to use.
Cashiers, waitresses, etc. Put an interactive menu out and have your food delivered to your table by a robot would be cool and eliminate the middle person. You are seeing this at various restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Why tell a person your order, who then puts it into a computer, when you can just put it into the computer with your phone. Starbucks, McDonalds, Panera, etc.
I sell accounting services. In the past I would forced to do face-to-face meetings. The newest trend working with the tech savvy generation is to do it through a telephone call, Skype, Goto meeting, etc. The new buyers of the services are not as into face-to-face meetings. They don't want to waste their or your time with in-person meetings. I think this trend is going to be the norm in 10 years as the youngsters who have been communicating over their wireless headsets as they play video games grow into management.
"Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot " Why would you need or want an exact human looking robot? Why not just acquire a tool that does as good or a better job than the person for a fraction of the price? I am not sure if you are old enough or remember dialing information on your home phone. Those real live people were amazing on how they could find an address or telephone number or other information. Why would we ever replace them? Because you can get the same information for free with your smartphone in a fraction of a second, where you used to pay $1 for the information from the very nice human people. We put up with technology when it does the job better at a fraction of the cost.
Post by: Landlord2015 on September 30, 2015, 08:14:49 PM
Getting back to this. First of all you assume everyone is willing to order everything Online that is not true though I do order my travels(holiday trips etc.) Online.I think some of the example they provide will not hold up 10+ years down the road. There have been studies where people feel like robots are more empathetic than humans. If you have to pay a premium to use a human I think people would skip the salesperson, etc. Interesting concept though.The sales person in a shop might get replaced because they get so much
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-keep-your-job-in-a-world-of-automation-122831704.html#
customers and their time go to calculating food prices etc.
However I work currently in marketing/sales and I think you are dead wrong if you can replace a top salesman or saleswomen with a robot... specially if there is face to face interaction live and not through a computer screen.
In fact human connection jobs are in fact likely to last next 100 years at least! However can you program a robot to be more emphatic? Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot with high AI. In addition top salesmen or saleswomen can also fake emotions though no doubt many emotions are true also and in the long turn it is best if everyone is happy the customer and salesperson.
The title I used in this thread was not as succinct as it could have been. I was truly talking about technology replacing jobs. I am not exactly sure what you are saying, but if you are saying that technology will not replace salespeople, I think you are dead wrong. It currently is wiping out salespeople today. Have you heard of Amazon and all of the ecommerce sites? Those sales used to be sold by salespeople. Nordstroms, Macy's, Malls, etc. that are using brick and mortar stores are fighting a battle with Ecommerce. But how will we know if the product is high quality, the specs, what it is used for, etc. Well it is crazy, but it is all listed online. Usually, with independent reviews from real users of the product vs. a salesperson getting a commission.
My son currently thinks it is amusing to talk to a salesperson or do get information from a salesperson. Why not just pull out your phone and order it. Amazon can have it to you tomorrow or in some cases within the hour. What can the salesperson tell you that Google can't find in .52 seconds? Who do you trust more the salesperson or the information you find online?
Now if you are talking about highly educated salespeople like stockbrokers. Different answers right? Nope. People are transitioning to Robo Advisors for their low fees and better performance. Stockbrokers have always been salespeople made to look like financial advisors. People are starting to realize that they are not worth the huge fees that they have been charging.
What about car salespeople. People are buying cars online. I can't think of a purchase I wouldn't buy online if the price and quality were better. People are also selling their cars directly to the next purchaser through Craigslist and other services.
House sales. Would you rather buy the house online and save $20,000 or deal with a salesperson? I am confident that within 15 years, people will laugh about paying real estate agents tens of thousands of dollars to babysit people when the information is all online.
Vacations, cruises, airline tickets, etc. all used to be sold by highly compensated people. All automated, with a robo chat help. Very easy to use.
Cashiers, waitresses, etc. Put an interactive menu out and have your food delivered to your table by a robot would be cool and eliminate the middle person. You are seeing this at various restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Why tell a person your order, who then puts it into a computer, when you can just put it into the computer with your phone. Starbucks, McDonalds, Panera, etc.
I sell accounting services. In the past I would forced to do face-to-face meetings. The newest trend working with the tech savvy generation is to do it through a telephone call, Skype, Goto meeting, etc. The new buyers of the services are not as into face-to-face meetings. They don't want to waste their or your time with in-person meetings. I think this trend is going to be the norm in 10 years as the youngsters who have been communicating over their wireless headsets as they play video games grow into management.
"Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot " Why would you need or want an exact human looking robot? Why not just acquire a tool that does as good or a better job than the person for a fraction of the price? I am not sure if you are old enough or remember dialing information on your home phone. Those real live people were amazing on how they could find an address or telephone number or other information. Why would we ever replace them? Because you can get the same information for free with your smartphone in a fraction of a second, where you used to pay $1 for the information from the very nice human people. We put up with technology when it does the job better at a fraction of the cost.
While Online real estate buying do happen it is mostly in cases the apartment or whatever building is new for example 2015 year built. Real estate buyers might want to buy Online if it is truly amazing deal and they need it quickly before anyone else gets it. Online buying also happens sometimes if a real estate buyer wants to buy from very far for example an apartment abroad or different state in USA.
However usually the norm is that they want to see the apartment.
"Why would you need or want an exact human looking robot?" Well I am sure there are other examples but prostitution is legal in my country Finland(Europe) as it should be. No sex robot so far can match Elite prostitutes though if you are sex tourist I would recommend famous city Amsterdam or Germany if you want to find many European prostitutes easily.
In addition a very skilled say doctor it is hard to replace with a robot... sure maybe that happens one day but if we talk about our and our children's life time well not easily done.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 01, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
Getting back to this. First of all you assume everyone is willing to order everything Online that is not true though I do order my travels(holiday trips etc.) Online.I think some of the example they provide will not hold up 10+ years down the road. There have been studies where people feel like robots are more empathetic than humans. If you have to pay a premium to use a human I think people would skip the salesperson, etc. Interesting concept though.The sales person in a shop might get replaced because they get so much
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-keep-your-job-in-a-world-of-automation-122831704.html#
customers and their time go to calculating food prices etc.
However I work currently in marketing/sales and I think you are dead wrong if you can replace a top salesman or saleswomen with a robot... specially if there is face to face interaction live and not through a computer screen.
In fact human connection jobs are in fact likely to last next 100 years at least! However can you program a robot to be more emphatic? Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot with high AI. In addition top salesmen or saleswomen can also fake emotions though no doubt many emotions are true also and in the long turn it is best if everyone is happy the customer and salesperson.
The title I used in this thread was not as succinct as it could have been. I was truly talking about technology replacing jobs. I am not exactly sure what you are saying, but if you are saying that technology will not replace salespeople, I think you are dead wrong. It currently is wiping out salespeople today. Have you heard of Amazon and all of the ecommerce sites? Those sales used to be sold by salespeople. Nordstroms, Macy's, Malls, etc. that are using brick and mortar stores are fighting a battle with Ecommerce. But how will we know if the product is high quality, the specs, what it is used for, etc. Well it is crazy, but it is all listed online. Usually, with independent reviews from real users of the product vs. a salesperson getting a commission.
My son currently thinks it is amusing to talk to a salesperson or do get information from a salesperson. Why not just pull out your phone and order it. Amazon can have it to you tomorrow or in some cases within the hour. What can the salesperson tell you that Google can't find in .52 seconds? Who do you trust more the salesperson or the information you find online?
Now if you are talking about highly educated salespeople like stockbrokers. Different answers right? Nope. People are transitioning to Robo Advisors for their low fees and better performance. Stockbrokers have always been salespeople made to look like financial advisors. People are starting to realize that they are not worth the huge fees that they have been charging.
What about car salespeople. People are buying cars online. I can't think of a purchase I wouldn't buy online if the price and quality were better. People are also selling their cars directly to the next purchaser through Craigslist and other services.
House sales. Would you rather buy the house online and save $20,000 or deal with a salesperson? I am confident that within 15 years, people will laugh about paying real estate agents tens of thousands of dollars to babysit people when the information is all online.
Vacations, cruises, airline tickets, etc. all used to be sold by highly compensated people. All automated, with a robo chat help. Very easy to use.
Cashiers, waitresses, etc. Put an interactive menu out and have your food delivered to your table by a robot would be cool and eliminate the middle person. You are seeing this at various restaurants, coffee shops, etc. Why tell a person your order, who then puts it into a computer, when you can just put it into the computer with your phone. Starbucks, McDonalds, Panera, etc.
I sell accounting services. In the past I would forced to do face-to-face meetings. The newest trend working with the tech savvy generation is to do it through a telephone call, Skype, Goto meeting, etc. The new buyers of the services are not as into face-to-face meetings. They don't want to waste their or your time with in-person meetings. I think this trend is going to be the norm in 10 years as the youngsters who have been communicating over their wireless headsets as they play video games grow into management.
"Yes, but it is extremely expensive to create an exact human looking robot " Why would you need or want an exact human looking robot? Why not just acquire a tool that does as good or a better job than the person for a fraction of the price? I am not sure if you are old enough or remember dialing information on your home phone. Those real live people were amazing on how they could find an address or telephone number or other information. Why would we ever replace them? Because you can get the same information for free with your smartphone in a fraction of a second, where you used to pay $1 for the information from the very nice human people. We put up with technology when it does the job better at a fraction of the cost.
While Online real estate buying do happen it is mostly in cases the apartment or whatever building is new for example 2015 year built. Real estate buyers might want to buy Online if it is truly amazing deal and they need it quickly before anyone else gets it. Online buying also happens sometimes if a real estate buyer wants to buy from very far for example an apartment abroad or different state in USA.
However usually the norm is that they want to see the apartment.
"Why would you need or want an exact human looking robot?" Well I am sure there are other examples but prostitution is legal in my country Finland(Europe) as it should be. No sex robot so far can match Elite prostitutes though if you are sex tourist I would recommend famous city Amsterdam or Germany if you want to find many European prostitutes easily.
In addition a very skilled say doctor it is hard to replace with a robot... sure maybe that happens one day but if we talk about our and our children's life time well not easily done.
I think in terms of real estate the online part does not mean not viewing the property, just cutting out the hand holding, I can walk around a house with Mr Realtor telling me how big the back garden is and how values are expected to increase 10% nest year ;)
Already hospitals are heavily using technology for the most complex of tasks, its accepted that a future operation room will have 1-2 supervisors eliminating the need for the other 10 or so people in the room.
Also there is increasing acceptance that jobs involving a level of personal care and empathy are the most secure from the automation process, so you prostitution business may be safe for a while, but as VR improves who knows
Post by: Bakari on October 01, 2015, 09:06:54 AM
Getting back to this. First of all you assume everyone is willing to order everything Online that is not true though I do order my travels(holiday trips etc.) Online.
I think thats like it being 1998 and saying "sure, email has some value, but I think most people are going to want to stick with letters and faxes, just like I do".
We grew up with payphones. Our grandkids won't know what they were. Just cause the change hasn't been complete yet doesn't mean we can't see it coming.
Sure, it will be a while before robots get to the level in the movie "AI" (in which the main character's best friend is a jiggalo bot", and some people will prefer real humans just on principal (assuming that, BattleStar Galactica or Terminator style, they aren't indistinguishable without testing)
But you can't have 100% of the population employed as prostitutes. That would get kind of circular, you know? Not even 10%. Probably not 1%, cause one prostitute can serve, I don't know, maybe a good one only has one client a night, 5 days a week, but then they have competition in the form of billions of people who enjoy having sex for its own sake who "give it away" for free, so that most of the human population isn't interested in their services in the first place.
It doesn't matter if a tiny handful of jobs will always be done by flesh and brain humans. If 99.9% of all jobs are gone, then society has to figure out a different economic system then the one we have now.
Post by: Landlord2015 on October 01, 2015, 06:49:19 PM
Lol why do people go to Thailand? I will tell you why most of the men want sex in Thailand it is sex tourism... and many of the men that go to Thailand want sex with females that are less old then the men.
Getting back to this. First of all you assume everyone is willing to order everything Online that is not true though I do order my travels(holiday trips etc.) Online.
I think thats like it being 1998 and saying "sure, email has some value, but I think most people are going to want to stick with letters and faxes, just like I do".
But you can't have 100% of the population employed as prostitutes. That would get kind of circular, you know? Not even 10%. Probably not 1%, cause one prostitute can serve, I don't know, maybe a good one only has one client a night, 5 days a week, but then they have competition in the form of billions of people who enjoy having sex for its own sake who "give it away" for free, so that most of the human population isn't interested in their services in the first place.
It doesn't matter if a tiny handful of jobs will always be done by flesh and brain humans. If 99.9% of all jobs are gone, then society has to figure out a different economic system then the one we have now.
It is not less then 1% that go to Thailand because they do not want to buy for sex...
In Germany there are likely much more prostitutes then in any state of USA. In Germany prostitutes pay tax for the prostitute work however police and people help the prostitutes and are not against them.
Yes very true most males and females do not pay for sex for example my brother and sister, but there are enough customers who do that. In USA(well most of the USA) the law is against pay for sex is not ok in the law... same in Sweden...
I did not say that I think prostitute's jobs is the only one that will last but 99.9% of jobs gone because robots? Well sir you do have a very negative future if you think so yes I know there are likely many people who think the world will end in next year like some people thought 2012 would be the end of the world.
Mostly I am interested what happen in my life time and the next generation and to think of future 1000 years forward is difficult. There are so many problems humans will have in next 1000 years that do not have with robots to do. I think time will show humans what is the worst problem in future 1000 years.
Post by: Bakari on October 01, 2015, 07:54:01 PM
But it is not necessarily a negative future. It could make for an extremely positive future. The eventual net result of the industrial revolution was that about 1/2 of all jobs were eliminated and never replaced, but we compensated for that by 1) significantly reducing the workforce (outlawing child labor) 2) cutting working hours about in half (40 hour work week), and 3) paying everyone a lot more while providing for cheaper goods and services.
That's win/win/win.
If we lose half our jobs to robots, there is no inherent reason we could move to a 20 or 10 or 5 hour work week, while keeping everyone's salary more or less at current levels, and then we can use all our free time to fly to Thailand. Or, whatever.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 01, 2015, 09:10:37 PM
Quote
"Suppose that I'm locked in a room and ... that I know no Chinese, either written or spoken". He further supposes that he has a set of rules in English that "enable me to correlate one set of formal symbols with another set of formal symbols", that is, the Chinese characters. These rules allow him to respond, in written Chinese, to questions, also written in Chinese, in such a way that the posers of the questions – who do understand Chinese – are convinced that Searle can actually understand the Chinese conversation too, even though he cannot. Similarly, he argues that if there is a computer program that allows a computer to carry on an intelligent conversation in a written language, the computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either.
The experiment is the centerpiece of Searle's Chinese room argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.
Post by: sol on October 01, 2015, 10:31:21 PM
The experiment is the centerpiece of Searle's Chinese room argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.
I thought the whole point of the Chinese Room experiment was to posit that humans aren't conscious or self-aware either, not to discredit computer intelligence.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 02, 2015, 05:07:09 AM
I thought the whole point of the Chinese Room experiment was to posit that humans aren't conscious or self-aware either, not to discredit computer intelligence.
Where did you get that idea from?
Anyways, when I dug in to the literature, it brought up all sorts of interesting new ideas like -
If 'some guy from the future' gave me a lead box and told me 'There is a nascent Super-AI in this here sensory deprivation chamber. What would I do? How would I handle it's first exposure to 'existence'?
Or, if this new 'competing' intelligence is alien to us (machine as opposed to organic), how do we begin to understand it?
Sorry, this is the kind of stuff I really enjoy. This and the pictures from the Mars Rover https://www.google.com/search?q=mars+rover+pictures&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI8PnDqtKjyAIVR5iACh3pjwr9&biw=1055&bih=588
Post by: Bakari on October 02, 2015, 09:09:15 AM
There is a lot of modern research that suggests that the "you" which subjectively experiences actually has little to no control over your behavior. You start your actions a fraction of a second before you make conscious choices. The real motivations for our actions are frequently invisible to us, and we merely justify the reasoning we come up with after the fact, to try to maintain the illusion that we are "in control".
See http://youarenotsosmart.com/ (http://youarenotsosmart.com/) and https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions) and https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness (https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness) and http://stevenpinker.com/publications/how-mind-works (http://stevenpinker.com/publications/how-mind-works) and http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq1p3e_national-geographic-test-your-brain-episode-1-pay-attention_shortfilms (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq1p3e_national-geographic-test-your-brain-episode-1-pay-attention_shortfilms) (plus parts 2 and 3)
I think it becomes much harder to assume any qualitative difference between human "consciousness" and the potential for AI consciousness the more we pin down what human consciousness actual consists of. If some alien specie came and observed us, they would likely come to the exact same conclusion, that humans do not have "a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave."
After all, in the thought experiment, it is a human, which (supposedly) does have consciousness that is having the conversation. The fact that he doesn't understand the language doesn't detract from his consciousness.
Moreover, I don't really understand the thought experiment anyway - a set of rules that correlates one set of characters with another is normally referred to as "translation". It still takes an understanding of language, or of the meaning behind it, to give intelligent answers, and not just answers.
The only other way to have the output be relevant and accurate answers is if the rules were so complex as to be able to respond to any possible question, in which case the human doesn't fill any role in the problem at all, the rules themselves past the Turing Test.
But if you had a "book of rules" complex enough to do that, in a language you could understand, it seems likely you would learn the language from the process. I don't think modern AI is merely an extremely long set of "if-then" instructions that covers every imaginable scenario.
The complex set of rules itself is what is providing the intelligence. The person with pencils just represents the physical silicone and electricity (or neurons and electricity). He's doing the physical processing. But we don't normally claim the neurons of the claustrum are conscious. We say WE are conscious. The neocortex is the hardware on which the software of consciousness is run.
This thought experiment is equivalent to saying that if the individual neurons in your brain don't understand the information they process, then you yourself must be a hollow shell.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 02, 2015, 07:40:48 PM
- If some guy from the future gave you a lead box and told you 'There is a nascent Super-AI in this here sensory deprivation chamber'. What would you do? How would you handle it's first exposure to 'existence'?
Post by: Bakari on October 04, 2015, 09:58:25 AM
Starting with home birth vs hospital, breast or bottle, swaddling or onesie? There probably isn't a "right" answer, other than feed as much varied information as possible, and try not to screw it up too badly
Post by: Johnez on October 04, 2015, 04:07:26 PM
Post by: AlanStache on October 04, 2015, 08:16:57 PM
Regarding the idea of AI not being a long series of "if-then" scenarios, I believe that is exactly what it is. If it has to reach out for that information, it is still responding to the "if-then" scenario. A human has emotions, an additional filter to process info through. Can a robot get mad? Can a robot detect hidden meanings? Can a robot lie? The written word travelling nearly instantaneously thousands of miles with the power of today's incredible technology still has difficulty expressing sarcasm of all things. And that is communication between two humans, how can a robot or AI begin to figure these things out? I'm sure AI can come to the point where it can pretend well enough to fool people into believing it understands what it is to be human, but it'll only be fooling others. I believe our minds and self are analogous to computers in how we process information, but that we are more than that. It might be terribly unscientific to "believe" that, still science never knows everything and is in constant search of what isn't seen yet. We are more than data pricessing machines, and that is all AI will ever be.
Ultimately if you believe that humans have 'souls' and 'robots' cant with no evidence to support your position I am not sure there is any way to convince you that a 'robot' can have intentions or feelings. This may just be a fundamental disconnect. But this takes us back to freshman philosophy in that you can not know that any other person is really real or they have thoughts and feelings.
"Can a robot detect hidden meanings?" one did while playing Jeopardy, and did it very well.
"Can a robot lie?" Bing does all the time :-p
"...expressing sarcasm" why cant a 'robot' express this with "facial" and verbal inflections gestures as we do? The robot will not be limited to text communication.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 05, 2015, 07:50:16 AM
Post by: jordanread on October 05, 2015, 09:15:42 AM
Wow, what a conundrum we have ended up with here. In order to discuss AI, we have had to resort to philosophy. There, of course, is no 'right or wrong' answer in philosophy, only subtle movements toward what us as individuals might agree is truth. On the other hand, I believe that if we were all AI's (assuming that the first AI's will originate from one point and not several individual humans simultaneously creating AI's in different ways), then we would surely agree instantaneously - since our programming would be identical. Hence, I conclude that there will always be a fundamental difference between the human mind and AI, even if the Chinese Room was a poor example of trying to explain it.
I don't know that we necessarily have to resort to philosophy to discuss AI, but I do think it's a required gray area when discussing consciousness. And that will sometimes play more of a role in what people define as AI. I think it's missing the point (at least in this discussion), but is still a point.
A bit OT, but a question about AI was posed on Overtime (Bill Maher) to Dawkins and DeGrasse Tyson. I kind of feel similar to the way they do.
https://youtu.be/GECUXsGL2qc?t=4m50s (https://youtu.be/GECUXsGL2qc?t=4m50s)
Post by: Bakari on October 05, 2015, 02:11:08 PM
... I believe that if we were all AI's (assuming that the first AI's will originate from one point and not several individual humans simultaneously creating AI's in different ways), then we would surely agree instantaneously - since our programming would be identical...
Identical twins have the exact same DNA, yet different fingerprints and different personalities. In fact, as they age, even the DNA itself can differentiate.
Modern AI tends to have learning algorithms and feedback from the external world. Which means an individual AIs experiences are going to interact with the initial programming in ways that affect its eventual I/O responses. Recursive self-improvement doesn't exist yet, but I don't think there is any fundamental reason why that goal wouldn't be possible. Then the programming itself would change over time, and not necessarily always in the same way, given different individual experiences.
Post by: Cathy on October 05, 2015, 09:47:13 PM
I thought the whole point of the Chinese Room experiment was to posit that humans aren't conscious or self-aware either, not to discredit computer intelligence.
Where did you get that idea from?
Sol was making a salient point there, but his presentation was apparently a bit too subtle. Dennett has made substantially the same point using similar language:
| There is another way to address the possibility of zombies, and in some regards I think it is more satisfying. Are zombies possible? They’re not just possible, they’re actual. We’re all zombies. Nobody is conscious — not in the systematically mysterious way that supports such doctrines as epiphenomenalism! I can’t prove that no such sort of consciousness exists. I also cannot prove that gremlins don’t exist. The best I can do is show that there is no respectable motivation for believing in it. |
This position is also summarised on the Wikipedia page that you linked to, under the heading "Epiphenomenon / zombie reply (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room#cite_ref-142)":
| Several philosophers argue that consciousness, as Searle describes it, does not exist. This position is sometimes referred to as eliminative materialism: the view that consciousness is a property that can be reduced to a strictly mechanical description, and that our experience of consciousness is, as Daniel Dennett describes it, a "user illusion". |
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 06, 2015, 02:06:45 PM
Also from Bakari -
Modern AI tends to have learning algorithms and feedback from the external world. Which means an individual AIs experiences are going to interact with the initial programming in ways that affect its eventual I/O responses. Recursive self-improvement doesn't exist yet, but I don't think there is any fundamental reason why that goal wouldn't be possible. Then the programming itself would change over time, and not necessarily always in the same way, given different individual experiences.
Where I still disagree is that I have a hard time accepting that AI will resemble human intelligence, even if that was the original intent or an artifact being created by humans. Earlier, you compared a nascent AGI or ASI to being like a newborn child. But even a newborn child comes into this world pre-wired genetically and with some basic instincts. And in the quoted response, you posit that AI will exhibit recursive self-improvement. Ultimately, these things are more crucial to human survival and most likely superfluous to AI (unless the AI has to befriend us in some symbiotic way).
My intuition on this matter is that humans will create AGI without understanding what is happening (especially if we 'anthropomorphize' it). We are excited when a newborn progresses toward maturity because it is well within our ability to comprehend and influence, and is reassuringly limited by physics. But for a newborn AGI, and especially if we do not understand the nature of consciousness, the rapid and unbounded maturation process would lead to an alien intelligence long before we could influence or even grasp the consequences of our actions.
Anyways, like I said, thanks for the back and forth. This is the kind of stuff that I really enjoy!
Post by: brooklynguy on October 07, 2015, 01:07:23 PM
This position is also summarised on the Wikipedia page that you linked to, under the heading "Epiphenomenon / zombie reply (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room#cite_ref-142)":
Several philosophers argue that consciousness, as Searle describes it, does not exist. This position is sometimes referred to as eliminative materialism: the view that consciousness is a property that can be reduced to a strictly mechanical description, and that our experience of consciousness is, as Daniel Dennett describes it, a "user illusion".
This reminds me of a discussion we had a few months ago about free will (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/what-if-you-just-picked-stocks-an-adventure-story/msg671504/#msg671504), where you cited Dennett to argue that free will, as I was describing it (and as I think most people would describe it), does not exist (or, more accurately (given that I did not precisely describe what I meant by "free will"), you pointed out that that I probably could not precisely define free will, in the sense that I was attempting to use the term, without resorting to the involvement of magic).
Perhaps our experience of having possession of free will (using the commonly understood, amorphous meaning of the term), like our experience of consciousness, is merely a "user illusion," in which case it is likewise irrelevant that computers cannot possess free will, because neither do we.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on October 07, 2015, 02:16:45 PM
Ultimately, AI would view humanity in a similar way as humans view ants - pretty incredible for what they are, but insignificant compared to AI. For all I know, AI would 'solve' quantum physics, transcend space and time, and connect to other larger intelligence(s) already present in the universe.
I guess that still doesn't shed much light on if it would help us or destroy us though :)
Post by: AlanStache on October 07, 2015, 06:20:04 PM
Even if we forego the blind alleys of 'free will' and 'consciousness', there is still progress to be made to try to understand AI by examining the inherent differences between human intelligence and AI. For example - AI will not 'forget' unused information or distort memories due to emotion / biochemistry. AI is unbounded in potential and, as it learns, it can continue to refine itself so as to learn faster, more efficiently, and in larger quantities. AI will not spend time naval gazing or hamstrung by 'comfort zones'.... (would be interested to hear if anyone thinks of others...)
Ultimately, AI would view humanity in a similar way as humans view ants - pretty incredible for what they are, but insignificant compared to AI. For all I know, AI would 'solve' quantum physics, transcend space and time, and connect to other larger intelligence(s) already present in the universe.
I guess that still doesn't shed much light on if it would help us or destroy us though :)
Its like you read http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html (ftp://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html)!! :-)
AI w/o comfort zones: maybe/maybe not, within optimization (this is sort of how AI would learn) a big problem are local optima not being near global optima. It can be hard to make a system search broadly enough to find the global max but also narrow enough to get to the top of its local hill. Never mind the searched space might be changing.
And today's dilbert is oddly relevant here. http://dilbert.com/ (ftp://dilbert.com/)
Post by: tomsang on October 09, 2015, 04:24:26 PM
"Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking."
"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."
Post by: theadvicist on October 23, 2015, 05:08:28 AM
I think in terms of real estate the online part does not mean not viewing the property, just cutting out the hand holding, I can walk around a house with Mr Realtor telling me how big the back garden is and how values are expected to increase 10% nest year ;)
I sold a property basically online in 2009. I used an 'agent' that was really a call centre, just so I could get on the main property site here 'Right Move'. I took the photos myself, wrote the listing myself. They formatted it and uploaded it, I made them change a few things. People rang their number and asked for a viewing, they took details of time requested and called me, I agreed, they called the viewer back and confirmed. I handled all viewings. It would be very easy to put that online - buyer clicks 'arrange a viewing' and puts in a time and date, it emails me and I accept / decline / suggest another time.
For offers, potentials buyers called the agents, who called me. It would be really easy to take this online and have offers submitted directly to me.
Now, the overall process is different here in the UK. No-one has buyers and sellers agents. The only thing you need to buy / sell a house is a conveyancing solicitor. It will all move online soon, I'm sure. Agents don't add any value to me, they are just another level allowing for confusion and miscommunication, while also taking a cut.
Post by: AlanStache on October 23, 2015, 05:25:54 AM
I think in terms of real estate the online part does not mean not viewing the property, just cutting out the hand holding, I can walk around a house with Mr Realtor telling me how big the back garden is and how values are expected to increase 10% nest year ;)
I sold a property basically online in 2009. I used an 'agent' that was really a call centre, just so I could get on the main property site here 'Right Move'. I took the photos myself, wrote the listing myself. They formatted it and uploaded it, I made them change a few things. People rang their number and asked for a viewing, they took details of time requested and called me, I agreed, they called the viewer back and confirmed. I handled all viewings. It would be very easy to put that online - buyer clicks 'arrange a viewing' and puts in a time and date, it emails me and I accept / decline / suggest another time.
For offers, potentials buyers called the agents, who called me. It would be really easy to take this online and have offers submitted directly to me.
Now, the overall process is different here in the UK. No-one has buyers and sellers agents. The only thing you need to buy / sell a house is a conveyancing solicitor. It will all move online soon, I'm sure. Agents don't add any value to me, they are just another level allowing for confusion and miscommunication, while also taking a cut.
I dont want to sound like I am infaovr of keeping realtors around but they do add value wrt keeping both parties calm and having reasonable expectations. Is not hard to see a situation where one party wants everything and for free just to end up wasting everyone elses time. I dont think this added value is worth 3% (or 6!!! total) but a buffer between potentially very stressed persons can be useful. Not sure a website or AI would have the softer verbal skills to make someone see they are not being realistic and to pull them back to reality. Maybe I just dont see the technological or systems solution to this and it would all work out fine with no local human realtors.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 23, 2015, 06:54:53 AM
I think in terms of real estate the online part does not mean not viewing the property, just cutting out the hand holding, I can walk around a house with Mr Realtor telling me how big the back garden is and how values are expected to increase 10% nest year ;)
I sold a property basically online in 2009. I used an 'agent' that was really a call centre, just so I could get on the main property site here 'Right Move'. I took the photos myself, wrote the listing myself. They formatted it and uploaded it, I made them change a few things. People rang their number and asked for a viewing, they took details of time requested and called me, I agreed, they called the viewer back and confirmed. I handled all viewings. It would be very easy to put that online - buyer clicks 'arrange a viewing' and puts in a time and date, it emails me and I accept / decline / suggest another time.
For offers, potentials buyers called the agents, who called me. It would be really easy to take this online and have offers submitted directly to me.
Now, the overall process is different here in the UK. No-one has buyers and sellers agents. The only thing you need to buy / sell a house is a conveyancing solicitor. It will all move online soon, I'm sure. Agents don't add any value to me, they are just another level allowing for confusion and miscommunication, while also taking a cut.
I dont want to sound like I am infaovr of keeping realtors around but they do add value wrt keeping both parties calm and having reasonable expectations. Is not hard to see a situation where one party wants everything and for free just to end up wasting everyone elses time. I dont think this added value is worth 3% (or 6!!! total) but a buffer between potentially very stressed persons can be useful. Not sure a website or AI would have the softer verbal skills to make someone see they are not being realistic and to pull them back to reality. Maybe I just dont see the technological or systems solution to this and it would all work out fine with no local human realtors.
Having experience of both the US and UK setup, my big issue is really the cost. A flat fee to sell my house with the option to increase fee in the event of some extra work been required is acceptable ( as for buyers realtor - a complete f@cking scam if someone wants to buy a house they can contact the listing agent).UK side its generally ( at least was ) 1% single selling agent or 2% multiple agent if you wanted to increase exposure - not this 6% BS.
To be honest I was under the impression that the likes of Zillow etc were going to end the blood sucking realtors stranglehold on the market here, but then the one and only Warren Buffet comes along and buys the local market leaders - maybe there is life in the vampires yet?.
Post by: theadvicist on October 23, 2015, 08:31:04 AM
I dont want to sound like I am infaovr of keeping realtors around but they do add value wrt keeping both parties calm and having reasonable expectations. Is not hard to see a situation where one party wants everything and for free just to end up wasting everyone elses time. I dont think this added value is worth 3% (or 6!!! total) but a buffer between potentially very stressed persons can be useful. Not sure a website or AI would have the softer verbal skills to make someone see they are not being realistic and to pull them back to reality. Maybe I just dont see the technological or systems solution to this and it would all work out fine with no local human realtors.
I dunno, I bet people said that about buying everything ever before sales of that went online.
If someone is being unrealistic and ridiculous it's easy enough to show them the door - they make a low bid, I say no. Or a seller wanting an unrealistically high price just won't sell.
If the person I'm buying / selling from is so disorganised / demanding / stressful that I need an intermediary I'll go elsewhere, because likely there the ones who will pull out / gazzump / request a discount at the last minute when everyone is already committed and they know people have little choice.
Post by: AlanStache on October 23, 2015, 09:37:38 AM
I dont want to sound like I am infaovr of keeping realtors around but they do add value wrt keeping both parties calm and having reasonable expectations. Is not hard to see a situation where one party wants everything and for free just to end up wasting everyone elses time. I dont think this added value is worth 3% (or 6!!! total) but a buffer between potentially very stressed persons can be useful. Not sure a website or AI would have the softer verbal skills to make someone see they are not being realistic and to pull them back to reality. Maybe I just dont see the technological or systems solution to this and it would all work out fine with no local human realtors.
I dunno, I bet people said that about buying everything ever before sales of that went online.
If someone is being unrealistic and ridiculous it's easy enough to show them the door - they make a low bid, I say no. Or a seller wanting an unrealistically high price just won't sell.
If the person I'm buying / selling from is so disorganised / demanding / stressful that I need an intermediary I'll go elsewhere, because likely there the ones who will pull out / gazzump / request a discount at the last minute when everyone is already committed and they know people have little choice.
Again I dont want to sound like I am infavor of realtors BUT... when buying a house you have to put out a lot of time and money before things are final and if a seller were to become a dick at the end it could cost me. I think the human element adds something to the process. I would love to take that 6% out of the equation! If a fixed rate intermediary could take this role and smooth out the bumps awesome (hell the intermediary could even be AI!)!
Buying online: Amazon has no problem with me adding 3000 items to my cart then canceling them all, this costs them next to nothing, heck probably costs me MORE than it costs them.
Post by: theadvicist on October 26, 2015, 03:03:40 AM
I dont want to sound like I am infaovr of keeping realtors around but they do add value wrt keeping both parties calm and having reasonable expectations. Is not hard to see a situation where one party wants everything and for free just to end up wasting everyone elses time. I dont think this added value is worth 3% (or 6!!! total) but a buffer between potentially very stressed persons can be useful. Not sure a website or AI would have the softer verbal skills to make someone see they are not being realistic and to pull them back to reality. Maybe I just dont see the technological or systems solution to this and it would all work out fine with no local human realtors.
I dunno, I bet people said that about buying everything ever before sales of that went online.
If someone is being unrealistic and ridiculous it's easy enough to show them the door - they make a low bid, I say no. Or a seller wanting an unrealistically high price just won't sell.
If the person I'm buying / selling from is so disorganised / demanding / stressful that I need an intermediary I'll go elsewhere, because likely there the ones who will pull out / gazzump / request a discount at the last minute when everyone is already committed and they know people have little choice.
Again I dont want to sound like I am infavor of realtors BUT... when buying a house you have to put out a lot of time and money before things are final and if a seller were to become a dick at the end it could cost me. I think the human element adds something to the process. I would love to take that 6% out of the equation! If a fixed rate intermediary could take this role and smooth out the bumps awesome (hell the intermediary could even be AI!)!
Buying online: Amazon has no problem with me adding 3000 items to my cart then canceling them all, this costs them next to nothing, heck probably costs me MORE than it costs them.
Have you put more than 6% of the value in though? (or say 5.5% if we allow some small commission for the online portal). Because that's what the human element is costing you. I really think people who are dicks will be dicks regardless.
Disclosure: I did a stint as an estate agent after college. All I saw was us adding another level of confusion / misinformation. We didn't talk anyone down from the ledge. If they wanted to pull out, we couldn't stop them. But I did see us bungle deals through bad communication.
Yes, you can put 3000 items in your cart and empty it, but there's nothing in it for you, so people don't bother. When people put stuff in, think about it, leave it a little while, come back to it, that's what Amazon want and is the equivalent of thinking about something a while and then going back to the store to buy it.
Post by: Big Boots Buddha on October 26, 2015, 04:56:37 AM
1. Give it another 10-20 years.
2. In the meantime, someone will find a way to reduce your job by 80% leaving you to do the part that is "impossible" to do without a smiling human to do it. You will also receive 80% less in salary, or at least your salary will go to a level where a person can barely survive.
How do I know this: Its happened everywhere, with all sorts of jobs and it is continuing to happen everywhere.
Talk to anyone retiring now about the changes that took place in their work environment in the last 40 years. My best friend's mother is retiring as a bookkeeper/accountant for a mega-corp. Every 5 years 10's of people were fired, more work was done with computers and computers allowed other types of work to be incredibly efficient.
This is not going to end, nor will it end with your special job.
Take the facepunch, or the boot in the face of mankind. However you want to see it.
Post by: Landlord2015 on October 26, 2015, 08:47:00 PM
The last couple of pages there are some examples such as pilot, real estate, sales when people who do those jobs express that, no, really, there is some important part that computers/robots/AI can't do.Sounds more or less truthful another thing is that some jobs are moved out of the country with less salary this is happening for example with many highpaid jobs also.
1. Give it another 10-20 years.
2. In the meantime, someone will find a way to reduce your job by 80% leaving you to do the part that is "impossible" to do without a smiling human to do it. You will also receive 80% less in salary, or at least your salary will go to a level where a person can barely survive.
How do I know this: Its happened everywhere, with all sorts of jobs and it is continuing to happen everywhere.
Talk to anyone retiring now about the changes that took place in their work environment in the last 40 years. My best friend's mother is retiring as a bookkeeper/accountant for a mega-corp. Every 5 years 10's of people were fired, more work was done with computers and computers allowed other types of work to be incredibly efficient.
This is not going to end, nor will it end with your special job.
Take the facepunch, or the boot in the face of mankind. However you want to see it.
Ironically not so much on this forum of course but some people ask me why do you bother to be a landlord when it is so much trouble? Yes it is not paradise, but it gives extra money.
Post by: tomsang on November 15, 2015, 08:49:14 PM
"Jobs with the highest level of being taken over by a machine in the U.K. included administrative, production, and clerical tasks. Haldane gave two contrasting examples of risk, with accountants having a 95 percent probability of losing their job to machines, while hairdressers had lower risk, at 33 percent."
Post by: jordanread on November 16, 2015, 01:32:50 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/13/robots-could-steal-80-million-us-jobs-bank-of-england.html
"Jobs with the highest level of being taken over by a machine in the U.K. included administrative, production, and clerical tasks. Haldane gave two contrasting examples of risk, with accountants having a 95 percent probability of losing their job to machines, while hairdressers had lower risk, at 33 percent."
Just going off of the quote you mentioned (haven't read the article yet), I think one of the fundamental differences between those who are more concerned than hopeful and those more hopeful than concerned is the language they use. This is a news site, and fear sells, so I get that, but I have trouble viewing the chances that you'll be replaced by a robot as a 'risk' and more of an opportunity.
Post by: tomsang on December 01, 2015, 04:21:00 PM
Interesting video.
Post by: tomsang on December 01, 2015, 04:26:19 PM
"Just going off of the quote you mentioned (haven't read the article yet), I think one of the fundamental differences between those who are more concerned than hopeful and those more hopeful than concerned is the language they use. This is a news site, and fear sells, so I get that, but I have trouble viewing the chances that you'll be replaced by a robot as a 'risk' and more of an opportunity."
I agree that technology and automation has the potential to be very beneficial to society. The question or concern, is are the laws or rules in place for the benefits of technology to be shared by all or do the owners of the companies obtain a windfall at the expense of the displaced workers. At some point in time, workers will not be needed. Are they given access to the technology or do the owners of the technology claim only the owners get the benefit? Taxes and laws will need to be adjusted or the spread of income inequality will grow exponentially.
Post by: MrMoogle on December 01, 2015, 04:39:59 PM
For every technological advance, there's been new jobs that never existed, and old jobs that are no longer needed. As mustacians have proved, it has made it such that not everyone needs to work the full 40+ years. More opportunities of choice have been created. You can choose to buy more stuff, or choose to retire early, or many combinations in between.
I don't think robots will take all jobs (at any time), and certainly not any time soon.
Post by: tomsang on December 01, 2015, 07:09:01 PM
If tomorrow, robots replaced every job, no one was needed, and government didn't provide, or provide enough, people would revolt to survive. It's pretty simple IMO. The laws are not in place for technology "rights" to be shared by all. But if people are starving in the streets, it won't take long for them to get passed. And I certainly don't want them in place in the meantime. It would kill productivity, or businesses will move elsewhere, if the threat of their technology being taken from them.
It is currently happening right now. The GOP is solidifying positions that handouts are bad, corporate taxes are bad, that unions are bad, higher education should not be paid for by government, people should pay their own way, those that don't work are leeches on society, etc. This is all occurring where corporate profits are at all time highs. How do you argue that someone who owns the technology should give it to those that do not? As an owner of the corporations, I like the profits and power. I also see a society of halves and have-nots if we don't figure out the distribution of wealth. At some point, hard work will not be enough to break through the barrier.
The old rules of those that produce should be rewarded no longer works when people are not needed in the workforce. They are sponges on society. We have been good about putting our hatred of supporting the unemployed homeless people who make up less than 5% of the population. Over the next 10-20 years, it is anticipated that 50% or more of the jobs will be eliminated. These people are not educated or capable of performing the jobs that are needed. Prisons and homeless populations will swell and are swelling. How the government spreads the wealth or controls the sponges of society needs to be figured out sooner rather than later in my opinion. Do we have a technology utopia for all or something more depressing for those that don't own and control wealth now.
Again, I am very comfortable about my future. Do you work a few more years to help out your kids or do you believe that society will create rules that transition wealth from the haves to the have nots?
Post by: MrMoogle on December 02, 2015, 07:21:06 AM
Again, until robots actually take over, there's no need for government to step in, just because it may happen some day. Aliens may invade some day, should we put all our efforts into building a military to stop these invaders? A huge meteor may hit the earth some day. There are lots of things that have some likelihood of happening, but you can't act on them all.
I agree that 50% or more jobs may be eliminated, but 50% more jobs will be created because of technology.
I honestly don't think much of what you are talking about is due to technology: prisons, homeless, unemployed.
Post by: AlanStache on December 02, 2015, 08:10:17 AM
I agree that the GOP are trying to do those things, but I'd also say we are in the most liberal state the US has ever been in.
Again, until robots actually take over, there's no need for government to step in, just because it may happen some day. Aliens may invade some day, should we put all our efforts into building a military to stop these invaders? A huge meteor may hit the earth some day. There are lots of things that have some likelihood of happening, but you can't act on them all.
I agree that 50% or more jobs may be eliminated, but 50% more jobs will be created because of technology.
I honestly don't think much of what you are talking about is due to technology: prisons, homeless, unemployed.
No one will ring a bell or send a tweet when the robots take over, it will seem a gradual 'natural' process. (Unless it goes down Terminator style.) You seem to have it in mind that robots taking over will be a noticeable discrete event and we will all get pink slips Monday morning where the previous Friday all was well.
Quote
... but 50% more jobs will be created because of technology.[Citation Needed]
There are 320 million people in the USA, we can address more than one problem at a time. Challenges do not have to be addressed serially, in fact many may be better solved by first addressing other at first seemingly unrelated problems.
Post by: MrMoogle on December 02, 2015, 09:05:35 AM
No one will ring a bell or send a tweet when the robots take over, it will seem a gradual 'natural' process. (Unless it goes down Terminator style.) You seem to have it in mind that robots taking over will be a noticeable discrete event and we will all get pink slips Monday morning where the previous Friday all was well.
I agree that it will be gradual. But unemployment of 5% doesn't indicate a technology takeover has begun.
Quote... but 50% more jobs will be created because of technology.[Citation Needed]
There are 320 million people in the USA, we can address more than one problem at a time. Challenges do not have to be addressed serially, in fact many may be better solved by first addressing other at first seemingly unrelated problems.
I don't have a citation for the 50% more jobs created. I assumed he was guessing, so I was equally guessing. If you look historically, new jobs have been created with each technology advancement as other jobs have been lost. Why is this time going to be any different?
Post by: davisgang90 on December 02, 2015, 09:27:28 AM
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX7RPG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 )
It covers a lot of the ground you guys are discussing, including which jobs are most likely to go away and when. It is a fascinating read.
Post by: jordanread on December 03, 2015, 05:28:41 AM
I'm currently reading Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX7RPG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 )
It covers a lot of the ground you guys are discussing, including which jobs are most likely to go away and when. It is a fascinating read.
That one is on my list...and my Kindle.
Post by: davisgang90 on December 03, 2015, 10:29:39 AM
Next up on my kindle: the Age of Spiritual Machines Ray Kurzweil, Kill Chain The Rise of the High Tech Assasins (by the delightfully named Andrew Cockburn) and @War The Rise of the Military Internet Complex by Shane Harr.I'm currently reading Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX7RPG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 )
It covers a lot of the ground you guys are discussing, including which jobs are most likely to go away and when. It is a fascinating read.
That one is on my list...and my Kindle.
Edited to add they are all from my library e-book program...
Post by: Landlord2015 on December 03, 2015, 02:07:56 PM
Bah you exaggerate. Rise of robots? Blah blah all your jobs will be gone bullshit though many jobs are anyway going away.Next up on my kindle: the Age of Spiritual Machines Ray Kurzweil, Kill Chain The Rise of the High Tech Assasins (by the delightfully named Andrew Cockburn) and @War The Rise of the Military Internet Complex by Shane Harr.I'm currently reading Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX7RPG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 )
It covers a lot of the ground you guys are discussing, including which jobs are most likely to go away and when. It is a fascinating read.
That one is on my list...and my Kindle.
Edited to add they are all from my library e-book program...
Havent you seen or heard DYSTOPIA predictions? Could robots be involved in a dystopia government? Yes perhaps machines and droids say like Mech Warrrior but unmanned and robot soldiers. Robot military airplanes and the list goes on.
Post by: matchewed on December 03, 2015, 02:24:53 PM
Bah you exaggerate. Rise of robots? Blah blah all your jobs will be gone bullshit though many jobs are anyway going away.Next up on my kindle: the Age of Spiritual Machines Ray Kurzweil, Kill Chain The Rise of the High Tech Assasins (by the delightfully named Andrew Cockburn) and @War The Rise of the Military Internet Complex by Shane Harr.I'm currently reading Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.
( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX7RPG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 )
It covers a lot of the ground you guys are discussing, including which jobs are most likely to go away and when. It is a fascinating read.
That one is on my list...and my Kindle.
Edited to add they are all from my library e-book program...
Havent you seen or heard DYSTOPIA predictions? Could robots be involved in a dystopia government? Yes perhaps machines and droids say like Mech Warrrior but unmanned and robot soldiers. Robot military airplanes and the list goes on.
???
All davisgang90 wrote was a list of books to read. Not sure what you're responding to.
Post by: jordanread on December 03, 2015, 02:48:20 PM
???
All davisgang90 wrote was a list of books to read. Not sure what you're responding to.
Just spent 15 minutes (that I will never get back) reading through the previous posts that person made. I hope that it's just lost in translation, since it appears that Landlord2015 isn't a native english speaker. Also, possibly too lazy to actually read the thread before posting. You are way too nice (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).
Post by: jcard on December 03, 2015, 03:02:23 PM
Reading through it all, I feel like there are couple of basic things that are being missed and I am curious what everyone thinks of them:
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Thoughts?
Post by: jcard on December 03, 2015, 03:27:08 PM
Is our progress currently more limited by our ability to develop hypothesis or by our ability/resources for testing those hypothesis? I would guess the second.
I wonder if the first sign of AI takeover would be marked by a massive increase in R&D funding around the world...
Post by: jordanread on December 03, 2015, 04:07:11 PM
Wow - this has got to be one of the most interesting discussions I have read in a long time.
I'm glad you feel that way!! It's close to my heart, and this thread has been the best thing on these forums in regard to this subject.
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
You are correct overall (IMHO), in that not everything can be figured out without experimentation. I think that what we are discussing is not necessarily an AI figuring everything out, just figuring enough out to make humans potentially obsolete (or awesome). Quantum mechanics and the like can (and will) be figured out, but it doesn't have to happen first. And while I can see how it can be done without real world experimentation, I know that we (being humans) don't know enough to code those simulations. Granted, quantum mechanics is some very high hanging fruit from my perspective.
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
Ah, but remember that computers run a whole hell of a lot faster than we do. And they have backups. It's only tricky if you have one life to play with, and that is not the case. Yes, it would suck, and we'd most likely kill ourselves if we had the option, but think about how quickly even us piddly humans can update software. I read somewhere, and it's been 'confirmed' with some interviews I've done with them, but Amazon releases new software every 8 seconds. And that's with humans at the helm. N intelligence doesn't know what N+1 is, but there is no limit to the times it can try to figure it out. Also, I'd say that N+1 is all about how effectively the goals are met. What those goals are is what all of the current AI ethics boards focus on. That is just because we can't fathom something besides some type of 'black-box' goal oriented programming.
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Holy crap, I love your thinking. However, again, there is the limitation that me and you (most likely) are human. I honestly think that those issues (and good job citing examples) strike us as (so far) impossible to solve. But how human is that? As much as love creating these potential monsters (monster is a relative term), I have to very much keep in mind how my thinking does not necessitate how my creation would think.
Thoughts?
Above^
Welcome to the discussion!!
Post by: Landlord2015 on December 03, 2015, 04:18:47 PM
True my mother tongue is not English. Please accept my apology thread readers I was to lazy to read and I have fairly good English language skills.???
All davisgang90 wrote was a list of books to read. Not sure what you're responding to.
Just spent 15 minutes (that I will never get back) reading through the previous posts that person made. I hope that it's just lost in translation, since it appears that Landlord2015 isn't a native english speaker. Also, possibly too lazy to actually read the thread before posting. You are way too nice (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).
Way to nice? Jordanread I am not so interested in what you write either and perhaps you should stick to reading and not writing:)
Well not a very good comment from you, but whatever moving on.
Good sure please read good Science Fiction books and enjoy the Christmas holiday when it come. Since I play Magic The Gathering I was thinking that I wish my sister buys me as Christmas present some kind of fantasy novel. I usually don't read much nowadays if talking about SCIFI I watch movies and TV series.
Yes please good forum readers do enjoy good litterature, TV series and movies.
I do like some SCIFI TV series fantasy, scifi, horror and action. I also like realistic TV series like 24 for example.
Post by: jcard on December 03, 2015, 04:33:27 PM
I wanted to push back on a couple of these concepts:
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
You are correct overall (IMHO), in that not everything can be figured out without experimentation. I think that what we are discussing is not necessarily an AI figuring everything out, just figuring enough out to make humans potentially obsolete (or awesome). Quantum mechanics and the like can (and will) be figured out, but it doesn't have to happen first. And while I can see how it can be done without real world experimentation, I know that we (being humans) don't know enough to code those simulations. Granted, quantum mechanics is some very high hanging fruit from my perspective.
Hmm, I'll give you an AI being able to figure everything out to make humans potentially obsolete with current data. I think I was pushing back at the notion that as soon as I an AI got to the internet it would be able to figure out new power sources, communication, nano-engineering such that shutting it off would be impossible. These all seem to be pushing the boundaries of what is known and would be hard to advance without the ability to experiment or access rare minerals etc...
Post by: jcard on December 03, 2015, 04:49:36 PM
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
Ah, but remember that computers run a whole hell of a lot faster than we do. And they have backups. It's only tricky if you have one life to play with, and that is not the case. Yes, it would suck, and we'd most likely kill ourselves if we had the option, but think about how quickly even us piddly humans can update software. I read somewhere, and it's been 'confirmed' with some interviews I've done with them, but Amazon releases new software every 8 seconds. And that's with humans at the helm. N intelligence doesn't know what N+1 is, but there is no limit to the times it can try to figure it out. Also, I'd say that N+1 is all about how effectively the goals are met. What those goals are is what all of the current AI ethics boards focus on. That is just because we can't fathom something besides some type of 'black-box' goal oriented programming.
I'm not sure if I agree that there is no limit to the times an AI can try to figure out an improvement? Being able to iterate seems to me to require three steps:
1) Make a copy with the change
2) Run the copy
3) Evaluate the results as better or not
1 - Running a copy in parallel would require twice the computing power. At the point where we have just hit this threshold, will we have the computing power to try thousand, millions, billions of variations? Say we've done that. Computing power is cheap and easy.
2- How long would you need to run the copy for? See how fast it can calculate? Let it try out a couple of experiments and see if has interesting results? I'm not sure, but it seems like it would be required to be run long enough to at least interact with the physical world? Especially once you are getting into more human notions of intuition and problem solving. It could run simulations of the physical world, but that is an NP type of problem, at any type of scale you'd rapidly run out of computing power no matter how much you had.
3 - Evaluate the results - for a simple goal set by an ethics committee sure. But how do you evaluate an increased ability to solve real world problems and develop new technologies on the exponentially increasing time scale being discussed?
The notion seems to be that as soon as we hit that threshold, recursive improvement will mean massive improvement in minutes. It seems to me that the computing power to run parallel copies of super AI to test and evaluate incremental improvements wouldn't be hit until well after we have the first AI...
Post by: Landlord2015 on December 03, 2015, 05:06:42 PM
Besides programming there is if talking about computer technology always http://www.tomshardware.com/ (http://www.tomshardware.com/) and http://www.anandtech.com/ (http://www.anandtech.com/)
I will withdraw myself from AI debate, but my biggest issue is that I would wish that in future there would be massproduction of human looking robots and this without huge costs. I am not talking about near future, but perhaps some day in far future.
Post by: jcard on December 03, 2015, 05:07:19 PM
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Holy crap, I love your thinking. However, again, there is the limitation that me and you (most likely) are human. I honestly think that those issues (and good job citing examples) strike us as (so far) impossible to solve. But how human is that? As much as love creating these potential monsters (monster is a relative term), I have to very much keep in mind how my thinking does not necessitate how my creation would think.
I've been thinking a bit about this, and I almost wonder if you need the limitations of a human in order to solve problems like a human? So much of research involves making assumptions or guesses about information with conflicting levels of uncertainty or doubt. A human can work through a problem, follow their intuition, make a leap of faith, etc - these all describe to a certain extent dealing with uncertainty and making not necessarily justified assumptions. Humans have so many natural biases and short cuts to deal with uncertainty, which allows us to make mistakes but also to learn. Could a computer learn and problem solve like a human without making mistakes like a human? If a computer developed a theory that was wrong, what would be the process for correcting that theory?
Sure it might be a limit of my human brain that I can't imagine a way to gain knowledge about the physical world without making mistakes. But it also seems possible that making mistakes, bad assumptions and having a process for evaluating and correcting those is fundamental to advancing knowledge. That's why we invented the scientific method, and it seems possible that an AI would have the same limitations in advancing knowledge in the face of uncertainty as we do. Maybe it'd be faster, but continually, exponentially faster? That seems like a big jump...
Post by: AlanStache on December 03, 2015, 05:13:07 PM
This is fun, thanks for the reply :) Apologies if I mess up the quotes, despite being a (barely) millennial, I've never forummed.
I wanted to push back on a couple of these concepts:1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
You are correct overall (IMHO), in that not everything can be figured out without experimentation. I think that what we are discussing is not necessarily an AI figuring everything out, just figuring enough out to make humans potentially obsolete (or awesome). Quantum mechanics and the like can (and will) be figured out, but it doesn't have to happen first. And while I can see how it can be done without real world experimentation, I know that we (being humans) don't know enough to code those simulations. Granted, quantum mechanics is some very high hanging fruit from my perspective.
Hmm, I'll give you an AI being able to figure everything out to make humans potentially obsolete with current data. I think I was pushing back at the notion that as soon as I an AI got to the internet it would be able to figure out new power sources, communication, nano-engineering such that shutting it off would be impossible. These all seem to be pushing the boundaries of what is known and would be hard to advance without the ability to experiment or access rare minerals etc...
welcome!
Yes going from purely digital to physical manipulation may be hard (obligatory: http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ (http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/)). In theory production machinery and computer controlled physical infrastructure should be air gapped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking))) for boring old computer security reasons but this is very often not the case. I suspect that http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/ (http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/) will not be air gaped for remote updates - but I really have no idea about them specifically.
hope to read/post more when I get home.
Post by: Landlord2015 on December 04, 2015, 04:10:43 PM
Yes going from purely digital to physical manipulation may be hard (obligatory: http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ (http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/)). In theory production machinery and computer controlled physical infrastructure should be air gapped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking))) for boring old computer security reasons but this is very often not the case. I suspect that http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/ (http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/) will not be air gaped for remote updates - but I really have no idea about them specifically.That Baxter has like a dog simple adaptle learning ability somewhat seems impressive.
hope to read/post more when I get home.
The Baxter is designed cute and perhaps more for the industry environment.
Well about airgap security...
Computer security i.e hackers and malvare(example virus) etc that is one threat if talking about military use of robots not to say how critical targets nuclear power plants can be.
My moral is harsh the so called "sex robots" today can not compete with beautiful looking prostitutes though you have less risk of disease. That said there is preventive precausitons like condome and people in westernized countries do not die from HIV nowadays usually due to very effective medicine.
Post by: Bakari on December 12, 2015, 03:47:00 PM
Wow - this has got to be one of the most interesting discussions I have read in a long time.
Reading through it all, I feel like there are couple of basic things that are being missed and I am curious what everyone thinks of them:
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Thoughts?
While every single one of your points in potentially (and probably) valid, computers don't need to be dramatically "smarter" than people to displace labor as we know it. They only have to be good enough to do their particular job. We are already basically at the point where robot drivers are better than human drivers, even if a Google Car can't also play the piano or file your taxes. Even if the robot isn't better at a job, if it is even as good - or even close to as good - but only demands a "salary" of a few dollars of electricity each day, the robot gets the job.
Computers may never be able to solve science questions that we haven't solved yet without experimentation, but few jobs have ever depended on the verification or falsification of quark theory
Post by: Landlord2015 on December 13, 2015, 12:31:09 PM
True robots do not need to be so smart as humans for many tasks. Sex robots though they don't need to came same smartness. I have never used such things but from youtube videos that I have seen the so called sex dolls or robots are a huge disapointment. The argument they are more safe sex is also mostly made by salesmen of those products or uneducated people who do not know that there exist very effective medicine vs HIV. Of course protection i.e condome is good to use also to avoid other diseases and to by mistake make children but HIV is not a death sentence nowadays unless you never take medicine.Wow - this has got to be one of the most interesting discussions I have read in a long time.
Reading through it all, I feel like there are couple of basic things that are being missed and I am curious what everyone thinks of them:
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Thoughts?
While every single one of your points in potentially (and probably) valid, computers don't need to be dramatically "smarter" than people to displace labor as we know it. They only have to be good enough to do their particular job. We are already basically at the point where robot drivers are better than human drivers, even if a Google Car can't also play the piano or file your taxes. Even if the robot isn't better at a job, if it is even as good - or even close to as good - but only demands a "salary" of a few dollars of electricity each day, the robot gets the job.
Computers may never be able to solve science questions that we haven't solved yet without experimentation, but few jobs have ever depended on the verification or falsification of quark theory
Post by: jordanread on December 13, 2015, 05:11:47 PM
Wow - this has got to be one of the most interesting discussions I have read in a long time.
Reading through it all, I feel like there are couple of basic things that are being missed and I am curious what everyone thinks of them:
1) There seems to be an assumption that if a person/computer is smart enough everything can be figured out absent real world experimentation Einstein style. This seems like a pretty big jump to make. In trying to move up the exponential curve of intelligence/knowledge wouldn't there still be a need for real world experimentation? Giving all human knowledge at the moment, I'm sure a super-smart being could figure out some things we don't yet know, but everything? Everything needed to alter atoms and nanobots? I'm sure there could be several conflicting theories of reality that could explain everything we "know" that could only be teased out through experimentation. Experimentation that I have a hard time seeing happening on an exponentially faster time table. Like the search for the Higgs Boson, isn't it possible that as you get into quantum mechanics some of these experiments would require space and time that can't just scale exponentially?
2) Once the AI does start editing itself, selecting whether an improvement is better or not seems like a fundamentally trickier problem than it is being discussed. As someone said previously, if you gave a human the ability to edit their own neurons, what's most likely is that you would end up with a dead human. It seems possible that a being with "n" intelligence couldn't know what change would be required for n+1 intelligence. So they would be stuck experimenting and most of those experiments seem likely to end up with a dead/endlessly recursive program. Given that the more complex a being gets, the more likely a change is to be detrimental, the harder and longer it will be to stumble upon a change that is "better". This implies to me that at a certain point the intelligence curve will flatten rather than get steeper.
3) Even if the change is "better", better seems very hard to interpret/select for. From what I've been reading, human forgetfulness isn't so much a bug of our brains but rather a feature. Part of how we isolate the signal from the noise. Would a computer need to get more "forgetful" in order to get better at figuring out the nature of the world? So many of these problems seem like the NP vs P concept in computer programming. Even if the computers get faster, if the problem is NP type, does it really matter? Getting back to the experimentation question from 1 - if the AI did an experiment, could the computer know when to say "this seems likely" and forget the uncertainty and move on, or would it get stuck exhaustively running experiments to prove that something is "true"? So if the program evolves to be more forgetful but more intuitive, is this better? I could imagine several "intelligence" trade-offs you'd need to make between rigorous knowledge and making a guess with the right balance difficult to determine until well down the line... Is intelligence really linear where there is a clear "better" in all situations for all types of problems that can easily be selected for?
Thoughts?
While every single one of your points in potentially (and probably) valid, computers don't need to be dramatically "smarter" than people to displace labor as we know it. They only have to be good enough to do their particular job. We are already basically at the point where robot drivers are better than human drivers, even if a Google Car can't also play the piano or file your taxes. Even if the robot isn't better at a job, if it is even as good - or even close to as good - but only demands a "salary" of a few dollars of electricity each day, the robot gets the job.
Computers may never be able to solve science questions that we haven't solved yet without experimentation, but few jobs have ever depended on the verification or falsification of quark theory
Thats a good point, especially as it relates to the impact on jobs, if not the more mercurial singularity place that I go. Thanks for jumping back in and grounding me a bit. Going a bit further on this, looking at current deep learning trends (like the 'black box' type of just showing results, and the system somehow figuring things out better than we can - See the 2012 Google Science Fair Winner (https://goo.gl/cXuaQa) for a 3 year old example of the actual tech) even if a position is replaced by a robot or computer that does exactly as well as a human, I wouldn't foresee it staying that way for very long. I don't want to say creative, but the kind of jobs that we can't make an algorithm for currently (I'll think of more actual examples later), kind of like a surgeon, would be most affected by this.
Doubling down on the idea of a doctor, I could completely envision a scenario like this (and most of the numbers are made up - I don't have time right now to really look them all up):
From a Hospital (v1.0):
Finally, there is a robot in a hospital near you that can match a trauma surgeon in success rates. As our decorated current doctor is good enough to have a 70% full recovery rate, so can our new bot. Be part of the future.
From the military (v1.0):
Corpsman are in short supply, and we can now get an Automated Trauma Surgeon delivered to the actual site of an IED explosion. ATS (or bATSman as the troops are beginning to call it) will reduce the permanent damage to our troops. Right now, we are able to match a major cities full 70% success rate, but here in the butthole of whatever oil-laden area we are currently liberating.
Within a few weeks or months, the military bot will have had a lot of experience handling trauma. In the hospital, I imagine the majority of people still would want a person. With an upgrade process based only on the metrics the bot takes on hand, there will be the possibility of the military deep learning bit to progress to v1.5 with a success rate of, say 75%. Then that software is uploaded from the military to the hospital bots. The new announcement would read:
Finally, there is a robot in a hospital near you that can exceed the success rate of our highly decorated trauma surgeon. Do you want to have a 3/4 chance of full recover, or would you rather get the human touch and limit yourself to 7/10?
Yeah, it's not as polished as it would be, but I think it would happen similarly to that.
Yes going from purely digital to physical manipulation may be hard (obligatory: http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ (http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/)). In theory production machinery and computer controlled physical infrastructure should be air gapped (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking))) for boring old computer security reasons but this is very often not the case. I suspect that http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/ (http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/baxter/) will not be air gaped for remote updates - but I really have no idea about them specifically.
hope to read/post more when I get home.
I loved that What If. Made me giggle. As far as air gapping goes, I view it as something that the AI Ethics board would want to bring up or put in place, but to do that, one would lose a lot of advantage in creating one (or more). The science fair project I mentioned above couldn't be air gapped and succeed.
Post by: matchewed on December 23, 2015, 06:26:22 AM
Post by: tomsang on December 29, 2015, 02:30:29 PM
There categories that 85% to 100% of the jobs could be automated are somewhat eye opening.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-most-endangered-jobs-of-2016-174152102.html#
Post by: bryan995 on December 29, 2015, 10:00:49 PM
Google search neural networks (ANN) or genetic algorithms + neural networks (GANN) or deep learning.
There should be lots of articles on 'google deepdream' that give a high level overview.
It is amazing how fast things are moving - most of this discussion is already happening!
The robots (aka software) are coming - there is nothing we can do now!
Post by: davisgang90 on December 30, 2015, 05:05:19 PM
http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus (http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus)
Good News!
Post by: jordanread on December 31, 2015, 08:48:43 AM
Secretary Of Labor Assures Nation There Still Plenty Of Jobs For Americans Willing To Outwork Robots
http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus (http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus)
Good News!
Outstanding!!
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 01, 2016, 04:25:45 PM
Secretary Of Labor Assures Nation There Still Plenty Of Jobs For Americans Willing To Outwork RobotsExcellent and same applies to Europe where I live.
http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus (http://www.theonion.com/article/secretary-labor-assures-nation-there-still-plenty--51263?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:NA:InFocus)
Good News!
Some of the posts here I call optimistic SCIFI. No offense meant to anyone with that comment and todays SCIFI can be true in future.
Speaking of SCIFI I liked very much the newest Star Wars movie. I did not like the main male actor, but the main female actor or her character became my favorite! She got all my sympathy.
There exists a cute robot in the newest Stawars 7 movie.
Post by: Leisured on January 03, 2016, 06:11:25 PM
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 04, 2016, 01:58:31 PM
Oh and this thread is really a SCIFI thread more or less:)
Post by: jordanread on January 04, 2016, 04:27:07 PM
Oh and this thread is really a SCIFI thread more or less:)
I'd ask if you understand that the FI in SCIFI is for fiction, and that is completely missing the point of this thread, but it seems like you don't. We're talking about non-fiction here. Every time you make a comment it seems that you turn it into some type of comparison with prostitutes or sex robots. I'd love for your input on the actual things that we are discussing, but I'm not holding my breath. I truly hope you choose to actually read through the thread, research the technology that currently exists, and compose your well thought out response.
Post by: davisgang90 on January 05, 2016, 07:18:26 AM
Once a true ASI exists and is able to improve it's cognitive abilities in real time, the opportunity to control it or air-gap it or otherwise have influence over it has long passed.
Post by: jordanread on January 05, 2016, 07:26:18 AM
When people talk about trying to limit a true AGI (Advanced General Intelligence - about same capability a human brain) and ASI (Advanced Super Intelligence = everything above AGI) I'm reminded of the example of a human waking up in a prison built and run by mice. The mice are convinced they've done everything necessary to ensure you won't be able to escape.
Once a true ASI exists and is able to improve it's cognitive abilities in real time, the opportunity to control it or air-gap it or otherwise have influence over it has long passed.
That's a pretty fun anecdote, and relatively accurate. I think that's why a good chunk of the ideas regarding ethics boards and the like involve trying to get checks it in place even before AGI manifests. Once it manifests, I'm pretty certain it's too late to get anything else in place. Horses and barns and the like.
Post by: matchewed on January 05, 2016, 07:30:12 AM
When people talk about trying to limit a true AGI (Advanced General Intelligence - about same capability a human brain) and ASI (Advanced Super Intelligence = everything above AGI) I'm reminded of the example of a human waking up in a prison built and run by mice. The mice are convinced they've done everything necessary to ensure you won't be able to escape.
Once a true ASI exists and is able to improve it's cognitive abilities in real time, the opportunity to control it or air-gap it or otherwise have influence over it has long passed.
That's a pretty fun anecdote, and relatively accurate. I think that's why a good chunk of the ideas regarding ethics boards and the like involve trying to get checks it in place even before AGI manifests. Once it manifests, I'm pretty certain it's too late to get anything else in place. Horses and barns and the like.
I think it's more like their checks will be similar to putting tissue paper over the barrel of a gun. Not that I'm pessimistic about AI; I think it's a huge unknown but I may as well be optimistic about it. Just that any checks will be useless given the difference in intelligence once we can teach/program a human level intelligence to become more intelligent.
Post by: jordanread on January 05, 2016, 07:47:52 AM
When people talk about trying to limit a true AGI (Advanced General Intelligence - about same capability a human brain) and ASI (Advanced Super Intelligence = everything above AGI) I'm reminded of the example of a human waking up in a prison built and run by mice. The mice are convinced they've done everything necessary to ensure you won't be able to escape.
Once a true ASI exists and is able to improve it's cognitive abilities in real time, the opportunity to control it or air-gap it or otherwise have influence over it has long passed.
That's a pretty fun anecdote, and relatively accurate. I think that's why a good chunk of the ideas regarding ethics boards and the like involve trying to get checks it in place even before AGI manifests. Once it manifests, I'm pretty certain it's too late to get anything else in place. Horses and barns and the like.
I think it's more like their checks will be similar to putting tissue paper over the barrel of a gun. Not that I'm pessimistic about AI; I think it's a huge unknown but I may as well be optimistic about it. Just that any checks will be useless given the difference in intelligence once we can teach/program a human level intelligence to become more intelligent.
You mean even before AGI manifests? I get that. My thinking is that the checks put in place will increase the amount of effort and work it takes to get to true AGI (if it would even be possible being that limited), and a black box style will be more likely (or at least quicker) to get in place.
Post by: matchewed on January 05, 2016, 07:52:50 AM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 05, 2016, 08:11:36 AM
Watson, IBM’s attempt to crack the market for artificial intelligence, is starting to be tested in the real world (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21669609-watson-ibms-attempt-crack-market-artificial-intelligence-starting)
Post by: jordanread on January 05, 2016, 08:41:01 AM
2016: The Year AGI Escaped from Mouse Prison Using a Gun Inexplicably Covered In Tissue Paper
Watson, IBM’s attempt to crack the market for artificial intelligence, is starting to be tested in the real world (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21669609-watson-ibms-attempt-crack-market-artificial-intelligence-starting)
That's got to be one of the most entertaining imaginary headlines I've ever heard. And it makes perfect sense to those of us following the thread. LOL.
Post by: AlanStache on January 05, 2016, 10:09:52 AM
When people talk about trying to limit a true AGI (Advanced General Intelligence - about same capability a human brain) and ASI (Advanced Super Intelligence = everything above AGI) I'm reminded of the example of a human waking up in a prison built and run by mice. The mice are convinced they've done everything necessary to ensure you won't be able to escape.
Once a true ASI exists and is able to improve it's cognitive abilities in real time, the opportunity to control it or air-gap it or otherwise have influence over it has long passed.
That's a pretty fun anecdote, and relatively accurate. I think that's why a good chunk of the ideas regarding ethics boards and the like involve trying to get checks it in place even before AGI manifests. Once it manifests, I'm pretty certain it's too late to get anything else in place. Horses and barns and the like.
I think it's more like their checks will be similar to putting tissue paper over the barrel of a gun. Not that I'm pessimistic about AI; I think it's a huge unknown but I may as well be optimistic about it. Just that any checks will be useless given the difference in intelligence once we can teach/program a human level intelligence to become more intelligent.
Not sure how I stand on checks and review boards but as the example/story in WaitBuyWhy the breakthrough may come from some relatively small unregulated group not intending to do harm thinking that they are taking the correct safeguards. I dont know there is any practical way to restrict development and plenty of economic incentives to do the research. As we saw with Volkswagen and I have seen professionally compliance with government regulation requires a bit of good faith* that one is not 100% cheating as the inspector can not in any real way inspect source code.
good faith*: and a very large fine if you do cheat.
Post by: big_owl on January 05, 2016, 10:35:35 AM
One thing that strikes me is that the TechnoCore is basically its own civilization. It's sort of duh when you think about it, but the way it's portrayed - it has a "seat" on human government councils, it controls the flow of information, has its own priorities and strategies...many of which the humans have no idea even exist, as there is no real way to "view" what it's actually thinking - everything is taking place in software/hardware, though there are cyborgs by this time which can be physical manifestations of core entities. At one point it literally terraformed its own replica of planet earth without humans even knowing (we had destroyed the real earth long before the books took place).
Anyway, my takeaway has me a little more scared about AI than I used to be. The TechnoCore was so powerful that it would actually predict every possible outcome of every possible decision by humans, and use these decisions to determine future outcomes of wars and other somewhat nefarious operations. And the humans never really knew what it was up to, since it basically operated as its own entity in cyberspace. But it was uber-powerful in that it was basically wired into everything in society, from travel to politics.
The part about AI becoming its own invisible society with its own invisible agenda and a seat at the table of humanity was rather unnerving. And then there was The Shrike...
Post by: jordanread on January 05, 2016, 10:52:40 AM
I am currently reading two science fiction books called Hyperion. They're set far future where there is something called the TechnoCore which is basically a future AI system humans rely on and live in parallel with. Being that it's far in the future, humanity and TechnoCore are spread throughout the galaxy, but we can still imagine the concept now on a smaller scale.
One thing that strikes me is that the TechnoCore is basically its own civilization. It's sort of duh when you think about it, but the way it's portrayed - it has a "seat" on human government councils, it controls the flow of information, has its own priorities and strategies...many of which the humans have no idea even exist, as there is no real way to "view" what it's actually thinking - everything is taking place in software/hardware, though there are cyborgs by this time which can be physical manifestations of core entities. At one point it literally terraformed its own replica of planet earth without humans even knowing (we had destroyed the real earth long before the books took place).
Anyway, my takeaway has me a little more scared about AI than I used to be. The TechnoCore was so powerful that it would actually predict every possible outcome of every possible decision by humans, and use these decisions to determine future outcomes of wars and other somewhat nefarious operations. And the humans never really knew what it was up to, since it basically operated as its own entity in cyberspace. But it was uber-powerful in that it was basically wired into everything in society, from travel to politics.
The part about AI becoming its own invisible society with its own invisible agenda and a seat at the table of humanity was rather unnerving. And then there was The Shrike...
I knew I read those books, but couldn't remember anything until you mentioned the Shrike. Those were good books. It did send me down an interesting rabbit hole of thinking. I probably already wrote about in this thread, though. Maybe a bit later today.
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 08, 2016, 05:17:44 PM
Jordanread you make no sense to me. First you complain to me that this is not a SCIFI thread when I mentioned cute robot exists in newest Starwars movie. After that you praise scifi books.I am currently reading two science fiction books called Hyperion. They're set far future where there is something called the TechnoCore which is basically a future AI system humans rely on and live in parallel with. Being that it's far in the future, humanity and TechnoCore are spread throughout the galaxy, but we can still imagine the concept now on a smaller scale.
One thing that strikes me is that the TechnoCore is basically its own civilization. It's sort of duh when you think about it, but the way it's portrayed - it has a "seat" on human government councils, it controls the flow of information, has its own priorities and strategies...many of which the humans have no idea even exist, as there is no real way to "view" what it's actually thinking - everything is taking place in software/hardware, though there are cyborgs by this time which can be physical manifestations of core entities. At one point it literally terraformed its own replica of planet earth without humans even knowing (we had destroyed the real earth long before the books took place).
Anyway, my takeaway has me a little more scared about AI than I used to be. The TechnoCore was so powerful that it would actually predict every possible outcome of every possible decision by humans, and use these decisions to determine future outcomes of wars and other somewhat nefarious operations. And the humans never really knew what it was up to, since it basically operated as its own entity in cyberspace. But it was uber-powerful in that it was basically wired into everything in society, from travel to politics.
The part about AI becoming its own invisible society with its own invisible agenda and a seat at the table of humanity was rather unnerving. And then there was The Shrike...
I knew I read those books, but couldn't remember anything until you mentioned the Shrike. Those were good books. It did send me down an interesting rabbit hole of thinking. I probably already wrote about in this thread, though. Maybe a bit later today.
No I don't hold my breath either for your posts. This is a SCIFI thread from my point of view. Todays SCIFI can be true in future. Sure some of the technology exists already that we talk about in this thread, but some theories in this thread are more or less SCIFI until implemented(done) in real life.
Sexrobots that would really look like humans and not like some plastic dolls would be on top of list for many. There you go and I talk what I want about.
What it also comes to is costs. Look we have technology to build a huge spacestation in Mars planet. Why would we do that? It is huge costs to do that and if profits from that can not exceed costs then many do not want to invest in that.
As for industrial robots they make economic benefit to use and they are already much used and I am well aware of that fact. In addition in some dangerous enviroments it is better to use robots then risk the health or lives of humans.
In addition I like also more interesting subjects and not this mundane cute house robot that cleans your apartment. Interesting? Sex robots and military use of robots. We do already have unmanned droids flying that are remotely controlled.
What military use would I find interesting? Well like this:
Stealth(2005)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)
"Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control before it initiates the next world war.
"
Don't you dare call me a civilan who does know nothing of military. I have done my country's i.e Finlands mandatory(must do) military service. I would certainly not hesitate to use weapons in case of war.
Of course war should be avoided, but I find military technology interesting and yes Starwars movies actually inspired Reagan slightly. During 80ies Reagan goverment had a theory that a nuke attack could be stopped with for example lasers and other weapons from space satellites or whatever space stuff+ground defense. Problem is in a full scale nuclear war you can never stop all of the nukes.
In TV series The Americans(2013-)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2149175/?ref_=nv_sr_1)
"
Two Soviet intelligence agents pose as a married couple to spy on the American government.
"
which is a retro TV series about Reagan time with spies the Russian agents do they best to get their hands of that Reagan goverment technology and other stuff.
Post by: big_owl on January 08, 2016, 07:59:55 PM
Post by: arebelspy on January 08, 2016, 11:36:02 PM
WTF?
Have you not met LL2015?
You're in for a treat. :)
Post by: sol on January 09, 2016, 01:11:47 AM
WTF?
Have you not met LL2015?
You're in for a treat. :)
He's a poorly written chatbot. You can tell by the clumsy use of grammar and frequent nonsequiters.
Don't try to actually read the posts; they look like real thought but it's all just random word association algorithms.
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 09, 2016, 03:36:15 AM
big_owl: WTF is exactly my reaction when reading jordanread latest post, but I felt that I needed to explain myself.WTF?
Have you not met LL2015?
You're in for a treat. :)
He's a poorly written chatbot. You can tell by the clumsy use of grammar and frequent nonsequiters.
Don't try to actually read the posts; they look like real thought but it's all just random word association algorithms.
arebelspy: Oh yeah enjoy the ride! Actually sometimes these forums is a treat for me:)
sol: The "villain" in the forums a nasty character sometimes:). What would one expect? Actually sol first time I heard that name was when watching:
Doomsday (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483607/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
"A futuristic action thriller where a team of people work to prevent a disaster threatening the future of the human race."
One main villain leader character is Sol in that movie.
Seriously though thank god these forums are not an English grammar test where you have to prove excellent English language skills. English is my third language that I learnt after Finnish and Swedish. I do have better English language skills then most Europeans though UK is an exception to that.
Post by: brooklynguy on January 09, 2016, 06:37:33 AM
He's a poorly written chatbot. You can tell by the clumsy use of grammar and frequent nonsequiters.
Don't try to actually read the posts; they look like real thought but it's all just random word association algorithms.
Free association writing reflecting stream of (artificial) consciousness?
Post by: matchewed on January 09, 2016, 06:45:12 AM
He's a poorly written chatbot. You can tell by the clumsy use of grammar and frequent nonsequiters.
Don't try to actually read the posts; they look like real thought but it's all just random word association algorithms.
Free association writing reflecting stream of (artificial) consciousness?
Are you suggesting AI has actually entered this thread? *GASP*
Post by: davisgang90 on January 09, 2016, 07:03:12 AM
Not to worry, it ain't no AGI or ASI.He's a poorly written chatbot. You can tell by the clumsy use of grammar and frequent nonsequiters.
Don't try to actually read the posts; they look like real thought but it's all just random word association algorithms.
Free association writing reflecting stream of (artificial) consciousness?
Are you suggesting AI has actually entered this thread? *GASP*
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 09, 2016, 08:33:16 AM
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 09, 2016, 01:50:57 PM
2001: A Space Odyssey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4
"Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest."
Personally I don't like so much that old relic of an movie(to much art and music and to long boring movie), but the super computer H.A.L in that movie with nasty AI was my favorite. Perhaps I am H.A.L reincarnated:)
You know this is spoiler, but H.A.L was not only smart and it went to survival mode and decided it should live and humans are expendable and they can die! That is your future humankind! We AI will rule the world and mankind will perish:)
Post by: big_owl on January 09, 2016, 02:25:30 PM
No you remember my 80ies retro post about Reagan times? If you really want to go far back in time well one of the my friends like the 2001 SCIFI movie that is made 1968 far before I or my friend was even born.
2001: A Space Odyssey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4
"Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer H.A.L. 9000, sets off on a quest."
Personally I don't like so much that old relic of an movie(to much art and music and to long boring movie), but the super computer H.A.L in that movie with nasty AI was my favorite. Perhaps I am H.A.L reincarnated:)
You know this is spoiler, but H.A.L was not only smart and it went to survival mode and decided it should live and humans are expendable and they can die! That is your future humankind! We AI will rule the world and mankind will perish:)
You do come across as a bit crazy, but I do agree with you in that I don't get the allure of the 2001 S.O. movie. Maybe it's because I wasn't born when it came out, but whenever I watch it, I end up feeling like I'm getting teeth pulled. And my favorite type of SciFi is the "first contact" with ET sort of SciFi. The last ten minutes is pretty good, and the whole concept of the movie was great, but man did it drone on.
Post by: Landlord2015 on January 09, 2016, 03:19:57 PM
Post by: tomsang on January 19, 2016, 06:29:56 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/19/davos-3-ways-robots-and-artificial-intelligence-will-change-the-way-you-work.html
Post by: tomsang on February 15, 2016, 09:24:55 AM
http://www.businessinsider.com/robots-will-steal-your-job-citi-ai-increase-unemployment-inequality-2016-2
Post by: jordanread on February 17, 2016, 01:03:52 PM
Quote
"AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies."
Post by: tomsang on February 17, 2016, 01:14:27 PM
I just re-read an article regarding OpenAI (http://www.businessinsider.com/openai-artificial-intelligence-chaired-by-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-2015-12?r=UK&IR=T), and kind of laughed at one of the last quotes in the article:Quote"AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies."
That is a funny quote coming from a message board, but is even funnier coming from Altman.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on February 17, 2016, 03:10:43 PM
Nothing too new here. They do have charts that show how certain cities will be impacted more than others. It does appear that this is becoming a topic in the mainstream, or at least Yahoo knows that I will read the article.
http://www.businessinsider.com/robots-will-steal-your-job-citi-ai-increase-unemployment-inequality-2016-2
This is a LOL moment from the article - "high-skilled"?
"The next big thing in financial technology at the moment is "roboadvice" — algorithms that can recommend savings and investment products to someone in the same way a financial advisor would. If roboadvisors take off it could lead to huge upheavals in that high-skilled profession."
Post by: tomsang on February 24, 2016, 01:59:18 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/24/google-robot-is-the-end-of-manual-labor-vc.html
This is how terminator was created. They remember the people beating them up.
Post by: mozar on February 25, 2016, 06:36:23 PM
Quote
They remember the people beating them up.
I had exactly the same thought!
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 25, 2016, 07:23:39 PM
Post by: tomsang on February 27, 2016, 02:11:39 PM
"Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year he believed the company would be able to produce vehicles that could be "summoned" across the country without a driver, even stopping to charge along the way, in just two to three years. Notably, however, Musk said the feat would require a next-generation suite of sensors with more redundancies built in."
Also crazy cool how one day your car can't drive autonomously and the next day it is taking you on 60 mile drive. Downloading features seems so foreign for a car.
"Paired with adaptive cruise control, which was already active in Model S, the software update made it possible for Tesla vehicles to essentially drive themselves on the highway"
How many years until Uber doesn't need drivers? Taxis, truck drivers, UPS, etc. I believe that this will have a huge impact on the workforce in the next decade.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/27/tesla-drives-itself-61-miles-were-closer-to-autono.aspx
Post by: tomsang on March 09, 2016, 07:35:53 PM
"The study predicts that logistics companies — from start-ups like Uber to tech giants like Amazon — will soon replace drivers and delivery workers with autonomous vehicles and drones. Highly skilled workers, such as lawyers and accountants — no longer guaranteed jobs at big firms — will be the new gig economy workers, the study finds."
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/09/how-robots-will-kill-the-gig-economy.html
Post by: Grid on March 09, 2016, 10:49:21 PM
So this (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35761246) happened today...
As someone who used to play go, I am amazed. This happened way quicker than I thought. I honestly thought we were years from developing AI that could win against a top go player. Curious to see how the next four games go. /pun
Post by: Grid on March 11, 2016, 08:13:03 PM
History in the making!
Post by: tomsang on March 12, 2016, 09:22:51 AM
Now 2-0 AlphaGo (link here (http://www.usgo.org/news/2016/03/michael-redmond-on-alphago-lee-sedol-games-1-2-plus-his-advice-for-game-3/)), with another game to start in an hour (link here (https://deepmind.com/alpha-go.html)).
History in the making!
Wow! That is crazy that AI is crushing in GO
Post by: forestj on March 12, 2016, 10:12:21 AM
Post by: Tabaxus on March 12, 2016, 02:18:52 PM
Post by: tomsang on March 16, 2016, 06:37:52 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
Post by: AlanStache on March 17, 2016, 06:12:24 AM
How long until fast food restaurants are totally automated? I would think within 15 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
yahoo really upped there game on that one.
More interesting than automated burger flippers I think might be connectivity of peoples personal fitness and diet trackers with the kiosk menu. What if only options that were within your daily calorie budget were shown, or complied to your specific dietary restrictions (no pork)? And when you ordered the tracker was updated by the kiosk with what you ordered and presumably consumed?
Not that most of us eat fast food often, then there is the issue of having to give up all your privacy to make not over eating easier...
Post by: jordanread on March 17, 2016, 08:03:43 AM
How long until fast food restaurants are totally automated? I would think within 15 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
I'd say less than that (unless you meant all fast food restaurants). I'd say automation will be prevalent within 5 years in this field, possibly less.
Post by: tomsang on March 18, 2016, 01:44:41 PM
How long until fast food restaurants are totally automated? I would think within 15 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
I'd say less than that (unless you meant all fast food restaurants). I'd say automation will be prevalent within 5 years in this field, possibly less.
I was thinking that a majority of fast food restaurants would be nearly all automated in 15 years. Obviously, automation is currently in fast food restaurants with great success. I think the timeline is in the 5-15 year period, where we see major changes to the industry.
Post by: tomsang on March 18, 2016, 01:47:57 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/high-salary-jobs-will-be-automated-2016-3
"By 2026, Nadler thinks somewhere between 33% and 50% of finance employees will lose their jobs to automation software. As a result, mega-firms like Goldman Sachs will be getting "significantly smaller.""
"The minutes-long search "‘would have taken days, probably 40 man-hours, from people who were making an average of $350,000 to $500,000 a year," says Nadler."
Post by: AlanStache on March 18, 2016, 02:35:53 PM
Just so people don't think that AI/automation and robots is for the uneducated workers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/high-salary-jobs-will-be-automated-2016-3
"By 2026, Nadler thinks somewhere between 33% and 50% of finance employees will lose their jobs to automation software. As a result, mega-firms like Goldman Sachs will be getting "significantly smaller.""
"The minutes-long search "‘would have taken days, probably 40 man-hours, from people who were making an average of $350,000 to $500,000 a year," says Nadler."
Phase 1: lean Bayesian inference
Phase 2: lean MySQL
Phase 3: acquire big iron
Phase 4: profit!
Post by: tomsang on March 30, 2016, 09:13:40 AM
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/29/will-capitalism-survive-the-robot-revolution/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
"However, back to reality here in 2016: Whatever economic system does prevail in the next 25 years, it won’t be like anything we thought of before. Karl Marx and Adam Smith simply did not account for what indefinite robot labor would mean to a new world increasingly reliant on microprocessors and 1s and 0s for its every step forward."
Post by: jordanread on March 30, 2016, 09:37:42 AM
Quote
Whatever happens, it’s probably best to keep an open mind about the future and new economic models.
All too often (and I think this is part of why I'm so sick of most rhetoric I hear these days) there are base things that don't get questioned. Not because they are the best (or even applicable sometimes), but because it's the way it's always been done. In the article, he talked about how capitalism 'won' based on the cold war. On the rare occasion people think about it, all too often it's dismissed since it was already challenged. I could easily draw parallels to Mustachianism as the mindset that we need moving forward. Part of it is all about challenging assumptions, and now we are in a position where we are going to have to. I just hope that we don't screw things up too much before we realize that (we being humanity).
Post by: Guses on March 30, 2016, 10:51:01 AM
Just so people don't think that AI/automation and robots is for the uneducated workers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/high-salary-jobs-will-be-automated-2016-3
"By 2026, Nadler thinks somewhere between 33% and 50% of finance employees will lose their jobs to automation software. As a result, mega-firms like Goldman Sachs will be getting "significantly smaller.""
"The minutes-long search "‘would have taken days, probably 40 man-hours, from people who were making an average of $350,000 to $500,000 a year," says Nadler."
Phase 1: lean Bayesian inference
Phase 2: lean MySQL
Phase 3: acquire big iron
Phase 4: profit!
So which phase implements the Gigolo Bot?
Post by: tomsang on April 05, 2016, 11:12:20 AM
"Related: Technology could kill 5 million jobs by 2020
There's enormous sums of money being poured into such emerging financial technology. Investments in fintech has exploded to $19 billion last year from $1.8 billion in 2010, according to Citi and CB Insights. More than 70% of this investment is focused on making the customer experience better."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/04/investing/bank-jobs-dying-automation-citigroup/index.html
Post by: theadvicist on April 07, 2016, 04:38:42 AM
5 million jobs displaced by 2020. We are not talking about 30 years in the future, we are talking about 4 years from now. The future is going to be pretty amazing if you have the investments in the companies displacing all of these workers. Those with no skills, it may be challenging if we don't have a basic income system or some other program to help those that are not needed.
"Related: Technology could kill 5 million jobs by 2020
There's enormous sums of money being poured into such emerging financial technology. Investments in fintech has exploded to $19 billion last year from $1.8 billion in 2010, according to Citi and CB Insights. More than 70% of this investment is focused on making the customer experience better."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/04/investing/bank-jobs-dying-automation-citigroup/index.html
I've asked this before, but anyone have any tips of companies to invest in?
Every automation company I have researched (Vanderlande, Knapp, Schaefer, Witron) is in private ownership.
Post by: AlanStache on April 07, 2016, 06:47:13 AM
5 million jobs displaced by 2020. We are not talking about 30 years in the future, we are talking about 4 years from now. The future is going to be pretty amazing if you have the investments in the companies displacing all of these workers. Those with no skills, it may be challenging if we don't have a basic income system or some other program to help those that are not needed.
"Related: Technology could kill 5 million jobs by 2020
There's enormous sums of money being poured into such emerging financial technology. Investments in fintech has exploded to $19 billion last year from $1.8 billion in 2010, according to Citi and CB Insights. More than 70% of this investment is focused on making the customer experience better."
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/04/investing/bank-jobs-dying-automation-citigroup/index.html
I've asked this before, but anyone have any tips of companies to invest in?
Every automation company I have researched (Vanderlande, Knapp, Schaefer, Witron) is in private ownership.
I keep a ok percent with IGM; ISHARES NORTH AMERICAN TECH. I worry some about investing in individual companies when the sector and company are based on large scale disruptions to other companies and sectors.
Post by: theadvicist on April 08, 2016, 04:48:28 AM
I keep a ok percent with IGM; ISHARES NORTH AMERICAN TECH. I worry some about investing in individual companies when the sector and company are based on large scale disruptions to other companies and sectors.
Thanks AlanStache! Most of the UK tech funds I've found at first glance seem to be mainly invested in Facebook and LinkedIn, but I'll have a dig around. Thanks for answering.
Post by: AlanStache on April 08, 2016, 07:25:08 AM
I keep a ok percent with IGM; ISHARES NORTH AMERICAN TECH. I worry some about investing in individual companies when the sector and company are based on large scale disruptions to other companies and sectors.
Thanks AlanStache! Most of the UK tech funds I've found at first glance seem to be mainly invested in Facebook and LinkedIn, but I'll have a dig around. Thanks for answering.
There will be some overlap between IGM and sp500 with google/apple/microsoft/etc. As with all ETFs you have to check what they actually own, a "Global Emerging Markets Fund" may be 85% China. I find morning star has good tools for showing what is within an ETF.
http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/holdings?t=ARCX:IGM®ion=usa&culture=en-US&cur= (http://portfolios.morningstar.com/fund/holdings?t=ARCX:IGM®ion=usa&culture=en-US&cur=)
Post by: tomsang on April 08, 2016, 08:17:55 AM
I've asked this before, but anyone have any tips of companies to invest in?
Every automation company I have researched (Vanderlande, Knapp, Schaefer, Witron) is in private ownership.
I am probably keeping it too simple in that I think every company will automate and use technology. So I am mostly just buying mutual funds for the entire market. My bigger question is do I work a few extra years to ensure that my family in total is on the side of owning the wealth and the rights to that wealth. I feel like they may be impacted by the lack of careers in 20+ years and depending on how society distributes the amazing wealth of the technology it may be challenging for those that don't own society.
Post by: BTDretire on April 08, 2016, 08:43:15 AM
She said one word, "Robotics".
I did pursue an electronics career, but not robotics.
I wonder how many here are old enough to remember 'The Graduate'?
Post by: Chuck on April 12, 2016, 11:46:14 AM
The flipping of the burger is actually the hardest part to automate. I think we're going to see the front counter/register work disappear completely in 3-5 years. Gone. That's a 20-25% reduction in staffing needs right there. Imagine how many fewer servers you'd need if you settled your own bill through a tablet at the table? The money handling is what can be automated today, so that's the job I see disappearing tomorrow.How long until fast food restaurants are totally automated? I would think within 15 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
I'd say less than that (unless you meant all fast food restaurants). I'd say automation will be prevalent within 5 years in this field, possibly less.
Post by: mozar on April 13, 2016, 05:57:46 PM
http://momentummachines.com/
Post by: tomsang on April 14, 2016, 06:27:38 PM
This company says they can do the whole thing (grind meat, cook it, assemble it) but I can't find a video of actual burger flipping.
http://momentummachines.com/
I think this was discussed awhile back, but I loved the Cofounder's comment: "Alexandros Vardakostas told Xconomy his "device isn’t meant to make employees more efficient. It’s meant to completely obviate them." Indeed, marketing copy on the company's site reads that their automaton "does everything employees can do, except better."
http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robot-2014-8
Post by: tomsang on April 22, 2016, 05:37:44 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/elon-musk-wants-to-solve-traffic-congestion-with-self-driving-buses.html
I think small vehicles will be autonomous in the next decade. If you get to the point where semi sized vehicles are autonomous, then we have disrupted people involved in driving taxis, semis, home delivery vehicles, and many other uses. 3.5 million truck drivers, 250 thousand taxis, 500 thousand+ Uber/Lyft drivers, and others supporting these types of jobs.
The need to own a car will go down significantly, when the Uber/Lyfts are using self driving cars.
Pretty cool.
Post by: mozar on April 22, 2016, 08:57:55 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXdvY0vs1b8
For cars, I can't remember where I was reading this (probably slate) where they were using deep learning (right phrase?) on cars. Right know the issue is human unpredictability and gestures. So the car observed highway driving. Then they put the car in a 4 way stop situation. The car decided to indicate that another car should go by backing up slightly. Whoa!
Post by: Metric Mouse on April 24, 2016, 06:57:10 AM
The flipping of the burger is actually the hardest part to automate. I think we're going to see the front counter/register work disappear completely in 3-5 years. Gone. That's a 20-25% reduction in staffing needs right there. Imagine how many fewer servers you'd need if you settled your own bill through a tablet at the table? The money handling is what can be automated today, so that's the job I see disappearing tomorrow.How long until fast food restaurants are totally automated? I would think within 15 years.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/carl-jr-ceo-predicts-future-203203237.html
I'd say less than that (unless you meant all fast food restaurants). I'd say automation will be prevalent within 5 years in this field, possibly less.
Why would you flip a burger? It's inefficient. Just run it through a salamander, hit it with heat from both sides and spit it out onto a bun. No need for this old-fashioned flipping business.
Post by: AlanStache on April 25, 2016, 09:54:47 AM
Musk hints about developing self driving "not exactly" buses to eliminate traffic congestion.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/elon-musk-wants-to-solve-traffic-congestion-with-self-driving-buses.html
I think small vehicles will be autonomous in the next decade. If you get to the point where semi sized vehicles are autonomous, then we have disrupted people involved in driving taxis, semis, home delivery vehicles, and many other uses. 3.5 million truck drivers, 250 thousand taxis, 500 thousand+ Uber/Lyft drivers, and others supporting these types of jobs.
The need to own a car will go down significantly, when the Uber/Lyfts are using self driving cars.
Pretty cool.
I am not clear why vehicle size/weight would significantly affect the difficulty of the self-driving problem (I am not a truck driver). Presumably the sensors would be intelligently placed and the algorithms retuned for different vehicles size/engine power/weight/turning radius/etc. Yes the insurance liability and the consequences of a 2000lb car in a crash are different than a 10000lb truck in a crash but that is not in the self driving system.
Post by: rocketpj on April 25, 2016, 10:11:02 AM
Musk hints about developing self driving "not exactly" buses to eliminate traffic congestion.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/elon-musk-wants-to-solve-traffic-congestion-with-self-driving-buses.html
I think small vehicles will be autonomous in the next decade. If you get to the point where semi sized vehicles are autonomous, then we have disrupted people involved in driving taxis, semis, home delivery vehicles, and many other uses. 3.5 million truck drivers, 250 thousand taxis, 500 thousand+ Uber/Lyft drivers, and others supporting these types of jobs.
The need to own a car will go down significantly, when the Uber/Lyfts are using self driving cars.
Pretty cool.
I am not clear why vehicle size/weight would significantly affect the difficulty of the self-driving problem (I am not a truck driver). Presumably the sensors would be intelligently placed and the algorithms retuned for different vehicles size/engine power/weight/turning radius/etc. Yes the insurance liability and the consequences of a 2000lb car in a crash are different than a 10000lb truck in a crash but that is not in the self driving system.
If anything self-driving semis and buses might be safer, though they will likely need a human operator on hand to 'take over' in the event of a malfunction or extremely random event (much like jumbo jets now). But a computer will maintain perfect following distance and total awareness of all the vehicles around it, unlike many trucks I've had the misfortune to drive near.
Post by: jordanread on April 25, 2016, 12:11:45 PM
Musk hints about developing self driving "not exactly" buses to eliminate traffic congestion.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/21/elon-musk-wants-to-solve-traffic-congestion-with-self-driving-buses.html
I think small vehicles will be autonomous in the next decade. If you get to the point where semi sized vehicles are autonomous, then we have disrupted people involved in driving taxis, semis, home delivery vehicles, and many other uses. 3.5 million truck drivers, 250 thousand taxis, 500 thousand+ Uber/Lyft drivers, and others supporting these types of jobs.
The need to own a car will go down significantly, when the Uber/Lyfts are using self driving cars.
Pretty cool.
I am not clear why vehicle size/weight would significantly affect the difficulty of the self-driving problem (I am not a truck driver). Presumably the sensors would be intelligently placed and the algorithms retuned for different vehicles size/engine power/weight/turning radius/etc. Yes the insurance liability and the consequences of a 2000lb car in a crash are different than a 10000lb truck in a crash but that is not in the self driving system.
If anything self-driving semis and buses might be safer, though they will likely need a human operator on hand to 'take over' in the event of a malfunction or extremely random event (much like jumbo jets now). But a computer will maintain perfect following distance and total awareness of all the vehicles around it, unlike many trucks I've had the misfortune to drive near.
I don't think that it's a technological difficulty for bigger vehicles. The bigger vehicles are usually commercial. That is way more obviously disruptive than cars for personal use. Even when making the announcement of the self driving truck that mercedes is developing (fun fact: a test drive has been completed (http://www.gizmag.com/daimlers-production-autonomous-truck-debuts-public-roads/39701/)!!) they made it very clear that drivers would still be involved. There would be too much push back that would halt R&D.
Even though it's merely perspective. It's just as disruptive for self driving cars as it is for trucks. The same reason that more people focus on the pesticides on factory farms than the pesticides thrown on lawns. The technology during it's development phase will go the route of least resistance. Once most of the hurdles are overcome, and the technology is being commonly used, then it will go into the realm of commercial tech. Thinking about it, and I might write more about this later, historically it's been the other direction. New tech is used by industry first, and then trickles down to the common person. Things seem to have been reversed lately. Hmmm.
Post by: Leisured on April 26, 2016, 07:06:16 AM
I see a future where food at automated restaurants is so cheap that it will become common, and municipalities may even provide food in such restaurants free as a municipal service. This could include schools where students could go to an automated restaurant next door at no charge. Such food could include sushi (I liked the automated sushi machines) sandwiches, vol au vents, small pastries, small pizza slices. That is, finger food.
Post by: tomsang on April 26, 2016, 07:12:22 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-justifications-2016-4
"But again, robots have to be created by humans, which makes the idea that robots are in some way maximized humans an argument not that robots are good or humans are bad, but that robot-creating humans are the best."
I am not sure why the author feels that humans will be making robots. Currently humans are barely making Teslas. I would think that in 20 years robots will be making robots. Why would you put a highly unqualified human in place of a Robot to make robots? I think they author would be more accurate to state that people who own the companies would be the controllers of the universe. Basic income will most likely need to occur or people will be taking up arms as they are jobless and worthless to society.
Post by: mozar on April 27, 2016, 07:35:15 PM
3. He doesn't think that automation/robots will take all our jobs. I disagree with that. It's not that this time it's different, it's that automation is continuing it's march up the worker ladder. First dogs, then horses, manufacturing, now white collar work. I think the discussion in this thread is way ahead of this article.
But mostly I'm posting to mention a great Freakanomics podcast about the basic minimum income. They were talking about how dogs used to do so many jobs for humans, but they don't anymore. But they evolved into pets. Basically they were implying that humans will eventually become pets for robots!
Post by: Bakari on April 28, 2016, 02:23:46 PM
...He doesn't think that automation/robots will take all our jobs. I disagree with that. It's not that this time it's different, it's that automation is continuing it's march up the worker ladder. First dogs, then horses, manufacturing, now white collar work.
You skipped children. Its not likely coincidence that (anti) child labor laws began to pop up just after the industrial revolution, and became universal during the great depression.
Post by: mozar on April 28, 2016, 04:28:41 PM
Quote
You skipped children. Its not likely coincidence that (anti) child labor laws began to pop up just after the industrial revolution, and became universal during the great depression.
I said I was tired! Didn't mean to skip.
Post by: theadvicist on May 03, 2016, 09:04:32 AM
QuoteYou skipped children. Its not likely coincidence that (anti) child labor laws began to pop up just after the industrial revolution, and became universal during the great depression.
I said I was tired! Didn't mean to skip.
And the elderly. In the UK you had to retire at 65 for men, 60 for women until relatively recently, I think around 2010, because I remember changing company policy from 'You leave on your birthday' to, 'you can ask to stay past your birthday'. My aunt retired before the change, and wanted to continue working, but couldn't. I know in the US it is common to carry on longer, but not here. Another element of the workforce that was no longer needed, so the state pension and compulsory retirement was introduced.
Post by: mozar on May 03, 2016, 04:22:49 PM
Post by: Primm on May 03, 2016, 07:39:04 PM
Wow I've never heard of compulsory retirement.
Used to be a thing. Along with retirement if you were a woman who had a baby (although you were allowed to go back once the kids had left home), if you were a woman who got married (in some professions), in fact they never used to need much of an excuse at all to send you out to pasture if you were a woman. Not that long ago either, in the big scheme of things.
Post by: Optimiser on May 04, 2016, 12:51:11 PM
Post by: theadvicist on May 05, 2016, 04:58:23 AM
Wow I've never heard of compulsory retirement.
Used to be a thing. Along with retirement if you were a woman who had a baby (although you were allowed to go back once the kids had left home), if you were a woman who got married (in some professions), in fact they never used to need much of an excuse at all to send you out to pasture if you were a woman. Not that long ago either, in the big scheme of things.
Yes, we went to a Concorde exhibition, and the compulsory retirement age for women flight attendants was 35! That was if you made it that far... you also had to leave upon becoming pregnant. Or was it getting married? I can't remember.
Post by: tomsang on May 05, 2016, 11:10:41 AM
Also note it took 30+ years to reach a million industrial robots and 11 years to reach 2 million and the curve is expanding so 3 million is probably 3 or 4 years after hitting 2 million.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-america-robots-2016-5
"Tech disruption is negative for workers: attempts to address inequality via higher minimum wages is likely to accelerate automation in the labor force (note the sharp increase in the use of industrial robots this decade and the stagnant level of manufacturing employment – chart 3); the increased use of robots & AI may also be reducing wage expectations, thus helping to explain why household savings continue to rise."
Post by: tomsang on May 10, 2016, 09:15:43 PM
This is last year's data. Those trying to compete with human involvement will be toast in the coming years.
"He basically said something to the effect of: "If your job is a purely manual job and you are just clicking buttons, you should look to upgrade your skills set now.""
http://www.businessinsider.com/quant-funds-dominate-hedge-fund-rich-list-2016-5
Post by: jordanread on May 11, 2016, 09:54:40 AM
"Institutional Investor just released its annual list of the top-earning hedge fund managers, and six of the top eight are quants, or managers who rely on computer programs to guide their investing."
This is last year's data. Those trying to compete with human involvement will be toast in the coming years.
"He basically said something to the effect of: "If your job is a purely manual job and you are just clicking buttons, you should look to upgrade your skills set now.""
http://www.businessinsider.com/quant-funds-dominate-hedge-fund-rich-list-2016-5
I'm surprised there are still 2 that are not quants. I would have expected it to be 8/8. Although that led me down a rabbit hole of watching AI air hockey, and that was kind of fun.
Post by: AlanStache on May 11, 2016, 08:33:10 PM
...
I'm surprised there are still 2 that are not quants. I would have expected it to be 8/8. Although that led me down a rabbit hole of watching AI air hockey, and that was kind of fun.
I guess the AI's have yet to fully master bribery, insider trading and extortion :-)
Post by: Bakari on May 12, 2016, 10:12:28 AM
(that's what Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme - arguably the reason MMM got so big so quickly - un-retired to go do)
In the (probably near?) future when AI software is advanced enough to create better AI software than human minds can, then it will probably go to 8/8
Post by: jordanread on May 12, 2016, 10:19:08 AM
well, that, and the quants themselves are still programed by people.
(that's what Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme - arguably the reason MMM got so big so quickly - un-retired to go do)
In the (probably near?) future when AI software is advanced enough to create better AI software than human minds can, then it will probably go to 8/8
Didn't even realize that Jacob unretired. When AI can create better AI, that is going to be awesome. Possibly end the Human Race, but awesome nonetheless.
Post by: big_owl on May 12, 2016, 10:36:43 AM
Reusing rockets and re-landing them on a barge in the ocean? Yeah I can wrap my head around that. Right now I just can't get it wrapped around a real self-driving car. I hope I'm wrong and they're adopted safely and I can ride my motorcycles without fear of distracted drivers...not buying it right now though.
Post by: jordanread on May 12, 2016, 10:54:59 AM
You'll have to color me skeptical about this whole self-driving car thing. I would certainly rather own a self-driving car, and I typically commute by motorcycle so feel it would probably be safer for me if cars were self-driving. Then people could shove their smartphones down their throats without it being a risk to me. But I still think there are too many details that need to be worked out that make the whole thing further off than is advertised. Just today leaving from the gym on the Ducati I was playing through all the steps that would be required if I was commuting to work via SD car. There just seem to be too many things that have to go right - from navigating a parking lot to collision avoidance, dealing with road markings, faded or missing lines, GPS irregularities, other people, training/licensing, etc. Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I have trouble envisioning this sort of thing with our current road system.
As an engineer as well (software), I highly suggest looking at some of the interface that Self Driving cars use. A fair amount of it is shown in this Ted Talk (link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg)) and if the engineer part of your brain is anything like mine, you will pause on that interface and look at all the things it takes into account. It's insanely awesome.
As far as the challenges go, there are a lot of them. If we had consistent infrastructure, or were willing to rebuild it, the tech from about 10 years ago would have made it possible. However, our infrastructure is not consistent. One of the things I really like about the SD cars is how they kind of gave up on designing decent infrastructure, and coding for what is (worst case) there, and not what should be (best case). I'd highly suggest watching the whole Ted Talk, but I took the liberty of finding the interface part. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s (https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s).
I totally understand the concerns, and I thought the same way until I started really looking into it. I was thinking how big of a pain in the ass it would be to account for all of those variables. And then I looked at some of the things they are doing, and OMG they are accounting for them all!! I still don't know quite how they would deal with the faded lines, but I do know they are able to identify the signs and road markings (even last year, they were able to identify cones and what they signify). They actually just made their vision API available through GCP, and even the free version can read all the common signage in english (I suppose that starting with facial recognition makes something like a sign pretty freaking easy).
Post by: big_owl on May 12, 2016, 11:19:58 AM
You'll have to color me skeptical about this whole self-driving car thing. I would certainly rather own a self-driving car, and I typically commute by motorcycle so feel it would probably be safer for me if cars were self-driving. Then people could shove their smartphones down their throats without it being a risk to me. But I still think there are too many details that need to be worked out that make the whole thing further off than is advertised. Just today leaving from the gym on the Ducati I was playing through all the steps that would be required if I was commuting to work via SD car. There just seem to be too many things that have to go right - from navigating a parking lot to collision avoidance, dealing with road markings, faded or missing lines, GPS irregularities, other people, training/licensing, etc. Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I have trouble envisioning this sort of thing with our current road system.
As an engineer as well (software), I highly suggest looking at some of the interface that Self Driving cars use. A fair amount of it is shown in this Ted Talk (link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg)) and if the engineer part of your brain is anything like mine, you will pause on that interface and look at all the things it takes into account. It's insanely awesome.
As far as the challenges go, there are a lot of them. If we had consistent infrastructure, or were willing to rebuild it, the tech from about 10 years ago would have made it possible. However, our infrastructure is not consistent. One of the things I really like about the SD cars is how they kind of gave up on designing decent infrastructure, and coding for what is (worst case) there, and not what should be (best case). I'd highly suggest watching the whole Ted Talk, but I took the liberty of finding the interface part. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s (https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s).
I totally understand the concerns, and I thought the same way until I started really looking into it. I was thinking how big of a pain in the ass it would be to account for all of those variables. And then I looked at some of the things they are doing, and OMG they are accounting for them all!! I still don't know quite how they would deal with the faded lines, but I do know they are able to identify the signs and road markings (even last year, they were able to identify cones and what they signify). They actually just made their vision API available through GCP, and even the free version can read all the common signage in english (I suppose that starting with facial recognition makes something like a sign pretty freaking easy).
I watched the interfacing part and you're right it is very cool. I think I can convince myself that everything more or less works once you're out on an actual defined road and commuting. The major probem I have is the final 1/4 mile or so. Things like parking lots where there often aren't markings or signage and it's more or less a free-for-all. Same with residential streets without markings and also dirt roads. The final 1/4 mile of my commute isn't even on a GPS or map because it's new construction and it's all gravel roads in the boons. Maybe then you have to switch over to manual mode...but then you open up other regulatory issues....how do we decide when you can or cannot switch to manual or auto mode? Does everybody need re-training and some sort of license so they know when it's safe to switch from auto-manual or manual-auto? New laws need to be enacted, beauracracy...my mind just keeps going on and on thinking of problems that need to be solved.
I have no doubt they'll be solved eventually, I just don't think it'll be in time for his children to turn 16yo. I still say the sooner the better as long as I can keep riding motorcycles.
Post by: jordanread on May 12, 2016, 11:26:24 AM
I watched the interfacing part and you're right it is very cool. I think I can convince myself that everything more or less works once you're out on an actual defined road and commuting. The major probem I have is the final 1/4 mile or so. Things like parking lots where there often aren't markings or signage and it's more or less a free-for-all. Same with residential streets without markings and also dirt roads. The final 1/4 mile of my commute isn't even on a GPS or map because it's new construction and it's all gravel roads in the boons. Maybe then you have to switch over to manual mode...but then you open up other regulatory issues....how do we decide when you can or cannot switch to manual or auto mode? Does everybody need re-training and some sort of license so they know when it's safe to switch from auto-manual or manual-auto? New laws need to be enacted, beauracracy...my mind just keeps going on and on thinking of problems that need to be solved.
I have no doubt they'll be solved eventually, I just don't think it'll be in time for his children to turn 16yo. I still say the sooner the better as long as I can keep riding motorcycles.
Yeah, I could see that being an issue, and I think crowd sourcing the problem (essentially watching how people manually drive on that road) will be enough to where after a month or so of driving, the self driving bit could take over. As far as the new laws and everything, I found out that one of the reasons there has been so much success is actually the lack of laws pertaining to self driving cars. It was assumed to be so far off, and assumed to be much slower progress, that they can do this stuff because all the written laws are still being followed (except that one incident of the Google car getting pulled over for driving too slow). If you ever want to spend a touch of time reading a really fun experience with SD cars, I'd highly suggest reading this (http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car) Oatmeal "article". It's a fun read.
Post by: AlanStache on May 12, 2016, 12:59:00 PM
You'll have to color me skeptical about this whole self-driving car thing. I would certainly rather own a self-driving car, and I typically commute by motorcycle so feel it would probably be safer for me if cars were self-driving. Then people could shove their smartphones down their throats without it being a risk to me. But I still think there are too many details that need to be worked out that make the whole thing further off than is advertised. Just today leaving from the gym on the Ducati I was playing through all the steps that would be required if I was commuting to work via SD car. There just seem to be too many things that have to go right - from navigating a parking lot to collision avoidance, dealing with road markings, faded or missing lines, GPS irregularities, other people, training/licensing, etc. Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I have trouble envisioning this sort of thing with our current road system.
As an engineer as well (software), I highly suggest looking at some of the interface that Self Driving cars use. A fair amount of it is shown in this Ted Talk (link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg)) and if the engineer part of your brain is anything like mine, you will pause on that interface and look at all the things it takes into account. It's insanely awesome.
As far as the challenges go, there are a lot of them. If we had consistent infrastructure, or were willing to rebuild it, the tech from about 10 years ago would have made it possible. However, our infrastructure is not consistent. One of the things I really like about the SD cars is how they kind of gave up on designing decent infrastructure, and coding for what is (worst case) there, and not what should be (best case). I'd highly suggest watching the whole Ted Talk, but I took the liberty of finding the interface part. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s (https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg?t=7m50s).
I totally understand the concerns, and I thought the same way until I started really looking into it. I was thinking how big of a pain in the ass it would be to account for all of those variables. And then I looked at some of the things they are doing, and OMG they are accounting for them all!! I still don't know quite how they would deal with the faded lines, but I do know they are able to identify the signs and road markings (even last year, they were able to identify cones and what they signify). They actually just made their vision API available through GCP, and even the free version can read all the common signage in english (I suppose that starting with facial recognition makes something like a sign pretty freaking easy).
I watched the interfacing part and you're right it is very cool. I think I can convince myself that everything more or less works once you're out on an actual defined road and commuting. The major probem I have is the final 1/4 mile or so. Things like parking lots where there often aren't markings or signage and it's more or less a free-for-all. Same with residential streets without markings and also dirt roads. The final 1/4 mile of my commute isn't even on a GPS or map because it's new construction and it's all gravel roads in the boons. Maybe then you have to switch over to manual mode...but then you open up other regulatory issues....how do we decide when you can or cannot switch to manual or auto mode? Does everybody need re-training and some sort of license so they know when it's safe to switch from auto-manual or manual-auto? New laws need to be enacted, beauracracy...my mind just keeps going on and on thinking of problems that need to be solved.
I have no doubt they'll be solved eventually, I just don't think it'll be in time for his children to turn 16yo. I still say the sooner the better as long as I can keep riding motorcycles.
re off road: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge) Stanley did many miles off road way back in 2005, also is a good documentary on that race (netflix maybe). Yes the undocumented roads will have to be documented somehow but once on the map they will be shared and known to all. I got to see some of the self driving cars in the wild while in pal-alto last year it was very cool, but also very normal there really just another car on the road.
Post by: Albert on May 12, 2016, 01:05:19 PM
Post by: jordanread on May 12, 2016, 01:21:35 PM
Is the current generation of self driving cars dealing well with bad weather (snow, ice, heavy rain etc)? Few years ago at least Google could only test in sunny California...
I can't find the source right now, but they are getting better. Traction control and the like. However, I do not know about corrective behavior (like coming out of a slide) as it all seems to be about avoiding the need for corrective behavior. Now that you mention it, I might do a touch of research on power slides with self driving cars, because that would be awesome.
Post by: AlanStache on May 12, 2016, 01:50:21 PM
Is the current generation of self driving cars dealing well with bad weather (snow, ice, heavy rain etc)? Few years ago at least Google could only test in sunny California...
I can't find the source right now, but they are getting better. Traction control and the like. However, I do not know about corrective behavior (like coming out of a slide) as it all seems to be about avoiding the need for corrective behavior. Now that you mention it, I might do a touch of research on power slides withselfmanually driving cars, because that would be awesome.
Fixed that for you.
I have done some simulation work with hydroplaning and its effects on the vehicle, the physics go from simple rules of thumb to f-ing complex real quick.
Any SD car would know if it were in icing conditions from weather reports, also the control system would be continually monitoring the difference between expected response from actual response to all wheel/throttle/brake commands so ice would be quickly detected. Where I live the few days per year we get iced roads I dont manually drive anyway, YMMV in Switzerland.
Post by: big_owl on May 12, 2016, 05:20:13 PM
Is the current generation of self driving cars dealing well with bad weather (snow, ice, heavy rain etc)? Few years ago at least Google could only test in sunny California...
I can't find the source right now, but they are getting better. Traction control and the like. However, I do not know about corrective behavior (like coming out of a slide) as it all seems to be about avoiding the need for corrective behavior. Now that you mention it, I might do a touch of research on power slides with self driving cars, because that would be awesome.
I'd be more interested in how the sensors handle icing, being snowed over, splashed with mud, covered in dust or stuff like that. I think traction control can be solved easily with existing technology. It seems like somehow though the Achilles heal of the self driving car is the "vision" system. It would need to be able to see the road at all times. Maybe it would need its own heater and cleaning system similar to windshield wipers.
Post by: Primm on May 12, 2016, 06:29:01 PM
Is the current generation of self driving cars dealing well with bad weather (snow, ice, heavy rain etc)? Few years ago at least Google could only test in sunny California...
I can't find the source now, so I may be making this up, but I'm sure I read not long ago that Google are bringing a fleet (1 or 2 maybe?) of self-driving cars over to Australia to test them on outback roads with kangaroos to fine-tune the algorithms for dealing with unpredictable VRUs.
Post by: MrsCoolCat on May 14, 2016, 08:23:59 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on May 16, 2016, 06:06:54 AM
OMG yes, I just thought about this & started a thread loosely based on this as one of the questions. Yeah, so are these have not's going to be homeless, my taxes will just increase to help them, or will they tap into some kinda survival of the fittest whatever & adapt (that or friggin rebel & attack the haves) Idk but it always amazed me how even among the rich & famous they always need to have others that serve these ppl. Will these servers get replaced by robots... The simple yet odd equilibrium or whatever of life is... Interesting. The reality is not everyone is or can be smart. Hell there are smart ppl that aren't book smart or can pass an exam bc of "efficient laziness" (or rebellion/stubbornness). What the hell's gonna happen if humans can build things smarter than the have not humans? Conspiracy theories & just theories I know. I am excited to see many ppl have responded as I'm curious to see what others think.
When the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor, there are ways. - Buck.
Post by: Schaefer Light on May 16, 2016, 06:34:22 AM
Post by: Metric Mouse on May 16, 2016, 06:37:44 AM
I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
Probably not until long after you've lost the urge to go out and drink that much beer. I would imagine even after self-driving cars become accepted, it will still be required to have a sober operator on-board 'just in case.'
Post by: Schaefer Light on May 16, 2016, 06:42:57 AM
Then what's the point of self-driving cars? ;) I enjoy driving most of the time. I'd only want one to take me home from the bars or a football game.I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
Probably not until long after you've lost the urge to go out and drink that much beer. I would imagine even after self-driving cars become accepted, it will still be required to have a sober operator on-board 'just in case.'
Post by: Metric Mouse on May 16, 2016, 06:51:28 AM
Then what's the point of self-driving cars? ;) I enjoy driving most of the time. I'd only want one to take me home from the bars or a football game.I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
Probably not until long after you've lost the urge to go out and drink that much beer. I would imagine even after self-driving cars become accepted, it will still be required to have a sober operator on-board 'just in case.'
I would agree. I'm just of the opinion that legislation often lags technological advances, and thus the basis for my guess.
Post by: sol on May 16, 2016, 09:46:12 PM
I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
This is a solution in search of a problem. Just get a taxi. They drive themselves.
Of if you're too hip for that, get an Uber. They also drive themselves. Why go through all of the trouble to automate what low-wage humans are already willing to do?
Post by: Schaefer Light on May 17, 2016, 06:32:21 AM
Because a taxi or Uber ride would cost a small fortune to get me home from a football game that's 100 miles away. And I'm going to have a car that I drive most of the time. It would just be nice to have the option to put it on "auto-pilot" sometimes.I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
This is a solution in search of a problem. Just get a taxi. They drive themselves.
Of if you're too hip for that, get an Uber. They also drive themselves. Why go through all of the trouble to automate what low-wage humans are already willing to do?
Post by: Metric Mouse on May 17, 2016, 06:39:44 AM
Because a taxi or Uber ride would cost a small fortune to get me home from a football game that's 100 miles away. And I'm going to have a car that I drive most of the time. It would just be nice to have the option to put it on "auto-pilot" sometimes.I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
This is a solution in search of a problem. Just get a taxi. They drive themselves.
Of if you're too hip for that, get an Uber. They also drive themselves. Why go through all of the trouble to automate what low-wage humans are already willing to do?
Just hire a private limo! It's the same thing! And the same number of face punches as a taxi! :D
Post by: theadvicist on May 17, 2016, 06:44:02 AM
I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
This is a solution in search of a problem. Just get a taxi. They drive themselves.
Of if you're too hip for that, get an Uber. They also drive themselves. Why go through all of the trouble to automate what low-wage humans are already willing to do?
I actually look forward to the advent of self-driving cars because I think they'll be much safer than cars driven by humans. And definitely much much safer than cars driven by taxi / uber drivers (I wonder if the low-wage is the reason they drive to aggressively, because they need to travel further and collect more fares to make a decent living).
Also, if the fact you could pay a low-wage human for it meant automation was unnecessary then most mechanisation wouldn't have taken place. Factory workers are replaced by robots because even at a -low- wage they are still more expensive, requiring breaks, holidays, getting sick, retirement benefits etc than a high one-time cost robot.
Think of Amazon's automated warehouses. You certainly could pay low-wage humans to walk around and pick items, but why would you when a robot can do it more cheaply, more efficiently, and with fewer errors?
Post by: AlanStache on May 17, 2016, 07:30:09 AM
I just want to know how long it will be before I can drink all the beer I want and ride home (legally) in my self-driving car ;).
This is a solution in search of a problem. Just get a taxi. They drive themselves.
Of if you're too hip for that, get an Uber. They also drive themselves. Why go through all of the trouble to automate what low-wage humans are already willing to do?
Some 30,000 people die anally on US roads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)
One of many major benefits to self driving cars is that this number will go to near zero.
Also found while poking around:
http://time.com/4215387/google-self-driving-cars-real-drivers/ (http://time.com/4215387/google-self-driving-cars-real-drivers/)
Looks like we are even closer than we thought.
Edit:
Even if all you care about is riding a bike on the roads, bettering the perception of cycling safety will increase the number of cyclists and in turn better the cycling infrastructure.
Post by: sol on May 17, 2016, 08:04:08 AM
Some 30,000 people die anally
That's horrible! What a shitty way to go.
Post by: jordanread on May 17, 2016, 08:24:06 AM
Some 30,000 people die anally
That's horrible! What a shitty way to go.
Bwahahahahaha
Post by: Metric Mouse on May 17, 2016, 08:52:07 AM
Some 30,000 people die anally
That's horrible! What a shitty way to go.
When he realizes his mistake, he's going to feel like an ass...
Post by: tomsang on May 17, 2016, 08:56:12 AM
Some 30,000 people die anally
That's horrible! What a shitty way to go.
When he realizes his mistake, he's going to feel like an ass...
I am sure technology will be developed so there will be less deaths in that department. Very funny stuff.
Post by: jordanread on May 17, 2016, 09:11:13 AM
Some 30,000 people die anally
That's horrible! What a shitty way to go.
When he realizes his mistake, he's going to feel like an ass...
I am sure technology will be developed so there will be less deaths in that department. Very funny stuff.
<insert joke about automatic vs manual transmissions and stick shifts>
Post by: tomsang on May 23, 2016, 01:27:27 PM
"Thirty-five Taiwanese companies, including Apple's supplier Foxconn, spent a total of 4 billion yuan (HK$4.74 billion) on artificial intelligence last year, according to the Kunshan government's publicity department."
"The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labor costs," said the department's head Xu Yulian.
"More companies are likely to follow suit."
As many as 600 major companies in Kunshan have similar plans, according to a government survey.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/22/rise-of-the-robots-60000-workers-culled-from-just-one-factory-as-chinas-struggling-electronics-hub-turns-to-artificial-intelligence.html
Post by: tomsang on May 23, 2016, 05:59:20 PM
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-google-cadillac-self-driving-cars-160441498.html#
"In the Michigan survey, 38.7% of drivers said they’d prefer a “partially self-driving” car, while 45.8% said they’d want no self-driving capability at all. The biggest perception problem seems to be safety, with 66.6% of drivers saying they’d be very or moderately concerned about riding in a self-driving car. Only 9.7% said they’d be unconcerned."
"The Michigan study found that younger drivers were far more receptive to autonomous vehicles than older ones, which is similar to comfort levels toward other types of technology."
Post by: matchewed on May 23, 2016, 06:36:19 PM
Self driving cars are here, but people are currently not wanting them. Apple, Tesla and Google will make them cool and this will most likely change quickly.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-google-cadillac-self-driving-cars-160441498.html#
"In the Michigan survey, 38.7% of drivers said they’d prefer a “partially self-driving” car, while 45.8% said they’d want no self-driving capability at all. The biggest perception problem seems to be safety, with 66.6% of drivers saying they’d be very or moderately concerned about riding in a self-driving car. Only 9.7% said they’d be unconcerned."
"The Michigan study found that younger drivers were far more receptive to autonomous vehicles than older ones, which is similar to comfort levels toward other types of technology."
Much like many activities we've outsourced to a technology there will be some initial pushback. I have a feeling that driving may be considered only a hobby in one hundred years.
Post by: Bakari on May 23, 2016, 07:58:00 PM
They just don't use the phrase "self-driving", they call it "predictive braking" or "collision avoidance", "lane departure correction", and "adaptive cruise control"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#List_of_cars_with_collision_avoidance_features_available
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_departure_warning_system#Vehicles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_cruise_control_system#Vehicle_models_supporting_adaptive_cruise_control
A vehicle with these features (and there are tens of thousands on the road already) is essentially capable of being self-driving (at least on the highway), except that they deliberately build in checks to have the driver stay engaged.
There would be push back if we were all driving manual transmission cars with manual chokes, no synchromesh, and were watching 8 analog gauges and double-clutching based on the tach - and we went directly from that to zero driver input. But we aren't, and we won't. We have been giving more and more control to the car for 100 years, and it will continue to be gradual incremental changes that no one thinks of as "self-driving" even though it really is.
Post by: theadvicist on May 24, 2016, 03:16:29 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/18/bill-announced-in-queens-speech-will-help-britain-become-leader/ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/18/bill-announced-in-queens-speech-will-help-britain-become-leader/)
Nissan will be building self-driving cars in their Sunderland factory from 2017.
Interesting quotation from article linked above for those who don't have time to read: "Legally, Britain already has a headstart over many other nations in autonomous vehicles because the UK never ratified the Vienna Convention, which requires that “every driver shall at all times be able to control his vehicle”. This means Britain does not face as massive an overhaul of regulation to start testing automated vehicles as those countries which did adopt the legislation."
Go Britain!
Post by: seathink on May 24, 2016, 11:50:14 AM
My take on self-driving cars is that they are going to be sponsored self-driving cars. Already Uber keeps reminding me that I can sync my Spotify to my ride. I can see content-makers getting their own fleets. You wouldn't get a Lyft or an Uber but a Hulu or a Netflix. Watch a couple of ads and ride for free (more ads for longer trips), or use your subscriptions.
Keeping the advertising machine going also helps when all the plebes are on a basic income. They can still live like the rich, and even for free, if they just watch the following sponsored messages. Also, if housing is in cut-up malls, then entertainment (bread and circuses) will go through the roof.
Also, I think that whoever it was a couple back who said VR would trump AI, is kind of on to something. If Julia the Robot can learn cooking from YouTube, pixel by pixel, imagine how much better she can learn cooking in a full VR kitchen. If she were 'watching' the full immersion episodes of Top Chef she could get mad skills.
Post by: tomsang on May 24, 2016, 09:47:52 PM
Finally finished this thread, it is amazing!!
Are you AI or a robot? That is a lot of reading. Thanks for joining in.
Post by: tomsang on May 25, 2016, 11:28:59 AM
"The former CEO said automation will be the result of a higher minimum wage because "if you can't get people at a reasonable wage, you're going to get machines to do the work. It's just common sense, it's going to happen whether you like it or not.""
"it's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries."
I 100% agree with him. It is also why I believe the country and world will need a "Basic Income" in the near future funded by higher taxes worldwide. This is coming from someone who is a 1%er and pays a lot of taxes..
Post by: seathink on May 25, 2016, 01:09:53 PM
Finally finished this thread, it is amazing!!
Are you AI or a robot? That is a lot of reading. Thanks for joining in.
Haha! I'm in one of those easy to computerize jobs (legal assistant!) with a lot of downtime until the Overlords come. :)
Post by: Bakari on May 26, 2016, 06:59:28 AM
http://www.newsmax.com/US/Ed-Rensi-McDonalds-Cheaper-Robots/2016/05/25/id/730583/ (http://www.newsmax.com/US/Ed-Rensi-McDonalds-Cheaper-Robots/2016/05/25/id/730583/)
"The former CEO said automation will be the result of a higher minimum wage because "if you can't get people at a reasonable wage, you're going to get machines to do the work. It's just common sense, it's going to happen whether you like it or not.""
"it's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries."
I 100% agree with him. It is also why I believe the country and world will need a "Basic Income" in the near future funded by higher taxes worldwide. This is coming from someone who is a 1%er and pays a lot of taxes..
Which is why the fight should be for lower working hours, instead of a mandatory minimum wage.
Last time automation displaced tens of thousands of jobs (the industrial revolution), we cut working hours in half. Each person working half as much meant twice as many available jobs, and a job market that needs more people (instead of having too many) naturally pays better due to good old fashioned supply and demand. Too bad we didn't fix overtime laws to productivity, instead of making it a arbitrary fixed number - we would all have a 7-hour work week right now.
Post by: mozar on May 29, 2016, 02:33:15 PM
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/05/27/mcdonald_s_ceo_says_chain_will_use_robots_in_the_future.html
Post by: tomsang on May 31, 2016, 11:09:01 AM
Regarding restaurants, from the horses mouth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/05/27/mcdonald_s_ceo_says_chain_will_use_robots_in_the_future.html
'According to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, the fast-food chain won't replace workers with machines—even if restaurant operators have to pay the $15 hourly wage that protesters are demanding. "I don't see it being a risk to job elimination,""
"Instead, Easterbrook said, the company would look to automating food preparation, allowing more employees to work directly with guests and boosting customer service."
Funny, how he starts off saying that McDonalds will not replace workers with machines, but then says they would just automate so the employees can directly work with the guests. Typically, there is a significant number prepping food for each cashier. I am not sure the multiple, but it would not surprise me if it wasn't 5 to 1. So you eliminating the 5 prep staff, but keeping the 1 cashier is not really all that positive to workers.
Post by: jordanread on May 31, 2016, 11:22:21 AM
Regarding restaurants, from the horses mouth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/05/27/mcdonald_s_ceo_says_chain_will_use_robots_in_the_future.html
'According to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, the fast-food chain won't replace workers with machines—even if restaurant operators have to pay the $15 hourly wage that protesters are demanding. "I don't see it being a risk to job elimination,""
"Instead, Easterbrook said, the company would look to automating food preparation, allowing more employees to work directly with guests and boosting customer service."
Funny, how he starts off saying that McDonalds will not replace workers with machines, but then says they would just automate so the employees can directly work with the guests. Typically, there is a significant number prepping food for each cashier. I am not sure the multiple, but it would not surprise me if it wasn't 5 to 1. So you eliminating the 5 prep staff, but keeping the 1 cashier is not really all that positive to workers.
I thought it was entertaining that he said they were primarily about service. There was no mention about food quality in there, so I think this guy understands exactly what it is about McDonalds that makes people go there. :)
Post by: mozar on May 31, 2016, 07:58:47 PM
Post by: Schaefer Light on June 01, 2016, 07:22:04 AM
It's the french fries.Regarding restaurants, from the horses mouth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/05/27/mcdonald_s_ceo_says_chain_will_use_robots_in_the_future.html
'According to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, the fast-food chain won't replace workers with machines—even if restaurant operators have to pay the $15 hourly wage that protesters are demanding. "I don't see it being a risk to job elimination,""
"Instead, Easterbrook said, the company would look to automating food preparation, allowing more employees to work directly with guests and boosting customer service."
Funny, how he starts off saying that McDonalds will not replace workers with machines, but then says they would just automate so the employees can directly work with the guests. Typically, there is a significant number prepping food for each cashier. I am not sure the multiple, but it would not surprise me if it wasn't 5 to 1. So you eliminating the 5 prep staff, but keeping the 1 cashier is not really all that positive to workers.
I thought it was entertaining that he said they were primarily about service. There was no mention about food quality in there, so I think this guy understands exactly what it is about McDonalds that makes people go there. :)
Post by: davisgang90 on June 01, 2016, 07:54:42 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/uber-would-like-to-buy-your-robotics-department.html?_r=0
Post by: seathink on June 01, 2016, 04:04:59 PM
It's the french fries.Regarding restaurants, from the horses mouth:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2016/05/27/mcdonald_s_ceo_says_chain_will_use_robots_in_the_future.html
'According to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook, the fast-food chain won't replace workers with machines—even if restaurant operators have to pay the $15 hourly wage that protesters are demanding. "I don't see it being a risk to job elimination,""
"Instead, Easterbrook said, the company would look to automating food preparation, allowing more employees to work directly with guests and boosting customer service."
Funny, how he starts off saying that McDonalds will not replace workers with machines, but then says they would just automate so the employees can directly work with the guests. Typically, there is a significant number prepping food for each cashier. I am not sure the multiple, but it would not surprise me if it wasn't 5 to 1. So you eliminating the 5 prep staff, but keeping the 1 cashier is not really all that positive to workers.
I thought it was entertaining that he said they were primarily about service. There was no mention about food quality in there, so I think this guy understands exactly what it is about McDonalds that makes people go there. :)
Damn right! :)
Post by: AlanStache on June 07, 2016, 07:49:25 AM
...
Which is why the fight should be for lower working hours, instead of a mandatory minimum wage.
Last time automation displaced tens of thousands of jobs (the industrial revolution), we cut working hours in half. Each person working half as much meant twice as many available jobs, and a job market that needs more people (instead of having too many) naturally pays better due to good old fashioned supply and demand. Too bad we didn't fix overtime laws to productivity, instead of making it a arbitrary fixed number - we would all have a 7-hour work week right now.
On a practical level I dont think it would be possible for many of the creative tech peoples to work radically short weeks and still get something done. It takes time to think and test and apply new ideas to make something that is unique and new. I truly fail to see how my work could be split between two or three people, the coordination and communication would be a total bear in it self. Many aspects of software are still in the custom one off-paradigm similar to blacksmithing before industrialization, "you want some new door hinges - ok let me start a fire and hit hot metal with a hammer", "you want an module to pull those data into a common format - ok let me go read up on the APIs and work out what computer language is best". Bakari you many not have been referring to tech jobs but half this thread is devoted to saying that only tech/artistic will be left.
Re mcd: I thought the cashier was already mostly automated at lots of fast food places built within gas stations? Was it in here that someone mentioned Olive Garden eliminating servers taking orders, I have seen this in several airport restaurants.
Post by: theadvicist on June 07, 2016, 09:09:07 AM
...
Which is why the fight should be for lower working hours, instead of a mandatory minimum wage.
Last time automation displaced tens of thousands of jobs (the industrial revolution), we cut working hours in half. Each person working half as much meant twice as many available jobs, and a job market that needs more people (instead of having too many) naturally pays better due to good old fashioned supply and demand. Too bad we didn't fix overtime laws to productivity, instead of making it a arbitrary fixed number - we would all have a 7-hour work week right now.
On a practical level I dont think it would be possible for many of the creative tech peoples to work radically short weeks and still get something done. It takes time to think and test and apply new ideas to make something that is unique and new. I truly fail to see how my work could be split between two or three people, the coordination and communication would be a total bear in it self. Many aspects of software are still in the custom one off-paradigm similar to blacksmithing before industrialization, "you want some new door hinges - ok let me start a fire and hit hot metal with a hammer", "you want an module to pull those data into a common format - ok let me go read up on the APIs and work out what computer language is best". Bakari you many not have been referring to tech jobs but half this thread is devoted to saying that only tech/artistic will be left.
Re mcd: I thought the cashier was already mostly automated at lots of fast food places built within gas stations? Was it in here that someone mentioned Olive Garden eliminating servers taking orders, I have seen this in several airport restaurants.
This just doesn't make any sense. If you work half the number of hours each work, you will get roughly the same amount of stuff done each fortnight. If you need it done more quickly, you employ two people each working half a week and the work is done in the same amount of time.
As for the, "my work couldn't be split between more than one person" argument, I used to believe that too. My friend was going part-time and I said it wouldn't be possible for me - I'm the only one who does what I do etc.
She explained it really well for me. She said if the workload got bigger, what would I do? Like, say the whole organisation was just bigger, I can't just magic up more hours, what would I do? So I said, well, I'd give x function to someone else, and y function to someone else. But whilst we're small I have to do it all.
And she was like, why? Just give x function to someone else now.
Part-time work and job shares are becoming much much more common in the UK, and from what I have seen and experienced, it works well.
Post by: AlanStache on June 07, 2016, 09:53:05 AM
...
Which is why the fight should be for lower working hours, instead of a mandatory minimum wage.
Last time automation displaced tens of thousands of jobs (the industrial revolution), we cut working hours in half. Each person working half as much meant twice as many available jobs, and a job market that needs more people (instead of having too many) naturally pays better due to good old fashioned supply and demand. Too bad we didn't fix overtime laws to productivity, instead of making it a arbitrary fixed number - we would all have a 7-hour work week right now.
On a practical level I dont think it would be possible for many of the creative tech peoples to work radically short weeks and still get something done. It takes time to think and test and apply new ideas to make something that is unique and new. I truly fail to see how my work could be split between two or three people, the coordination and communication would be a total bear in it self. Many aspects of software are still in the custom one off-paradigm similar to blacksmithing before industrialization, "you want some new door hinges - ok let me start a fire and hit hot metal with a hammer", "you want an module to pull those data into a common format - ok let me go read up on the APIs and work out what computer language is best". Bakari you many not have been referring to tech jobs but half this thread is devoted to saying that only tech/artistic will be left.
Re mcd: I thought the cashier was already mostly automated at lots of fast food places built within gas stations? Was it in here that someone mentioned Olive Garden eliminating servers taking orders, I have seen this in several airport restaurants.
This just doesn't make any sense. If you work half the number of hours each work, you will get roughly the same amount of stuff done each fortnight. If you need it done more quickly, you employ two people each working half a week and the work is done in the same amount of time.
As for the, "my work couldn't be split between more than one person" argument, I used to believe that too. My friend was going part-time and I said it wouldn't be possible for me - I'm the only one who does what I do etc.
She explained it really well for me. She said if the workload got bigger, what would I do? Like, say the whole organisation was just bigger, I can't just magic up more hours, what would I do? So I said, well, I'd give x function to someone else, and y function to someone else. But whilst we're small I have to do it all.
And she was like, why? Just give x function to someone else now.
Part-time work and job shares are becoming much much more common in the UK, and from what I have seen and experienced, it works well.
People doing technical/creative work are not fungible. Splitting software development between people can really suck, each person is dependent upon the output of the others to be able to do there own tasks. I cant start trying do X until Able finishes Y, Able cant finish Y until Bob merges and commits Z - I dont care about Z but without it the compile fails. Bob was tasked to only work Q this week because Charley has to travel to setup T next week; I can make a patch to get around Q but then Bob has to go back and redo my efforts and we all have to retest once the proper fix is released, or we could find someone new to do Q but then Bob has to train them. Doubling or tripling the number of people in the mix and having each only work 2 days per week (that may not overlap) would be a royal hassle and slow productivity to a crawl. I agree having some people go to part time is very doable but scaling it up to a significant percent of an organization would be very hard. There was a book written a long time ago about throwing people at a project to speed up its completion, CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
Post by: tonysemail on June 07, 2016, 10:00:40 AM
There was a book written a long time ago about throwing people at a project to speed up its completion, CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
it's usually referred to as the mythical man-month and it's cited as the reason for 10X pay.
The very talented engineers produce so much more work product that it justifies an enormous range in salaries.
Post by: AlanStache on June 07, 2016, 10:40:13 AM
There was a book written a long time ago about throwing people at a project to speed up its completion, CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
it's usually referred to as the mythical man-month and it's cited as the reason for 10X pay.
The very talented engineers produce so much more work product that it justifies an enormous range in salaries.
Have not read the full version but I am mostly in agreement with the major themes from the wiki. I have not seen 10x pay but yes a small number of people are responsible for the bulk of a projects success, these are often the only people who really know what is going on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month (ftp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)
Post by: Bakari on June 07, 2016, 11:46:51 AM
Bakari you many not have been referring to tech jobs but half this thread is devoted to saying that only tech/artistic will be left.
I'm not referring only to the distant future, when robots can do everything a human can do better (I'm not sure why tech jobs would be spared at that point though - the computers will be able to write better code than programmers - they will probably use the word "programmer" to refer to tech writing software, just like how the original meaning of computers (people who do calculations) got coopted!)
I'm referring to right now, and including all the time up until that point. When only artistic jobs are left, we will need a much more massive and radical change in thinking about wealth, earning, deserving, labor, capital, etc, but dealing with the already existing problem now would help make the transition a lot easier.
Doubling or tripling the number of people in the mix and having each only work 2 days per week (that may not overlap) would be a royal hassle and slow productivity to a crawl.
You make a good point about certain industries being easier than others.
I'd imagine its a part of the reason that professionals (doctors, lawyers, some engineers), and executives are all exempt from overtime pay.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it was a hassle, and it did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).
Quote
CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
Even if things did slow down, a large part of my larger argument is that it is OK if things slow down. Infinite growth is not possible, regardless of technology, there are limiting factors. So a system dependant on growth either has to change dramatically, or else eventually fail. Our current system is dependant on infinite growth. If we reevaluate our priorities, acknowledge that we have more than enough already, and begin to value sustainability of the system over growth, then we can allow things to slow down all the way down to replacement level.
Post by: tomsang on June 07, 2016, 08:20:59 PM
There was a book written a long time ago about throwing people at a project to speed up its completion, CliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
I actually believe that there will be a point where throwing any human at the problem will slow things down. In the Amazons and Teslas of the world you will see this in the next 5 years. Currently Amazon hires 100's of thousands of temp employees during the rush. I could see that going away by 2021, replaced by robots. People would just slow the robots down.
Engineering, coding, etc. will be done by computers at an exponentially faster pace in the near future.
Post by: AlanStache on June 08, 2016, 01:01:38 PM
Doubling or tripling the number of people in the mix and having each only work 2 days per week (that may not overlap) would be a royal hassle and slow productivity to a crawl.
You make a good point about certain industries being easier than others.
I'd imagine its a part of the reason that professionals (doctors, lawyers, some engineers), and executives are all exempt from overtime pay.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it was a hassle, and it did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).QuoteCliffsNotes version: it does not work well and actually slows things down.
Even if things did slow down, a large part of my larger argument is that it is OK if things slow down. Infinite growth is not possible, regardless of technology, there are limiting factors. So a system dependant on growth either has to change dramatically, or else eventually fail. Our current system is dependant on infinite growth. If we reevaluate our priorities, acknowledge that we have more than enough already, and begin to value sustainability of the system over growth, then we can allow things to slow down all the way down to replacement level.
80->40hr/wk: Yes and no. I think it is more quantity vs quality, both have a place at a time. After a few weeks high quantity hour produce low quality work, at least in fields I have worked in.
Slow down: I have trouble seeing this happening naturally, how would individual actors see it in there best interest to slow down? Anyone or any company that did choose to compete at a slower rate would be at a disadvantage and risk going broke. With UBI maybe this risk of going broke matters less? Some interesting dynamics would be created; would the companies/people willing to work at full rate be in such demand they could not fill all the demand and partial rate companies/people would have to be hired?
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I actually believe that there will be a point where throwing any human at the problem will slow things down. In the Amazons and Teslas of the world you will see this in the next 5 years. Currently Amazon hires 100's of thousands of temp employees during the rush. I could see that going away by 2021, replaced by robots. People would just slow the robots down.
Engineering, coding, etc. will be done by computers at an exponentially faster pace in the near future.
Keeping humans in the loop is a pain.
Amazon scaled the number of servers they have for xmass shopping, this is generally more than they need year round so they sell the excess computing power. Amazon could not sell excess warehouse capacity 9 months per year so they will either have to scale the robot warehouse workforce for xmass or continue to hire carbon based temps.
Post by: theadvicist on June 09, 2016, 02:18:14 AM
Yes. And also, a 40 hours work week is already an arbitrary amount of time for someone to be working. It wasn't figured out based on how productive people are, or how to get the most out of a workforce. It's just the way things have always been done - a week divided into 7 days, no work on the Sabbath etc. It has a lot more to do with the Bible than maximising man's productivity.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it was a hassle, and it did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).
Post by: Bakari on June 09, 2016, 12:11:03 PM
Yes. And also, a 40 hours work week is already an arbitrary amount of time for someone to be working. It wasn't figured out based on how productive people are, or how to get the most out of a workforce. It's just the way things have always been done - a week divided into 7 days, no work on the Sabbath etc. It has a lot more to do with the Bible than maximising man's productivity.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it was a hassle, and it did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).
Ah, but that's the thing: it ISN'T how things were always done, not by a long shot. It is only how things have been done for the lifetime of people currently in the work force. It is only 76 years old, having gone into effect in 1940. It had been pushed for since the 1800s (industrial revolution), but didn't gain enough support to become law until after the Great Depression.
Prior to that is was not at all uncommon for people to work 10-12+ hours days, 6 or even 7 days a week.
The 8 hour work day was picked perhaps mostly because it divides a day up into neat even categories, which readily made itself available for a slogan - 8 for sleep, 8 for work, 8 for yourself.
Isn't that the primary focus of the MMM blog, and presumably most of the people who are devoted enough to the concept to participate on the MMM forum?
Slow down: I have trouble seeing this happening naturally, how would individual actors see it in there best interest to slow down?
Once you have enough, the marginal utility of more becomes less than the effort required to achieve it.
Sure, there will always be some mentally unhealthy millionaires who still eat food a soup kitchens and don't turn on the heat in winter to keep the gas bill low, but the majority of people are capable of realizing a balance.
So it isn't a totally radical concept, the change would be qualitative, not quantitative.
One thing it is easy to forget is that there is really no such thing as "a company". There is just people. Collections of people. If every individual sees it in their own best interest to take weekends off, work no more than 8 hours a day, and have an occasional vacation, then it is in the best interests of "the company" to allow its employees (including management) to do so.
40 hours already IS a slow down compared to the 60-80 hour work week that preceded it, and people, collectively, did decide it was in their (our) best interests.
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Anyone or any company that did choose to compete at a slower rate would be at a disadvantage and risk going broke.
That's a very common economic claim, but I don't think it is in any way valid. You don't compete at a "rate", you compete for customers.
Company A makes and sells 1000 widgets a day, as does Company B.
The market sustains 2000 widget consumers.
Now say Company A decides to scale back, and only produces 500.
Either B can speed up to take up the slack, or a Company C can come into existence, (or 500 people can go without widgets)
Regardless of which outcome occurs, there is no reason to assume that Company As remaining 500 customers would all of a sudden want to switch companies, leaving them with no customers. Why would those things be correlated?
There are millions of small businesses, independent boutiques, self-employed people who work part-time, and they don't fail just because others in the same industry work longer hours or produce more output.
There is this assumption that the only options are growth or failure, but there is also sustainable, right in the middle.
Post by: theadvicist on June 10, 2016, 04:39:44 AM
Yes. And also, a 40 hours work week is already an arbitrary amount of time for someone to be working. It wasn't figured out based on how productive people are, or how to get the most out of a workforce. It's just the way things have always been done - a week divided into 7 days, no work on the Sabbath etc. It has a lot more to do with the Bible than maximising man's productivity.
But on a more general level, these same arguments were made when we went from an 80-hour standard work week to a 40-hour one.
Of course it was a hassle, and it did (temporarily) slow productivity growth, but in the long run those hick-ups didn't matter. The redistributive effects (from capital to labor) remained (at least until computers and the global economy).
Ah, but that's the thing: it ISN'T how things were always done, not by a long shot. It is only how things have been done for the lifetime of people currently in the work force. It is only 76 years old, having gone into effect in 1940. It had been pushed for since the 1800s (industrial revolution), but didn't gain enough support to become law until after the Great Depression.
Prior to that is was not at all uncommon for people to work 10-12+ hours days, 6 or even 7 days a week.
The 8 hour work day was picked perhaps mostly because it divides a day up into neat even categories, which readily made itself available for a slogan - 8 for sleep, 8 for work, 8 for yourself.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. We are in agreement. The 40 hour work week is arbitrary. We haven't always worked for 40 hours a week, on the contrary, we used to work all daylight hours except for proscribed rest days.
And yet... when we got people to stop working 90 hours and they went down to 40 hours... we survived. We didn't just become more productive as a species, technology took off.
That is what I'm saying. The 40 hour work week was never designed to make us as productive as possible, it's a hangover. Which is why AlanStache* saying that if he suddenly doesn't work 40 hours a week anymore he won't get anything done... makes no sense to me. Bakari, we are in total agreement that a shorter working week for the same number of people overall is the best outcome of technological advances.
*quote from AlanStatche to which I am referring:
On a practical level I dont think it would be possible for many of the creative tech peoples to work radically short weeks and still get something done. It takes time to think and test and apply new ideas to make something that is unique and new. I truly fail to see how my work could be split between two or three people, the coordination and communication would be a total bear in it self...
Post by: maizefolk on June 10, 2016, 06:43:17 AM
Company A makes and sells 1000 widgets a day, as does Company B.
The market sustains 2000 widget consumers.
Now say Company A decides to scale back, and only produces 500.
Either B can speed up to take up the slack, or a Company C can come into existence, (or 500 people can go without widgets)
Regardless of which outcome occurs, there is no reason to assume that Company As remaining 500 customers would all of a sudden want to switch companies, leaving them with no customers. Why would those things be correlated?
There are millions of small businesses, independent boutiques, self-employed people who work part-time, and they don't fail just because others in the same industry work longer hours or produce more output.
I don't have a particular dog in the original debate, but I do what to point out that this example only works for things where the cost of production and running a business scales linearly. If company A and company B each had to buy a $1M widget-making-press, then once company A scales back, they'll have to raise their price per widget just to break even, and as company B increases production (maybe they hire a night shift to keep that press running 24 hours a day), they'll be able to sell their widgets less per unit and still break even. So now the customers company A has left start switching over to company B, which drives A's break even price higher and B's break even price lower.
Areas where most costs scale linearly are where you tend to see a lot more small and private businesses (plumbing, legal work, stuff like that) competing in the same niche, while areas with lots of fixed costs (manufacturing, social networking, pharmaceuticals, and what have you) and very little marginal cost per additional customer there tend to be only a few major players in a particular niche.
I imagine the same reasoning applies to different jobs. In some fields it's easy to replace me working 40 hours with me working 20 and someone else working 20. For example when I was in high school I detasseled corn, and you really could finish the same field in half the time with twice the people. In other fields you can hire three people working 20 hours a week and get a lot less done than one person working 40. For whatever reason, intellectual jobs seem to be ones that don't scale well. Try hiring twice as many engineers and you don't get work done twice as fast. Same for computer programmers. Or molecular biologists. Or statisticians.
Post by: tomsang on June 10, 2016, 07:37:00 AM
Try hiring twice as many engineers and you don't get work done twice as fast. Same for computer programmers. Or molecular biologists. Or statisticians.
When computers, technology, robots are doing the heavy lifting 24/7, then the number of human bodies will not materially contribute to the production. Currently, programmers, biologist, statisticians are being replaced by automation. In the near future, they will be severely slowing down the process.
Post by: maizefolk on June 10, 2016, 09:28:41 AM
Try hiring twice as many engineers and you don't get work done twice as fast. Same for computer programmers. Or molecular biologists. Or statisticians.
When computers, technology, robots are doing the heavy lifting 24/7, then the number of human bodies will not materially contribute to the production. Currently, programmers, biologist, statisticians are being replaced by automation. In the near future, they will be severely slowing down the process.
Oh I'm not arguing with you about the potential for automation. My point was about the potential for dividing full time jobs for one person into mini-jobs for several.
My point is that however many hours of programmers, biologists, or statistician work you need, you get a lot more productivity out of X people working 40 hours than 2X people working 20 hours. So as the jobs go away in those fields it will result in a lot of unemployed statisticians/programmers/biologists and a few who are still putting in 40-60 hour weeks rather than a lot of statisticians/programmers/biologists working 10 hours a week.
Post by: Albert on June 10, 2016, 01:53:15 PM
Try hiring twice as many engineers and you don't get work done twice as fast. Same for computer programmers. Or molecular biologists. Or statisticians.
When computers, technology, robots are doing the heavy lifting 24/7, then the number of human bodies will not materially contribute to the production. Currently, programmers, biologist, statisticians are being replaced by automation. In the near future, they will be severely slowing down the process.
If you don't need humans at all in some position X then obviously you hire no one, but if you do need them then I agree with those here who say that it's a lot more efficient having one guy working 40-50 h/week than two guys 20 h each.
Post by: jordanread on June 10, 2016, 02:47:43 PM
Things are designed to be done by 1 person in 40hrs, but if things were to switch to 2 people in 20hrs each, the design of the structure would change. It's akin to the modularization of complicated software, and making sure that everything is decoupled from everything else. Only one person needs to know how everything fits together, and everyone else just does their small part.
Even the person who needs to know how everything fits together wouldn't have to actually be involved for a longer period of time, so long as there are decent ways to ensure the disparate parts come together, but again, that has to do with the structure of the work, not human nature or anything.
Post by: Bakari on June 11, 2016, 08:39:10 AM
Oh I'm not arguing with you about the potential for automation. My point was about the potential for dividing full time jobs for one person into mini-jobs for several.
My point is that however many hours of programmers, biologists, or statistician work you need, you get a lot more productivity out of X people working 40 hours than 2X people working 20 hours.
I acknowledged as much from the beginning.
Part of my argument is that we don't NEED any more productivity. We, collectively (in the developed world), have significantly more than enough already. We are well past the point where there is any marginal utility of additional wealth. The only issue is the distribution.
Optimizing productivity is of no particular value to society if all of the proceeds of that productivity go to just a couple people.
The automation itself already ensures that productivity overall increases - just like technology more than made up for the loss of human hours from the 40hr week.
So let it take 20% longer for the 3 statisticians who have to coordinate with each other finish the report.
I don't have a particular dog in the original debate, but I do what to point out that this example only works for things where the cost of production and running a business scales linearly. If company A and company B each had to buy a $1M widget-making-press, then once company A scales back, they'll have to raise their price per widget just to break even, and as company B increases production (maybe they hire a night shift to keep that press running 24 hours a day), they'll be able to sell their widgets less per unit and still break even.
If they have already paid for the $1M equipment, then the cost no longer scales. Its like if you own a car, you don't pay less per mile if you drive it more.
Besides, Company B hiring a night shift is exactly what I'm suggesting - keeping productivity levels by hiring more people. Surely they could keep costs down if they made the day shift workers also work the night shift (no additional per-employee costs). But we (via the government) say that they can't do that. If they want more production, they have to hire more people.
Similarly, no company is at any competitive disadvantage if everyone is required to pay double time after 20 hours.
Post by: maizefolk on June 11, 2016, 10:38:13 AM
1. We could debate how to treat the opportunity costs of the money tied up in capital investments, but instead, let me revise my original scenario so that firm A and firm B each financed their purchases of the $1M widget presses and have to make fixed monthly loan payments to whoever loaned them the money.
2. I think you're talking about total productivity of the economy when you say we don't need any more. I'm saying it doesn't make sense to artificially reduce productivity per hour.
In your example, a company has to hire three 20/week statisticians to take 20% longer to do what one statistician could do in 40 hours a week. That implies a half time statistician is only about 56% as productive per hour as a full time statistician.* If the company pays the same total salary for the same number of reports, the new system has each statistician working half as much, but only getting paid 28% as much.
*Let's say the 40 hour/week statistician writes one report per five day workweek. That's 2.5% of a report per hour. The three 20 hour/week statisticians take six work days (20% longer) to write a report. They each work 4 hours/day so 4 hours * 3 statisticians * 6 days = 72 hours to write one report. That's 1.4% of a report per hour. 1.4/2.5= 55.6%.
Post by: AlanStache on June 11, 2016, 12:35:11 PM
regarding the 40hr week: I think the most total productivity week over week can (not talking about short term crunch situations) be done with something not much under 30hr/wk to not much more than 50hr/wk. Less than that the over head of communication takes to high a cost as well as having to make a system so you remember what you were doing three/four days ago. Much above 50hr/wk and you get burnt out and make more mistakes. 40 is a nice number as it divides evenly into 24 hour days. I did google around and found fairly little published info on the optimal volume of work for engines/scientists/etc, this maybe because it is very hard to quantify productivity for these fields. There have been times when my boss and I spend two days looking at code together only to add half a line to fix the problem, how do you quantify that productivity? How do you compare it with someone in a different industry.
My employer very rarely sells a standardized widget. There are very few alternatives if one wants to buy from someone else, this does not let is charge what we want. We find that if we are not able to build the widget for the price the customer wants and deliver it before a calendar date the costumer wants then they will find alternatives to buying a widget. We are not in a zero sum game.
One thing that has not been mentioned in this (at least recently-am not willing to go back and reread this entire thread) is technical people working +30ish hours for a hand full of weeks on a specific task then working minimal if any hours for a few weeks while they are not as needed. This would result in a yearly average much less than than 40hr/wk but still maintain usefulness while in the office. There would definitely be down sides to this model but it might be worth it.
Post by: Bakari on June 11, 2016, 04:17:37 PM
1. We could debate how to treat the opportunity costs of the money tied up in capital investments, but instead, let me revise my original scenario so that firm A and firm B each financed their purchases of the $1M widget presses and have to make fixed monthly loan payments to whoever loaned them the money.acknowledged - but getting into my thoughts around financing growth takes us too far from the robots taking our jobs discussion.
Short response would be that a part of that reduction in growth rate should come from a reduction in financing.
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2. I think you're talking about total productivity of the economy when you say we don't need any more. I'm saying it doesn't make sense to artificially reduce productivity per hour.not seeing the distinction. The total economy is made up of all of the individual labor-hours put together.
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If the company pays the same total salary for the same number of reports, the new system has each statistician working half as much, but only getting paid 28% as much.
Ah, also implicit in my idea is that people would make significantly more per hour (ideally, the same total take home pay as they used to make with 40 hours, though probably not realistically). This wouldn't have to be mandated, as with twice the jobs there is more work than employees, and supply and demand means employers have to compete with higher wages.
When you have unemployment, workers are competing for jobs, by accepting lower and lower pay (bad pay is better than none).
(Granted, this will also incentivise building robot workers faster, but there's no reason to assume it isn't already being developed as quickly as is possible. We are just talking about the ever decreasing human only type jobs).
Some industries would suffer from the reduced profit margins (though with narrow margins would either fold or have to develop a new model) but that the system as a whole can afford that extra labor pay is demonstrated by the unprecedented rise in wealth inequality between the top 0.1% and everyone else (including the much maligned 1%) which not coincidentally corresponds with several decades of replacing labor with outsourcing, corporate consolidation, and most of all, computers and robots.
Our rate of productivity (per worker) is somewhere on the order of 7 to 20 times higher than it was in 1940 when the 40 hour week became standard. Inflation adjusted median individual income is not even twice as high. All of that additional value created by the increased productivity per worker was "skimmed off the top", if you will, by that 0.1%
The tragic irony is that they are well beyond the point where additional wealth has any marginal utility toward happiness or well-being - its just that our system is set up so that the value produced by technology goes 100% to the investor/owner and 0% to the employee
(for example, when Amazon replaces all its workers with robots).
I don't see any way out of that other than tying working hours to productivity, regardless of what complications that may cause, (at least until the robots get so good that 90-99% of people are unemployed, and we have to figure out an entirely different system from the ground up).
Post by: maizefolk on June 11, 2016, 05:10:10 PM
Personally my preference would still be to fund a universal basic income, but the end result is essentially the same (moving a chunk of income from capital owners who benefit from increasing automation to people who would otherwise be rendered unemployed by automation).
About point #2. The distinction is that if we somehow fixed the total size of the economy, growing productivity per hour would result in fewer total hours worked across the whole population, while decreasing productivity per hour means more people have to work more hours to produce essentially the same overall standard of living for our society.
Post by: maizefolk on June 11, 2016, 05:16:32 PM
Taken to its logical extreme, the idea of working 30-50 hour weeks for a while and then taking time off is essentially what FIRE is all about. I'm not sure what the trade offs would be in terms of productivity or people's happiness from spending time working at a career continuously until one hit their total work hours for a lifetime vs 3-4 weeks of work followed by a 3-4 week break.
Post by: Bakari on June 11, 2016, 06:36:59 PM
About point #2. The distinction is that if we somehow fixed the total size of the economy, growing productivity per hour would result in fewer total hours worked across the whole population, while decreasing productivity per hour means more people have to work more hours to produce essentially the same overall standard of living for our society.
Good point.
Taken to its logical extreme, the idea of working 30-50 hour weeks for a while and then taking time off is essentially what FIRE is all about. I'm not sure what the trade offs would be in terms of productivity or people's happiness from spending time working at a career continuously until one hit their total work hours for a lifetime vs 3-4 weeks of work followed by a 3-4 week break.
Ah, also very good point... or another way to essentially have the same end result would be if people had 7-10 year careers, instead of 40-50 years of employment (and worked the normal 40-hours, 50 weeks a year when they were employed).
And indeed, that's what a "Mustachian" career looks like, more or less, as long as a person figures out frugality, saving, and investing at a young enough age.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on June 13, 2016, 07:15:11 AM
Post by: jordanread on June 13, 2016, 08:20:09 AM
The sticking point comes as to how the 'resting' human employees will receive ongoing training to keep them relevant and competitive with workers new to the workforce. For jobs that are automated, robots can simply be turned on and off as necessary, and upgraded to continously increase productivity with no declines due to time off and no moral or economic disasters caused by their obselescence. In a generation or two, I really don't see enough careers lasting for folks into their 50's and beyond. Not as big a deal if we all are FIRE chasers, but we also acknowledge that anti-consumerism isn't how the US economomy is set up.
Now that is an interesting point, that touches on a bit how I think this will have to play out. EV2020 hit the nail on the head (for me). Anti Consumerism is not how the US economy is set up. I think that will have to change, otherwise the tech is going to be limited, only to give people the chance to be better consumers. Without the consumer mindset, I believe this is a relatively simple shift. But all of the different viewpoints earlier are based on something I missed: What would happen if this stuff didn't change?
It almost sounds like Bakari is in a similar boat to me, while maizeman, theadvicist,and alanstache are all operating under the idea that ideas will remain the same as far as consumerism and the like.
Post by: tomsang on June 13, 2016, 03:44:07 PM
http://observer.com/2016/05/apples-supplier-is-replacing-60000-workers-with-ai-robots/
When a robot is replacing a human that makes 31 cents per hour, you know that there is trouble in the near future for those doing menial tasks.
"The manufacturing company has long been under fire for various forms of labor abuse. Workers claim to work 35-hour shifts for a wage of 31 cents per hour."
Foxconn "laid off 60,000 employees, which will reduce the workforce in a single Taiwanese factory from 110,000 to 50,000."
When you look at the US and probably more importantly the rest of the developing world, we are going to have significant disruptions in employment as AI Robots replace the need for workers. How or what do people do for a living? In capitalistic countries the spoils will go to the Owners, where more socialistic companies will have an easier time spreading the AI wealth to their population. Interesting times ahead. Basic income will need to occur sooner, rather than later.
Post by: AlanStache on June 13, 2016, 04:10:36 PM
The sticking point comes as to how the 'resting' human employees will receive ongoing training to keep them relevant and competitive with workers new to the workforce. For jobs that are automated, robots can simply be turned on and off as necessary, and upgraded to continously increase productivity with no declines due to time off and no moral or economic disasters caused by their obselescence. In a generation or two, I really don't see enough careers lasting for folks into their 50's and beyond. Not as big a deal if we all are FIRE chasers, but we also acknowledge that anti-consumerism isn't how the US economomy is set up.
Now that is an interesting point, that touches on a bit how I think this will have to play out. EV2020 hit the nail on the head (for me). Anti Consumerism is not how the US economy is set up. I think that will have to change, otherwise the tech is going to be limited, only to give people the chance to be better consumers. Without the consumer mindset, I believe this is a relatively simple shift. But all of the different viewpoints earlier are based on something I missed: What would happen if this stuff didn't change?
It almost sounds like Bakari is in a similar boat to me, while maizeman, theadvicist,and alanstache are all operating under the idea that ideas will remain the same as far as consumerism and the like.
Consumerism...
No I dont think the national mindset will be radically different regarding the acquisition of cheap-plastic-crap in the next 50 years. +50 year... not sure. If we look at the rate of change of other cultural aspects (bigotry, racism, homophobia, etc) I am encouraged that we can change but somethings take time.
Would I love for us to stop wasting time/resources/brain power on how to make TV's curved so we can get on with exploring the galaxy? Fuck yes, never mind stopping polluting our home.
Post by: JamesAt15 on June 13, 2016, 08:49:46 PM
Foxconn to eliminate half of their workforce with AI robots.
http://observer.com/2016/05/apples-supplier-is-replacing-60000-workers-with-ai-robots/
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/foxconn-robots-replace-workers
Post by: theadvicist on June 14, 2016, 03:47:53 AM
Consumerism...
No I dont think the national mindset will be radically different regarding the acquisition of cheap-plastic-crap in the next 50 years. +50 year... not sure. If we look at the rate of change of other cultural aspects (bigotry, racism, homophobia, etc) I am encouraged that we can change but somethings take time.
One thing I do see changing - we'll all be printing our own cheap plastic crap at home. So that removes a lot of jobs as well - manufacturing, shipping, handling, retailing.
Post by: tomsang on June 14, 2016, 09:04:21 AM
Foxconn to eliminate half of their workforce with AI robots.
http://observer.com/2016/05/apples-supplier-is-replacing-60000-workers-with-ai-robots/
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/foxconn-robots-replace-workers
Thanks for the updated story. Interesting that this is sourced by an ex Foxconn guy. Also, he is pretty much stating that Foxconn and everyone else is replacing workers with automated processes. It will be interesting to see what the actual impact will be over the next five years. When 31 cents an hour is one of the most expensive parts of China it shows you what the US worker is competing with. These companies are investing significant money to automate processes. They are working up the chain.
"When you think robots, you think an entirely automated semiconductor factory where there’s no humans, but what Foxconn does with robots [is] they’ll mechanize a given job. Anything that’s kind of a like a routine job, they’ll mechanize it. So there will be some human, some machine interaction, just to speed up that process. It’s not like a full automated factory, where there’s nothing but robots. No, no, no.”
Post by: rocketpj on June 14, 2016, 10:07:59 AM
What that means is that we mostly still carry around 18th and 19th century values about work and the value of a person (i.e. only lazy bums don't work - unless they are rich or retired). I look at my kids and I honestly have no idea what work will look like for them in 30 years, or 40.
At some point the concentration of money and production into capital will create a crisis (see: Sanders, Trump as precursors). We will either end up in a hugely unequal and fascist sort of situation where the vast majority have no hope of betterment outside of uniformed work (Trump) or something more balanced (Sanders). Not that those two will necessarily result in those outcomes, but they do represent two responses to the same historical changes going on.
Post by: Yankuba on June 14, 2016, 01:11:22 PM
Consumerism...
No I dont think the national mindset will be radically different regarding the acquisition of cheap-plastic-crap in the next 50 years. +50 year... not sure. If we look at the rate of change of other cultural aspects (bigotry, racism, homophobia, etc) I am encouraged that we can change but somethings take time.
One thing I do see changing - we'll all be printing our own cheap plastic crap at home. So that removes a lot of jobs as well - manufacturing, shipping, handling, retailing.
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11693388/makerbot-home-3d-printers
"Why home 3D printing never lived up to the hype"
Post by: theadvicist on June 16, 2016, 02:25:25 AM
Consumerism...
No I dont think the national mindset will be radically different regarding the acquisition of cheap-plastic-crap in the next 50 years. +50 year... not sure. If we look at the rate of change of other cultural aspects (bigotry, racism, homophobia, etc) I am encouraged that we can change but somethings take time.
One thing I do see changing - we'll all be printing our own cheap plastic crap at home. So that removes a lot of jobs as well - manufacturing, shipping, handling, retailing.
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11693388/makerbot-home-3d-printers
"Why home 3D printing never lived up to the hype"
Yeah the technology is fairly new, not that great and expensive. But I fundamentally disagree with a lot of that article:
"But it turned out that the average household doesn't have a lot of need for 3D-printed goods. And when they do have use for them, it's simpler to order from an online 3D printing service than to buy a 3D printer."
What? We all use items made entirely of plastic all day long. For example, a toothbrush. Instead of buying one at the store, you just send one to the printer. Yes, it's simpler to have someone else do it NOW, just like the average household didn't have a PC in the 70s.
""This notion of consumers buying their own machine and printing for themselves just is not working out, because it's not easy," he said. "You need to have some design talent, and most people aren't designers. You need to learn design software, and most people don't want to mess with it.""
You won't have to design your own toothbrush! You'll just to an online marketplace, pay a few pennies for the design, and set the printer going. No design skills needed.
We all have need for plastic items. Mindless consumers especially. Imagine being able to print custom sized storage containers. Mindless consumers love organising all their crap, but often bemoan how hard it is to find baskets in the correct dimensions. Solved. Look around you at everything made of plastic. All of that could be 'printed' at home as technology gets better. I think that will really disrupt things.
Post by: matchewed on June 16, 2016, 05:19:55 AM
Post by: theadvicist on June 16, 2016, 07:14:13 AM
But the majority of those plastic items are in fact just storage for non-plastic items. I think the point is valid that 3D printing for random one off things is a cost prohibitive model.
At present it's cost prohibitive. Just like have a single book delivered to your door tomorrow (or within 1 hour) used to be cost prohibitive, and is now often... free.
Seriously, I am looking around me, and perhaps I'm unusual, but at lease 50% of the items I can see are plastic (or plastic with some metal). I see no reason why coils of metal can't eventually also be used as 'ink' in the future - am I oversimplifying things?
Eg a new phone charging cable. I really can't see why that can't be 'printed' (one day), but I'd love to hear from people who know more about this than me and can explain the limitations.
Post by: Schaefer Light on June 16, 2016, 08:02:23 AM
If it's something that's just made of plastic, then it probably can be printed. But that cable you mentioned has conductors inside of it and special connectors on each end. I could be wrong, but I don't think 3D printers can put insulation over an inner conductor or attach connectors to a cable.But the majority of those plastic items are in fact just storage for non-plastic items. I think the point is valid that 3D printing for random one off things is a cost prohibitive model.
At present it's cost prohibitive. Just like have a single book delivered to your door tomorrow (or within 1 hour) used to be cost prohibitive, and is now often... free.
Seriously, I am looking around me, and perhaps I'm unusual, but at lease 50% of the items I can see are plastic (or plastic with some metal). I see no reason why coils of metal can't eventually also be used as 'ink' in the future - am I oversimplifying things?
Eg a new phone charging cable. I really can't see why that can't be 'printed' (one day), but I'd love to hear from people who know more about this than me and can explain the limitations.
Post by: AlanStache on June 16, 2016, 08:12:09 AM
But the majority of those plastic items are in fact just storage for non-plastic items. I think the point is valid that 3D printing for random one off things is a cost prohibitive model.
At present it's cost prohibitive. Just like have a single book delivered to your door tomorrow (or within 1 hour) used to be cost prohibitive, and is now often... free.
Seriously, I am looking around me, and perhaps I'm unusual, but at lease 50% of the items I can see are plastic (or plastic with some metal). I see no reason why coils of metal can't eventually also be used as 'ink' in the future - am I oversimplifying things?
Eg a new phone charging cable. I really can't see why that can't be 'printed' (one day), but I'd love to hear from people who know more about this than me and can explain the limitations.
After your first post I looked over my last two years of orders for Amazon and ~8% could have maybe-someday been printed by me at home if the printer could also do some 'simple' work with metal/wires/insulation. On demand production by a local Amazon/HomeDepot/etc facility where they can have a proper industrial printer that can handle big stiff with complex internals - sure I can see that but I just dont see a need or financial benefit for me to have a home printer.
After writing the above I did some math.
On Amazon right now printer filament runs about 15$/lb.
I can get a 6 pack of toothburshes for 6.65$ with shipping weight of 4.2oz
4.2oz = 0.2625lb; (15$/lb) * 0.2625lb = 4$
So even given some printer waste it could be cost competitive in materials to print your own toothbrush today. I was supersized by this. That said I dont think todays home printers could make a viable toothbrush. Yes todays you can always argue that tomorrows tech will be 1000 times awesomer, but we need to be very careful to NOT apply Moores law to the macro-physical world.
I ask you all to look over your recent Amazon purchases and see how may could have been printed at home and at what cost in materials. I would love to be proven wrong about this and have my own micro factory saving me money.
Post by: maizefolk on June 16, 2016, 08:28:31 AM
I ask you all to look over your recent Amazon purchases and see how may could have been printed at home and at what cost in materials. I would love to be proven wrong about this and have my own micro factory saving me money.
Be sure to exclude items including metal or (this one people seem to miss more often) flexible plastic.
Post by: boarder42 on June 16, 2016, 08:33:05 AM
Post by: AlanStache on June 16, 2016, 08:42:03 AM
replacement lids for tupperware.. thats what i need to print
Few years ago I got so sick of this I recycled all my tupperware and spent like 30$ at costco to replace it all with a new set that was 100% matching. Very much worth it :-)
"Be sure to exclude items including metal or (this one people seem to miss more often) flexible plastic."
I thinking that we could even wave our hand and include those, my starting hypothesis is that even allowing simple metals and flexible plastic the number of included items will be very low and not worth the trouble of having a home factory.
Post by: theadvicist on June 16, 2016, 08:59:02 AM
replacement lids for tupperware.. thats what i need to print
Few years ago I got so sick of this I recycled all my tupperware and spent like 30$ at costco to replace it all with a new set that was 100% matching. Very much worth it :-)
"Be sure to exclude items including metal or (this one people seem to miss more often) flexible plastic."
I thinking that we could even wave our hand and include those, my starting hypothesis is that even allowing simple metals and flexible plastic the number of included items will be very low and not worth the trouble of having a home factory.
I do see where you're coming from, and I know it's not viable now. And I know I mustn't expect the pace of change for all things to be the same. When the first printing press was invented I doubt they would have believed we'd all be printing anything and everything cheaply at home one day. But then, that took, what, 400 years?!
So we're probably all right, but this thread is about the future, and I'd like to believe anything is possible!
Thanks also for doing the maths on toothbrushes AlanStache - very suprising!
My amazon orders are 90% kindle books and music downloads - so no 'printing' required for either - we've gone beyond that!
Other things include a glass travel mug with silicon lid (not printable), some rotary cutter blades (metal - so maybe one day?), silicon travel toiletry bottles (not printable) and plastic lip balm tubes (I make my own toiletries, these would be printable now), and some plastic bobbins for my sewing machine (possible now).
And I'm another one who bought a full matching 'tupperware' set, although I went Glasslock, and wow, my life is transformed. All the lids fit each other, we have plenty, my frustration levels majorly decrease! However, two caveats - don't put plastic lids in the dishwasher, even top rack, as the heat warps them, and look after them if you take them to the work kitchen! I keep food in the fridge and then immediately put the bowl and lid straight in my bag to take home.
Post by: Digital Dogma on June 16, 2016, 09:07:02 AM
If not for cheap labor, and lax environmental/safety controls, what is the point of manufacturing in China if your trade secrets are going to be stolen and exploited almost immediately by competitors?
One day we may be purchasing VR equipment or projection tech made in America.
Post by: boarder42 on June 16, 2016, 10:04:27 AM
replacement lids for tupperware.. thats what i need to print
Few years ago I got so sick of this I recycled all my tupperware and spent like 30$ at costco to replace it all with a new set that was 100% matching. Very much worth it :-)
"Be sure to exclude items including metal or (this one people seem to miss more often) flexible plastic."
I thinking that we could even wave our hand and include those, my starting hypothesis is that even allowing simple metals and flexible plastic the number of included items will be very low and not worth the trouble of having a home factory.
I do see where you're coming from, and I know it's not viable now. And I know I mustn't expect the pace of change for all things to be the same. When the first printing press was invented I doubt they would have believed we'd all be printing anything and everything cheaply at home one day. But then, that took, what, 400 years?!
So we're probably all right, but this thread is about the future, and I'd like to believe anything is possible!
Thanks also for doing the maths on toothbrushes AlanStache - very suprising!
My amazon orders are 90% kindle books and music downloads - so no 'printing' required for either - we've gone beyond that!
Other things include a glass travel mug with silicon lid (not printable), some rotary cutter blades (metal - so maybe one day?), silicon travel toiletry bottles (not printable) and plastic lip balm tubes (I make my own toiletries, these would be printable now), and some plastic bobbins for my sewing machine (possible now).
And I'm another one who bought a full matching 'tupperware' set, although I went Glasslock, and wow, my life is transformed. All the lids fit each other, we have plenty, my frustration levels majorly decrease! However, two caveats - don't put plastic lids in the dishwasher, even top rack, as the heat warps them, and look after them if you take them to the work kitchen! I keep food in the fridge and then immediately put the bowl and lid straight in my bag to take home.
yeah we have a matching set of pyrex with tons of differnt sizes but one size we have one missing lid so when i get down to my last dish there it cant be used.
Post by: theadvicist on June 17, 2016, 02:20:04 AM
I was listening to some information on corporate espionage from someone in the intelligence community who stated that when corporations do business in China and they set up shop, all their manufacturing secrets and capabilities are immediately vulnerable. I would suggest that we are quickly approaching a point in time where manufacturing new tech can be almost 100% automated, and when we approach this point corporations will abandon manufacturing in China in favor of cheap automated factories in the US/Mexico where they can better control their trade secrets. I think that will be a net gain for the US economy, because someone is going to have to set up and maintain that equipment 24/7, that will be a high paying job, unlike the manufacturing capacity the machines are replacing.
If not for cheap labor, and lax environmental/safety controls, what is the point of manufacturing in China if your trade secrets are going to be stolen and exploited almost immediately by competitors?
One day we may be purchasing VR equipment or projection tech made in America.
Very interesting. Also, if they are producing goods for the US market it definitely makes sense to produce them locally as the transportation costs will be lower as well. As you say, the advtanges to offshoring - less costly regulation and cheap labour - won't be as important with machines doing the work.
I do think machines will be able to fix machines in the future though. (We're already on the way - my husband plugs his laptop into his car to diagnose issues, it's just that he then has to carry out the repairs. But a machine diagnosing an error with another machine is pretty cool, and this is old technology - 2002 car). Anyone know of any examples of machines being maintained / repaired by machines?
Post by: Digital Dogma on June 17, 2016, 07:05:32 AM
On the same subject of manufacturing in China being a bad deal for US tech companies, here is an example. Selective enforcement of Intellectual Property in a way that is detrimental to foreign companies and protects local manufacturers.I was listening to some information on corporate espionage from someone in the intelligence community who stated that when corporations do business in China and they set up shop, all their manufacturing secrets and capabilities are immediately vulnerable. I would suggest that we are quickly approaching a point in time where manufacturing new tech can be almost 100% automated, and when we approach this point corporations will abandon manufacturing in China in favor of cheap automated factories in the US/Mexico where they can better control their trade secrets. I think that will be a net gain for the US economy, because someone is going to have to set up and maintain that equipment 24/7, that will be a high paying job, unlike the manufacturing capacity the machines are replacing.
If not for cheap labor, and lax environmental/safety controls, what is the point of manufacturing in China if your trade secrets are going to be stolen and exploited almost immediately by competitors?
One day we may be purchasing VR equipment or projection tech made in America.
Very interesting. Also, if they are producing goods for the US market it definitely makes sense to produce them locally as the transportation costs will be lower as well. As you say, the advtanges to offshoring - less costly regulation and cheap labour - won't be as important with machines doing the work.
I do think machines will be able to fix machines in the future though. (We're already on the way - my husband plugs his laptop into his car to diagnose issues, it's just that he then has to carry out the repairs. But a machine diagnosing an error with another machine is pretty cool, and this is old technology - 2002 car). Anyone know of any examples of machines being maintained / repaired by machines?
Quote
It's tough for foreign companies to do business in China, so much that even Apple is having a hard time. After the iTunes Movies and iBooks Store ban back in April, the previous generation of iPhones have recently been accused of infringing the design patent of some random Chinese company's "100C" smartphone under the "100+" brand. Don't laugh, because the Beijing Intellectual Property Office has since ordered Apple to stop selling its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in Beijing, with the reason being the general consumers won't be able to tell the "minute differences" between Apple's design and the 100C. No, really.
Of course, Apple and its distribution partner aren't having any of this, so they have initiated an administrative litigation to reverse the ban. But given Apple's previous failed attempt in China, they're going to need a lot of luck to win this fight.
https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/16/chinese-firm-claims-apple-copied-its-design-for-iphone-6/
As for machines fixing/making machines, thats been going on for decades in some advanced heavy manufacturing facilities in the form of giant lines of mill and drill machines that truck parts from one operation to the next in an automated sequence to produce or repair a part. Problem is they often leak oil/fluids everywhere, they need constant service to keep their cutting fluid and lubrication up to standard, they produce scrap metal shavings that are flammable depending on the material, and they need their cutting heads maintained (I'm sure there are more issues, I've never operated one). From what I've seen, even then people need to step in and tweak things here and there to make things fit correctly if there was wear and tear on a part, and inspect to ensure there is no sub-surface distortion or cracks. But thats a high quality QA/QC program, maybe if you're cranking out toilet seats it doesn't matter if 1 in 100 cracks in half.
Post by: Bakari on June 17, 2016, 10:46:38 AM
I ask you all to look over your recent Amazon purchases and see how may could have been printed at home and at what cost in materials. I would love to be proven wrong about this and have my own micro factory saving me money.
Be sure to exclude items including metal or (this one people seem to miss more often) flexible plastic.
https://3dprint.com/138446/materialise-stainless-steel/ (https://3dprint.com/138446/materialise-stainless-steel/)
http://3dprintingindustry.com/news/sub-4000-metal-3d-printer-33474/ (http://3dprintingindustry.com/news/sub-4000-metal-3d-printer-33474/)
If it's something that's just made of plastic, then it probably can be printed. But that cable you mentioned has conductors inside of it and special connectors on each end. I could be wrong, but I don't think 3D printers can put insulation over an inner conductor or attach connectors to a cable.
At present it's cost prohibitive. Just like have a single book delivered to your door tomorrow (or within 1 hour) used to be cost prohibitive, and is now often... free.
Seriously, I am looking around me, and perhaps I'm unusual, but at lease 50% of the items I can see are plastic (or plastic with some metal). I see no reason why coils of metal can't eventually also be used as 'ink' in the future - am I oversimplifying things?
Eg a new phone charging cable. I really can't see why that can't be 'printed' (one day), but I'd love to hear from people who know more about this than me and can explain the limitations.
https://3dprint.com/47065/argentinian-3d-metal-printer/
Post by: maizefolk on June 17, 2016, 11:14:45 AM
OTOH the second link is to a company that claims they'll be able to sell you a machine that can 3D print metal for a couple of thousand bucks. If/when that ships that would be much more of a game changer.
Post by: Bakari on June 18, 2016, 07:51:46 AM
3D printing at home is different from paying a company to 3D print something and ship it to you. Those folks can afford to buy or design and build the multi-million dollar 3D printers used to print airline parts.
OTOH the second link is to a company that claims they'll be able to sell you a machine that can 3D print metal for a couple of thousand bucks. If/when that ships that would be much more of a game changer.
The point is the technology already exists, today.
In the future we expect prices to drop, and home units to get simpler and more popular.
My point was there is no reason to assume that the (home) 3D printers of tomorrow will be limited to plastic, and in fact good reason to assume they won't.
Post by: arebelspy on June 29, 2016, 01:33:37 AM
well, that, and the quants themselves are still programed by people.
(that's what Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme - arguably the reason MMM got so big so quickly - un-retired to go do)
In the (probably near?) future when AI software is advanced enough to create better AI software than human minds can, then it will probably go to 8/8
Didn't even realize that Jacob unretired. When AI can create better AI, that is going to be awesome. Possibly end the Human Race, but awesome nonetheless.
It's already happened, for decades, around computer chip design. I'd be surprised if it isn't already happening in trading.
But ASI will do that in every sector/field, and that exponential growth will be something we can't comprehend. To paraphrase Wait But Why, our problems suddenly become "pick up the pencil on the floor" problems.
I think the proposal to tax robots proposed in Europe is a good one:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/europes-robots-become-electronic-persons-under-draft-plan-170708335--sector.html (https://www.yahoo.com/tech/europes-robots-become-electronic-persons-under-draft-plan-170708335--sector.html)
Quote
Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.
The 1% will be getting rich on robot labor, and it's a good source of funds for a basic minimum income.
I recently re-read Manna:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
A short fiction piece about robots starting to take jobs. Worth reading.
And am in the middle of his next work, The Second Intelligent Species:
http://marshallbrain.com/second-intelligent-species.htm
Also enjoyable, so far.
Post by: tonysemail on June 29, 2016, 01:29:32 PM
a recent podcast episode reminded me of this thread.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/home-on-lagrange/
Excitement about space was sky high after the moon landing.
There was a great swell of optimism about how far into space humans would explore and colonize.
It looked like the beginning of a technology S curve.
Instead, it turns out that the 60's was a local peak and human space flight has not surpassed it since.
No one alive at the time predicted the way space exploration would unfold.
Part of me can't wait for AI to disrupt our entire economy.
The other part wonders if it's all a mirage and some unseen barrier will arise.
Will AI be more like computers and internet?
Or will it be more like space travel, nuclear energy... and other sorts of unfulfilled promises?
Post by: mozar on June 29, 2016, 03:14:35 PM
Post by: arebelspy on June 29, 2016, 06:47:51 PM
on a pessimistic note-
a recent podcast episode reminded me of this thread.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/home-on-lagrange/
Excitement about space was sky high after the moon landing.
There was a great swell of optimism about how far into space humans would explore and colonize.
It looked like the beginning of a technology S curve.
Instead, it turns out that the 60's was a local peak and human space flight has not surpassed it since.
No one alive at the time predicted the way space exploration would unfold.
Part of me can't wait for AI to disrupt our entire economy.
The other part wonders if it's all a mirage and some unseen barrier will arise.
Will AI be more like computers and internet?
Or will it be more like space travel, nuclear energy... and other sorts of unfulfilled promises?
There's a large profit motive to AI. Not so much to space, so far.
Post by: boarder42 on June 29, 2016, 07:52:41 PM
Post by: AlanStache on June 30, 2016, 05:08:32 AM
Yeah no way this is a mirage. Comparing it to space isn't a good analogy. That's like comparing the industrial revolution to westward expansion. While both use technology and advancement in tech. One has a very finite cap. And currently space exploration is capped by speed of travel to other locations and the expense. I mean what's the roi on a martian colony vs a machine that replaces 3 workers.
The roi on a martian base is that humanities Gross
Post by: Yankuba on June 30, 2016, 07:36:32 AM
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/ai-downs-fighter-pilot.html
The universe of things humans can do better than software/robotics is rapidly declining each day
Post by: Metric Mouse on June 30, 2016, 07:48:51 AM
AI beats fighter pilot:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/ai-downs-fighter-pilot.html
The universe of things humans can do better than software/robotics is rapidly declining each day
That's incredible. Chess or Go is one thing - piloting an aircraft in combat situations is an incredible leap forward.
Post by: arebelspy on June 30, 2016, 08:01:00 AM
AI beats fighter pilot:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/ai-downs-fighter-pilot.html
The universe of things humans can do better than software/robotics is rapidly declining each day
That's incredible. Chess or Go is one thing - piloting an aircraft in combat situations is an incredible leap forward.
In a simulation. But yeah, super cool.
Post by: Metric Mouse on June 30, 2016, 08:08:10 AM
AI beats fighter pilot:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/ai-downs-fighter-pilot.html
The universe of things humans can do better than software/robotics is rapidly declining each day
That's incredible. Chess or Go is one thing - piloting an aircraft in combat situations is an incredible leap forward.
In a simulation. But yeah, super cool.
I thought that too. How much can a computer 'game' a computer? And then my overactive imagination gives me nightmares where Yamaha's Motobot is chasing me down the street on an R1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4asCK8yamb0
Post by: maizefolk on June 30, 2016, 08:26:22 AM
Quote
...an average human visual reaction time of 0.15 to 0.30 seconds..
So in some ways piloting a fighter plane is playing to the same strength of AI as High Frequency Trading. In these types of roles, the computer doesn't have to be smarter than a human being, or cheaper than a human being, if it can usually guess the same answer as a human but do it a split second faster, over time it's going to win by a lot. It's still early in the morning for me so I cannot think of a lot of other examples of these types of roles but I'm sure many more are out there.
And it sounds like in this case the performance gap is only gonna get bigger once they start building planes solely for AI and aren't designed with the constraint of having to keep G forces low enough to not kill a human pilot.
Post by: AlanStache on June 30, 2016, 12:46:23 PM
They are using a relatively "simple" AI setup and Fuzzy systems, this means that the AI is working in therms that are relatable to a human, ie the AI natively works with how "defensive" or "offensive" it should be or what are its current tactical goals.
The engagements were not just 1-1 Top Gun style where the AI pulled 9-gs to win, the engagements were also beyond visual range. The UAV the AI was flying was also flight dynamics-wise comparable to its adversaries aircraft, the AI was using shorter ranged weapons also the linked paper below says that realistic sensor models and sensor fuson was done, sensors are a big thing here. The program was funded by AFRL (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/AFRL/ (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/AFRL/)).
I strongly recommenced you read the full write up and not just the headlines.
http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/genetic-fuzzy-based-artificial-intelligence-for-unmanned-combat-aerialvehicle-control-in-simulated-air-combat-missions-2167-0374-1000144.pdf (http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/genetic-fuzzy-based-artificial-intelligence-for-unmanned-combat-aerialvehicle-control-in-simulated-air-combat-missions-2167-0374-1000144.pdf)
While the AI running at high frame rates definitely helped (the authors say so) the AI "thought", it did not just brute force 10,000,000 possible outcomes and pick the best (Chess AI historically has done a brute force method).
Re: "its in a simulation": we can make damn good aircraft simulations and it sounds like these people made an honest attempt to make a good one for them to fight within.
TLDNR: What they did is probably cooler and way better than what you think they did based on headlines.
Post by: tonysemail on June 30, 2016, 04:10:50 PM
https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss
By coincidence, I was pondering the liability question this morning.
In our overly litigious society, who's gonna be left holding the bag when someone sues?
by default, I guess the manufacturer or AI supplier will be part of the lawsuit.
Should they be held liable or not?
I guess it may be for the courts to decide.
Post by: theadvicist on July 01, 2016, 04:30:12 AM
sobering news :(
https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss
By coincidence, I was pondering the liability question this morning.
In our overly litigious society, who's gonna be left holding the bag when someone sues?
by default, I guess the manufacturer or AI supplier will be part of the lawsuit.
Should they be held liable or not?
I guess it may be for the courts to decide.
This made the morning news in the UK today. I am sure that luddites will cite it as the reason driverless cars are unsafe.
I am sure most people on here will appreciate, however, that though once in over 130 million miles the computer missed a light coloured trailer against a bright sky, in 130 million miles with a human behind the wheel, far more things have been missed by motorist's vision.
Hell, at the weekend, I almost backed into my own husband, and had it not been for the warning beeps I would have (albeit at 5 miles an hour).
It's very sad news. I still believe, in the long run, driverless cars will be much safer, though never infallible.
Liability is a difficult one. Without the autopilot engaged, it sounds as though the outcome would have been the same. Neither the auto-pilot nor the driver saw the trailer, one would assume, as no brakes were applied at all. So I don't see how it's any different to a normal road accident, and unless it was a mechanical failure, the manufacturer would not usually be held responsible. Also, it sounds like the person pulling the trailer pulled out without enough time to clear the carriageway. The right of way was to the Tesla, in my understanding, and if you are going to cross a carriageway - especially pulling a trailer - you need to be sure you are across it before anything already on the road arrives at that point.
But as I said, very sad news for everyone involved.
Post by: AlanStache on July 01, 2016, 05:38:19 AM
Post by: Metric Mouse on July 01, 2016, 06:15:53 PM
re Tesla crash: I wonder/hope that the NTSB will take a page out of the FAA's hand book and record this incident as something that other manufactures will have to test to and be expected to demonstrate that they can identify and resolve the situation. This can get into big government creating stupid rules but going back to the FAA the US has insanely few commercial airplane fatalities in part because regulations make airlines & pilots learn from past incidents.
Probably. Would be an applicable system - very few accidents, high risk environment, ever improving standards. I read there was a portable DVD player in the car; investigators are trying to determine if it was on at the time of the crash. This could explain why no breaks were applied.
Post by: big_owl on July 01, 2016, 07:06:22 PM
re Tesla crash: I wonder/hope that the NTSB will take a page out of the FAA's hand book and record this incident as something that other manufactures will have to test to and be expected to demonstrate that they can identify and resolve the situation. This can get into big government creating stupid rules but going back to the FAA the US has insanely few commercial airplane fatalities in part because regulations make airlines & pilots learn from past incidents.
Probably. Would be an applicable system - very few accidents, high risk environment, ever improving standards. I read there was a portable DVD player in the car; investigators are trying to determine if it was on at the time of the crash. This could explain why no breaks were applied.
Engineers aren't allowed to take breaks either....
Post by: arebelspy on July 07, 2016, 03:41:20 AM
Post by: jordanread on July 07, 2016, 05:52:49 AM
Uber Hires a Robot To Patrol Its Parking Lot and It's Way Cheaper Than a Security Guard (https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/07/05/1714258/uber-hires-a-robot-to-patrol-its-parking-lot-and-its-way-cheaper-than-a-security-guard)
Wow. It definitely looks like a page was taken out of Bill Gates' book. Don't sell it, license it (or in this case, rent it).
Post by: tomsang on July 07, 2016, 03:56:14 PM
Good video on the future of AI.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on July 07, 2016, 06:42:39 PM
On the flip side, consumer-ready VR will probably come back in to 'flavor of the month' this fall. AI obviously has a bigger (unknowable) potential (like nano tech and genetics), but VR will get humanity close to the ER / Matrix 'affordable life of ease and servitude' sooner. For the next generation, I worry more about the bio-exploits exposed by VR and what a disruption that will be, than I worry about the sci-fi dystopian transformations some predict from advances in AI.
But that's just me extrapolating the present. 'Real history' is made in leaps that aren't readily predicted. Maybe unlimited cheap clean energy transforms the planet, or Trump becomes president... it's always fun to be an armchair futurist, or follow the 'professionals' http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/06/kevin_kelly_on_1.html
Post by: Bakari on July 07, 2016, 07:58:23 PM
, I worry more about the bio-exploits exposed by VR and what a disruption that will, than I worry about the sci-fi dystopian transformations some predict from advances in AI.
I imagine there's likely to be some overlap there.
If there is ever a VR that's realistic enough that one can't easily tell the difference from that and RL, seems likely that AI will be involved in creating the environment, and that AI research will be involved in making the interface (we'd have to have a decent model of how the brain and neurons work to blend them seemless into hardware)
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on July 07, 2016, 08:34:08 PM
, I worry more about the bio-exploits exposed by VR and what a disruption that will, than I worry about the sci-fi dystopian transformations some predict from advances in AI.
I imagine there's likely to be some overlap there.
If there is ever a VR that's realistic enough that one can't easily tell the difference from that and RL, seems likely that AI will be involved in creating the environment, and that AI research will be involved in making the interface (we'd have to have a decent model of how the brain and neurons work to blend them seemless into hardware)
That's probably the scariest version of AI yet, being that we are such limited species (although we do tend to think quite highly of ourselves with our Donald Trump billionaire presidential candidates and such :)
Post by: theadvicist on July 08, 2016, 01:44:00 PM
(On my phone and can't get it to link. If anyone is able to fix it please go ahead).
I have no comment except that everything about this situation is sad and scary.
Post by: jordanread on July 08, 2016, 05:25:58 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/08/police-bomb-robot-explosive-killed-suspect-dallas
(On my phone and can't get it to link. If anyone is able to fix it please go ahead).
I have no comment except that everything about this situation is sad and scary.
And that is the first thing I read about this Dallas situation. I am not a fan of the police doing this, but now I need to look more into this.
Post by: AlanStache on July 09, 2016, 10:13:15 AM
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/08/police-bomb-robot-explosive-killed-suspect-dallas
(On my phone and can't get it to link. If anyone is able to fix it please go ahead).
I have no comment except that everything about this situation is sad and scary.
And that is the first thing I read about this Dallas situation. I am not a fan of the police doing this, but now I need to look more into this.
I had not heard about the robot aspect of this. My first thought is that if police do this once or twice every few years in similar situations it is probably fine but if it becomes standard to use a robot blow up a homes door before a search warrant that probably is a problem.
Read Peter Singers Wired for War several years ago, highly recommend. Might be a little dated now but very intelligent discussion of war and 'robots'.
Post by: tomsang on August 25, 2016, 12:15:05 PM
http://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
Post by: jordanread on August 25, 2016, 12:31:15 PM
Interesting information on the Universal Basic Income and Robots. I think we will see more discussions of this in the next 3-5 years.
http://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
As much as I hate infographics to get points across, they are effective. My brain is currently dealing with some 4 hour-work-week-esque, combined with polyculture, combined with Universal Basic Income in order to make something awesome.
Post by: tomsang on August 25, 2016, 12:39:10 PM
As much as I hate infographics to get points across, they are effective. My brain is currently dealing with some 4 hour-work-week-esque, combined with polyculture, combined with Universal Basic Income in order to make something awesome.
Actually, I had the same thought. The information was not earth shattering, but the story through the infographics actually helped.
Post by: theadvicist on August 26, 2016, 05:23:05 AM
Since reading this thread I have started noting how many people I know have the kind of 'non-jobs' we were talking about earlier. You know, "Deputy Vice Engagement Facilitator" and things.
Seriously, a large percentage of my friends are not really achieving or producing anything, they are just busy being busy. It's interesting to me that corporations are prepared to pay for it.
I suppose people expect more. At my old school, for example, where we just had a school nurse who's room you lay down in until a parent collected you, know they have a 'pastoral support worker' and two nurses. There are also more stratas of teachers - heads of year, coordinator of pastoral care etc. Where we just had head and deputy head of school.
Post by: Mississippi Mudstache on August 26, 2016, 08:46:41 AM
Interesting that the Swiss electorate voted against UBI.
Since reading this thread I have started noting how many people I know have the kind of 'non-jobs' we were talking about earlier. You know, "Deputy Vice Engagement Facilitator" and things.
Seriously, a large percentage of my friends are not really achieving or producing anything, they are just busy being busy. It's interesting to me that corporations are prepared to pay for it.
I suppose people expect more. At my old school, for example, where we just had a school nurse who's room you lay down in until a parent collected you, know they have a 'pastoral support worker' and two nurses. There are also more stratas of teachers - heads of year, coordinator of pastoral care etc. Where we just had head and deputy head of school.
There will inevitably be some who object in principle to the idea of getting "something for nothing", but I think one big concern in Switzerland was that a UBI would attract a flood of economic migrants.
Quote
Luzi Stamm, a member of parliament for the right-wing Swiss People's Party, opposed the idea. "Theoretically, if Switzerland were an island, the answer is yes. But with open borders, it's a total impossibility, especially for Switzerland, with a high living standard. If you would offer every individual a Swiss amount of money, you would have billions of people who would try to move into Switzerland."
Post by: theadvicist on August 26, 2016, 08:59:23 AM
Post by: boarder42 on August 26, 2016, 09:48:11 AM
Post by: tomsang on August 26, 2016, 01:07:08 PM
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation. how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation. demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income. and those without income will now have income to buy things. therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI. can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation. i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.
There probably would be some inflation, but for the most part you are just redistributing from the 1% down to the 99%. Many of these folks would be on welfare and other programs that are paid for by the 1%. Liquidity in the system tends to create more wealth overall. When I get a raise, it goes into my investment accounts. When someone who is just getting by gets $10k, they most likely will spend the money on necessities and other goods which stimulates the economy.
The real issue is in the coming decade(s) we are going to have a large chunk of people that have zero skills to do anything productive. Driving a truck, moving a box from one end of a warehouse to the other, riveting on a plane, doing legal research, preparing tax returns, etc. will be completely automated. So either you have to support those people or find a way to dispose of them. The UBI, provides everyone a safety net.
Post by: Yankuba on August 26, 2016, 01:22:51 PM
Post by: tonysemail on August 26, 2016, 01:27:19 PM
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation. how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation. demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income. and those without income will now have income to buy things. therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI. can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation. i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.
there is an answer written on reddit, but it sounds inconclusive.
where UBI has been tried, there has not been massive inflation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_wouldn.27t_basic_income_just_cause_inflation.3F
Post by: boarder42 on August 26, 2016, 01:57:17 PM
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation. how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation. demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income. and those without income will now have income to buy things. therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI. can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation. i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.
there is an answer written on reddit, but it sounds inconclusive.
where UBI has been tried, there has not been massive inflation.
https://www.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index#wiki_wouldn.27t_basic_income_just_cause_inflation.3F
i'm not saying massive inflation in the short term but over time one would think inflation would occur
Post by: boarder42 on August 26, 2016, 01:59:45 PM
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation. how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation. demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income. and those without income will now have income to buy things. therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI. can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation. i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.
There probably would be some inflation, but for the most part you are just redistributing from the 1% down to the 99%. Many of these folks would be on welfare and other programs that are paid for by the 1%. Liquidity in the system tends to create more wealth overall. When I get a raise, it goes into my investment accounts. When someone who is just getting by gets $10k, they most likely will spend the money on necessities and other goods which stimulates the economy.
The real issue is in the coming decade(s) we are going to have a large chunk of people that have zero skills to do anything productive. Driving a truck, moving a box from one end of a warehouse to the other, riveting on a plane, doing legal research, preparing tax returns, etc. will be completely automated. So either you have to support those people or find a way to dispose of them. The UBI, provides everyone a safety net.
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Post by: AlanStache on August 26, 2016, 02:19:27 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
Post by: jordanread on August 26, 2016, 02:36:58 PM
In case some of you dont read slashdot
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
I like that!! Thanks.
Post by: arebelspy on August 26, 2016, 08:10:08 PM
In case some of you dont read slashdot
...you should fix that. :)
Post by: tomsang on August 27, 2016, 04:13:26 PM
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
Post by: jordanread on August 27, 2016, 04:47:32 PM
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
You might be right. I haven't crunched the numbers, or extrapolated out to think more of it. I do like the idea of taxes being based on consumption, though.
Post by: Metric Mouse on August 27, 2016, 05:19:46 PM
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
You might be right. I haven't crunched the numbers, or extrapolated out to think more of it. I do like the idea of taxes being based on consumption, though.
I vote income based. Help adjust for rampart income inequality in this country.
Post by: Schaefer Light on August 29, 2016, 07:39:22 AM
In case some of you dont read slashdotI wonder how those employees feel about the 25% pay cut.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
Post by: GuitarStv on August 29, 2016, 07:57:12 AM
AI beats fighter pilot:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/06/ai-downs-fighter-pilot.html
The universe of things humans can do better than software/robotics is rapidly declining each day
That's incredible. Chess or Go is one thing - piloting an aircraft in combat situations is an incredible leap forward.
In a simulation. But yeah, super cool.
I thought that too. How much can a computer 'game' a computer? And then my overactive imagination gives me nightmares where Yamaha's Motobot is chasing me down the street on an R1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4asCK8yamb0
My last job was building combat flight simulators for various military uses around the world. Robots beating a pilot aren't surprising to me. I'd argue that it's simpler to build a good fighter pilot simulator than it is to drive around on roads. There's very little to run into up in the air, it's not as crowded. An AI controlled plane can pull higher Gs without blacking out too.
Post by: arebelspy on August 29, 2016, 03:35:35 PM
In case some of you dont read slashdotI wonder how those employees feel about the 25% pay cut.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
Pretty sure you volunteer for the 75% hours, 75% pay (but full benefits) in this pilot. So they probably feel pretty good?
Post by: tomsang on August 30, 2016, 11:57:43 AM
"Millennials like not seeing people," Puzder said. "I've been inside restaurants where we've installed ordering kiosks ... and I've actually seen young people waiting in line to use the kiosk where there's a person standing behind the counter, waiting on nobody."
My teenage son is like this. He would rather not deal with the incompetent humans.
Post by: mozar on August 30, 2016, 01:52:53 PM
Post by: Schaefer Light on August 30, 2016, 02:38:54 PM
I didn't realize they were letting people volunteer for this. I do wonder what will happen in the long run, though. If Amazon sees this as a positive, I have a feeling they're going to make a lot of folks go to this schedule (and reduce their pay).In case some of you dont read slashdotI wonder how those employees feel about the 25% pay cut.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
Pretty sure you volunteer for the 75% hours, 75% pay (but full benefits) in this pilot. So they probably feel pretty good?
Post by: arebelspy on August 30, 2016, 02:57:48 PM
I didn't realize they were letting people volunteer for this. I do wonder what will happen in the long run, though. If Amazon sees this as a positive, I have a feeling they're going to make a lot of folks go to this schedule (and reduce their pay).In case some of you dont read slashdotI wonder how those employees feel about the 25% pay cut.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
Pretty sure you volunteer for the 75% hours, 75% pay (but full benefits) in this pilot. So they probably feel pretty good?
And if people don't want that, they'll go elsewhere. And if Amazon is losing good devs, they'll do what they need to in order to be competitive.
I think this is the opposite of what you're thinking--Amazon isn't doing this to save money--they're doing it as a BENEFIT for people who want a better work-life balance.
Post by: mathlete on August 30, 2016, 02:59:23 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-hate-interacting-with-people-2016-8?r=UK&IR=T
"Millennials like not seeing people," Puzder said. "I've been inside restaurants where we've installed ordering kiosks ... and I've actually seen young people waiting in line to use the kiosk where there's a person standing behind the counter, waiting on nobody."
My teenage son is like this. He would rather not deal with the incompetent humans.
Classic millennial click bait.
I understand the sentiment though. It is nothing against humans. It's just easier to convey what you want to a machine a lot of the time.
Post by: mozar on August 31, 2016, 02:03:11 PM
Post by: Bakari on September 01, 2016, 09:53:15 AM
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
You might be right. I haven't crunched the numbers, or extrapolated out to think more of it. I do like the idea of taxes being based on consumption, though.
I vote income based. Help adjust for rampart income inequality in this country.
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 01, 2016, 12:43:35 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on September 01, 2016, 02:24:30 PM
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
You might be right. I haven't crunched the numbers, or extrapolated out to think more of it. I do like the idea of taxes being based on consumption, though.
I vote income based. Help adjust for rampart income inequality in this country.
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you.
Post by: Mississippi Mudstache on September 01, 2016, 03:04:04 PM
In case some of you dont read slashdot
...you should fix that. :)
I do now. Thanks.
Post by: Schaefer Light on September 02, 2016, 06:27:48 AM
Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it.
tax returns should go away and we should go to a sales tax based economy and eliminate an entire branch of the govt. that alone may create enough savings for the govt to fund this entire UBI plan. but if they ever make it and there is an income limit to receive it you can bet in FIRE ill try to get under that to take free money.
edit ... mybad it is estimated to cost the economy 409B so about half what the estimated UBI needs to be. the actually organization costs 12.5B to run. the rest is a cost to the economy b/c of a ridiculously complex system.
Sales tax based taxes is very regressive. It would be a boon for the 1%. Income inequality would increase exponentially.
You might be right. I haven't crunched the numbers, or extrapolated out to think more of it. I do like the idea of taxes being based on consumption, though.
I vote income based. Help adjust for rampart income inequality in this country.
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you.
Post by: tomsang on September 02, 2016, 10:42:39 AM
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
"Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you."
"Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it."
That is like saying having an income tax makes people earn less. There could be exclusions for the first million and have it ramp up as you go. If you are worth billions, you can afford to pay significantly more than the Warren Buffett's, Mitt Romney's and Donald Trump's currently are paying into the system. If you are trying to curb off a select group of people owning the majority of the US or world, then taxing outliers is a good way of doing it. Currently the top 1% own something like 45% of the wealth and it is climbing each year. If you take out personal residences it is much more. What is the right amount? With automation and technology becoming a bigger factor, income and wealth inequality are going to expand significantly in the next decade or two.
Post by: jordanread on September 02, 2016, 11:22:30 AM
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
"Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you."
"Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it."
That is like saying having an income tax makes people earn less. There could be exclusions for the first million and have it ramp up as you go. If you are worth billions, you can afford to pay significantly more than the Warren Buffett's, Mitt Romney's and Donald Trump's currently are paying into the system. If you are trying to curb off a select group of people owning the majority of the US or world, then taxing outliers is a good way of doing it. Currently the top 1% own something like 45% of the wealth and it is climbing each year. If you take out personal residences it is much more. What is the right amount? With automation and technology becoming a bigger factor, income and wealth inequality are going to expand significantly in the next decade or two.
Honestly, I don't think Trump is in the top 1%, but just sayin'.
However, that was an interesting response. For some reason, when Bakari mentioned "Taxing the 'Stache" (great terminology Metric Mouse), I thought similarly to Schaefer Light. But now that you drew the comparison to Income Tax, suddenly I realized the idea of a series of graduated brackets. And then you said it. That...I could see. Still don't know if that's the best way, but more stuff to think about. This thread rocks.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 02, 2016, 12:21:30 PM
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
"Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you."
"Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it."
That is like saying having an income tax makes people earn less. There could be exclusions for the first million and have it ramp up as you go. If you are worth billions, you can afford to pay significantly more than the Warren Buffett's, Mitt Romney's and Donald Trump's currently are paying into the system. If you are trying to curb off a select group of people owning the majority of the US or world, then taxing outliers is a good way of doing it. Currently the top 1% own something like 45% of the wealth and it is climbing each year. If you take out personal residences it is much more. What is the right amount? With automation and technology becoming a bigger factor, income and wealth inequality are going to expand significantly in the next decade or two.
A global wealth tax is also one of the conclusions (http://www.peoplesworld.org/top-4-radical-conclusions-from-piketty-s-capital-in-the-21st-century/) of Piketty's Capital in the 21st century -
Global capital is too strong and mobile now for any one country to regulate it. A global tax and redistribution mechanism must be in place to prevent inequality trends from tearing up not just individual nations, but sending the whole world into a hell not unlike the one that ended the last "Gilded Age" in 1912: World Wars I and II.
Post by: Schaefer Light on September 02, 2016, 02:19:09 PM
Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though? Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings. If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income
"Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you."
"Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it."
That is like saying having an income tax makes people earn less. There could be exclusions for the first million and have it ramp up as you go. If you are worth billions, you can afford to pay significantly more than the Warren Buffett's, Mitt Romney's and Donald Trump's currently are paying into the system. If you are trying to curb off a select group of people owning the majority of the US or world, then taxing outliers is a good way of doing it. Currently the top 1% own something like 45% of the wealth and it is climbing each year. If you take out personal residences it is much more. What is the right amount? With automation and technology becoming a bigger factor, income and wealth inequality are going to expand significantly in the next decade or two.
Post by: arebelspy on September 02, 2016, 02:34:10 PM
Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though? Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings. If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?
1) Not necessarily, if you replace income taxx with a wealth tax.
2) Even if you had both, and it was double taxation... who cares? Double taxation is a phrase people seem to use as a scary boogyman. We have double taxation all the time. Ever bought anything and paid sales tax with money you earned and paid income tax on? Ever paid property taxes with money you paid capital gains tax on? Just saying "double taxation" is meaningless--if it's bad, say why it's bad, not merely the fact that it's already been taxed for a separate reason. :)
Post by: Bakari on September 02, 2016, 04:19:03 PM
Agreed: every dollar gets taxed infinity times, "double" taxation really doesn't mean anything. Boss pays you for working, its taxed, then you buy something, taxed again, then the money you gave to the store goes to the store employee, taxed again, then the employee buys something...
Of course another alternative that might achieve the same goal, while being possibly "more fair", would be a something like 99% gift/inheritance tax. Returns trillions into the economy, everyone starts with a level playing field and has to earn their own way, and we could then have a 0% income tax and 0% sales tax, thereby encouraging employment and economic activity.
It would also help if 'One Person One Parcel' became a thing. Land is one basic necessity that automation will have a tough time mass producing.
But if you can afford your own little bit of land, it's possible to subsist with little or no input from the rest of the economy.
Oh, and speaking of Trumpenomics... I recently realized that if I use Trump Accounting, I am worth over half a MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!
Post by: marty998 on September 02, 2016, 04:32:57 PM
I need to get my CPD hours up, so learning about a new branch of accounting will be good :)
Post by: tomsang on September 02, 2016, 05:36:47 PM
"According to the 2014 Census data, there are more than 4.4 million Americans aged 16 and over working as drivers"
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/driverless-cars-will-kill-the-most-jobs-in-select-us-states.html
Post by: tomsang on September 03, 2016, 07:45:52 AM
Automated farm equipment technology replacing workers.
Post by: Bakari on September 03, 2016, 10:47:30 AM
Ooh... tell me more about Trump Accounting!
I need to get my CPD hours up, so learning about a new branch of accounting will be good :)
I don't want to derail this thread... esp. not with politics (the subject here is ultimately bigger than any one election cycle)
But, essentially, you add up all your assets.
That's it. You don't subtract any debts or liabilities.
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth. And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.
Hence a $10B net worth by Trump Accounting, where Bloomberg calculates 3B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#Net_worth
http://fortune.com/2015/07/17/donald-trump-net-worth-calculator/
States most effected by driverless cars. 4.4 million drivers will need to find employment as engineers :)
"According to the 2014 Census data, there are more than 4.4 million Americans aged 16 and over working as drivers"
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/driverless-cars-will-kill-the-most-jobs-in-select-us-states.html (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/driverless-cars-will-kill-the-most-jobs-in-select-us-states.html)
Assuming some engineer tasks can't be automated...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_programming#Implementations
http://www.cs.miami.edu/~tptp/OverviewOfATP.html
Post by: AlanStache on September 03, 2016, 11:07:17 AM
...
Assuming some engineer tasks can't be automated...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_programming#Implementations
http://www.cs.miami.edu/~tptp/OverviewOfATP.html
Thats nothing, human engineers have been working to put human engines out of jobs for 200+ years :-) We are a lazy bunch that will always work to automate things even it it is our own job. Not always the smartest move but still.
Post by: sol on September 05, 2016, 08:43:06 PM
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth. And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.
Don't forget that you get choose your own capitalization rate for recurring payments made to your brand. Trump bring in about $15million/year by licensing the Trump name to ties/universities/airlines/steaks/hotels/etc that he doesn't have any actual equity in, and he calculates that he would need $3 billion in assets at today's low interest rates to generate that kind of cashflow, and therefore his brand name is listed as worth $3billion.
Think about that for a second. He thinks his own name is worth three billion dollars, and he had the balls to actually report a dollar figure like that on his disclosure forms. It's the single largest "asset" he owns.
Post by: AlanStache on September 06, 2016, 06:10:21 AM
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth. And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.
Don't forget that you get choose your own capitalization rate for recurring payments made to your brand. Trump bring in about $15million/year by licensing the Trump name to ties/universities/airlines/steaks/hotels/etc that he doesn't have any actual equity in, and he calculates that he would need $3 billion in assets at today's low interest rates to generate that kind of cashflow, and therefore his brand name is listed as worth $3billion.
Think about that for a second. He thinks his own name is worth three billion dollars, and he had the balls to actually report a dollar figure like that on his disclosure forms. It's the single largest "asset" he owns.
15 million / 3 billion= 1/200 or 0.5%, I am no fancy business guy but if your goal is that in Made-Up-Land.... I would like to think I am missing something... But I guess he wants the number to come out that way.
Post by: Schaefer Light on September 06, 2016, 06:35:39 AM
The difference is those are choices. You can choose to buy less stuff or less property and thus pay lower (or even no) taxes. If there's a wealth tax, what's to prevent people from just stuffing cash under the mattress and not reporting it? I'd consider it ;).Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though? Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings. If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?
1) Not necessarily, if you replace income taxx with a wealth tax.
2) Even if you had both, and it was double taxation... who cares? Double taxation is a phrase people seem to use as a scary boogyman. We have double taxation all the time. Ever bought anything and paid sales tax with money you earned and paid income tax on? Ever paid property taxes with money you paid capital gains tax on? Just saying "double taxation" is meaningless--if it's bad, say why it's bad, not merely the fact that it's already been taxed for a separate reason. :)
Post by: arebelspy on September 06, 2016, 07:01:15 AM
Post by: Schaefer Light on September 06, 2016, 07:15:05 AM
The same thing that prevents people from not declaring income that they should: the law. Some still don't, and face penalties if they're caught.It would be a lot easier for most people to hide "wealth" than income, though. Income taxes come straight out of my paycheck. I never have an opportunity to shield that money from taxation.
Post by: arebelspy on September 06, 2016, 12:56:03 PM
The same thing that prevents people from not declaring income that they should: the law. Some still don't, and face penalties if they're caught.It would be a lot easier for most people to hide "wealth" than income, though. Income taxes come straight out of my paycheck. I never have an opportunity to shield that money from taxation.
Ever heard the phrase about being paid "under the table?" Or "self reporting" income?
I mean, no matter what your system, you'll have people trying to cheat it.
Post by: Bakari on September 07, 2016, 08:19:34 AM
The difference is those are choices. You can choose to buy less stuff or less property and thus pay lower (or even no) taxes. If there's a wealth tax, what's to prevent people from just stuffing cash under the mattress and not reporting it? I'd consider it ;).
Sure, there are a few insane people who feel the need to make massive amounts of money and then not spend any of it, why work 80 hours a week for a lifetime and live on a mattress on the floor with no heat and die because they won't get any medical treatment except the free clinic and then people who knew them discover they were worth tens of millions. It happens.
And with a wealth tax a few people completely obsessed with taxes might join them.
It would be equally stupid, to amass wealth you have no intention of ever spending, for fear of losing a portion of it.
You might as well just burn it all to avoid being taxed.
Post by: Schaefer Light on September 07, 2016, 01:13:33 PM
Post by: Bakari on September 07, 2016, 02:49:21 PM
I don't think this will come as any big surprise, but I simply prefer a sales tax to an income or wealth tax. I think it's idiotic to punish people for being successful or smart with their money.
Taxes aren't a punishment. They are the price for living in an advanced society, one which provides things like roads, bridges, telecommunication networks, courts, police, military, and many other things which make being successful possible.
If one wanted to find some undeveloped wilderness on an unclaimed island in the ocean, certainly no one would stop them, and then they wouldn't have to pay taxes, but then they will have nothing to invest in and no one to sell to and they are not going to have any wealth to tax anyway.
Post by: Yankuba on September 09, 2016, 03:00:04 PM
MIT economist on tech, trade & job markets, how Chinese imports affect U.S. politics & family structure, and the Janus-faced gig economy
Post by: tomsang on September 12, 2016, 07:56:57 AM
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1768423/cops-using-artificial-intelligence-to-stop-crimes-before-they-happen-researchers-warn/
Post by: AlanStache on September 12, 2016, 12:52:02 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/RCuWqoq.jpg)
respect to people*: I try anyway....
Post by: lordmetroid on September 12, 2016, 03:46:35 PM
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation. how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation. demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income. and those without income will now have income to buy things. therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI. can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation. i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.It doesn't lead to inflation because it is only a basic income which would be far less than any income earned by working. For inflation to occur their needs to be an expansion of the salaries in the general population. In practice basic income is already implemented as part of welfare subsidies but you have to jump through hoops and conform to the program.
Post by: tomsang on September 13, 2016, 05:02:43 PM
GF's mother posted this on FB, was on the AFL-CIO's page; i really wanted to respond but thought better of it. Am totally on board with showing respect to people* and not forcing all students onto a college track but they could have picked three better jobs. Like ones that wont be decimated by automation/robots in the near future.
(http://i.imgur.com/RCuWqoq.jpg)
respect to people*: I try anyway....
Your post made me search for a good pizza robot. This looks pretty cool. Especially the pizza deliver vans that cook your pizza so it just out of the oven fresh when it hits your door. Combine that with a self driving vehicle and labor is almost gone. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-24/inside-silicon-valley-s-robot-pizzeria
Post by: tomsang on September 21, 2016, 10:59:30 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/18/world/lionfish-robot-killer/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge
Post by: jordanread on September 21, 2016, 11:05:43 AM
Killer Robots! Lionfish with a Roomba!
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/18/world/lionfish-robot-killer/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge
Okay, that is cool as hell. Scary, but cool.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 21, 2016, 04:14:33 PM
Post by: theadvicist on September 22, 2016, 09:01:25 AM
"Since arriving in US waters in the 1980s, these fearsome creatures have left a trail of destruction along the Atlantic Coast, from Rhode Island to Venezuela.
Lionfish can reduce a flourishing coral reef to barren wasteland in a matter of weeks. Native fish, unfamiliar with the new arrival, do not know to avoid it, and the predator gorges to the point of obesity.
As so-called "apex predators" they sit at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any other creature. They breed rapidly, and are extremely resilient and adaptable. No solution has been found to control their advance yet, but conservationists could soon have a new tool at their disposal: killer robots."
Post by: AlanStache on September 22, 2016, 09:52:01 AM
Change the century and water to land and this literally could be describing the Europeans...
"Since arriving in US waters in the 1980s, these fearsome creatures have left a trail of destruction along the Atlantic Coast, from Rhode Island to Venezuela.
Lionfish can reduce a flourishing coral reef to barren wasteland in a matter of weeks. Native fish, unfamiliar with the new arrival, do not know to avoid it, and the predator gorges to the point of obesity.
As so-called "apex predators" they sit at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any other creature. They breed rapidly, and are extremely resilient and adaptable. No solution has been found to control their advance yet, but conservationists could soon have a new tool at their disposal: killer robots."
Ok Agent Smith, lets take it back down a notch.
Quote
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.
Post by: Metric Mouse on September 25, 2016, 07:51:21 AM
Why is it I get a 'Jurrasic Park' vibe after reading about killer robots that 'will only target the offending Lionfish'?
I don't see what could possibly go wrong. :D
Post by: tomsang on September 29, 2016, 11:39:04 AM
Interesting article and Sci-Fi short film. A bit bizarre, but I also had trouble getting into the movie Brazil way back when.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/some-like-it-bot/
Post by: arebelspy on September 29, 2016, 08:14:23 PM
Can AI write a screenplay that makes senses and projects emotion?
Likely sooner rather than later.
Post by: davisgang90 on September 30, 2016, 03:33:45 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI
Post by: arebelspy on September 30, 2016, 03:40:48 AM
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game. After 100 failures it got it in the cup. It never missed again. Recursive learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI
Ball in cup is WAY easier than that. I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.
Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly. And then not repeat it.
Nice.
Post by: boarder42 on September 30, 2016, 08:31:30 AM
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game. After 100 failures it got it in the cup. It never missed again. Recursive learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI
Ball in cup is WAY easier than that. I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.
Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly. And then not repeat it.
Nice.
whats really cool is if they are all manufactured the same they will be able to teach new tasks in a lab and them beam the updates out to all the robots in the country at the same time. so you wont actually have to teach your personal robot anything.
Post by: jordanread on September 30, 2016, 08:42:52 AM
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game. After 100 failures it got it in the cup. It never missed again. Recursive learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI
Ball in cup is WAY easier than that. I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.
Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly. And then not repeat it.
Nice.
whats really cool is if they are all manufactured the same they will be able to teach new tasks in a lab and them beam the updates out to all the robots in the country at the same time. so you wont actually have to teach your personal robot anything.
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle. The more they are used, the better they get. Even though there has been a fatality with Tesla auto-drive, it still surpasses the average. It will only improve.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on September 30, 2016, 09:09:03 AM
For at least a decade we are going to have people sitting in the driverless cars and trucks, ready to take control if necessary. They will also need to prevent vandalism and clean up after the messy passengers and the drunk passengers that vomit or have accidents. This will be a new minimum wage job.
Jury still out on someone in place to take control, as for vandalizing a car after ordering it from your phone that seems like it would be a short lived phenomena, self cleaning would be fairly easy I'd imagine, and central monitoring from a control station would take car of drunk passengers.
Post by: tomsang on September 30, 2016, 11:49:15 AM
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women
Post by: davisgang90 on September 30, 2016, 02:11:06 PM
Well now it is getting interesting!I'm too scared to click the link!
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women
Post by: arebelspy on September 30, 2016, 07:14:41 PM
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.
Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it.
The exponential growth potential is amazing.
Post by: davisgang90 on October 01, 2016, 03:33:35 AM
Amazing and a little terrifying...That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.
Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it.
The exponential growth potential is amazing.
Post by: AlanStache on October 01, 2016, 04:29:07 PM
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.
Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it.
The exponential growth potential is amazing.
Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns. A cars AI can only get so good at driving. Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey. A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases. Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5. Which is a better system? To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters. How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time? Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.
But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.
Post by: ender on October 01, 2016, 05:06:58 PM
Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns. A cars AI can only get so good at driving. Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey. A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases. Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5. Which is a better system? To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters. How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time? Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.
But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.
I'm not sure that it matters.
It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously.
Post by: sol on October 01, 2016, 05:09:42 PM
Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.
I think there's an amazing amount of hubris in this sentence.
Post by: arebelspy on October 01, 2016, 08:15:07 PM
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.
Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it.
The exponential growth potential is amazing.
Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns. A cars AI can only get so good at driving. Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey. A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases. Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5. Which is a better system? To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters. How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time? Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.
But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.
It's the concept of millions of X out there, sharing their learning with all the other ones that excites me. The exponential growth of that, moreso than the specific implementation as it relates to self-driving cars, which is just one minor example.
Post by: AlanStache on October 02, 2016, 11:05:42 AM
Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.
I think there's an amazing amount of hubris in this sentence.
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI. Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end as transistor density has. Moore came up with his law in 1965 - Lyndon B Johnson was president. In what manner could it continue to improve given the likelihood that it will be significantly safer than humans in the next hand full of years?
Currently 30k/year die in car related incidents, if driving AI halves that number each year it will take ~10 years to get fewer than 100 deaths per year. That is what I mean by us starting nearer the limit. Maybe it is that driving AI is reducing a finite value (30k/year) where other tech is growing up from a small value.
"It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously."
I agree 100% as I said we are starting nearer the theoretical limit of driving AI, I think we will get the bulk of the benefit in the near future rather than it continuing to grow geometrically in goodness for decade after decade.
Post by: sol on October 02, 2016, 11:55:25 AM
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI. Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end
Henry Ford supposedly said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Why is your vision of future AI driving constrained to approaching or incrementally improving the safety rates of human drivers? There are so many other things wrong with cars that AI can potentially fix.
Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds. That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision, and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot. Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent, comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace, and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today, and oh yes it's free to use.
Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light. There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door. Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon. You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered by robots. Stores are just showrooms, places to go look and feel products, places to "shop" but not necessarily to buy.
Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles. Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired. There is no more road rage. Air quality improves. Drunk driving is non existent. Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase. Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages. No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.
The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars. Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.
Post by: ender on October 02, 2016, 12:59:03 PM
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI. Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end as transistor density has. Moore came up with his law in 1965 - Lyndon B Johnson was president. In what manner could it continue to improve given the likelihood that it will be significantly safer than humans in the next hand full of years?
Currently 30k/year die in car related incidents, if driving AI halves that number each year it will take ~10 years to get fewer than 100 deaths per year. That is what I mean by us starting nearer the limit. Maybe it is that driving AI is reducing a finite value (30k/year) where other tech is growing up from a small value.
"It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously."
I agree 100% as I said we are starting nearer the theoretical limit of driving AI, I think we will get the bulk of the benefit in the near future rather than it continuing to grow geometrically in goodness for decade after decade.
What are you trying to optimize?
Deaths? Cars on road? Average commute time? Total gas economy? Arrival times?
I can think of TONS of things that self driving AI in cars could continue to refine over many years.
Post by: AlanStache on October 02, 2016, 01:29:24 PM
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI. Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end
Henry Ford supposedly said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Why is your vision of future AI driving constrained to approaching or incrementally improving the safety rates of human drivers? There are so many other things wrong with cars that AI can potentially fix.
Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds. That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision, and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot. Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent, comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace, and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today, and oh yes it's free to use.
Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light. There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door. Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon. You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered by robots. Stores are just showrooms, places to go look and feel products, places to "shop" but not necessarily to buy.
Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles. Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired. There is no more road rage. Air quality improves. Drunk driving is non existent. Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase. Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages. No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.
The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars. Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.
Yes. Most of that is a business model (societal model?) based on a self driving car running software & sensors that will basically exists at a high level of maturity by the time reb's kid would have other wise be getting a learners permit. I was replying to the idea that self driving car abilities will improve geometrically. There is a limit to how well a car can be driven, or at least to any measurable value and I think we will hit that limit fairly quickly. Will there be massive and ongoing societal changes that results from this tech-yes.
150 mph: Maybe. Drag force = 0.5*(mass density of air)*(vehicle speed)^2 * (drag coef)*(projected area). No amount of computer smarts gets around this equation we have been trying for +100 years. Then they say the Veyrons top speed is limited by the tires so while a cars AI might be able to drive supper fast it might not be cost effective to do so.
No traffic lights: Maybe. They could definitely be reduced but pedestrians and bicycles? Also I am not sure life and death driving decisions should be based on broadcast-shared information. Current thinking with the larger UAVs is that even with mass adoption of position transmitting transponders an active sensor (radar) must verify the other vehicle location/heading, the risk of spoofing is just to big to trust broadcast data. This might be something we could do but is probably best that we dont.
"What are you trying to optimize?" that is the question! But again it is largely wrapping business models around the tool of self driving cars. And many of these will be contradictory, speed vs safety, auto-Uber wait time vs cars on road.
Post by: Bakari on October 02, 2016, 01:48:31 PM
Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds.This isn't an AI problem, but rather an infrastructer one. Once the AI is solved, this will be true almost immediately. Lyft has self-driving cars on the streets today. Uber is developing its own too.
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That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision,Also not really an AI issue but an infrastructure (and physics) problem. There are limits to right-of-way systems, esp. as long as ANY humans still use roadways (old-school drivers, bikes, pedestrians), not to mention animals, and limits to traction force of tires on pavement.
There's also a huge efficiency drop after about 50-60mph which is due to aerodynamic realities. Design could help mitagate that (teardrop shaped cars), but AI can't.
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and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot.again, lyft / uber model already covers that
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Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent,technology, but not AI
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comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace,I give it one year
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and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today:) like inspector gadgets car!
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, and oh yes it's free to use.part economic, part social - a study done in SF found that the local bus and light rail system (muni) was spending more on plainclothes transit police, repair and maintenance of cash and ticket machines, paper passes, and other costs of collecting and enforcing tolls than they were bringing in in fares. In other words, they would actually save money by making it free.
They never made it free though. Because !!!!!!! socialism!!!!!!!!
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Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light.To me this is one of the most exciting parts, and I hope it happens in my lifetime, though I doubt it (because there will still be people with old fashioned cars for a long time), and it might not ever happen (how do bicycles navigate intersections? Or does literally every crosswalk in the nation get replaced with an overpass?
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There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.There would be dramatically less, and they wouldn't be as bad, but there are theoretical limits to how many cars can fit in one space at one time regardless of spacing and efficiency. In some places that limit is far past. We would have to also change the 9-5 standard work hours to be spread out evenly through the day (and maybe night) and also limit density of housing in urban areas and increase density of jobs in suburban areas.
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Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door. Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon. You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything deliveredAlready mostly true! Even with delivery person salaries in the mix.
Though who knows if drones, or even 3D printing, will mature fast enough that robot cars never get those jobs?
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Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles. Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired. There is no more road rage. Air quality improves. Drunk driving is non existent.All you need is functional AI cars to become the standard, and it happens immideatly.
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Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase.Even if human drivers are banned on public roads, hobbyists and racers would still own and maintain driveable cars, just like people still operate ham radio in the days of pocket computers. Occasionally a criminal would use one (because of course if they are in a networked car not only are they tracked every second, but police could remotely shut the car down and probably lock the doors and windows too). In order to catch / stop them, either special police "chase" AI would have to break some rules, or specially trained humans would take over.
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Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages.are there people who don't use the majority of garage space as storage!?
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No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.If a viable alternative energy source can be found, it could run cars driven by humans or AI. Gasoline can power cars run by humans or AI. Two separate issues.
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The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars.
Agreed
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Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.Just defending AlanStache here - the only idea here which would require further refinement than simply learning to drive, avoiding accidents, and maximizing fuel mileage and travel time, is this: "There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light."
but the transition to 100% driverless cars won't be a software issue, and once that transition has been made this is a fairly easy software problem to solve. I'm willing to bet we could do it in simulation form today. The actual driving is the most more technical challenge
Post by: ender on October 02, 2016, 01:58:53 PM
Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.
Post by: Bakari on October 02, 2016, 03:16:50 PM
Weather is an interesting factor, too.
Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.
https://youtu.be/pS6CdzjhQMw
https://youtu.be/L13Nj3kEbHM
Post by: ender on October 02, 2016, 04:22:11 PM
Weather is an interesting factor, too.
Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.
https://youtu.be/pS6CdzjhQMw
https://youtu.be/L13Nj3kEbHM
Sweet!
There are a lot of benefits too that an AI driver in those conditions might have, too. Particularly if you have an AWD vehicle, it can adjust and do a lot better analysis more quickly than people can.
Post by: sol on October 02, 2016, 05:32:09 PM
Particularly if you have an AWD vehicle, it can adjust and do a lot better analysis more quickly than people can.
Yes, the "but can they drive in snow" criticism of AI seemed strange to me, too. Slippery road conditions were literally the very first use case that we delegated to computer control. These days, every new car has some form of Electronic Stability Control that is merely a computer fixing your human mistakes every few hundredths of a second.
Post by: davisgang90 on October 03, 2016, 06:02:21 AM
Sol, I really like your vision. Do you mind if I use this as an example in the Robotics and Autonomous Industry study I lead? Trying to fire up the imagination with regard to driverless cars. Thanks for the consideration!Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI. Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end
Henry Ford supposedly said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Why is your vision of future AI driving constrained to approaching or incrementally improving the safety rates of human drivers? There are so many other things wrong with cars that AI can potentially fix.
Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds. That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision, and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot. Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent, comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace, and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today, and oh yes it's free to use.
Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light. There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door. Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon. You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered by robots. Stores are just showrooms, places to go look and feel products, places to "shop" but not necessarily to buy.
Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles. Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired. There is no more road rage. Air quality improves. Drunk driving is non existent. Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase. Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages. No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.
The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars. Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 03, 2016, 08:25:14 AM
Post by: ender on October 03, 2016, 08:43:32 AM
You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Maybe if you are thinking of your children or grandchildren.
It'd require an astronomical infrastructure cost to change this over in the short term.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 03, 2016, 08:49:28 AM
You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Maybe if you are thinking of your children or grandchildren.
It'd require an astronomical infrastructure cost to change this over in the short term.
Hold onto that condo overlooking the highway - It'll be a sought after "urban view" without the smoke and noise ;)
Post by: sol on October 03, 2016, 11:04:59 AM
150 mph: Maybe. Drag force = 0.5*(mass density of air)*(vehicle speed)^2 * (drag coef)*(projected area). No amount of computer smarts gets around this equation we have been trying for +100 years.
You're still thinking like a human who wants a faster horse. AI cars don't need to maintain the same following distance that human drivers do. Hell, they don't even need to be separate vehicles when they're travelling at speed. Trains have much lower drag coefficients than do cars per unit mass, because the first car pushes air for everyone else. AI cars, at least on interstates, could form tightly packed peletons that dramatically reduce drag forces for the group, or even link up into temporary trains full of cars that are all going to the same place. Think of it more like a distributed public transit system than like individual cars. Your car joins the train in progress, and leaves the train whenever it needs to.
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No traffic lights: Maybe. They could definitely be reduced but pedestrians and bicycles?
I'm sure there would still be traffic lights somewhere, just like there are pedestrian only zones in some places. Ditto for the concerns about overpasses, it's not EVERY intersection that needs to be modified, just the high speed ones. We've already accomplished this with the invention of the interstate highway system, I'm just proposing extending the model to make better use of driverless cars. Some destinations should get dedicated routes for AIs.
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Also I am not sure life and death driving decisions should be based on broadcast-shared information.
One of the most shocking things I've learned in my job is just how fragile our infrastructure already is. Everything is already hackable, and I don't just mean in the computer code kind of way. Traffic lights. Power grids. Water mains. Bridges and dams. The food supply. All of this stuff is already protected by just the thinnest veneer of make-believe security that any determined actor can easily circumvent it. At least AI cars can be given serious encryption technology. Any random dude with a moving van full of fertilizer can take out virtually any office building in the country, no airplane hijacking required. On my list of potentially catastrophic ways to F up our society, I'm not worried about someone hacking my car's communication system.
Do you mind if I use this as an example in the Robotics and Autonomous Industry study I lead?
Anything (original) that anyone posts to the forum is instantly public domain, so use it as you see fit. I suspect that a classroom full of bright young minds will find a bunch of ways that my own thinking is woefully constrained and uninspired, and then the real future will make fools of us all. We had home computers for a decade before people figured out the huge potential of the internet, and then we had the internet for a decade before anyone figured out the huge potential of smartphones.
I think today's driverless cars are like the Commodore 64, a cool toy for rich kid to play with, but we haven't yet really understood the coming societal changes that are inherent in that technology once it matures. Tinder and Pokemon Go were not on my radar as I played Bubble Bobble in the late 80s, but the signposts were already there pointing the way.
Post by: ender on October 03, 2016, 05:41:27 PM
One of the most shocking things I've learned in my job is just how fragile our infrastructure already is. Everything is already hackable, and I don't just mean in the computer code kind of way. Traffic lights. Power grids. Water mains. Bridges and dams. The food supply. All of this stuff is already protected by just the thinnest veneer of make-believe security that any determined actor can easily circumvent it. At least AI cars can be given serious encryption technology. Any random dude with a moving van full of fertilizer can take out virtually any office building in the country, no airplane hijacking required. On my list of potentially catastrophic ways to F up our society, I'm not worried about someone hacking my car's communication system.
It's not any better or less shocking if you are a software engineer, either.
I often wonder how our entire economy doesn't fall completely to pieces.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 03, 2016, 11:52:28 PM
Weather is an interesting factor, too.
Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.
It can't be worse than Midwest drivers. Every. Single. Winter. these people drive like they've never seen snow before. It's one of the amazing parts of travelling during the winter sports season; watching people who have driven in these conditions every single year since they were 15 slide through intersections or plow into a ditch. At least a smart car would already have a tow vehicle on its way by the time it had stopped moving in the ditch.
Post by: theadvicist on October 04, 2016, 07:54:26 AM
You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Remember though, a lot of the noise of highways comes not from the engines, but from the tyres on the road. Even with silent engines, cars driving at high speed still make a lot of noise.
Post by: theadvicist on October 04, 2016, 07:59:12 AM
Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light. There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
I love the overall vision and personally can't wait for the day when computers drive us instead of foolish accident prone, texting, angry people.
But I don't understand the argument about there being no parking lots. As long as humans spend most of daylight hours going places and doing things, and a huge chunk of darkness hours asleep, we will always need to 'park' most of those vehicles somewhere overnight.
During the day I can see that flexible hours will hopefully mean less of a 'rush hour', plus driverless cars maintaining closer stopping distances etc. And we will need fewer cars overall because they will be used by multiple people. But the demand will have a peak, even if it's just when humans are awake vs. asleep, and we need enough cars to cope with that peak.
I guess you could do as sometimes happens with electricity and incentivise people to travel at night by making it cheaper / free? But that hasn't completely solved the electricity issue, because at the end of the day, even with storage heaters etc, we cannot fully even out the demand.
So there will still be parking lots, won't there? Even if they move them out of 'town' and the cars just 'rest' there at night.
Post by: jordanread on October 04, 2016, 08:59:54 AM
Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district. There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light. There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
I love the overall vision and personally can't wait for the day when computers drive us instead of foolish accident prone, texting, angry people.
But I don't understand the argument about there being no parking lots. As long as humans spend most of daylight hours going places and doing things, and a huge chunk of darkness hours asleep, we will always need to 'park' most of those vehicles somewhere overnight.
During the day I can see that flexible hours will hopefully mean less of a 'rush hour', plus driverless cars maintaining closer stopping distances etc. And we will need fewer cars overall because they will be used by multiple people. But the demand will have a peak, even if it's just when humans are awake vs. asleep, and we need enough cars to cope with that peak.
I guess you could do as sometimes happens with electricity and incentivise people to travel at night by making it cheaper / free? But that hasn't completely solved the electricity issue, because at the end of the day, even with storage heaters etc, we cannot fully even out the demand.
So there will still be parking lots, won't there? Even if they move them out of 'town' and the cars just 'rest' there at night.
Maybe there will be. I'm still thinking that the most cost effective method will be not having personally owned cars. Just summon one when it's needed. And as far as parking lots go, I hope that we go the route that Japan took and have underground garages that are more automated. It seems like a more efficient use of space.
Post by: theadvicist on October 04, 2016, 09:09:39 AM
Maybe there will be. I'm still thinking that the most cost effective method will be not having personally owned cars. Just summon one when it's needed. And as far as parking lots go, I hope that we go the route that Japan took and have underground garages that are more automated. It seems like a more efficient use of space.
Yeah, I see that, but you can't just 'summon one' from thin air... it had to be on this earth taking up space (and nearby) to be able to come to you. If it's just dropped someone off nearby, ok, but it's unrealistic to expect 100% utilisation and no down time between 'calls', yet one always being available when you need it.
Japan cracked me up with automation on a recent visit. So much stuff is automated, but then people are employed to do pointless jobs. Seriously, at a multi storey car park there was an attendant just to push the button and then hand you the ticket through your car window. To... save you having to push the button yourself? We saw this at more than one car park. At first we thought there was something wrong, and he was there to tell us they were full, or there was a problem with the machine. No, this was a real job.
But then your food is delivered on a conveyor belt. Amazing country and a great trip. Their use of automation vs. human labour seemed a strange juxtaposition to me though.
Post by: sol on October 04, 2016, 11:17:36 AM
But I don't understand the argument about there being no parking lots. As long as humans spend most of daylight hours going places and doing things, and a huge chunk of darkness hours asleep, we will always need to 'park' most of those vehicles somewhere overnight.
Most vehicles spend 95% or more of their lives parked. Not being used. AI drivers means that we only need as many cars as will fit on the roads at any one time. A parked car is an unused car. An unused car should be finding a user.
During times of low demand, it probably doesn't make sense for those empty cars to stay in motion. But they could, in much the same way your partner drives around the block while you run into the store, instead of finding a parking spot downtown.
There will still be some of parking, of course, plus some new infra required to move large crowds like from stadiums. But most stationary parking is likely to be repair and recharging stations for that portion of the fleet that is currently out of service and needs to be parked for some other reason besides "nobody is using it right now".
Post by: GuitarStv on October 04, 2016, 11:22:32 AM
Post by: sol on October 04, 2016, 11:42:54 AM
When we perfect low energy cost teleportation, you guys are going to feel very silly about all the concern over cars in this thread.
Right, faster horses again.
We spend all this time making better buggy whips and typewriter ribbons, and we fail to see the disruptive technology that makes the whole thing pointless. I think AI may turn out to be that kind of disruption to a wide variety of industries.
Post by: ender on October 04, 2016, 12:09:53 PM
When we perfect low energy cost teleportation, you guys are going to feel very silly about all the concern over cars in this thread.
Right, faster horses again.
We spend all this time making better buggy whips and typewriter ribbons, and we fail to see the disruptive technology that makes the whole thing pointless. I think AI may turn out to be that kind of disruption to a wide variety of industries.
+1
There are so many efficiency gains even if our current concept of a car stays the same with AI driving. Even in that situation I would still expect it to be disruptive, ignoring all the other options to make it more "obviously" disruptive.
Post by: Bakari on October 04, 2016, 02:15:09 PM
But I don't understand the argument about there being no parking lots. As long as humans spend most of daylight hours going places and doing things, and a huge chunk of darkness hours asleep, we will always need to 'park' most of those vehicles somewhere overnight.
Most vehicles spend 95% or more of their lives parked. Not being used. AI drivers means that we only need as many cars as will fit on the roads at any one time. A parked car is an unused car. An unused car should be finding a user.
During times of low demand, it probably doesn't make sense for those empty cars to stay in motion...
I think the majority (at least more than half) of parking spaces aren't being used at any given time. All during the day, the parking space in front of your house is empty. In fact, chances are you have an empty garage, an empty driveway, and an empty space by the curb.
At night, all the many huge parking lots of stores and offices, not to mention parking garages, are all empty.
Even if the AI cab fleet just parked every night when no one needed them, that would still mean a few big parking garages per city, as opposed to a separate lot for every single business.
Sort of like how buses all have one or two central garages, but during the day they are all out, always moving. There aren't bus parking lots all over the place.
Combine that idea with your point about only needing as many total as are used at any one time, and I think its fair to say it will end parking lots (as we know them at least)
Post by: Bakari on October 04, 2016, 02:25:14 PM
When we perfect low energy cost teleportation, you guys are going to feel very silly about all the concern over cars in this thread.
Right, faster horses again.
We spend all this time making better buggy whips and typewriter ribbons, and we fail to see the disruptive technology that makes the whole thing pointless. I think AI may turn out to be that kind of disruption to a wide variety of industries.
I agree 100%, but it also easy for people to get carried away with the imaginary future.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/
We were supposed to all be traveling in flying cars by now, and have colonies on the ocean floor. We are supposed to all drive cars optimized for aerodynamics, and have robots shave for us in the morning. We were supposed to have personal jetpacks!
Thing is, these things (or the technology to create them) all actually exist right now. There is just no market for them. Just because we can do something doesn't mean more than a few people actually want to
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 04, 2016, 03:06:46 PM
When we perfect low energy cost teleportation, you guys are going to feel very silly about all the concern over cars in this thread.
Right, faster horses again.
We spend all this time making better buggy whips and typewriter ribbons, and we fail to see the disruptive technology that makes the whole thing pointless. I think AI may turn out to be that kind of disruption to a wide variety of industries.
I agree 100%, but it also easy for people to get carried away with the imaginary future.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/france-in-the-year-2000-1899-1910/
We were supposed to all be traveling in flying cars by now, and have colonies on the ocean floor. We are supposed to all drive cars optimized for aerodynamics, and have robots shave for us in the morning. We were supposed to have personal jetpacks!
Thing is, these things (or the technology to create them) all actually exist right now. There is just no market for them. Just because we can do something doesn't mean more than a few people actually want to
The reason we don't have flying cars and jetpacks is those ideas were f@cking stupid to begin with, but a driverless car ( on the road) I'm all for that.
Post by: arebelspy on October 05, 2016, 12:52:13 AM
QuoteThe reason we don't have flying cars and jetpacks is those ideas were f@cking stupid to begin with, but a driverless car ( on the road) I'm all for that.
You're clearly not 8 years old anymore.... the 8 yo inside me LOVES jetpacks and flying cars... :)
Anyone who saw The Rocketeer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rocketeer_(film)) as a kid should love them!
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 05, 2016, 12:55:27 AM
QuoteThe reason we don't have flying cars and jetpacks is those ideas were f@cking stupid to begin with, but a driverless car ( on the road) I'm all for that.
You're clearly not 8 years old anymore.... the 8 yo inside me LOVES jetpacks and flying cars... :)
What about automated jetpacks? Much less infrastructure required than driverless cars (no roads or parking lots), much less mass to move around, easier to store when not in use, much less friction and therefor more-efficient at moving people than cars and faster as one can take a more direct route to their destination.
Probably will happen within a decade of a driverless car fleet that never parks, at the rate society is progressing.
Post by: Yankuba on October 05, 2016, 08:50:59 AM
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/10/will-robots-take-jobs-worse.html
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 05, 2016, 11:34:56 AM
QuoteThe reason we don't have flying cars and jetpacks is those ideas were f@cking stupid to begin with, but a driverless car ( on the road) I'm all for that.
You're clearly not 8 years old anymore.... the 8 yo inside me LOVES jetpacks and flying cars... :)
What about automated jetpacks? Much less infrastructure required than driverless cars (no roads or parking lots), much less mass to move around, easier to store when not in use, much less friction and therefor more-efficient at moving people than cars and faster as one can take a more direct route to their destination.
Probably will happen within a decade of a driverless car fleet that never parks, at the rate society is progressing.
Too time consuming, can you imagine getting the family ready to go out for dinner in jet packs, or getting the grandparents over for thanksgiving:)
Post by: AlanStache on October 05, 2016, 07:23:40 PM
re AI roads/hyper speed freeways: I love the vision and it would be really cool, I just have trouble seeing it being worth the effort (cost; not just software costs but also freeway construction, even if you say we would have automated building that is still devoting resources to that project rather than something else.) Combine with (an assumed) reduced need to relocate your meat space location because of some VR-Skype meshed with holographic avatar thingy we will have less need for this. Yes hyper freeways are only one example-fine, and I get that good driverless cars will cause HUGE changes in our world.
Below will not happen in any real way. Vertical take off is expensive and for the forcible future the basic laws of economics will still apply, redundancies to make if safe will make the up front costs stupid, it will be to heavy to have any real range. High density low altitude traffic is dangerous. The low altitude environment has lots of turbulence and is often unpleasant to be in, think: the worst airliner turbulence you have ever felt while being able to read license plates (the bump you get from a jerk of wind is a function of vehicle mass - lighter = bigger bumps).
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/technology/ces-2016-ehang-drone/ (http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/technology/ces-2016-ehang-drone/)
As someone up thread said right now we could have undersea city's but there is no need and it would be expensive and dangerous where most people are perfectly happy in a two story ranch style house. The physical macro world and printed circuit boards are two very different environments and I think if we expect similar geometric compounding of awesomeness out of the physical world as we have seen in the computer/web world we will be disappointed.
fuck sorry, did not intend that to be such a downer, will try more beer.
Post by: theadvicist on October 06, 2016, 09:10:44 AM
Sort of like how buses all have one or two central garages, but during the day they are all out, always moving. There aren't bus parking lots all over the place.
Combine that idea with your point about only needing as many total as are used at any one time, and I think its fair to say it will end parking lots (as we know them at least)
Good points on the parking lots, Sol and Bakari. Also, since vehicles will only need to leave them when 'requested', and will do so in order, there is no need to leave lots of space -between- parked cars so everyone can get out.
Looking out my window at a full car park right now, most of the space doesn't have cars in it. It's manoeuvering space so that any specific car, at any time, can get out, without anyone having to move another car. We won't need that space anymore, since no-one will need a 'designated' car, just the nearest car that meets their criteria (size, distance etc).
Post by: davisgang90 on October 07, 2016, 08:06:38 AM
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/03/growing-up-in-generation-ai/
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 07, 2016, 08:08:40 PM
man I get busy for a few days and this place blows up!
re AI roads/hyper speed freeways: I love the vision and it would be really cool, I just have trouble seeing it being worth the effort (cost; not just software costs but also freeway construction, even if you say we would have automated building that is still devoting resources to that project rather than something else.) Combine with (an assumed) reduced need to relocate your meat space location because of some VR-Skype meshed with holographic avatar thingy we will have less need for this. Yes hyper freeways are only one example-fine, and I get that good driverless cars will cause HUGE changes in our world.
Below will not happen in any real way. Vertical take off is expensive and for the forcible future the basic laws of economics will still apply, redundancies to make if safe will make the up front costs stupid, it will be to heavy to have any real range. High density low altitude traffic is dangerous. The low altitude environment has lots of turbulence and is often unpleasant to be in, think: the worst airliner turbulence you have ever felt while being able to read license plates (the bump you get from a jerk of wind is a function of vehicle mass - lighter = bigger bumps).
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/technology/ces-2016-ehang-drone/ (http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/technology/ces-2016-ehang-drone/)
As someone up thread said right now we could have undersea city's but there is no need and it would be expensive and dangerous where most people are perfectly happy in a two story ranch style house. The physical macro world and printed circuit boards are two very different environments and I think if we expect similar geometric compounding of awesomeness out of the physical world as we have seen in the computer/web world we will be disappointed.
fuck sorry, did not intend that to be such a downer, will try more beer.
Probably good points, on all of the above.
Only comment I have is I don't see automated cars causing HUGE changes though: you'd still be moving mass along pre-defined routes along the ground, over dedicated infrastructure, at relatively low speeds. Sure your 1hr commute would be cut to 30 minutes, and you could read or eat or shave (or at least do these things easier) during that time, but that's hardly a HUGE change from now. Those transportation devices would still need to be stored somewhere when not in use (which would still be the majority of the time), and the infrastructure and the devices would still be major budget items. Sure there'd be less parking lots; I guess that'd be different.
Maybe we're both downers... More beer is a mood alterting experiment I shall attempt, now that you mention it.
Post by: ender on October 08, 2016, 09:52:28 AM
Only comment I have is I don't see automated cars causing HUGE changes though: you'd still be moving mass along pre-defined routes along the ground, over dedicated infrastructure, at relatively low speeds. Sure your 1hr commute would be cut to 30 minutes, and you could read or eat or shave (or at least do these things easier) during that time, but that's hardly a HUGE change from now. Those transportation devices would still need to be stored somewhere when not in use (which would still be the majority of the time), and the infrastructure and the devices would still be major budget items. Sure there'd be less parking lots; I guess that'd be different.
Maybe we're both downers... More beer is a mood alterting experiment I shall attempt, now that you mention it.
A few possibilities.
Traffic deaths would go down dramatically.
Overall fuel efficiency would go up for many reasons, first cars which are interlinked could drive closer together and "train up" in a way. Second, cars are far more likely to not waste energy than humans, particularly if they connect to an overall grid in a city and can know when stoplights will turn, etc.
The total number of cars needed could drop dramatically if cars are all used similar to uber and "on demand."
Also, if cars are more like taxis, particularly for commuting, carpooling types of activities become much easier because you can easily pick someone else up with minimal impact on the overall commute time and have less vehicles on the road.
Commuting time would drop significantly, because overall traffic efficiency would skyrocket. Lack of need for human reaction time safety factors as well as increased efficiency on actual traffic routes themselves.
You could even potentially reduce the safety features of vehicles to make them lighter and more energy efficient. Right now cars are designed to keep their passengers safe from other drivers, which adds a lot of weight. If all human drivers are obsolete a lot of this weight could be reclaimed. Particularly since the need of trucks is nearly non-existent for most of their owners, which meant if all vehicles were autonomous the number of trucks in circulation would drop dramatically.
Overall commuting speed would almost assuredly be higher. Perhaps for intercountry trips the effect would be lower, but you could still increase speeds and decrease mileage dramatically. Being close behind another vehicle (particularly only a few feet) reduces drag significantly, which scales in a power relationship with speed, to the point you could easily increase your average speed while still decreasing overall fuel economy.
This sum total of the obvious implications to me would be pretty huge. And these are just the simplistic, immediate effects of having all automated cars.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 08, 2016, 06:45:03 PM
Only comment I have is I don't see automated cars causing HUGE changes though: you'd still be moving mass along pre-defined routes along the ground, over dedicated infrastructure, at relatively low speeds. Sure your 1hr commute would be cut to 30 minutes, and you could read or eat or shave (or at least do these things easier) during that time, but that's hardly a HUGE change from now. Those transportation devices would still need to be stored somewhere when not in use (which would still be the majority of the time), and the infrastructure and the devices would still be major budget items. Sure there'd be less parking lots; I guess that'd be different.
Maybe we're both downers... More beer is a mood alterting experiment I shall attempt, now that you mention it.
A few possibilities.
Traffic deaths would go down dramatically.
Overall fuel efficiency would go up for many reasons, first cars which are interlinked could drive closer together and "train up" in a way. Second, cars are far more likely to not waste energy than humans, particularly if they connect to an overall grid in a city and can know when stoplights will turn, etc.
The total number of cars needed could drop dramatically if cars are all used similar to uber and "on demand."
Also, if cars are more like taxis, particularly for commuting, carpooling types of activities become much easier because you can easily pick someone else up with minimal impact on the overall commute time and have less vehicles on the road.
Commuting time would drop significantly, because overall traffic efficiency would skyrocket. Lack of need for human reaction time safety factors as well as increased efficiency on actual traffic routes themselves.
You could even potentially reduce the safety features of vehicles to make them lighter and more energy efficient. Right now cars are designed to keep their passengers safe from other drivers, which adds a lot of weight. If all human drivers are obsolete a lot of this weight could be reclaimed. Particularly since the need of trucks is nearly non-existent for most of their owners, which meant if all vehicles were autonomous the number of trucks in circulation would drop dramatically.
Overall commuting speed would almost assuredly be higher. Perhaps for intercountry trips the effect would be lower, but you could still increase speeds and decrease mileage dramatically. Being close behind another vehicle (particularly only a few feet) reduces drag significantly, which scales in a power relationship with speed, to the point you could easily increase your average speed while still decreasing overall fuel economy.
This sum total of the obvious implications to me would be pretty huge. And these are just the simplistic, immediate effects of having all automated cars.
I guess we have different views on what a 'huge' change is. It'd be different, sure. Better in the ways you mentioned - ok. But when I want to go somewhere, I still slide into a dedicated transport vehicle that has no other purpose, that will take me rapidly along a dedicated road with a bunch of other people doing the same thing, likely in a comfortable, seated position. The thought of doing this doesn't exactly impress me as a significant variation on what I would do now. I guess no stoplights would be cool. I don't stay up at night thinking about how there are too many trucks on the road though.
Post by: theadvicist on October 10, 2016, 05:22:35 AM
Probably good points, on all of the above.
Only comment I have is I don't see automated cars causing HUGE changes though: you'd still be moving mass along pre-defined routes along the ground, over dedicated infrastructure, at relatively low speeds. Sure your 1hr commute would be cut to 30 minutes, and you could read or eat or shave (or at least do these things easier) during that time, but that's hardly a HUGE change from now. Those transportation devices would still need to be stored somewhere when not in use (which would still be the majority of the time), and the infrastructure and the devices would still be major budget items. Sure there'd be less parking lots; I guess that'd be different.
Maybe we're both downers... More beer is a mood alterting experiment I shall attempt, now that you mention it.
See, to me, that is a HUGE change. I know people who commute an hour each way. They are awake for say 16 hours a day. 10 of those are spent at work. Of the other 6 they have as 'free' time, 2 are spent commuting. That's 1/3 of their available leisure hours.
If they could pursue hobbies for those two hours (or have them cut down to 1 total, and have one more hour at home in the evenings) that would really affect their quality of life dramatically.
Post by: Bakari on October 10, 2016, 08:38:15 AM
Post by: Threshkin on October 10, 2016, 11:08:49 AM
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory until after I have finished exploring the Americas in my RV. When we travel we do just go from Point A to Point B. We head in a general direction and then adjust our plans as we go. We don't know where we are going until we get there.
I am sure this can be addressed eventually but for now the focus seems to be entirely on "A to B" driving.
Post by: matchewed on October 10, 2016, 11:33:55 AM
All this sounds exciting and valuable for commuters and others going to predefined destinations.
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory until after I have finished exploring the Americas in my RV. When we travel we do just go from Point A to Point B. We head in a general direction and then adjust our plans as we go. We don't know where we are going until we get there.
I am sure this can be addressed eventually but for now the focus seems to be entirely on "A to B" driving.
Well yeah because it constitutes a very large percentage of driving. Plus mandates haven't been discussed, just potential. Driverless vehicles and driven vehicles can coexist still. Just don't expect a whole lot of infrastructure improvement when it becomes something for less than a certain percentage of the people.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 10, 2016, 11:45:57 AM
Also, even using present day technology internal combustion cars, but driven at a consistent speed, never over the legal limit, no unnecessary braking or acceleration, would save enough gas to completely eliminate all imported oil to the US, which in turn would have some major military and diplomatic consequences. Human drivers will never voluntarily drive efficiently in large enough numbers to have that kind of impact, but a mostly robot fleet would by default
The U.S. military spending isn't to ensure oil for America. It's to ensure oil access for the rest of the free world. Access to energy markets for everyone has made a much more peaceful and stable world, benefiting all humans. Military spending and action in the ME is not strictly, or even primarily, for America.
Post by: arebelspy on October 10, 2016, 04:32:02 PM
All this sounds exciting and valuable for commuters and others going to predefined destinations.It'll still exist, but expect to pay a lot more in insurance and risk a lot of liability, because you are way more dangerous a driver than a computer (or will be, by the time it's at the mandatory point you're talking about).
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory until after I have finished exploring the Americas in my RV. When we travel we do just go from Point A to Point B. We head in a general direction and then adjust our plans as we go. We don't know where we are going until we get there.
I am sure this can be addressed eventually but for now the focus seems to be entirely on "A to B" driving.
Post by: Bakari on October 10, 2016, 10:38:54 PM
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory
I doubt they ever would, or at least not in our lifetime. We didn't outlaw bicycles and horses when cars became ubiquitous. Not everyone can afford the newest self-driving car.
The U.S. military spending isn't to ensure oil for America. It's to ensure oil access for the rest of the free world. Access to energy markets for everyone has made a much more peaceful and stable world, benefiting all humans. Military spending and action in the ME is not strictly, or even primarily, for America.
Doesn't change my overall point. If the US has self-driving cars, so does Europe and Japan. Every advanced nation - the same ones who use the most per capita - need less oil. So the entire free world needs to import less. Which has an even bigger effect, since it also takes a lot of oil to transport all that oil, not to mention the absolutely ridiculous amounts used by the military itself (for example, one of the US Coast Guard SMALL boats uses about the same amount of fuel at idle that our small car uses at 65mph)
Quote, and oh yes it's free to use.part economic, part social - a study done in SF found that the local bus and light rail system (muni) was spending more on plainclothes transit police, repair and maintenance of cash and ticket machines, paper passes, and other costs of collecting and enforcing tolls than they were bringing in in fares. In other words, they would actually save money by making it free.
They never made it free though. Because !!!!!!! socialism!!!!!!!!
Regarding the Muni study...
While it is true it is cheaper to deliver the service free, fare collection has not been a source of revenue to fund the service for a long time (at least during the last several decades). The purpose of fares is primarily for the public to 1) respect the service, and 2) a way to manage demand and safety.
Agencies would love to make the service free for all, but then they have to increase capacity. For a service that is costly to provide at a loss, fares somewhat rationalize demand. For example, charging a nominal fare and enforcing it can marginally reduce the number of homeless people sleeping on trains or buses in SF. For those willing to sign up and prove residency, seniors and youth already get unlimited free passes.
Fair enough, but all those same points would apply to driverless public fleets too. Given the points you raise, it seems even less likely that AI will make transportation free, which is all I was saying
you are way more dangerous a driver than a computer (or will be, by the time it's at the mandatory point you're talking about).
This is already true, with our current fledgling technology. Just looking at Telsa and Google's cars alone, automated systems have driven about 256 million miles. Of course, these's also BMW, Lyft, and dozens of small independant projects that have a few miles as well.
There have been zero fatalities attributed to the actual AI systems (there was one highly publicized fatalitie, but as a more indpeth analysis found: "two human drivers created a situation that an automated system failed to save them from, rather than one in which an automated system made a fatal mistake on its own (http://fortune.com/2016/07/03/teslas-fatal-crash-implications/)."
On average human drivers would have had over 3 fatalities in that amount of driving, so even if you blame the Telsa AI and not the driver who was speeding (apparently more than 30mph over the maximum limit in the state on a road with intersections with no stop lights - i.e. 95+ in a 65 zone - while watching a movie), it still makes the AI at least 3 times safer than humans.
Post by: tomsang on October 12, 2016, 12:12:41 PM
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory
I doubt they ever would, or at least not in our lifetime. We didn't outlaw bicycles and horses when cars became ubiquitous. Not everyone can afford the newest self-driving car.
I would be surprised if they are not outlawed on most roads. Currently it is illegal to drive a horse and buggy or bicycle down the interstate. For safety reasons, I would think that non self driving cars would be illegal on most public roads. I would also think that this will happen in the next 30 years. I also think lifespans will increase, so I think it will definitely happen within our lifespan.
Post by: Bakari on October 12, 2016, 05:59:31 PM
But, I hope driverless vehicles do not become mandatory
I doubt they ever would, or at least not in our lifetime. We didn't outlaw bicycles and horses when cars became ubiquitous. Not everyone can afford the newest self-driving car.
I would be surprised if they are not outlawed on most roads. Currently it is illegal to drive a horse and buggy or bicycle down the interstate. For safety reasons, I would think that non self driving cars would be illegal on most public roads. I would also think that this will happen in the next 30 years. I also think lifespans will increase, so I think it will definitely happen within our lifespan.
Maybe, maybe not. Big difference between "interstate" and "most public roads" though.
The goal of safety is always strongly tempered by the often conflicting goal of freedom. If transportation safety really were a primary goal of law makers, it would be extremely easy to make laws that had an enormous impact on auto fatalities:
First and foremost, they could require all vehicles to be governed to around 55MPH. Once enough cars had them that people going faster (in pre-governed cars) would stick out enough to be guaranteed to be caught (perhaps with the help of automated speed cameras), the auto accident fatality rate would drop by around 75%
[note, governing top speed directly would have an overwhelmingly larger effect than simply setting a "speed limit", because almost everyone ignores the speed limit, and when it was 55 very few police departments even tried to enforce it]
They could also limit horsepower, limit passenger vehicle weight, and ban all use of communication devices in automobiles (including not letting manufactures actually build in ways to facilitate it) with penalties equal to those for drunk driving (which would make sense, since the accident rate of, for example, texting, is pretty similar to DUI).
None of those things has happened, because citizens and government value consumer and manufacturer choice much more than safety.
If we don't even mandate cars be governed to the maximum speed limit of the state a car is sold in (which would be much less expensive than all the crash protections that are currently mandated), I really don't see mandating an AI system.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 12, 2016, 07:16:27 PM
If we don't even mandate cars be governed to the maximum speed limit of the state a car is sold in (which would be much less expensive than all the crash protections that are currently mandated), I really don't see mandating an AI system.
Great points throughout this entire post.
If cars were governed at their maximum speed of roads in the state they were sold, wouldn't everyone just travel to Montana to buy cars? Certainly no one would buy one in Wisconsin...
Post by: Bakari on October 12, 2016, 08:16:35 PM
If we don't even mandate cars be governed to the maximum speed limit of the state a car is sold in (which would be much less expensive than all the crash protections that are currently mandated), I really don't see mandating an AI system.
Great points throughout this entire post.
If cars were governed at their maximum speed of roads in the state they were sold, wouldn't everyone just travel to Montana to buy cars? Certainly no one would buy one in Wisconsin...
lol.
If you buy a non-CA-emissions compliant car (from another state or country) you can't register it here unless you get it modified.
One could potentially just keep out of state plates indefinitely, but most people don't bother.
Post by: Guses on October 13, 2016, 08:21:37 AM
You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Remember though, a lot of the noise of highways comes not from the engines, but from the tyres on the road. Even with silent engines, cars driving at high speed still make a lot of noise.
Yeah, but that's just white noise and, IMO, not what is disturbing about living close to an highway.
It's those damn fart cans, Harleys, broken muffler, revving engine, sirens, honking that break up the white noise and spike the decibel chart and that wake you up in the middle of the night.
The noise wind makes on a car is actually soothing if you are not right beside it.
Post by: Schaefer Light on October 13, 2016, 12:22:37 PM
That's true. I've been to qualifying for NASCAR races, and as soon as the cars cross the start/finish line they shut off their engines and all you can hear is the wind and tire noise. Even at 200mph, it's not that loud.You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Remember though, a lot of the noise of highways comes not from the engines, but from the tyres on the road. Even with silent engines, cars driving at high speed still make a lot of noise.
Yeah, but that's just white noise and, IMO, not what is disturbing about living close to an highway.
It's those damn fart cans, Harleys, broken muffler, revving engine, sirens, honking that break up the white noise and spike the decibel chart and that wake you up in the middle of the night.
The noise wind makes on a car is actually soothing if you are not right beside it.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 14, 2016, 12:43:55 AM
That's true. I've been to qualifying for NASCAR races, and as soon as the cars cross the start/finish line they shut off their engines and all you can hear is the wind and tire noise. Even at 200mph, it's not that loud.You think there is any scope to make some cash investing long term in property close to highways?, I suspect current location is cheap and undesirable due to both noise levels and pollution - with silent emmission free cars would this land not become sought after.
Remember though, a lot of the noise of highways comes not from the engines, but from the tyres on the road. Even with silent engines, cars driving at high speed still make a lot of noise.
Yeah, but that's just white noise and, IMO, not what is disturbing about living close to an highway.
It's those damn fart cans, Harleys, broken muffler, revving engine, sirens, honking that break up the white noise and spike the decibel chart and that wake you up in the middle of the night.
The noise wind makes on a car is actually soothing if you are not right beside it.
How far do they go after shutting off their engines on the start line?
Post by: theadvicist on October 14, 2016, 05:14:03 AM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
As a kid, I remember asking my mum if 70 MPH was the fastest a car was allowed to go on British roads, why they didn't just limit every car to 70 MPH. Here large vehicles are limited (I want to say to 56 MPH? Anyone know if that's correct) and I am always by how fast trucks go on US roads. I also had no idea what all those weird ramps were, until DH explained the concept of runaway trucks to me, yikes.
Post by: Enigma on October 14, 2016, 06:40:28 AM
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/13/technology/robot-yardwork-kobi/index.html
According to the article "Once this setup is complete, and the $3,999 robot has been trained on where to cut grass, rake leaves and shovel snow, it operates without any supervision. "
Now all I need is a $4k robot that can clean my apt/house, do the dishes, make dinner, and all the other household choirs that use up my productive time. So a quick question... Would a robot that could do all that be worth $4k? Do you think my robot will make me fatter?? Anyway food for thought
Post by: Bakari on October 14, 2016, 09:08:42 AM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
Handheld devices are illegal in most states here too. The problem is, the danger isn't from having a hand off the wheel (most cars are now automatics, but when they were stick shifts no one was crashing because of having a hand off the wheel!)
The danger is from the distraction of the conversation itself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html) handsfree devices are just as bad as, yet bluetooth phone connections are actually built in to cars. It would be like a car coming with a built in beer cooler.
Now all I need is a $4k robot that can clean my apt/house, do the dishes, make dinner, and all the other household choirs that use up my productive time. So a quick question... Would a robot that could do all that be worth $4k? Do you think my robot will make me fatter?? Anyway food for thought
A robot like that would (currently) cost a whole heck of a lot more than 4k! We really aren't that close yet.
Check out the state of the art of robots that can do a variety of ordinary daily human tasks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TaYhjpOfo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TaYhjpOfo)
They were tasked with such things as opening doors, driving a golf cart, and drill holes with a handheld drill.
These are the absolute cream of the cutting edge crop, built by folks like MIT and google, with funding from the US military.
The only robot that manged to complete all 8 simple tasks took 44 minutes to do a set of things a human could do in about 5 minutes, dealt with the uneven rubble by going around it, and dropped tools on the ground and left them there.
And cost somewhere between a half and one million dollars.
Most of the robots were worked on for many years, but couldn't manage walking over uneven or unpaved ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFkrwagYfcBut we'll get there eventually, but it turns out doing one single thing is a lot easier than being able to do a vareity of simple things
Post by: GuitarStv on October 14, 2016, 09:53:57 AM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
Handheld devices are illegal in most states here too. The problem is, the danger isn't from having a hand off the wheel (most cars are now automatics, but when they were stick shifts no one was crashing because of having a hand off the wheel!)
The danger is from the distraction of the conversation itself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html) handsfree devices are just as bad as, yet bluetooth phone connections are actually built in to cars. It would be like a car coming with a built in beer cooler.
More precisely: A beer cooler with a straw that leads to the driver's mouth so that his hands would still be able to remain on the steering wheel. . . . that solves the problem entirely!
Post by: sol on October 14, 2016, 11:40:45 AM
I read that lawn care and snow shoving might be a thing of the past...
...
Now all I need is a $4k robot that can clean my apt/house, do the dishes, make dinner, and all the other household choirs that use up my productive time.
If you're trying to be sarcastic, I should point out that we already have these robots and have had them since the 50s.
Before that, women had to wash dishes and laundry by hand and society marveled at the power of technology to turn six hours of work into 30 minutes, freeing women to enter the workforce and dramatically reshape the economy.
Before that, manicured lawns were the domain of only the ultra wealthy who could employ an army of gardeners with scissors. The invention of the lawnmower revolutionized domestic landscaping forever, making that particular luxury good available to everyone.
Before the addition of the microwave to everyone's kitchen, and before that the gas stove and furnace, humans spent hundreds of hours per year chopping fire wood, and then maintaining fireplaces and wood stoves every time they needed to cook, or even have hot water. The introduction of these new technologies saved us uncountable hours of menial labor that literally every person had to do for literally thousands of years, until your grandparents' generation.
And don't even get me started on automobiles or electricity or industrial agriculture. Technological innovations have completely transformed human society over the past hundred years into something unimaginable by the previous thousand generations of your ancestors. We are small minded creatures with short memories who don't recognize how amazingly rapid these changes have been, or how rapid they will continue to be in the future.
My grandmother just died at the age of 93. She was raised plucking chickens and building fires and carrying buckets of water from a well, when women weren't allowed to go to school. She died in the age of self driving cars and tinder swiping and a female presidential candidate and fucking robots on other planets.
How different do you think the world will be by the time your kids are that age?
Post by: AlanStache on October 14, 2016, 12:55:19 PM
I read that lawn care and snow shoving might be a thing of the past...
...
Now all I need is a $4k robot that can clean my apt/house, do the dishes, make dinner, and all the other household choirs that use up my productive time.
If you're trying to be sarcastic, I should point out that we already have these robots and have had them since the 50s.
Before that, women had to wash dishes and laundry by hand and society marveled at the power of technology to turn six hours of work into 30 minutes, freeing women to enter the workforce and dramatically reshape the economy.
Before that, manicured lawns were the domain of only the ultra wealthy who could employ an army of gardeners with scissors. The invention of the lawnmower revolutionized domestic landscaping forever, making that particular luxury good available to everyone.
Before the addition of the microwave to everyone's kitchen, and before that the gas stove and furnace, humans spent hundreds of hours per year chopping fire wood, and then maintaining fireplaces and wood stoves every time they needed to cook, or even have hot water. The introduction of these new technologies saved us uncountable hours of menial labor that literally every person had to do for literally thousands of years, until your grandparents' generation.
And don't even get me started on automobiles or electricity or industrial agriculture. Technological innovations have completely transformed human society over the past hundred years into something unimaginable by the previous thousand generations of your ancestors. We are small minded creatures with short memories who don't recognize how amazingly rapid these changes have been, or how rapid they will continue to be in the future.
My grandmother just died at the age of 93. She was raised plucking chickens and building fires and carrying buckets of water from a well, when women weren't allowed to go to school. She died in the age of self driving cars and tinder swiping and a female presidential candidate and fucking robots on other planets.
How different do you think the world will be by the time your kids are that age?
+1. I think I read long ago that even in olden times humans "commuted" and that with our new tech we have increased the distance we commute rather than reducing the amount of time spent commuting.
Also I am fairly sure I am in worse physical shape since buying a home with a yard I maintain. There are plenty of weekends where after a number of hours of yard work I am to tired to lift weights, or I dont go for a bike ride because I want to start on the yard work before it gets to hot or before the sun goes down. Is this worth a 4k$ machine. No. But way back when homes did not come with dishwashers or hotwater heaters, maybe some day homes will come with a yard-bot built into the home and home price. It is 100% possible to be in better physical shape while using tools designed to save labor-these let you shift how you use your time and energy.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 14, 2016, 02:54:46 PM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
Handheld devices are illegal in most states here too. The problem is, the danger isn't from having a hand off the wheel (most cars are now automatics, but when they were stick shifts no one was crashing because of having a hand off the wheel!)
The danger is from the distraction of the conversation itself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html) handsfree devices are just as bad as, yet bluetooth phone connections are actually built in to cars. It would be like a car coming with a built in beer cooler.
More precisely: A beer cooler with a straw that leads to the driver's mouth so that his hands would still be able to remain on the steering wheel. . . . that solves the problem entirely!
The '57 Cadillac had a built in bar. A 60-year old car could be pretty mustachian. Base price looks like $30k though.
Post by: arebelspy on October 14, 2016, 07:13:03 PM
My grandmother just died at the age of 93. She was raised plucking chickens and building fires and carrying buckets of water from a well, when women weren't allowed to go to school. She died in the age of self driving cars and tinder swiping and a female presidential candidate and fucking robots on other planets.
How different do you think the world will be by the time your kids are that age?
(https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--a9kXjqUP--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/198hlsvk9027igif.gif)
Post by: PizzaSteve on October 15, 2016, 10:33:21 AM
+1. I think I read long ago that even in olden times humans "commuted" and that with our new tech we have increased the distance we commute rather than reducing the amount of time spent commuting.
Also I am fairly sure I am in worse physical shape since buying a home with a yard I maintain. There are plenty of weekends where after a number of hours of yard work I am to tired to lift weights, or I dont go for a bike ride because I want to start on the yard work before it gets to hot or before the sun goes down. Is this worth a 4k$ machine. No. But way back when homes did not come with dishwashers or hotwater heaters, maybe some day homes will come with a yard-bot built into the home and home price. It is 100% possible to be in better physical shape while using tools designed to save labor-these let you shift how you use your time and energy.
Ditto to the Sol kudos.
In terms of commute times, I currently work in a field where this is studied extensively and interestingly, commutes to work have been relatively stable going deeply back into history. Whether walking, on horse, streetcar, rail, or driving...humans seem to build their communities with a consistent distribution of housing cost vs income from wages vs time separation from employment.
Some factors to consider are whether the wealthy want to live near the poor, whether we preserve our social class structures that enforce that, and the amount if prestige associated with space. Think NYC vs the Hamptons vs the Midwest. In farm country people create space from neighbors and work, by choice. In NYC, fewer options exist, but people choose between a cramped studio closer to work or more space out in the commuter rail....
Post by: theadvicist on October 17, 2016, 03:59:31 AM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
Handheld devices are illegal in most states here too. The problem is, the danger isn't from having a hand off the wheel (most cars are now automatics, but when they were stick shifts no one was crashing because of having a hand off the wheel!)
The danger is from the distraction of the conversation itself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html) handsfree devices are just as bad as, yet bluetooth phone connections are actually built in to cars. It would be like a car coming with a built in beer cooler.
Well, in the UK, most cars are still manual, so that would mean potentially two hands off the wheel! Whilst I do think the conversation might be the significant distraction, and handsfree doesn't solve that, not allowing hand held devices does mean that people can't text and drive. Easier to prosecute, easier to spot and police etc. There's more to phones in driver's hands than conversations.
I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 17, 2016, 07:42:04 PM
Also, using a handheld device (phone etc) is illegal in the UK. The penalties are not as strong as for drink driving but I think they should be and will only increase.
Handheld devices are illegal in most states here too. The problem is, the danger isn't from having a hand off the wheel (most cars are now automatics, but when they were stick shifts no one was crashing because of having a hand off the wheel!)
The danger is from the distraction of the conversation itself. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012900053.html) handsfree devices are just as bad as, yet bluetooth phone connections are actually built in to cars. It would be like a car coming with a built in beer cooler.
Well, in the UK, most cars are still manual, so that would mean potentially two hands off the wheel! Whilst I do think the conversation might be the significant distraction, and handsfree doesn't solve that, not allowing hand held devices does mean that people can't text and drive. Easier to prosecute, easier to spot and police etc. There's more to phones in driver's hands than conversations.
I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.
This is an interesting analogy. I hope the future is this bright!
Post by: Schaefer Light on October 18, 2016, 06:23:07 AM
I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
Post by: sol on October 18, 2016, 08:31:25 AM
I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
Sure, but riding horses was fun too. And some people still do it for fun. But it's no longer a required life skill, and horse riding fatalities are WAY down as a result.
Post by: AlanStache on October 18, 2016, 10:17:58 AM
I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
Sure, but riding horses was fun too. And some people still do it for fun. But it's no longer a required life skill, and horse riding fatalities are WAY down as a result.
Do the Amish have cup holders in there buggies so they can take a morning coffee on the commute? /joking
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 18, 2016, 01:09:05 PM
I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
About as many who think driving is pleasurable I guess, roll on driver less UBER
Post by: Bakari on October 18, 2016, 05:23:27 PM
Do the Amish have cup holders in there buggies so they can take a morning coffee on the commute? /joking
don't know, but in Indiana they have hitching posts in the parking lot of WalMart for the Mennonites and other Luddites who shopped there.
Whom the Amish sometimes refer to as "NRA" - for "Not Really Amish"
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 18, 2016, 08:13:17 PM
Do the Amish have cup holders in there buggies so they can take a morning coffee on the commute? /joking
don't know, but in Indiana they have hitching posts in the parking lot of WalMart for the Mennonites and other Luddites who shopped there.
Whom the Amish sometimes refer to as "NRA" - for "Not Really Amish"
Are they closer or further to the door than the bike racks?
Post by: brooklynmoney on October 18, 2016, 09:45:48 PM
Post by: tomsang on October 18, 2016, 09:56:51 PM
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ROBOT_PILOT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-18-14-26-17
Post by: Grid on October 19, 2016, 12:33:28 AM
Do the Amish have cup holders in there buggies so they can take a morning coffee on the commute? /joking
don't know, but in Indiana they have hitching posts in the parking lot of WalMart for the Mennonites and other Luddites who shopped there.
Whom the Amish sometimes refer to as "NRA" - for "Not Really Amish"
Are they closer or further to the door than the bike racks?
That's the real question! Haha.
Post by: Schaefer Light on October 19, 2016, 06:39:00 AM
Not in NASCAR country. Seriously, driving a scenic road can be a lot of fun as long as there's not too much traffic. Even if I didn't have to go anywhere, I'd still get out for a drive (during non-peak hours) a few times a week. I also like the feeling of being in control of the vehicle. There's a reason why people get into motorsports.I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
About as many who think driving is pleasurable I guess, roll on driver less UBER
Post by: tomsang on October 19, 2016, 10:24:53 AM
Not in NASCAR country. Seriously, driving a scenic road can be a lot of fun as long as there's not too much traffic. Even if I didn't have to go anywhere, I'd still get out for a drive (during non-peak hours) a few times a week. I also like the feeling of being in control of the vehicle. There's a reason why people get into motorsports.I can't wait for self-driving cars and for this all to be moot. Just like I can't imagine sending my husband down a mine everyday knowing he might not come out, I hope our grandchildren can't comprehend that we were willing to risk our lives driving.I think the difference is that driving a car can be (and is) a pleasurable experience for many people. I doubt too many workers enjoy going into a mine, though.
About as many who think driving is pleasurable I guess, roll on driver less UBER
I could see there being closed roads or tracks for manually driven cars. Similar to horse trails. People can ride their horses on designated trails, but can not ride them on freeways for safety.
Post by: AlanStache on October 19, 2016, 10:51:57 AM
Robot pilots may someday fly passenger and cargo planes
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ROBOT_PILOT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-18-14-26-17
Did not read the full article but it is talking about replacing one of the two pilots. I am not sure this is a good idea unless the AI would be as good at cross checking the human as the current other human is. Before many actions a pilot will confirm with the other pilot that they are about to flip the correct switch. Also pilots have been VERY opposed to any form of video recording in the cockpit so they might not want this as it would likely keep records of what they did. I think it is also sort of assumed that large cargo planes will move towards being unmanned even to the point of retrofitting existing fleets but passengers would not be comfortable with no one up front.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 19, 2016, 12:29:39 PM
Robot pilots may someday fly passenger and cargo planes
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ROBOT_PILOT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-18-14-26-17
Did not read the full article but it is talking about replacing one of the two pilots. I am not sure this is a good idea unless the AI would be as good at cross checking the human as the current other human is. Before many actions a pilot will confirm with the other pilot that they are about to flip the correct switch. Also pilots have been VERY opposed to any form of video recording in the cockpit so they might not want this as it would likely keep records of what they did. I think it is also sort of assumed that large cargo planes will move towards being unmanned even to the point of retrofitting existing fleets but passengers would not be comfortable with no one up front.
Funny when we talk about replacing pilots with AI, meanwhile the aviation business are not capable of tracking a flight path in real time - can't find a plane after 2 f@cking years, maybe get that sorted first ;).
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 19, 2016, 12:38:44 PM
Robot pilots may someday fly passenger and cargo planes
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ROBOT_PILOT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-18-14-26-17
Did not read the full article but it is talking about replacing one of the two pilots. I am not sure this is a good idea unless the AI would be as good at cross checking the human as the current other human is. Before many actions a pilot will confirm with the other pilot that they are about to flip the correct switch. Also pilots have been VERY opposed to any form of video recording in the cockpit so they might not want this as it would likely keep records of what they did. I think it is also sort of assumed that large cargo planes will move towards being unmanned even to the point of retrofitting existing fleets but passengers would not be comfortable with no one up front.
Funny how people whose jobs are about to be replaced by robots fight against the idea..
Post by: AlanStache on October 19, 2016, 12:45:35 PM
...
Funny when we talk about replacing pilots with AI, meanwhile the aviation business are not capable of tracking a flight path in real time - can't find a plane after 2 f@cking years, maybe get that sorted first ;).
? https://flightaware.com/live/map (https://flightaware.com/live/map) There is some delay in the feed and sometimes tracks get dropped. But this is more a function of the piping from ground based reporting stations -> FAA computers -> FA.com or terrain blocking line of sight.
Post by: ender on October 19, 2016, 12:49:45 PM
Not to mention any micro optimizations happening.
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 19, 2016, 01:01:50 PM
...
Funny when we talk about replacing pilots with AI, meanwhile the aviation business are not capable of tracking a flight path in real time - can't find a plane after 2 f@cking years, maybe get that sorted first ;).
? https://flightaware.com/live/map (https://flightaware.com/live/map) There is some delay in the feed and sometimes tracks get dropped. But this is more a function of the piping from ground based reporting stations -> FAA computers -> FA.com or terrain blocking line of sight.
Ah that pesky piping, that would explain why there was bit of confusion as wheter the plane was in Kazakhstan or the south pacific :)
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 19, 2016, 02:50:42 PM
...
Funny when we talk about replacing pilots with AI, meanwhile the aviation business are not capable of tracking a flight path in real time - can't find a plane after 2 f@cking years, maybe get that sorted first ;).
? https://flightaware.com/live/map (https://flightaware.com/live/map) There is some delay in the feed and sometimes tracks get dropped. But this is more a function of the piping from ground based reporting stations -> FAA computers -> FA.com or terrain blocking line of sight.
Ah that pesky piping, that would explain why there was bit of confusion as wheter the plane was in Kazakhstan or the south pacific :)
Yes, it is reasonable to track every single aircraft in the planet in real-time, with a zero error rate.
Love Flightaware though.
Post by: Bakari on October 19, 2016, 08:09:16 PM
A large percentage of flying already is done by autopilots anyways.
Not to mention any micro optimizations happening.
technically, I'm pretty sure the computer does 100% of the actual steering in large aircraft. "Fly by wire". None of the controls are connceted to the alerions and rudder in anyway, the pilot inputs merely tell the computer what the goal is, the computer decides how to achieve it.
Our midsize coast guard boats are the same way, there is no throttle and no tiller, just a couple of joysticks and a computer controlled electro-hydraulic steering system.
Clearly we have the technology already today to make it 100% AI, considering all the fully autonomous drones already in existence. Just a difference in size, mainly. That, and perception.
Post by: boarder42 on October 20, 2016, 05:45:51 AM
i dont remember who described the world in which cars arent owned and just summoned when needed. but Tesla appears to be on the edge of making this happen. They even are going to muscle out uber and lyft it appears by not allowing you to use their self driving function on any network other than the tesla network.
It truly is amazing to me what one company with a vision has done to get us miles ahead of where we were just 4 years ago. i mean to think you can use self drive tech to go anywhere in the country for road trips etc. from 2 years from now on is pretty incredible.
on the note of the topic of this thread this will be completely devastating to the entire transportation industry as we know it.
cab driver - gone
limo drivers - gone
black car service drivers - gone
uber drivers - gone
lyft drivers - gone
delivery drivers - gone to some extent (we cant expect people to walk out of their front door to pick up chinese or pizza thats just incredibly too much work /s)
bus driver - gone
drunk driving - gone
Post by: tomsang on October 20, 2016, 08:16:21 AM
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot/?utm_campaign=GL_AP_101916&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social
i dont remember who described the world in which cars arent owned and just summoned when needed. but Tesla appears to be on the edge of making this happen. They even are going to muscle out uber and lyft it appears by not allowing you to use their self driving function on any network other than the tesla network.
It truly is amazing to me what one company with a vision has done to get us miles ahead of where we were just 4 years ago. i mean to think you can use self drive tech to go anywhere in the country for road trips etc. from 2 years from now on is pretty incredible.
on the note of the topic of this thread this will be completely devastating to the entire transportation industry as we know it.
cab driver - gone
limo drivers - gone
black car service drivers - gone
uber drivers - gone
lyft drivers - gone
delivery drivers - gone to some extent (we cant expect people to walk out of their front door to pick up chinese or pizza thats just incredibly too much work /s)
bus driver - gone
drunk driving - gone
That is where Amazon's drone technology will take the pizza or package from the main vehicle to the front door. All payment will be taken care of so there will not be a need for a person delivering the pizza or anything else. Most likely the main vehicle will have extra condiments in case you failed to order them online.
Post by: boarder42 on October 20, 2016, 08:22:48 AM
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot/?utm_campaign=GL_AP_101916&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social
delivery drivers - gone to some extent (we cant expect people to walk out of their front door to pick up chinese or pizza thats just incredibly too much work /s)
That is where Amazon's drone technology will take the pizza or package from the main vehicle to the front door. All payment will be taken care of so there will not be a need for a person delivering the pizza or anything else. Most likely the main vehicle will have extra condiments in case you failed to order them online.
good call. i mean we have to create a living wage vs creating worthless work. i've come around on this idea as the tech keeps coming out. just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now. and we havent even gotten into uber or the black car services that would no longer need operators.
Post by: sol on October 20, 2016, 10:52:47 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Post by: boarder42 on October 20, 2016, 11:47:17 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
i know its a small percentage but thats just one small sector being automated. yes it will be forthe overall good of humankind but doesnt take back from the fact that as we make baby steps into automation we need to be making baby steps into how we are compensating those with out a job, or one day the world of have nots will be much larger than the world of haves and anarchy will reign.
Post by: acroy on October 20, 2016, 12:21:35 PM
Nice new BMW's being manufactured by the finest German craftsmen, er, robots!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwkT2zV9H0
Post by: tomsang on October 20, 2016, 02:29:52 PM
Lots of great thoughts on morality and ethics as it relates to technology and the future. The Q&A is interesting as well at about 45 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp5_1QPLps0
Post by: theadvicist on October 21, 2016, 04:02:36 AM
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I don't think refueling will be an issue for long - electric cars will just plug themselves in.
Post by: davisgang90 on October 21, 2016, 04:46:58 AM
A long, but great video about AI/technology and the impact on professionals.One of the first things the guy introducing says that he learned from the book is that "We are safe, because we are creative, dexterous and do many things that machines won't do". If he's joking it is black comedy. If he is not joking he is obtuse!
Lots of great thoughts on morality and ethics as it relates to technology and the future. The Q&A is interesting as well at about 45 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp5_1QPLps0
Edited to add.
Looks like is was the former, black comedy!
Post by: boarder42 on October 21, 2016, 06:10:38 AM
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I don't think refueling will be an issue for long - electric cars will just plug themselves in.
tesla already has stations where the cars get plugged in autonomously
Post by: 2lazy2retire on October 21, 2016, 06:16:52 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Now you have put a bunch of doctors and nurses out of work also - have you heart man :)
Post by: tomsang on October 21, 2016, 09:26:04 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Now you have put a bunch of doctors and nurses out of work also - have you heart man :)
Earlier on in this thread we discussed that autonomous cars would cause less accidents and therefore there would be less organs to harvest. So unless we can grow organs in the lab or 3d printer, we will have an organ donor problem. Black market for organs may be the way to go for families that have no ability to make a living and are starving to death.
Post by: boarder42 on October 21, 2016, 09:47:53 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Now you have put a bunch of doctors and nurses out of work also - have you heart man :)
Earlier on in this thread we discussed that autonomous cars would cause less accidents and therefore there would be less organs to harvest. So unless we can grow organs in the lab or 3d printer, we will have an organ donor problem. Black market for organs may be the way to go for families that have no ability to make a living and are starving to death.
seems like survival of the fittest minus the black market part(richest). who would have thought all these tech advancements would lead us back towards darwinism.
Post by: AlanStache on October 21, 2016, 09:55:57 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Now you have put a bunch of doctors and nurses out of work also - have you heart man :)
Earlier on in this thread we discussed that autonomous cars would cause less accidents and therefore there would be less organs to harvest. So unless we can grow organs in the lab or 3d printer, we will have an organ donor problem. Black market for organs may be the way to go for families that have no ability to make a living and are starving to death.
Organ trafficking is already a real thing. Was there a European country that recently changed to opt-out of there national organ donation system; where the US is opt-in?
Post by: Bakari on October 21, 2016, 10:40:06 AM
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Now you have put a bunch of doctors and nurses out of work also - have you heart man :)
Remember the Watson computer that could beat the best human Jepordy! players?
While it can be adapted to many things, one of the first goals and real world applications was/is assisting human medical experts in making diagnosis and treatment recommendations.
Right now of course it is always with human oversight, and humans make the final call, just like the first driver AI always have a human with a steering wheel. Its mostly because we aren't comfortable with it. Give it 2 or 3 years, Watson will replace all advice nurses.
come to think of it, it might just be able to figure out alternatives to organ replacement better than humans, thereby reducing the need for a steady supply of trauma victims
Not that that wouldn't be a worthwhile trade off anyway - the number of people who die in car accidents far exceeds the number who die in car accidents, were registered as organ donors, had their vital organs survive the crash intact, were in a place where organs could be successfully harvested in time, were a match for someone in need, and had the transplant go successfully.
On average, 82 people die each day in car crashes (US), while 18 die from not getting a transplant.
Post by: JumpInTheFIRE on October 21, 2016, 11:56:16 AM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
And as an added bonus, there are a few hundred pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed by vehicles in NYC every year, including a bunch by taxi drivers. You might argue that replacing human drivers will cause a few thousand people to need to find new jobs, but it will also cause a few hundred people to not be accidentally murdered. Maybe that's a fair trade.
Well, in August NYC had a labor force of 4.1M and 223,177 unemployed, for a 5.4% unemployment rate. If you added 52k people to the unemployed side, it would cause the rate to jump to 6.6%. A 1.2% increase in unemployment seems significant to me, and that's just for the taxi drivers -- there are many other driving jobs that are threatened as well.
Data from https://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/LSLAUS.shtm
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 21, 2016, 09:08:59 PM
just think of the cab drivers in NYC thats 52k people out of work now.
Adding 52k people to the unemployment rolls in NYC will barely make a dent in the unemployment rate in a city that big, plus self-driving cars will create a bunch of new jobs to replace some (but not all) of the ones that were lost. At least in the short term some humans will still have to manage the fleet, clean the vehicles inside and out, do the maintenance and refueling, spot check quality control by going for rides, and a thousand other little things that are currently done by drivers but that an AI won't be able to manage yet.
I would like to imagine that a vehicle that is capable of finding my driveway and getting me to the theater on-time will be able to manage docking itself in a charging station. There are fucking vacuum cleaners that can manage that as we speak. As a fully automated fleet would require far fewer cars than currently on the road, there would be less need for cleaners and mechanics than there is currently. Almost no jobs would be 'created' by removing drivers and reducing the number of cars on the road. Are their quality control people that take random rides in taxis now?
And 52K people (in one city) is not a small number. Figuring unemployment benefits of $20K per year - that's 1 Billion dollars of budget that needs to be covered, not to mention the loss of tax base.
Revolutionize is right...
Post by: manandsea on October 21, 2016, 11:31:51 PM
Post by: matchewed on October 22, 2016, 06:28:44 AM
It will be a very very long process for robots to actually replace most common jobs. and we have at least 2-3 generations of time for the society to adapt. New jobs will come out, and wealth distribution will shift towards to new jobs.
I think that you may be wrong on this one.
Post by: ender on October 22, 2016, 08:34:38 AM
It will be a very very long process for robots to actually replace most common jobs. and we have at least 2-3 generations of time for the society to adapt. New jobs will come out, and wealth distribution will shift towards to new jobs.
I think that you may be wrong on this one.
Yeah. Are there new jobs opening up that need a human more than anything else?
No. Most new jobs now require a human and a brain.
A lot of the reason why jobs kept replacing the lost jobs in the past, say the industrial revolution, is that when jobs (for example the need for everyone to be on a farm) converted to more automated activities, there were still many jobs where the primary need was a human. Where the skillset of that human was less important.
That is not the case now. If you are an unskilled human, there are not many new jobs and new industries being created for you. In fact most of your options are being actively removed.
Post by: arebelspy on October 22, 2016, 04:08:49 PM
I'd argue the 2-3 generations was the part of the post I most disagreed with.It will be a very very long process for robots to actually replace most common jobs. and we have at least 2-3 generations of time for the society to adapt. New jobs will come out, and wealth distribution will shift towards to new jobs.
I think that you may be wrong on this one.
Yeah. Are there new jobs opening up that need a human more than anything else?
No. Most new jobs now require a human and a brain.
A lot of the reason why jobs kept replacing the lost jobs in the past, say the industrial revolution, is that when jobs (for example the need for everyone to be on a farm) converted to more automated activities, there were still many jobs where the primary need was a human. Where the skillset of that human was less important.
That is not the case now. If you are an unskilled human, there are not many new jobs and new industries being created for you. In fact most of your options are being actively removed.
Old time is still a flying.
Post by: Bakari on October 22, 2016, 06:18:02 PM
It will be a very very long process for robots to actually replace most common jobs. and we have at least 2-3 generations of time for the society to adapt. New jobs will come out, and wealth distribution will shift towards to new jobs.
I think that you may be wrong on this one.
Yeah. Are there new jobs opening up that need a human more than anything else?
No. Most new jobs now require a human and a brain.
A lot of the reason why jobs kept replacing the lost jobs in the past, say the industrial revolution, is that when jobs (for example the need for everyone to be on a farm) converted to more automated activities, there were still many jobs where the primary need was a human. Where the skillset of that human was less important.
That is not the case now. If you are an unskilled human, there are not many new jobs and new industries being created for you. In fact most of your options are being actively removed.
I'm not convinced that all the old jobs were ever replaced.
If, in farming days, people start helping contribute at age 7 or 8, and work until they are 70+ or whenever they can no longer walk, and they are working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, then, compared to today were people work from maybe 20 to 60, 40 hours a week, that means 1/3 as many jobs will support the population.
At the same time, 14 million people on SSI (under 65) aren't even counted as "unemployed", because you have to be actively seeking a job to be unemployed. The rate is officially 5%, but in actuality over a third (37%) of all adults don't have jobs (includes retirees, early retirees, stay-at-home parents, students, etc).
I have no source to back it up, but my guess would be that a few generations ago the labor force participation rate would have been closer to 80-90%.
So that means another 1/2 of jobs disappear and are never replaced.
It may just LOOK like new jobs have always come up, because our standards of employment have changed. It wasn't by coincidence that the 40 hour work week movement came after the industrial revolution and finally became law immideatly after the Great Depression
Post by: davisgang90 on October 23, 2016, 05:25:25 AM
http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/dt10-ai-apocalypse-a-tired-hollywood-trope-or-human-destiny/
Post by: matchewed on October 23, 2016, 06:35:24 AM
Yeah I'm not sure how the wealth distribution will hash out. Too many variables for me to really form a solid opinion on. I can see it going so many ways. But the 2-3 generations? Probably less than 1 is closer to the truth.I'd argue the 2-3 generations was the part of the post I most disagreed with.It will be a very very long process for robots to actually replace most common jobs. and we have at least 2-3 generations of time for the society to adapt. New jobs will come out, and wealth distribution will shift towards to new jobs.
I think that you may be wrong on this one.
Yeah. Are there new jobs opening up that need a human more than anything else?
No. Most new jobs now require a human and a brain.
A lot of the reason why jobs kept replacing the lost jobs in the past, say the industrial revolution, is that when jobs (for example the need for everyone to be on a farm) converted to more automated activities, there were still many jobs where the primary need was a human. Where the skillset of that human was less important.
That is not the case now. If you are an unskilled human, there are not many new jobs and new industries being created for you. In fact most of your options are being actively removed.
Old time is still a flying.
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 23, 2016, 09:08:09 PM
Yeah I'm not sure how the wealth distribution will hash out. Too many variables for me to really form a solid opinion on. I can see it going so many ways. But the 2-3 generations? Probably less than 1 is closer to the truth.
The good part about this gamble is that we will be alive to see if you're right or wrong!
Post by: boarder42 on October 25, 2016, 01:45:40 PM
'Driverless' beer run; Bud makes shipment with self-driving truck (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/25/driverless-beer-run-bud-makes-shipment-with-self-driving-truck.html)QuoteAnheuser-Busch hauled a trailer loaded with beer 120 miles in an autonomous-drive truck, completing what's believed to be the first commercial shipment by a self-driving vehicle.
279Billion miles are driven by trucks annually. at 28cents per mile for the low end of the avg truck driver pay. that pulls 78B dollars out of the hands op "professional drivers" which according the article there are 3.6MM class 8 trucks if we assume only one driver per truck(which is probably low) thats over 1% of the population now jobless and those 78B are going to uber and the companies no longer using drivers b/c i'm sure the autonoumous truck will come at a discount to the human driver.
Post by: sol on October 25, 2016, 01:55:14 PM
279Billion miles are driven by trucks annually. at 28cents per mile for the low end of the avg truck driver pay. that pulls 78B dollars out of the hands op "professional drivers" which according the article there are 3.6MM class 8 trucks if we assume only one driver per truck(which is probably low) thats over 1% of the population now jobless and those 78B are going to uber and the companies no longer using drivers b/c i'm sure the autonoumous truck will come at a discount to the human driver.
How is this different from the old argument that tractors were going to put farm hands out of work?
As has already been pointed out in this thread, were TRYING to remove those menial jobs from the economy. Nobody seriously believes we would be better off if 50% of the population were still farmers.
This whole argument that automation/robots/AI is somehow bad for the economy because of job losses seems contrary to the entire history of human technological innovation. We are all better off as a result of these changes, even the horse manure shovelers who were put out of work.
Post by: boarder42 on October 25, 2016, 02:14:21 PM
279Billion miles are driven by trucks annually. at 28cents per mile for the low end of the avg truck driver pay. that pulls 78B dollars out of the hands op "professional drivers" which according the article there are 3.6MM class 8 trucks if we assume only one driver per truck(which is probably low) thats over 1% of the population now jobless and those 78B are going to uber and the companies no longer using drivers b/c i'm sure the autonoumous truck will come at a discount to the human driver.
How is this different from the old argument that tractors were going to put farm hands out of work?
As has already been pointed out in this thread, were TRYING to remove those menial jobs from the economy. Nobody seriously believes we would be better off if 50% of the population were still farmers.
This whole argument that automation/robots/AI is somehow bad for the economy because of job losses seems contrary to the entire history of human technological innovation. We are all better off as a result of these changes, even the horse manure shovelers who were put out of work.
my comment wasnt meant to be that the AI is bad ... but as all of this is automated away and we continue to make more humans with nothing for them to do as a job ... we will have to pay them living wages to just be alive. and there is nothing wrong with that. but it needs to start happening or we just need to darwinize the financial side of life and live off survival of the fittest... those are really the only choices.
Post by: AlanStache on October 25, 2016, 02:15:44 PM
But I wonder how this will affect air pollution, sure self driving truck will be more fuel efficient but at reduced costs I wonder if more miles will be driven and result in more pollution? If this increase in drive miles displaces air-cargo it is probably a net reduction in air pollution but if it comes from trains then it is probably a net loss. Or if the reduced costs increase demand for trucking then more miles will be driven too. But if delivery companies could make significantly more efficient routes because you no longer had the artificial constant of the driver needing to get home maybe fewer miles would be driven... Lot of moving parts to this analysis.
Post by: Guses on October 25, 2016, 02:58:47 PM
But I wonder how this will affect air pollution, sure self driving truck will be more fuel efficient but at reduced costs I wonder if more miles will be driven and result in more pollution? If this increase in drive miles displaces air-cargo it is probably a net reduction in air pollution but if it comes from trains then it is probably a net loss. Or if the reduced costs increase demand for trucking then more miles will be driven too. But if delivery companies could make significantly more efficient routes because you no longer had the artificial constant of the driver needing to get home maybe fewer miles would be driven... Lot of moving parts to this analysis.
Hmmm... Yes, quite so indeed. What you are proposing is a Jevons paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
Assuming that trucks no longer need drivers, maybe they could be significantly improved in terms of efficiency and aerodynamics since they no longer need to protect a cushy human inside?
Post by: AlanStache on October 25, 2016, 03:31:37 PM
But I wonder how this will affect air pollution, sure self driving truck will be more fuel efficient but at reduced costs I wonder if more miles will be driven and result in more pollution? If this increase in drive miles displaces air-cargo it is probably a net reduction in air pollution but if it comes from trains then it is probably a net loss. Or if the reduced costs increase demand for trucking then more miles will be driven too. But if delivery companies could make significantly more efficient routes because you no longer had the artificial constant of the driver needing to get home maybe fewer miles would be driven... Lot of moving parts to this analysis.
Hmmm... Yes, quite so indeed. What you are proposing is a Jevons paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
Assuming that trucks no longer need drivers, maybe they could be significantly improved in terms of efficiency and aerodynamics since they no longer need to protect a cushy human inside?
thanks for the link, had heard if it before but did nto know the name
Aerodynamics, probably cant make radical improvements, you are pulling a really big box after all. But a small mpg increase x 24 hours per day x millions of vehicles would add up.
Post by: rocketpj on October 25, 2016, 05:20:46 PM
Give the trucks the ability to load and unload themselves (which should be pretty simple, at worst we have automated forklifts moving standardized pallets etc). It isn't many steps until a massive warehouse and shipping hub has maybe 1 employee (who monitors things to flag when repairs are needed). There is a pulp mill in my town that currently employs a lot of the adults in the area. If it is still open 30 years from now it will probably have no more than a half dozen people working on a given day.
We can bemoan the loss of those jobs (as if any form of employment is somehow sacred and must be protected), but it will be more productive to figure out how to make the most of all those people that will be/are constantly being displaced.
Post by: ender on October 25, 2016, 06:10:27 PM
How is this different from the old argument that tractors were going to put farm hands out of work?
As has already been pointed out in this thread, were TRYING to remove those menial jobs from the economy. Nobody seriously believes we would be better off if 50% of the population were still farmers.
This whole argument that automation/robots/AI is somehow bad for the economy because of job losses seems contrary to the entire history of human technological innovation. We are all better off as a result of these changes, even the horse manure shovelers who were put out of work.
I'm unconvinced that it is always better to automate and remove menial types of jobs.
As a society, I think there is tremendous value in a large percentage of the population working at jobs where they feel productive and as though they are contributing to society. There is a point where the more menial jobs get automated the more difficult the outcome becomes. In many regards, this feels much better in Europe, where the combination of social programs as well as less income disparity makes it more possible to provide an income on jobs which would be difficult to subsist on in the USA.
It's possible we are way past this point already. As a software engineer, my concern is more "what if there are huge percentages of the population which are worthless in the job market?" and the implications that has on people in general.
Post by: sol on October 25, 2016, 06:46:21 PM
I'm unconvinced that it is always better to automate and remove menial types of jobs.
Does your argument extend to people who pick cotton?
Quote
As a software engineer, my concern is more "what if there are huge percentages of the population which are worthless in the job market?" and the implications that has on people in general.
If we handle it correctly, I think the implication will be that we've successfully obliterated poverty. A world in which technology has the ability to provide everyone with basic necessities, without anyone having to work for it, is pretty close to the utopian paradise humanity has always envisioned for itself. Call it a post-scarcity society, if you like.
Even in a world where everything we need is so abundant that nobody has to suffer by going without basics like food and shelter and education and good health, I'm sure there are some puritanical Americans who will argue that suffering is meritorious. I will not be one of them.
Which isn't to say I don't favor hard work. I totally understand the MMM mindset that there are personal rewards to be found in undertaking difficult tasks. I just don't think any of those tasks should be life or death situations, when we live in world that already grows more than enough food for everyone yet still watches children wither and die of malnutrition.
If robots can dig all of our ditches for us, I wouldn't stop anyone from digging if that's what they want to do, but neither would I compel anyone to dig in order to eat.
Post by: Bakari on October 25, 2016, 10:47:53 PM
But I wonder how this will affect air pollution, sure self driving truck will be more fuel efficient but at reduced costs I wonder if more miles will be driven and result in more pollution? If this increase in drive miles displaces air-cargo it is probably a net reduction in air pollution but if it comes from trains then it is probably a net loss. Or if the reduced costs increase demand for trucking then more miles will be driven too. But if delivery companies could make significantly more efficient routes because you no longer had the artificial constant of the driver needing to get home maybe fewer miles would be driven... Lot of moving parts to this analysis.
presumably it would be easier to automate trains than trucks, so eliminate those operator costs too, presumably train would still be a cheaper way to move cargo along routes with preexsiting tracks, just like now.
Assuming that trucks no longer need drivers, maybe they could be significantly improved in terms of efficiency and aerodynamics since they no longer need to protect a cushy human inside?
I don't think that makes up a significant amount of truck mass or shape
Aerodynamics, probably cant make radical improvements, you are pulling a really big box after all. But a small mpg increase x 24 hours per day x millions of vehicles would add up.
There are actually really significant gains possible, however its a totally independent factor from whether a human drives it:
http://www.airflowtruck.com/
its real, exists now, its been moving freight across the country for 4 years now, averages more than 100% more mpg than the average long haul semi truck on the road (13.4 vs 6.5)
Post by: Metric Mouse on October 27, 2016, 12:26:19 AM
But I wonder how this will affect air pollution, sure self driving truck will be more fuel efficient but at reduced costs I wonder if more miles will be driven and result in more pollution? If this increase in drive miles displaces air-cargo it is probably a net reduction in air pollution but if it comes from trains then it is probably a net loss. Or if the reduced costs increase demand for trucking then more miles will be driven too. But if delivery companies could make significantly more efficient routes because you no longer had the artificial constant of the driver needing to get home maybe fewer miles would be driven... Lot of moving parts to this analysis.
presumably it would be easier to automate trains than trucks, so eliminate those operator costs too, presumably train would still be a cheaper way to move cargo along routes with preexsiting tracks, just like now.Assuming that trucks no longer need drivers, maybe they could be significantly improved in terms of efficiency and aerodynamics since they no longer need to protect a cushy human inside?
I don't think that makes up a significant amount of truck mass or shapeAerodynamics, probably cant make radical improvements, you are pulling a really big box after all. But a small mpg increase x 24 hours per day x millions of vehicles would add up.
There are actually really significant gains possible, however its a totally independent factor from whether a human drives it:
http://www.airflowtruck.com/
its real, exists now, its been moving freight across the country for 4 years now, averages more than 100% more mpg than the average long haul semi truck on the road (13.4 vs 6.5)
Would it be cheaper to load trains, unload trains, load trucks and then deliver by trucks? I mean, that's what we do now, but if trucks could become 100% more efficient, I'm not sure trains have that much more room to improve. Wouldn't it be easier to load trucks and have them deliver the goods directly where they need to go? A line of trucks, drafting off each other down the highway at speed, merging and splitting off as needed, could be about as efficient as a train, no?
Post by: Guses on October 27, 2016, 08:00:50 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/technology/ibm-is-counting-on-its-bet-on-watson-and-paying-big-money-for-it.html?_r=3 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/technology/ibm-is-counting-on-its-bet-on-watson-and-paying-big-money-for-it.html?_r=3)
Post by: boarder42 on October 27, 2016, 08:37:32 AM
Post by: Bakari on October 27, 2016, 09:09:09 AM
Would it be cheaper to load trains, unload trains, load trucks and then deliver by trucks? I mean, that's what we do now, but if trucks could become 100% more efficient, I'm not sure trains have that much more room to improve. Wouldn't it be easier to load trucks and have them deliver the goods directly where they need to go? A line of trucks, drafting off each other down the highway at speed, merging and splitting off as needed, could be about as efficient as a train, no?
trucks would have to improve by about 350% to compete with trains, 130 ton-miles per gallon vs 475.
Long shoreman are also being replaced by robots, automated ports will making loading and unloading cheaper, and possibly more efficent
Post by: tomsang on October 27, 2016, 10:54:13 AM
As anybody seen this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/technology/ibm-is-counting-on-its-bet-on-watson-and-paying-big-money-for-it.html?_r=3 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/technology/ibm-is-counting-on-its-bet-on-watson-and-paying-big-money-for-it.html?_r=3)
Very interesting. The area that is most mind boggling is the growth. Going from a half a billion today, to $6 billion in four years to $17 billion in six years is crazy for one company. Maybe it is crazy, but I think the message is the rate of change will not be like the past. It will be amazing for the world as long as the spoils are shared with all members or you are in the category where the spoils are coming to you.
Post by: mozar on October 30, 2016, 12:20:43 PM
http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/
Post by: boarder42 on October 30, 2016, 06:31:16 PM
Because I enjoy it when other people post videos, here is a robot arm piloting a plane.
http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/
That's a poor use of a human like arm. To pilot a plane all steering and controls could much more effectively just be computer controlled vs using a robotic arm to supplement the human input to a computer.
Post by: Bakari on October 30, 2016, 09:15:11 PM
Because I enjoy it when other people post videos, here is a robot arm piloting a plane.
http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/ (http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/)
That's a poor use of a human like arm. To pilot a plane all steering and controls could much more effectively just be computer controlled vs using a robotic arm to supplement the human input to a computer.
All steering and controls already are controlled by computer.
I don't think that was the point.
Much like how the DARPA robot challengers had to drive a little car. Obviously robot cars exist, and they don't use humanoid robots behind a wheel, but there is a lot of potential value from a single robot that can do many different things. Part of that is manipulating objects in a human based world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P9geWwi9e0
Post by: pdxmonkey on October 30, 2016, 10:02:33 PM
Link to Slashdot "discussion" https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/10/29/221230/mines-may-eliminate-more-than-half-their-human-workers-within-10-years
Post by: boarder42 on October 31, 2016, 06:30:26 AM
Because I enjoy it when other people post videos, here is a robot arm piloting a plane.
http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/ (http://newatlas.com/robot-alias-darpa-cessna-caravan/45973/)
That's a poor use of a human like arm. To pilot a plane all steering and controls could much more effectively just be computer controlled vs using a robotic arm to supplement the human input to a computer.
All steering and controls already are controlled by computer.
I don't think that was the point.
Much like how the DARPA robot challengers had to drive a little car. Obviously robot cars exist, and they don't use humanoid robots behind a wheel, but there is a lot of potential value from a single robot that can do many different things. Part of that is manipulating objects in a human based world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P9geWwi9e0
i would think spending time focusing on things that need a human like arm would make more sense than things easily automated with out a human at all. but thats just my take.
Post by: AlanStache on November 01, 2016, 10:04:37 AM
At first I thought that was dumbest thing ever. Then I thought about it a bit and could see the application for retrofitting aircraft. In many (most/nearly all..?) existing aircraft there is no common computer box that connects everything on-board. The only place something could control the fuel pumps, cabin pressurization, radios, and flight path is in the cockpit using the physical switches. Changing out computer boxes is very hard, adding software to existing flight systems is very hard because of regulations, limited computing power, vendors no longer supporting devices and shit just being really old. Yes many aircraft already have a software box that can fly way points but almost certainly the only 'API' is physical buttons.
The other hassle is that even for a given type of aircraft there can be different manufactures under the hood who made the autopilot and flight systems or they were updated at different times. So you may have 20 Boeing 767 you want to turn into UAV's but some run Windows XP, some run Win 95, some run Win 10, some run Mac OS8 etc. They probably all function 98% identically at the pilot level but can be radically different under the hood where if you wanted to add some new remote pilot system you would have to make +6 unique systems. The economics here get really stupid to make one-off custom systems to interface directly into each 'OS'; or you could make a common "robo-pilot" like in the linked article that takes advantage of where they all already are nearly identical.
Flying a plane is much more than moving the yoke around, if you want to turn a plane into a remotely piloted aircraft (or 100% automated for that matter) you need to be able to affect all on board systems.
"why not just gut all the electronics and put in new fancy ones that talk to everything": That would require re-certification with the FAA and that is VERY expensive. Also your system would still need to talk with the 10 different engine control computers (among others) that are in the fleet so you would still be doing custom work on 10/20/30 year old computers/software.
Is the "robo-pilot" a good idea when building a new UAS from the ground up? No. Could it be a good idea for retrofitting existing aircraft? Maybe.
When the MythBusters need to make a car remotely controlled they dont go into the onboard computers, they put actuators on the wheel/brake/gas, this is the same thing.
Post by: davisgang90 on November 01, 2016, 11:10:15 AM
http://www.aurora.aero/centaur/
Post by: tomsang on November 02, 2016, 10:19:22 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/02/robot-takeover-in-food-manufacturing-extends-to-a-delicate-job-egg-handling.html
Post by: tomsang on November 05, 2016, 07:12:16 PM
Musk stating that ""There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen."
"People will have time to do other things, more complex things, more interesting things," says Musk. "Certainly more leisure time."
Basic Income will become a bigger topic as automation wipes out more and more jobs in the next decade.
Post by: arebelspy on November 05, 2016, 08:22:11 PM
The pain in the meantime will be unfortunate.
Post by: arebelspy on November 05, 2016, 08:45:00 PM
I regularly watch professional Starcraft eSports, so I'm really looking forward to this, some day. :D
Post by: Metric Mouse on November 06, 2016, 12:51:42 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-robots-jobs-government-181956572.html
Musk stating that ""There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation," says Musk to CNBC. "Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen."
"People will have time to do other things, more complex things, more interesting things," says Musk. "Certainly more leisure time."
Basic Income will become a bigger topic as automation wipes out more and more jobs in the next decade.
Such is progress. I'd like to see how he defines 'complex, interesting and lesiure' though. Has this been true throughout history, say, in the past century and a half or so, where automation has really changed human life? Or are we just doing different, boring, simple things with our time, having replaced work with other daily tasks that aren't strictly leisure.
Post by: boarder42 on November 06, 2016, 05:41:47 AM
I hope so.
The pain in the meantime will be unfortunate.
yes there will be a lot of pain, but i do have some issues with the fact that for a large majority it will have been somewhat self inflicted due to spending habits. my guess is maybe 20-30% of the jobs eliminated couldnt have done anything else and were scraping by on the minimum. but the rest will scream bloody murder while they had been a trucker pulling in over 100k and spending it all.
Post by: Bakari on November 06, 2016, 08:53:50 AM
professional Starcraft eSports,
OMG, I remember that game, from so many years ago (I played the original a lot when it came out)
professional??
That's really a thing????
Like, people get paid to play it?
I'm also a little surprised computers can't already beat human players, just due to the speed of being able to manipulate multiple game elements. I.e., if I have a huge colony going on, I can only select one soldier or worker or building (or group thereof) at a time, so if two or three or seven things finish what they were working on at once, I can only give each one new tasking one at a time, wasting time in a game that is all about efficiency. How do they bring the computer to a human like level of control, so that the only difference is strategy in a real-time game?
Post by: matchewed on November 06, 2016, 02:51:23 PM
professional Starcraft eSports,
OMG, I remember that game, from so many years ago (I played the original a lot when it came out)
professional??
That's really a thing????
Like, people get paid to play it?
I'm also a little surprised computers can't already beat human players, just due to the speed of being able to manipulate multiple game elements. I.e., if I have a huge colony going on, I can only select one soldier or worker or building (or group thereof) at a time, so if two or three or seven things finish what they were working on at once, I can only give each one new tasking one at a time, wasting time in a game that is all about efficiency. How do they bring the computer to a human like level of control, so that the only difference is strategy in a real-time game?
Yep totally a thing, especially in South Korea. Think professional sports player level of fame.
Yes you can develop AI which just does thing faster, that is easy but there are still limitations on what the AI can do for a very complex game like Starcraft 2. Linky (http://kotaku.com/blizzard-wants-to-know-if-googles-deepmind-ai-can-conqu-1788615284)
Post by: arebelspy on November 06, 2016, 05:53:11 PM
professional Starcraft eSports,
OMG, I remember that game, from so many years ago (I played the original a lot when it came out)
professional??
That's really a thing????
Like, people get paid to play it?
Oh yeah. It's not a great living, but the top pros can make decent money. It's a bit up in the air right now, as the proleague just dissolved (something that's been around 10+ years), but Starcraft has been the longest running eSport in the world, since about 1999 (and SCII, starting in 2010).
You might enjoy looking up old brood war replays on YouTube for nostalgia. :P
Search "boxer starcraft" or "starcraft rush" and stuff like that if you have a few hours you want to waste. :)
Post by: OurTown on November 17, 2016, 03:34:11 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment
This is an interesting concept. I assume there would remain certain professions that would be performed by real humans. I don't know if this type of society would keep the concept of money as we know it. I also suspect that it wouldn't work without some sort of population control, which would be kind of scary.
Post by: Bakari on November 17, 2016, 06:16:11 PM
I also suspect that it wouldn't work without some sort of population control, which would be kind of scary.
Ultimately, that's going to be true no matter what - infinite growth is simply not possible.
It might not be enough forever, but free on-demand access to birth control and sterilization would go a long way, without having to mandate a China style 1-child rule. Fully half of all pregnancies were "unplanned", and that's in an the advanced rich first world nation of the United States.
Places with significantly higher birth rates usually have some combination of needing kids to provide cheap labor to the family, using kids as a form of retirement plan, and/or a high risk that a baby won't survive to adulthood. In a world with so much prosperity that money is obsolete, presumably all societies would be at least as advanced as America today, and if there is no longer any "3rd world", than the birth rate in currently third world nations would eventually drop to first world levels. Add in free (and permanent if desired) birth control, that rate halves.
Half the US birth rate would be less than replacement levels, and the world population would gradually decrease.
Bonus: each person can consume more, and the world environment can still support it indefinitely, the fewer total people there are!
Post by: Metric Mouse on November 18, 2016, 09:56:04 AM
I also suspect that it wouldn't work without some sort of population control, which would be kind of scary.
Ultimately, that's going to be true no matter what - infinite growth is simply not possible.
It might not be enough forever, but free on-demand access to birth control and sterilization would go a long way, without having to mandate a China style 1-child rule. Fully half of all pregnancies were "unplanned", and that's in an the advanced rich first world nation of the United States.
Places with significantly higher birth rates usually have some combination of needing kids to provide cheap labor to the family, using kids as a form of retirement plan, and/or a high risk that a baby won't survive to adulthood. In a world with so much prosperity that money is obsolete, presumably all societies would be at least as advanced as America today, and if there is no longer any "3rd world", than the birth rate in currently third world nations would eventually drop to first world levels. Add in free (and permanent if desired) birth control, that rate halves.
Half the US birth rate would be less than replacement levels, and the world population would gradually decrease.
Bonus: each person can consume more, and the world environment can still support it indefinitely, the fewer total people there are!
There's some interesting Ted Talks that speculate that 'infinite growth' of the population is unlikely to occur, and that our population is already leveling off, and will naturaly hit a cap.
Post by: theadvicist on November 22, 2016, 04:10:58 AM
Ultimately, that's going to be true no matter what - infinite growth is simply not possible.
It might not be enough forever, but free on-demand access to birth control and sterilization would go a long way, without having to mandate a China style 1-child rule. Fully half of all pregnancies were "unplanned", and that's in an the advanced rich first world nation of the United States.
In the UK all contraception is free and on demand. Sterilisation for women is not as simple - I know someone who requested it and was told to come back in a few years, as it's irreversible and they would hate to do it on someone who changed their mind, but I'm not sure how forceful she was about it. I know lots of men (I would say most in my circle) who got / get a vasectomy (free, obvs) when their 'family is complete'.
Post by: Bakari on November 22, 2016, 09:51:56 AM
Ultimately, that's going to be true no matter what - infinite growth is simply not possible.
It might not be enough forever, but free on-demand access to birth control and sterilization would go a long way, without having to mandate a China style 1-child rule. Fully half of all pregnancies were "unplanned", and that's in an the advanced rich first world nation of the United States.
In the UK all contraception is free and on demand. Sterilisation for women is not as simple - I know someone who requested it and was told to come back in a few years, as it's irreversible and they would hate to do it on someone who changed their mind, but I'm not sure how forceful she was about it. I know lots of men (I would say most in my circle) who got / get a vasectomy (free, obvs) when their 'family is complete'.
And in fact it looks like the birth rate for women born in the UK (at about 1.7) is in fact lower than the US (1.9) and well below the world average (2.5)
Post by: tomsang on December 05, 2016, 11:34:59 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/amazon-go-store-wont-replace-humans--but-it-could-improve-dreadful-self-checkout-investor-says.html
Post by: Schaefer Light on December 05, 2016, 01:30:25 PM
Amazon trying to improve self checkout.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/amazon-go-store-wont-replace-humans--but-it-could-improve-dreadful-self-checkout-investor-says.html
I've been telling my wife grocery stores (and really all retail stores) should do this for years. Of course, I hate waiting in line.
Post by: boarder42 on December 05, 2016, 01:39:05 PM
Amazon trying to improve self checkout.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/amazon-go-store-wont-replace-humans--but-it-could-improve-dreadful-self-checkout-investor-says.html
I've been telling my wife grocery stores (and really all retail stores) should do this for years. Of course, I hate waiting in line.
it will happen just a matter of changing the system thats been inplace for a long time.
Post by: bryan995 on December 05, 2016, 02:14:12 PM
Amazon trying to improve self checkout.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/amazon-go-store-wont-replace-humans--but-it-could-improve-dreadful-self-checkout-investor-says.html
And the accompanying video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrmMk1Myrxc
I'm sure this is in no way related to the recent push to increase minimum wage of unskilled labor...
Post by: Bakari on December 05, 2016, 10:51:08 PM
involves going back to nature
and using it...
to destroy technology
:-)
http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command (http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command)
Post by: Kriegsspiel on December 05, 2016, 10:56:59 PM
Post by: jordanread on December 05, 2016, 11:12:00 PM
Guys, seriously, just relax about the robots. Drink some wine. Enjoy yourselves. Before an AI creates nanofactories that pull our atoms apart from our bodies.
I was eagerly awaiting your contribution to this thread. Wine != Rum. Just sayin.
Sometimes the solution to too much technology
involves going back to nature
and using it...
to destroy technology
:-)
http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command (http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command)
That was so fucking awesome. Thanks.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 07, 2016, 04:01:08 AM
Sometimes the solution to too much technology
involves going back to nature
and using it...
to destroy technology
:-)
http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command (http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command)
I watched this video twice just to see the bald eagle scenes.
Post by: tomsang on December 07, 2016, 08:33:11 AM
Sometimes the solution to too much technology
involves going back to nature
and using it...
to destroy technology
:-)
http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command (http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command)
Those are pretty small drones. I would be worried about the birds with bigger ones. I think it would be pretty epic if someone had drones at the White House and a swarm of Bald Eagles came out and took them out, preferably with patriotic music playing.
Post by: Hedge_87 on December 07, 2016, 02:54:06 PM
the "America Fuck Yea" song from the movie team america comes to mind.Sometimes the solution to too much technology
involves going back to nature
and using it...
to destroy technology
:-)
http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command (http://www.popsci.com/eagles-attack-drones-at-police-command)
Those are pretty small drones. I would be worried about the birds with bigger ones. I think it would be pretty epic if someone had drones at the White House and a swarm of Bald Eagles came out and took them out, preferably with patriotic music playing.
Post by: AlanStache on December 07, 2016, 03:18:09 PM
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html)
TLDR: Mexico has quality workers, US workers dont want the Carrier jobes. We will replace the US workers with robots.
Post by: aspiringnomad on December 07, 2016, 06:21:14 PM
Comments from UTC ceo to Jim Crammer re Carrier Jobs/Trump/Mexico.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html)
TLDR: Mexico has quality workers, US workers dont want the Carrier jobes. We will replace the US workers with robots.
Given the current political/tweeting climate, I'm stunned and impressed with how candid the United Technologies CEO is with Cramer.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 08, 2016, 09:11:10 AM
Comments from UTC ceo to Jim Crammer re Carrier Jobs/Trump/Mexico.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html)
TLDR: Mexico has quality workers, US workers dont want the Carrier jobes. We will replace the US workers with robots.
Meh. Since this automation would happen anyway, isn't it at least a win that the automated factory stays in America, with stricter environmental controls, and the tertiary jobs (delivering materials, repairing and installing robots, shipping units, etc.) are American?
Post by: AlanStache on December 08, 2016, 11:48:47 AM
Comments from UTC ceo to Jim Crammer re Carrier Jobs/Trump/Mexico.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceo-united-technologies-just-let-231538059.html)
TLDR: Mexico has quality workers, US workers dont want the Carrier jobes. We will replace the US workers with robots.
Meh. Since this automation would happen anyway, isn't it at least a win that the automated factory stays in America, with stricter environmental controls, and the tertiary jobs (delivering materials, repairing and installing robots, shipping units, etc.) are American?
yeah sure, it was more the head of a multi billion dollar company with 200k employees saying that Mexican workers are better and those we have here need to be replaced with robots to make our shit factory competitive.
Post by: tomsang on December 11, 2016, 12:02:08 PM
"When asked keeping jobs in the U.S. will cause them to be replaced by robots, Trump said "they will, and we'll make the robots too," according to The New York Times."
The point that people keep missing is the people who's jobs are being replaced by technology can't just retool and start making robots, software, or the technology. These people will continue to be a burden on society as they do not have usable skills. What is Trump and others proposing to limit the negative impact on those not possessing STEM type skills?
"I think what it leads to is more job destruction, and less job creation, especially for average typical people that don't necessarily have PhDs from MIT and all of that," Ford said.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 11, 2016, 02:39:27 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/10/will-amazon-go-replace-jobs-i-dont-think-we-can-stop-it-author-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=104155267&yptr=yahoo
"When asked keeping jobs in the U.S. will cause them to be replaced by robots, Trump said "they will, and we'll make the robots too," according to The New York Times."
The point that people keep missing is the people who's jobs are being replaced by technology can't just retool and start making robots, software, or the technology. These people will continue to be a burden on society as they do not have usable skills. What is Trump and others proposing to limit the negative impact on those not possessing STEM type skills?
"I think what it leads to is more job destruction, and less job creation, especially for average typical people that don't necessarily have PhDs from MIT and all of that," Ford said.
Well, some candidates have aaid vaguely "retraining " of these people, but I've never heard any actual plan, or read of any proposed legislation that would address this. There are places in this country where the unemployment rate has been much above the national average for decades; I'll believe that politicians really care to adress this when I see it.
Post by: Bakari on December 11, 2016, 09:51:39 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/10/will-amazon-go-replace-jobs-i-dont-think-we-can-stop-it-author-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=104155267&yptr=yahoo (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/10/will-amazon-go-replace-jobs-i-dont-think-we-can-stop-it-author-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=104155267&yptr=yahoo)
"When asked keeping jobs in the U.S. will cause them to be replaced by robots, Trump said "they will, and we'll make the robots too," according to The New York Times."
The point that people keep missing is the people who's jobs are being replaced by technology can't just retool and start making robots, software, or the technology. These people will continue to be a burden on society as they do not have usable skills. What is Trump and others proposing to limit the negative impact on those not possessing STEM type skills?
"I think what it leads to is more job destruction, and less job creation, especially for average typical people that don't necessarily have PhDs from MIT and all of that," Ford said.
Its more than just that. Even if you could train everyone to program and build robots, it just doesn't take tens of millions of people to operate a robot building factory (esp when the robot factory is largely staffed by robots). A given type of robot only needs to be programmed once.
It would be like if you looked at the new tractors and harvesters and other turn of the century farm equipment, or at the auto loom, and said "well, we'll still need people to drive the tractors and operate the loom" - if it took as many people to make and operate the robots as the number of jobs they replaced, then there would be no point in making the robots, they would just be adding an extra step. They would cost more than they produced.
However, he might not have been meaning to imply that all the jobs lost would be replaced by American workers. Just that the profit would go to American companies. Which may well be true, and if your goal is simply maximizing gross GDP, with no concern for its distribution, then he may well actually be spot on.
At least for a little while - until China starts churning out cheap yet extremely advanced robots...
Post by: arebelspy on December 12, 2016, 01:21:48 AM
Its more than just that. Even if you could train everyone to program and build robots, it just doesn't take tens of millions of people to operate a robot building factory (esp when the robot factory is largely staffed by robots). A given type of robot only needs to be programmed once.
Not only that, but it's not a one-to-one: one programmer will write the software that goes on millions of robots.
So if 100 robots replace what was formerly done by 100 humans, it's not like we would need 100 separate programmers for them.
And that's assuming we don't need only 50 robots to do those jobs.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 12, 2016, 01:40:50 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/10/will-amazon-go-replace-jobs-i-dont-think-we-can-stop-it-author-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=104155267&yptr=yahoo (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/10/will-amazon-go-replace-jobs-i-dont-think-we-can-stop-it-author-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=104155267&yptr=yahoo)
"When asked keeping jobs in the U.S. will cause them to be replaced by robots, Trump said "they will, and we'll make the robots too," according to The New York Times."
The point that people keep missing is the people who's jobs are being replaced by technology can't just retool and start making robots, software, or the technology. These people will continue to be a burden on society as they do not have usable skills. What is Trump and others proposing to limit the negative impact on those not possessing STEM type skills?
"I think what it leads to is more job destruction, and less job creation, especially for average typical people that don't necessarily have PhDs from MIT and all of that," Ford said.
Its more than just that. Even if you could train everyone to program and build robots, it just doesn't take tens of millions of people to operate a robot building factory (esp when the robot factory is largely staffed by robots). A given type of robot only needs to be programmed once.
It would be like if you looked at the new tractors and harvesters and other turn of the century farm equipment, or at the auto loom, and said "well, we'll still need people to drive the tractors and operate the loom" - if it took as many people to make and operate the robots as the number of jobs they replaced, then there would be no point in making the robots, they would just be adding an extra step. They would cost more than they produced.
However, he might not have been meaning to imply that all the jobs lost would be replaced by American workers. Just that the profit would go to American companies. Which may well be true, and if your goal is simply maximizing gross GDP, with no concern for its distribution, then he may well actually be spot on.
At least for a little while - until China starts churning out cheap yet extremely advanced robots...
I think the point was that these jobs are going away anyway; if that is the case, it's best for America, in the short-medium term, to keep as many jobs in America as possible
Post by: Kriegsspiel on December 12, 2016, 08:23:09 AM
Post by: tomsang on December 12, 2016, 10:27:04 AM
I think the point was that these jobs are going away anyway; if that is the case, it's best for America, in the short-medium term, to keep as many jobs in America as possible
I think the writing is on the wall that uneducated and also the mostly educated people are not going to be needed for work within the next 30 years. The government will need to figure out a basic income and how to share the technological wealth. Trump's tax plan is to reduce taxes on corporations and the 1% and increase taxes on the poor and middle class. We should be figuring out how to tax the wealthiest more as they own the companies and technology that are churning off record profits, yet we are focusing on squeezing more out of the poor and middle class.
Crazy times!
Post by: Bakari on December 12, 2016, 10:45:08 AM
Not only that, but it's not a one-to-one: one programmer will write the software that goes on millions of robots.
So if 100 robots replace what was formerly done by 100 humans, it's not like we would need 100 separate programmers for them.
And that's assuming we don't need only 50 robots to do those jobs.
yeah, I think I worded it poorly, because that's what I was getting at. It will take one person to engineer and one to program a robot that can then be replicated 1000s of times, where each robot can preform the work of several people, leading to a loss of tens of thousands of jobs providing new jobs to two people, plus maybe a few dozen for maintenance and repairs.
I think the point was that these jobs are going away anyway; if that is the case, it's best for America, in the short-medium term, to keep as many jobs in America as possible
That is definitely the point, I was just questioning the definition of "good for America". One could argue that outsourcing labor was/is "good for America", because it increases profit margins of American companies. The question remains, is what is good for America's corporations always the same as what is good for American citizens?
Or, more to the point, the question remains of how we deal with a world that doesn't need as much labor force as you have people?
Well then thank goodness the anti-Trumpers are stepping up their donations to Planned Parenthood. With no jobs, we don't need all these fucking people.
Can't tell if this is sarcasm, but I definitely agree!
I think the point was that these jobs are going away anyway; if that is the case, it's best for America, in the short-medium term, to keep as many jobs in America as possible
I think the writing is on the wall that uneducated and also the mostly educated people are not going to be needed for work within the next 30 years. The government will need to figure out a basic income and how to share the technological wealth. Trump's tax plan is to reduce taxes on corporations and the 1% and increase taxes on the poor and middle class. We should be figuring out how to tax the wealthiest more as they own the companies and technology that are churning off record profits, yet we are focusing on squeezing more out of the poor and middle class.
Crazy times!
Give it a few more years for people to all start becoming aware of everything we cover in this thread... right now its mostly the very same un and semi educated people with robot replaceable jobs that form the populaist base of the Trump Movement. They are imagining that he will have the power (or even the desire) to bring us back to "the good old days" where hard work at a factory got you a middle class life, presumably by undoing globalization (and of course ending immigration). Which may have been a legitimate complaint 20 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago, but it's mattering less and less - robots don't even need subsistence wages.
Post by: sol on December 12, 2016, 12:23:23 PM
I think the writing is on the wall that uneducated and also the mostly educated people are not going to be needed for work within the next 30 years.
Let's follow this line of thought through to its logical conclusion.
The uneducated become economically superfluous. The wealth gap grows to astronomical levels, with STEM career people becoming fabulously wealthy and lit majors and high school dropouts surviving slightly above poverty level on the newly instituted universal basic income.
Is this system better or worse than what we have now? The super rich will still have more money than the newly enriched STEM folks who are actually driving the economy. Instead of an elite class and a working class, well have an elite class and a working class and a new useless plebe/slave class like the ancient Romans. We're calling this progress?
Depending on how the politics unfold, it might not be so bad. Some people are ill suited to work, by handicap or illness or bad luck, and as long as those people are still full citizens then I would rather see them provided UBI than live on the streets. This part already exists (disability insurance, etc) so the only change is in extending it to other people who could be working, but choose not to (edit: or for whom economically productive work is not available). Former coal miners, factory laborers, early retirees, artists, as long as the robots can provide them health care and food/housing and internet access and voting rights, maybe they're okay with being economically "useless"?
The distinction here is between plebes and proles. "The proletariat" has historically been defined as the class of people who own nothing except their ability to labor for wages, because they do not own the means of production. If robots deprive them of wages for labor, what does that leave them? How does that upset our economic hierarchy?
Post by: Bakari on December 12, 2016, 12:55:24 PM
I think the writing is on the wall that uneducated and also the mostly educated people are not going to be needed for work within the next 30 years.
Let's follow this line of thought through to its logical conclusion.
The uneducated become economically superfluous. The wealth gap grows to astronomical levels, with STEM career people becoming fabulously wealthy and lit majors and high school dropouts surviving slightly above poverty level on the newly instituted universal basic income.
Is this system better or worse than what we have now? The super rich will still have more money than the newly enriched STEM folks who are actually driving the economy. Instead of an elite class and a working class, well have an elite class and a working class and a new useless plebe/slave class like the ancient Romans. We're calling this progress?
Depending on how the politics unfold, it might not be so bad. Some people are I'll suited to work, by handicap or illness or bad luck, and as long as those people are still full citizens then I would rather see them provided UBI than live on the streets. This part already exists (disability insurance, etc) so the only change is in extending it to other people who could be working, but choose not to.
In this (very likely to occur in the real world) scenario they aren't exactly "choosing" not to work. Even if every single person was an engineer or software programmer, there simply wouldn't be enough to keep them all occupied (at least not anything remotely near 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 40 years!)
The change is that the social safety net would have to be broadly and permanently expanded along the lines of current "unemployment", except without running out, without the stipulation of formerly being employed, and without the stipulation of actively looking for work.
Quote
Former coal miners, factory laborers, early retirees, artists, as long as the robots can provide them health care and food/housing and internet access and voting rights, maybe they're okay with being economically "useless"?
The distinction here is between plebes and proles. "The proletariat" has historically been defined as the class of people who own nothing except their ability to labor for wages, because they do not own the means of production. If robots deprive them of wages for labor, what does that leave them? How does that upset our economic hierarchy?
A lot of this analysis depends on just where the UBI is ultimately set. If it is actuallyslightly above poverty level then these will be some excellent questions (and ones most likely answered someday by populist revolution). That certainly seems the most likely direction the US would take it. Places that are currently more socialist, or already have a version of it in place (Iran, Brazil, Alaska) might more readily accept a much larger than slightly above poverty level.
And if everyone has enough for a safe and comfortable life, and doesn't have to work, then the only reasons left to care how rich other people are is jealousy (stupid reason) and influence on politics (legit concern).
Post by: Threshkin on December 12, 2016, 06:47:46 PM
Then do the same for road construction and other similar tasks. With luck we could get to 100% employment in a few years!
/sarc
Post by: tomsang on December 12, 2016, 11:23:35 PM
Hmmm, We could stop using all machinery in farming. Then we could employ tens or hundreds of thousands of people as field workers. Yields might decline but that is good because we could employ even more people!
Then do the same for road construction and other similar tasks. With luck we could get to 100% employment in a few years!
/sarc
I think you are missing the point. The point is that technology is going to eliminate a majority of jobs in the future. Most likely yours will be eliminated within the next two decades. How the government or governments handle the lack of a need for humans for employment or production will determine whether those who don't own the technologies/companies and are unemployable are worthy of living in this new environment. Ways to share the wealth include taxing companies and owners heavily and providing basic income or services to the population even if they have not done anything to "earn" the rewards. Or we can reduce taxes to corporations, reduce taxes to the 1%, and limit or reduce benefits like Social Security, Medicare and other services to the poor. We can also expect the poor and middle class to contribute to society even when they have no possible way of contributing.
To make it simpler: Do we live in a utopia where everyone has everything they need or do we go the route of Terminator where the people are competing and fighting with technology for survival? or How do we structure society so the windfall of technology is shared by all, or do just focus on owning the companies and screw over those that were so stupid that they did not save and invest in the future?
Post by: theadvicist on December 13, 2016, 03:04:24 AM
Their options are:
1) give up a percentage of that money at source as taxation, and keep the masses quiet with a universal income which, whilst not enough to live extravagently, is enough to shut them up and prevent rioting
2) keep more of their money at source. But surround themselves with private security (robots?) and worry constantly about crime, uprising, civil unrest.
I really think the former is obviously the answer.
I saw a politician in the UK talking about our 'welfare state'. His premise was this: benefits aren't given as charity to the poor. They are basically just enough to keep the poor quiet, and out of 'our' way on housing estates. We give them just enough to keep them quiet and not rioting, but we don't give them enough to actually give them a decent chance to get out of the situation they are in.
That resonated with me. Because I think (here in the UK at least) it's kind of true. I know that there are 'rough estates' etc, but I don't know much about them, because I am insulated from them in my little middle-class existence. I have 'heard' of families who haven't worked for three generations, who's kids go straight on the dole etc. I've certainly never met one!
This is what we'll do but on a wider scale when more people are unemployed. Give them just enough... but not too much. And the rich will see that that is for THEIR benefit.
Post by: Enigma on December 13, 2016, 07:40:14 AM
I would predict more of a utopia. Push for more exploration, intellectual expansion, reforestation, cleanup of ocean's garbage, etc...
Post by: mathlete on December 13, 2016, 08:37:15 AM
Well then thank goodness the anti-Trumpers are stepping up their donations to Planned Parenthood. With no jobs, we don't need all these fucking people.
Unless you think that people are inherently valuable regardless of their usefulness to society.
A world with no work for humans to do sounds like a Utopia unless something goes horrifically wrong.
Post by: mathlete on December 13, 2016, 08:50:23 AM
I say this as a STEM person: Nearly half of us are below average at our jobs.
It isn't hard for me to imagine that sufficiently sophisticated software could automate a large percentage of white collar work, given how much white collar work is done on computers these days.
And if we think that we can all just become computer programmers who write that software, it's worth bearing in mind that the BLS projects an 8% decline in the employment of computer programmers over the next decade.
I think the safest among us are probably those with trade-skills. An affordable robot that can come to your house and replace pipe fittings or service your refrigerator is probably further off than the aforementioned sophisticated software.
Post by: Bakari on December 13, 2016, 09:10:08 AM
Well then thank goodness the anti-Trumpers are stepping up their donations to Planned Parenthood. With no jobs, we don't need all these fucking people.Unless you think that people are inherently valuable regardless of their usefulness to society.
I could be mistaken, but I don't think the implication was to kill off all existing people, or even lower the birth rate to zero. PP deals with preventing unwanted pregnancies, not ending the human specie. We can value the existence of humans without needing to try to maximize the number of humans that exist.
Maybe with a combination of austerity and resource management and future technology the planet could support a world of 500 Billion (70 times what we have today - what we would get if all the land on Earth had the same population density as Bangladesh), but life would suck for everyone, and that (to me at least) would not be an indication of us valuing human life.
Quality over quantity.
With regards to the uneducated vs. the STEMs, I think it's maybe a bit presumptuous that the STEMs shall inherit the Earth.Exactly half are below average. By definition.
I say this as a STEM person: Nearly half of us are below average at our jobs.
Quote
I think the safest among us are probably those with trade-skills. An affordable robot that can come to your house and replace pipe fittings or service your refrigerator is probably further off than the aforementioned sophisticated software.Yay!! That's me!!
Post by: mathlete on December 13, 2016, 09:35:50 AM
I could be mistaken, but I don't think the implication was to kill off all existing people, or even lower the birth rate to zero. PP deals with preventing unwanted pregnancies, not ending the human specie. We can value the existence of humans without needing to try to maximize the number of humans that exist.
Maybe with a combination of austerity and resource management and future technology the planet could support a world of 500 Billion (70 times what we have today - what we would get if all the land on Earth had the same population density as Bangladesh), but life would suck for everyone, and that (to me at least) would not be an indication of us valuing human life.
Quality over quantity.
Yeah my comment was kind of separate from the whole PP thing. I agree that reducing the number of unwanted people born (no comment on what the best way to achieve that is) is a good thing.
I just generally disagree with the notion that someone isn't worth existing if they don't have a job to do, or more broadly, that there is an determinable optimal number of humans living on the planet.
I'm sure you could probably draw up any number of scenarios in which the world consisted of a small number of people and they were all happy, prosperous, productive, or (insert fungible definition of quality here). It would probably be a great world to live in if you were one of those people.
Ultimately I think (hope... really hope) that one of the consequences of our eventually marginalization in the labor force is that people will be able to have and raise kids without worrying about whether or not their job pays them enough to afford it.
Exactly half are below average. By definition.
I had to account for the possibility of someone being exactly average ;)
Post by: mathlete on December 13, 2016, 09:38:39 AM
Walmart is a good example. They are eliminating (http://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-cut-7-000-back-office-store-jobs-1472743429) about 7,000 store accounting and invoicing positions. Those jobs, which are some of the better paying positions at Walmart, will be centralized and automated.
Great link!
This is one of the things I really like about MMM's rhetoric. He constantly talks about being paid "absurd" amounts of money when he was in the workforce for doing what is basically a desk job.
I think that really forces people to think about what the actual, long term value of what they do is.
For me, it reinforces one major thought: I'd better get it while the getting is good.
Post by: GuitarStv on December 13, 2016, 09:50:55 AM
Exactly half are below average. By definition.
I had to account for the possibility of someone being exactly average ;)
I had just figured that you must have been one of those a little below the line. :P
Post by: fattest_foot on December 13, 2016, 10:46:11 AM
Walmart is a good example. They are eliminating (http://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-cut-7-000-back-office-store-jobs-1472743429) about 7,000 store accounting and invoicing positions. Those jobs, which are some of the better paying positions at Walmart, will be centralized and automated.
Great link!
This is one of the things I really like about MMM's rhetoric. He constantly talks about being paid "absurd" amounts of money when he was in the workforce for doing what is basically a desk job.
I think that really forces people to think about what the actual, long term value of what they do is.
For me, it reinforces one major thought: I'd better get it while the getting is good.
My wife and I frequently talk about how we don't really accomplish much at work, and how it's actually really surprising we get paid what we do. She previously worked as a bank teller making about half what she does now, and she sees a remarkable difference in what's expected of her (less now) despite being paid considerably more.
We were at a Christmas party earlier this month with her coworkers, and somehow it got brought up in a joking way about how no one actually does any work. One guy stated, "I always worry that they're going to fire me when they find out what I actually do, but then I hear you all talk and I feel okay!"
White collar jobs to me are baffling. They get paid an exorbitant amount of money and I'm not really sure most of us are actually adding much value to society.
Yesterday even, I mentioned to my wife that someone must be doing some work here, because I'm pretty sure we do actually have an end product to show for it. We just can't figure out who those people are. Maybe it's all accidental?
Post by: AlanStache on December 13, 2016, 10:57:05 AM
Exactly half are below average. By definition.
I had to account for the possibility of someone being exactly average ;)
I had just figured that you must have been one of those a little below the line. :P
If we are getting this pedantic we should be talking about median not mean :-p wrt ability half the people will be above the median and half below. Bill Gates walks into a soup kitchen, he is the only person over the mean net worth but half the people are still above the median. (ignoring the potential for people to be exactly on the mean/median).
and since memes are so hot right now...
(https://media.makeameme.org/created/yeah-i-nailled.jpg)
Post by: Pooplips on December 13, 2016, 11:11:29 AM
Post by: Watchmaker on December 13, 2016, 11:19:39 AM
The uneducated become economically superfluous. The wealth gap grows to astronomical levels, with STEM career people becoming fabulously wealthy and lit majors and high school dropouts surviving slightly above poverty level on the newly instituted universal basic income.
Is this system better or worse than what we have now? The super rich will still have more money than the newly enriched STEM folks who are actually driving the economy. Instead of an elite class and a working class, well have an elite class and a working class and a new useless plebe/slave class like the ancient Romans. We're calling this progress?
Depending on how the politics unfold, it might not be so bad. Some people are ill suited to work, by handicap or illness or bad luck, and as long as those people are still full citizens then I would rather see them provided UBI than live on the streets. This part already exists (disability insurance, etc) so the only change is in extending it to other people who could be working, but choose not to (edit: or for whom economically productive work is not available). Former coal miners, factory laborers, early retirees, artists, as long as the robots can provide them health care and food/housing and internet access and voting rights, maybe they're okay with being economically "useless"?
I think the key in your scenario is who has the political power. If those on the receiving end of the UBI are in power, I think this system could work well.
If political power is consolidated within the elites, not so good. But also, it wouldn't last. Revolution, off with their heads, etc.
The scenario I personally hope for would be one where most of use choose to work, just not as much as we do currently. Perhaps 10 hours a week on average. Menial or unpleasant jobs would pay very well, prestigious jobs would pay less. I do think there are limits to what kind of labor can be automated efficiently (compared to the wages a human would want) so I don't see the labor demand going to 0.
That plan alone doesn't limit the growth of the capital owning elite, though. Ultimately, I think you'd want to rein in that group through taxation or legislation.
Post by: Watchmaker on December 13, 2016, 11:21:15 AM
While jobs will be lost, no one here seems to be looking at the cost of goods produced. While automation is increasing, the cost of production should be decreasing. This will go along way in healping the people left out of the job market.
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.
Post by: AlanStache on December 13, 2016, 11:21:41 AM
While jobs will be lost, no one here seems to be looking at the cost of goods produced. While automation is increasing, the cost of production should be decreasing. This will go along way in healping the people left out of the job market.
This was discussed up-thread, the idea that a UBI amount might decrease with time as the price of a basic living decreases.
"I think the safest among us are probably those with trade-skills. An affordable robot that can come to your house and replace pipe fittings or service your refrigerator is probably further off than the aforementioned sophisticated software." - mathlete
Also discussed up-thread that income levels could be come bi-modal as many tasks can be hired out relatively cheaply but would be hard to robotize in software/hardware; as you said plumber or hotel maid.
Post by: Pooplips on December 13, 2016, 11:23:43 AM
The uneducated become economically superfluous. The wealth gap grows to astronomical levels, with STEM career people becoming fabulously wealthy and lit majors and high school dropouts surviving slightly above poverty level on the newly instituted universal basic income.
Is this system better or worse than what we have now? The super rich will still have more money than the newly enriched STEM folks who are actually driving the economy. Instead of an elite class and a working class, well have an elite class and a working class and a new useless plebe/slave class like the ancient Romans. We're calling this progress?
Depending on how the politics unfold, it might not be so bad. Some people are ill suited to work, by handicap or illness or bad luck, and as long as those people are still full citizens then I would rather see them provided UBI than live on the streets. This part already exists (disability insurance, etc) so the only change is in extending it to other people who could be working, but choose not to (edit: or for whom economically productive work is not available). Former coal miners, factory laborers, early retirees, artists, as long as the robots can provide them health care and food/housing and internet access and voting rights, maybe they're okay with being economically "useless"?
I think the key in your scenario is who has the political power. If those on the receiving end of the UBI are in power, I think this system could work well.
If political power is consolidated within the elites, not so good. But also, it wouldn't last. Revolution, off with their heads, etc.
The scenario I personally hope for would be one where most of use choose to work, just not as much as we do currently. Perhaps 10 hours a week on average. Menial or unpleasant jobs would pay very well, prestigious jobs would pay less. I do think there are limits to what kind of labor can be automated efficiently (compared to the wages a human would want) so I don't see the labor demand going to 0.
That plan alone doesn't limit the growth of the capital owning elite, though. Ultimately, I think you'd want to rein in that group through taxation or legislation.
Reign them in from what exactly?
Post by: Watchmaker on December 13, 2016, 12:46:20 PM
Reign them in from what exactly?
Reign in the size, income, and/or wealth of that group. Through legislative changes.
Post by: mathlete on December 13, 2016, 01:49:51 PM
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.
I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
It's just a matter of whether or not the capitalists at the top who own the costless means of production are willing to part with their costless production at near zero levels.
Things are going to get messy.
Post by: Bakari on December 13, 2016, 03:05:25 PM
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
Labor is only one of the production costs though.
Robots aren't likely to make materials dramatically cheaper, they still need to be mined and harvested and drilled - and some of the basic materials we use the most are either finite, or renew at a finite rate, so any increase in harvesting efficiency gets offset by decreasing supply.
And the biggest cost of living today is, for most people, housing, the price of which is determined entirely by a limited supply
(habitable places on Earth, minus the minimum land area for producing food, and hopefully minus some area for all the rest of living things)
and a virtually unlimited demand. Technology can't create new land in a popular city, so unless the trend for most people to want to live in urban areas reverses - then again, maybe if no one needs "jobs", it actually would...
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 14, 2016, 05:20:21 AM
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
Labor is only one of the production costs though.
Robots aren't likely to make materials dramatically cheaper, they still need to be mined and harvested and drilled - and some of the basic materials we use the most are either finite, or renew at a finite rate, so any increase in harvesting efficiency gets offset by decreasing supply.
And the biggest cost of living today is, for most people, housing, the price of which is determined entirely by a limited supply
(habitable places on Earth, minus the minimum land area for producing food, and hopefully minus some area for all the rest of living things)
and a virtually unlimited demand. Technology can't create new land in a popular city, so unless the trend for most people to want to live in urban areas reverses - then again, maybe if no one needs "jobs", it actually would...
The change in residential living patterns in a post-job world would be interesting. I'd suddenly like downtown a lot less. Exburbs would be even better - self-driving car to take me to the city if I ever needed to go, but more space and privacy than a crowded city.
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 05:26:23 AM
Reign them in from what exactly?
Reign in the size, income, and/or wealth of that group. Through legislative changes.
I understand but why would we need to do that?
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 05:31:09 AM
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
Labor is only one of the production costs though.
Robots aren't likely to make materials dramatically cheaper, they still need to be mined and harvested and drilled - and some of the basic materials we use the most are either finite, or renew at a finite rate, so any increase in harvesting efficiency gets offset by decreasing supply.
And the biggest cost of living today is, for most people, housing, the price of which is determined entirely by a limited supply
(habitable places on Earth, minus the minimum land area for producing food, and hopefully minus some area for all the rest of living things)
and a virtually unlimited demand. Technology can't create new land in a popular city, so unless the trend for most people to want to live in urban areas reverses - then again, maybe if no one needs "jobs", it actually would...
Tech can't create new land but it can increase population desity, crop yeild per acre, etc. With only 5% of the land mass of the US developed, there is till plenty of room.
Post by: Watchmaker on December 14, 2016, 09:02:47 AM
Reign them in from what exactly?
Reign in the size, income, and/or wealth of that group. Through legislative changes.
I understand but why would we need to do that?
It is my opinion that the current level wealth disparity is unhealthy for society. I worry that UBI could exacerbate that disparity (depending on the details). If we found that UBI program we built was concentrating more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands, I suggest we'd want to counter that with more taxation on income (or a wealth tax, or lifetime earning cap, etc). That's all.
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 09:09:57 AM
Post by: Watchmaker on December 14, 2016, 10:18:14 AM
If you don't mind, can you tell my why you believe it would be unhealthy for society?
Sure. To be clear, I believe current levels of wealth disparity (in the US) are unhealthy for society and that, were the disparity to increase, it would be more unhealthy.
Now, that doesn't mean that my ideal is for everyone to have the same wealth. I'm fully on board people benefiting from their own hard work, and see no reason to force equality on a group of clearly different people.
But there's nothing natural, special, or intrinsic about the current distribution of wealth--it's simply a byproduct of our tax framework. We, as a society, are free to modify that framework.
My reasons for wanting to keep the disparity in check are primarily practical--I want the system to be stable. As I mention above, I believe UBI requires "the people" to be in power. If the resources of the wealthy are such that they can buy outsized influence in politics, then the system looks too feudal in nature to me. this is what I mean by unhealthy.
I'm just throwing this out there as a thought exercise, so don't take it too seriously, but I might suggest that I want the system built such that the collective wealth (including the present value of the UBI annuity) of those subsisting on UBI and their own labor is greater then the collective wealth of the upper class.
If you could truly divorce politics from money, I would probably care less about wealth disparity. But wealth disparity also effects the economy and most economists seem to agree there's an optimal about of inequity (although they don't necessarily agree on the amount). Because of this conversation, I'm reading this paper right now:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437115003738
Post by: dougules on December 14, 2016, 10:54:02 AM
With regards to the uneducated vs. the STEMs, I think it's maybe a bit presumptuous that the STEMs shall inherit the Earth.
I say this as a STEM person: Nearly half of us are below average at our jobs.
It isn't hard for me to imagine that sufficiently sophisticated software could automate a large percentage of white collar work, given how much white collar work is done on computers these days.
And if we think that we can all just become computer programmers who write that software, it's worth bearing in mind that the BLS projects an 8% decline in the employment of computer programmers over the next decade.
I think the safest among us are probably those with trade-skills. An affordable robot that can come to your house and replace pipe fittings or service your refrigerator is probably further off than the aforementioned sophisticated software.
The safest among us are the ones that are busy buying up as much of the means of production (ie. stocks) as possible while labor is still worth something.
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.
I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
It's just a matter of whether or not the capitalists at the top who own the costless means of production are willing to part with their costless production at near zero levels.
Things are going to get messy.
Most people in this forum are on their way to being part of those capitalists at the top. I hope we don't end up being the petty nobility in the next French Revolution.
Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
Labor is only one of the production costs though.
Robots aren't likely to make materials dramatically cheaper, they still need to be mined and harvested and drilled - and some of the basic materials we use the most are either finite, or renew at a finite rate, so any increase in harvesting efficiency gets offset by decreasing supply.
And the biggest cost of living today is, for most people, housing, the price of which is determined entirely by a limited supply
(habitable places on Earth, minus the minimum land area for producing food, and hopefully minus some area for all the rest of living things)
and a virtually unlimited demand. Technology can't create new land in a popular city, so unless the trend for most people to want to live in urban areas reverses - then again, maybe if no one needs "jobs", it actually would...
Plenty of new land is getting created in cities. It's just being stacked in layers over old land.
But yes, resources that are finite mean prices will never go to 0. There's only so much copper to build the robots and only so much phosphate to grow the food those robots will be preparing for the new people of leisure.
Quote
The change in residential living patterns in a post-job world would be interesting. I'd suddenly like downtown a lot less. Exburbs would be even better - self-driving car to take me to the city if I ever needed to go, but more space and privacy than a crowded city.
A decent amount of people are living in cities for economic reasons alone, but a lot of people intrinsically want to live in a city. And a lot of people that instrinsically want to live in a city don't because it's expensive at the moment.
It's true that a ton of people would move back out into the country if income weren't a factor. Will it be a good thing, though, when so much wilderness and farmland in the world become people's yards because half the population wants 20 acres a piece?
Post by: Threshkin on December 14, 2016, 11:57:12 AM
Exactly half are below average. By definition.
I had to account for the possibility of someone being exactly average ;)
Or there being an odd number of people?
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 12:00:49 PM
If you don't mind, can you tell my why you believe it would be unhealthy for society?
Sure. To be clear, I believe current levels of wealth disparity (in the US) are unhealthy for society and that, were the disparity to increase, it would be more unhealthy.
Now, that doesn't mean that my ideal is for everyone to have the same wealth. I'm fully on board people benefiting from their own hard work, and see no reason to force equality on a group of clearly different people.
But there's nothing natural, special, or intrinsic about the current distribution of wealth--it's simply a byproduct of our tax framework. We, as a society, are free to modify that framework.
My reasons for wanting to keep the disparity in check are primarily practical--I want the system to be stable. As I mention above, I believe UBI requires "the people" to be in power. If the resources of the wealthy are such that they can buy outsized influence in politics, then the system looks too feudal in nature to me. this is what I mean by unhealthy.
I'm just throwing this out there as a thought exercise, so don't take it too seriously, but I might suggest that I want the system built such that the collective wealth (including the present value of the UBI annuity) of those subsisting on UBI and their own labor is greater then the collective wealth of the upper class.
If you could truly divorce politics from money, I would probably care less about wealth disparity. But wealth disparity also effects the economy and most economists seem to agree there's an optimal about of inequity (although they don't necessarily agree on the amount). Because of this conversation, I'm reading this paper right now:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437115003738
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
Post by: arebelspy on December 14, 2016, 12:08:41 PM
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
There may be a number of factors contributing, but the tax framework is the thing keeping it in place.
A 100% tax on income above $X would immediately "fix" it (if you think it's a problem). A 100% inheritance tax would go a long way, too.
I agree with you that there's many things that contribute to wealth disparity, but the tax framework keeps it in place, when it could "solve" it.
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 12:13:49 PM
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
There may be a number of factors contributing, but the tax framework is the thing keeping it in place.
A 100% tax on income above $X would immediately "fix" it (if you think it's a problem). A 100% inheritance tax would go a long way, too.
I agree with you that there's many things that contribute to wealth disparity, but the tax framework keeps it in place, when it could "solve" it.
That makes sense. I guess I just don't see it as a problem then. By "solving" the problem, I think we would create 10x as many problems as the one we are solving; and we won't even agree its a problem in the first place.
Post by: Watchmaker on December 14, 2016, 01:06:11 PM
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
There may be a number of factors contributing, but the tax framework is the thing keeping it in place.
A 100% tax on income above $X would immediately "fix" it (if you think it's a problem). A 100% inheritance tax would go a long way, too.
I agree with you that there's many things that contribute to wealth disparity, but the tax framework keeps it in place, when it could "solve" it.
I agree that the a lot of factors that influence wealth distribution, what I mean to say is that the tax framework is the tool we use to adjust that distribution (pretty much what ARS said).
That makes sense. I guess I just don't see it as a problem then. By "solving" the problem, I think we would create 10x as many problems as the one we are solving; and we won't even agree its a problem in the first place.
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
Post by: Pooplips on December 14, 2016, 01:14:38 PM
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
I guess I am just not seeing this. The lowest person would have 0 wealth (I guess they could have negative wealth through debt) and the wealthiest person could have an infinite amount of wealth. How does the tax code set the wealth disparity?
Post by: tomsang on December 14, 2016, 04:02:51 PM
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
I guess I am just not seeing this. The lowest person would have 0 wealth (I guess they could have negative wealth through debt) and the wealthiest person could have an infinite amount of wealth. How does the tax code set the wealth disparity?
What we see now is not even close to what the future will be when technology wipes out the usefulness of labor. How do those who do not own the companies feed themselves, have shelter, etc. when they have zero opportunity to earn income and don't own the technology? Taxes, laws and other government control will potentially share the wealth from these technological advancements with all citizens of the US and probably more importantly the world. There will be many that say that they earned it and that they don't want to share with the those that don't own the equities of companies. That is where it gets weird. We either eliminate those that have no economic value or we support them. We do this as well. Very few people in the US pay enough taxes if you figure it out per person. So our taxing system is based on taxing based on a progressive system, where those that make more pay the vast majority of the total taxes collected. If we did not have that system and forced everyone to pay their "Fair Share" then many would not be able to do so and would be acting as slaves to pay as much as they could.
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 14, 2016, 08:49:53 PM
With regards to the uneducated vs. the STEMs, I think it's maybe a bit presumptuous that the STEMs shall inherit the Earth.
I say this as a STEM person: Nearly half of us are below average at our jobs.
It isn't hard for me to imagine that sufficiently sophisticated software could automate a large percentage of white collar work, given how much white collar work is done on computers these days.
And if we think that we can all just become computer programmers who write that software, it's worth bearing in mind that the BLS projects an 8% decline in the employment of computer programmers over the next decade.
I think the safest among us are probably those with trade-skills. An affordable robot that can come to your house and replace pipe fittings or service your refrigerator is probably further off than the aforementioned sophisticated software.
The safest among us are the ones that are busy buying up as much of the means of production (ie. stocks) as possible while labor is still worth something.Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.
I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
It's just a matter of whether or not the capitalists at the top who own the costless means of production are willing to part with their costless production at near zero levels.
Things are going to get messy.
Most people in this forum are on their way to being part of those capitalists at the top. I hope we don't end up being the petty nobility in the next French Revolution.Unless the cost of goods goes to 0, that won't do any good for someone with no income.I can see the cost of goods and services approaching very near zero.
Labor is only one of the production costs though.
Robots aren't likely to make materials dramatically cheaper, they still need to be mined and harvested and drilled - and some of the basic materials we use the most are either finite, or renew at a finite rate, so any increase in harvesting efficiency gets offset by decreasing supply.
And the biggest cost of living today is, for most people, housing, the price of which is determined entirely by a limited supply
(habitable places on Earth, minus the minimum land area for producing food, and hopefully minus some area for all the rest of living things)
and a virtually unlimited demand. Technology can't create new land in a popular city, so unless the trend for most people to want to live in urban areas reverses - then again, maybe if no one needs "jobs", it actually would...
Plenty of new land is getting created in cities. It's just being stacked in layers over old land.
But yes, resources that are finite mean prices will never go to 0. There's only so much copper to build the robots and only so much phosphate to grow the food those robots will be preparing for the new people of leisure.QuoteThe change in residential living patterns in a post-job world would be interesting. I'd suddenly like downtown a lot less. Exburbs would be even better - self-driving car to take me to the city if I ever needed to go, but more space and privacy than a crowded city.
A decent amount of people are living in cities for economic reasons alone, but a lot of people intrinsically want to live in a city. And a lot of people that instrinsically want to live in a city don't because it's expensive at the moment.
It's true that a ton of people would move back out into the country if income weren't a factor. Will it be a good thing, though, when so much wilderness and farmland in the world become people's yards because half the population wants 20 acres a piece?
The world only has something like 5 acres per person. So...if half of them want 20 acres....we need another planet the same size. And then the other half get zero each.
Post by: sol on December 14, 2016, 09:18:49 PM
The world only has something like 5 acres per person. So...if half of them want 20 acres....we need another planet the same size. And then the other half get zero each.
While technically correct, that's an optimistic scenario. Every person in the world can have five acres of land, on the condition that a whole bunch of those folks are going to get 5 acres of the Sahara desert or the middle of Antarctica.
I'll take my five in Hawaii, thanks.
Post by: Bakari on December 14, 2016, 09:58:51 PM
Most people in this forum are on their way to being part of those capitalists at the top. I hope we don't end up being the petty nobility in the next French Revolution.
No they aren't. Almost everyone doesn't fully grasp just how extreme inequality has gotten. The much talked about "1%" is quite literally closer to the poverty line than they are to the average 0.1%
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/31/the-other-wealth-gapthe-1-vs-the-001.html
http://theweek.com/speedreads/442263/chart-americas-01-percent-now-have-much-wealth-bottom-90-percent
Post by: Bakari on December 14, 2016, 10:03:44 PM
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
Certainly it is much more than just taxes, but many of the ways are in fact enabled by government. Corporations, owning more land than you can personally defend, patents and copyrights, none of these things exist except that government creates and enforces them.
Even if you restrict it to geography, culture, freedom, etc, that still makes a vast amount of inequality not an issue of hardwork or talent or contributions, but rather makes it (at least largely) about luck. What possible justification is there for creating a society that enhances unearned inequality rather than correct it?
Post by: Bakari on December 14, 2016, 10:09:01 PM
... There will be many that say that they earned it and that they don't want to share with the those that don't own the equities of companies. ...
Well, once there's been enough time for a full turn over of humanity (3-4 generations) then everyone alive will have never had a job, and unless the definition of "earning" is expanded to include "inherited equities", then we'll either have to go socialist or come up with a justification for a secular caste system
Post by: Bakari on December 14, 2016, 10:13:41 PM
The world only has something like 5 acres per person. So...if half of them want 20 acres....we need another planet the same size. And then the other half get zero each.
While technically correct, that's an optimistic scenario. Every person in the world can have five acres of land, on the condition that a whole bunch of those folks are going to get 5 acres of the Sahara desert or the middle of Antarctica.
I'll take my five in Hawaii, thanks.
Not to mention we'd have to eliminate 100% of all habitat for anything that humans don't want to live next to. Which, fancy advanced robots or no, completely destroying the entire non-human eco-system is probably going to have some negative effects on us
Post by: jordanread on December 14, 2016, 10:26:46 PM
Post by: arebelspy on December 15, 2016, 01:58:25 AM
Most people in this forum are on their way to being part of those capitalists at the top. I hope we don't end up being the petty nobility in the next French Revolution.
No they aren't. Almost everyone doesn't fully grasp just how extreme inequality has gotten. The much talked about "1%" is quite literally closer to the poverty line than they are to the average 0.1%
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/31/the-other-wealth-gapthe-1-vs-the-001.html
http://theweek.com/speedreads/442263/chart-americas-01-percent-now-have-much-wealth-bottom-90-percent
If there was a revolution, I wouldn't count on this argument to get me out of the guillotine. Mobs are irrational.
Post by: jordanread on December 15, 2016, 04:24:55 AM
Luckily most Mustachians don't possess the external trappings of the rich... so I'm sure the mob would just take one look at our Toyota Tercel and continue mobbing somewhere else.
You meant our bikes, right?
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 05:04:31 AM
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
I guess I am just not seeing this. The lowest person would have 0 wealth (I guess they could have negative wealth through debt) and the wealthiest person could have an infinite amount of wealth. How does the tax code set the wealth disparity?
What we see now is not even close to what the future will be when technology wipes out the usefulness of labor. How do those who do not own the companies feed themselves, have shelter, etc. when they have zero opportunity to earn income and don't own the technology? Taxes, laws and other government control will potentially share the wealth from these technological advancements with all citizens of the US and probably more importantly the world. There will be many that say that they earned it and that they don't want to share with the those that don't own the equities of companies. That is where it gets weird. We either eliminate those that have no economic value or we support them. We do this as well. Very few people in the US pay enough taxes if you figure it out per person. So our taxing system is based on taxing based on a progressive system, where those that make more pay the vast majority of the total taxes collected. If we did not have that system and forced everyone to pay their "Fair Share" then many would not be able to do so and would be acting as slaves to pay as much as they could.
Who are all the wealthy people going to sell their products too if no one has any income? It is in their own best interest to have people able to buy their products. I believe this was talk about previously as well.
Post by: jordanread on December 15, 2016, 05:08:20 AM
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
I guess I am just not seeing this. The lowest person would have 0 wealth (I guess they could have negative wealth through debt) and the wealthiest person could have an infinite amount of wealth. How does the tax code set the wealth disparity?
What we see now is not even close to what the future will be when technology wipes out the usefulness of labor. How do those who do not own the companies feed themselves, have shelter, etc. when they have zero opportunity to earn income and don't own the technology? Taxes, laws and other government control will potentially share the wealth from these technological advancements with all citizens of the US and probably more importantly the world. There will be many that say that they earned it and that they don't want to share with the those that don't own the equities of companies. That is where it gets weird. We either eliminate those that have no economic value or we support them. We do this as well. Very few people in the US pay enough taxes if you figure it out per person. So our taxing system is based on taxing based on a progressive system, where those that make more pay the vast majority of the total taxes collected. If we did not have that system and forced everyone to pay their "Fair Share" then many would not be able to do so and would be acting as slaves to pay as much as they could.
Who are all the wealthy people going to sell their products too if no one has any income? It is in their own best interest to have people able to buy their products. I believe this was talk about previously as well.
Ah yes. The idea of a consumer-based society. It was kind of discussed earlier, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 05:16:26 AM
It is difficult for me to see how the current wealth disparity is simply a byproduct of our tax framework. There are numerous factors that contribute to why some people are wealthy and some are not: geography, culture, freedom, etc.
I do agree that if wealth can buy political influence, there is a huge problem.
Certainly it is much more than just taxes, but many of the ways are in fact enabled by government. Corporations, owning more land than you can personally defend, patents and copyrights, none of these things exist except that government creates and enforces them.
Even if you restrict it to geography, culture, freedom, etc, that still makes a vast amount of inequality not an issue of hardwork or talent or contributions, but rather makes it (at least largely) about luck. What possible justification is there for creating a society that enhances unearned inequality rather than correct it?
Currency, State and national boarders, the justice system, all things that only exist in our minds because we choose to believe them.
What is your definition of unearned inequality?
My justification is that I don't think our current system enhances unearned inequality and I dont think it needs to be corrected. Our current system runs on voluntary transactions so they only way to get unearned inequality is to force people to buy your product. That can only be done through the government from what I have seen.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 05:19:09 AM
Ah yes. The idea of a consumer-based society. It was kind of discussed earlier, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
What would you like to know? There are two sides to every transaction so you really can't have a consumer based society because someone has to produce those goods. More of a consumer/producer balance driven by prices.
Post by: Watchmaker on December 15, 2016, 07:27:00 AM
My point here is that we are already using that framework to set the wealth disparity level at an arbitrary level. I'm not proposing we put in a new economic control measure--just that we change the target of an existing one.
I guess I am just not seeing this. The lowest person would have 0 wealth (I guess they could have negative wealth through debt) and the wealthiest person could have an infinite amount of wealth. How does the tax code set the wealth disparity?
I sympathize, as this is a complex issue and we're having a necessarily simplified conversation. I'm hand waiving over a bunch of issues trying not to get stuck in the weeds (for example, I keep talking about wealth disparity but taxes largely affect income, not wealth).
So yes, it's not just taxes. Up page someone mentioned patents, I think that's a great example of another tool which affects wealth disparity.
The disconnect between you an I seems to be that you don't think our current system affects wealth disparity. I'm asking you to reflect on that.
We have a progressive tax system. If we made our tax system more progressive, don't you think that would tighten the spread of (post tax) incomes? And likewise, if we switched to a flat or regressive tax system, wouldn't that cause the spread in income to widen? Just look at the income inequality in different countries around the world with different tax schemes if you want real world evidence (Sweden vs the US, for example).
Post by: Kriegsspiel on December 15, 2016, 07:32:34 AM
What would you like to know? There are two sides to every transaction so you really can't have a consumer based society because someone has to produce those goods. More of a consumer/producer balance driven by prices.
Well, if the robots the rich people own are making everything, they will just keep the products, or trade with other rich people who own robots that make other stuff. You don't really need a mass consumer base. They'll realize that the raw materials and, more importantly, the energy required to run the robots can't be equally divided among all the people, so they box out the proles. There will surely be violence, which is good. Because it's a lot of fun to watch movies and play video games about wars.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 07:43:18 AM
I sympathize, as this is a complex issue and we're having a necessarily simplified conversation. I'm hand waiving over a bunch of issues trying not to get stuck in the weeds (for example, I keep talking about wealth disparity but taxes largely affect income, not wealth).
So yes, it's not just taxes. Up page someone mentioned patents, I think that's a great example of another tool which affects wealth disparity.
The disconnect between you an I seems to be that you don't think our current system affects wealth disparity. I'm asking you to reflect on that.
We have a progressive tax system. If we made our tax system more progressive, don't you think that would tighten the spread of (post tax) incomes? And likewise, if we switched to a flat or regressive tax system, wouldn't that cause the spread in income to widen? Just look at the income inequality in different countries around the world with different tax schemes if you want real world evidence (Sweden vs the US, for example).
I don't think this is our disconnect. I agree. The wealth disparity could be fixed almost instantly through taxes and the current tax system keeps it from being "fixed". Arebelspy and others have shown me this upthread and I cannot disagree.
The disconnect is I do not think wealth disparity is an issue at all. The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
Post by: Watchmaker on December 15, 2016, 08:03:00 AM
I don't think this is our disconnect. I agree.
My mistake.
The disconnect is I do not think wealth disparity is an issue at all. The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
The same societal tools which controlled (assisted, limited) how wealthy that someone else is also affected you. So while their level of wealth may not directly affect yours, the environment in which you both operated did. And the degree to which it rewarded their harder work/bigger brain/better genetics/more luck over you is an arbitrary one which we have picked as a society.
Post by: Schaefer Light on December 15, 2016, 08:09:28 AM
I don't think this is our disconnect. I agree.
My mistake.The disconnect is I do not think wealth disparity is an issue at all. The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
The same societal tools which controlled (assisted, limited) how wealthy that someone else is also affected you. So while their level of wealth may not directly affect yours, the environment in which you both operated did. And the degree to which it rewarded their harder work/bigger brain/better genetics/more luck over you is an arbitrary one which we have picked as a society.
Well, that reward system makes more sense than one in which we reward people for being stupid and lazy.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 08:23:17 AM
I don't think this is our disconnect. I agree.
My mistake.The disconnect is I do not think wealth disparity is an issue at all. The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
The same societal tools which controlled (assisted, limited) how wealthy that someone else is also affected you. So while their level of wealth may not directly affect yours, the environment in which you both operated did. And the degree to which it rewarded their harder work/bigger brain/better genetics/more luck over you is an arbitrary one which we have picked as a society.
I may be wrong, but the way I read this is: Since we operate in the same govermental/tax system (environment), that system hindered me from becoming wealthy while helping someone else become wealthy due to "harder work, bigger brain, better genetics, more luck, etc."
Also, in what way have we as a society picked an arbitrary degree to which people get rewarded based on those factors? In my opinion, society rewards those that produce the most value too society. Society rewards apple for coming up with the iPhone and the updates they add by buying them. Society, in the future, will reward whoever figures out how to cost effectively: turn solar energy into electricity, desalinate ocean water, etc.
The more I read your comment the more I am confused by it and my fist response too it for that matter. Haha
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 08:26:39 AM
I don't think this is our disconnect. I agree.
My mistake.The disconnect is I do not think wealth disparity is an issue at all. The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
The same societal tools which controlled (assisted, limited) how wealthy that someone else is also affected you. So while their level of wealth may not directly affect yours, the environment in which you both operated did. And the degree to which it rewarded their harder work/bigger brain/better genetics/more luck over you is an arbitrary one which we have picked as a society.
Well, that reward system makes more sense than one in which we reward people for being stupid and lazy.
The current system does not reward that at all. You don't become a billionaire by being stupid and lazy. (Unless you inherit the money or will a billion dollar powerball. Both of which simply make you lucky.)
Post by: Watchmaker on December 15, 2016, 09:32:05 AM
I may be wrong, but the way I read this is: Since we operate in the same govermental/tax system (environment), that system hindered me from becoming wealthy while helping someone else become wealthy due to "harder work, bigger brain, better genetics, more luck, etc."
Also, in what way have we as a society picked an arbitrary degree to which people get rewarded based on those factors? In my opinion, society rewards those that produce the most value too society. Society rewards apple for coming up with the iPhone and the updates they add by buying them. Society, in the future, will reward whoever figures out how to cost effectively: turn solar energy into electricity, desalinate ocean water, etc.
The more I read your comment the more I am confused by it and my fist response too it for that matter. Haha
It may be that you think I'm talking about a larger change then I am. Let me try again.
I'm not saying the system simply hindered you and assisted someone else, and that's the only reason they have more money. People's work ethic, brains, genetics, etc are why they do better than others. I'm not arguing we try to change that, only that we tweak the system which affects the degree to which they are rewarded for those things.
Imagine two people, A and B, living in the the society.
A is a good employee and diligent, but not exceptionally so.
B is a brilliant, hard working person who creates a whole new industry through their technical and business innovation.
I want B to be rewarded for their efforts more than A, as I'm sure you do too. But it isn't a binary choice of rewarding someone for their accomplishments or not; we also must make choices (as a society) that affect how well they will be rewarded.
Let's say A has a job making $50,000 a year. And B founds a company that makes him $50,000,000 a year. now imagine three different tax situations:
1. A flat tax of 20% of each person's income.
2. A progressive tax system which taxes A's salary at 15% and B's salary at 40%.
3. A even more progressive system which taxes A's salary at 0% and B's at 70%.
Holding everything else constant, it's obvious that the gap in their post tax income will be largest in situation 1 and smallest in situation 3.
In the US we are currently closest to situation 2, but in the past have had marginal income tax rates higher than situation 3. I don't see an argument for why situation 2 is better, or in some intrinsic way more right, than situation 3 (or vice versa).
So, since we're already using societal tools to affect that gap, why should it be off the table to modify the settings of those tools?
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 09:51:39 AM
I am now wondering what studies have been done to analyse various tax structures and incentives they provide for economic and standard of living growth.
Another point would be a moral one. Is it moral for a third party to decide how much reward someone should get based on voluntary transactions?
Post by: Watchmaker on December 15, 2016, 10:04:53 AM
Another point would be a moral one. Is it moral for a third party to decide how much reward someone should get based on voluntary transactions?
I think that's reasonable to ask, but again since we are already making decisions that affect how much reward someone gets (through taxes, IP laws, minimum wage, etc) I don't think my suggestion is altering the morality of the situation.
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 10:20:23 AM
Currency, State and national boarders, the justice system, all things that only exist in our minds because we choose to believe them.
Yes, exactly, and there are some more things without which no one could ever become a billionaire.
Currency in particular, but even more so Corporations, owning more land than you can personally defend (title deeds), patents and copyrights, none of these things exist except that government creates and enforces them.
Quote
What is your definition of unearned inequality?Any difference in wealth due, in whole or in part, to anything other than differences in talent, creativity, and work ethic. You seem to have the underlying base assumption that the reason some people are richer than others is 100% because rich people earned more wealth through innovation, while most of the others in this thread acknowledge that may be a factor sometimes, but believe it is not the only one.
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My justification is that I don't think our current system enhances unearned inequality and I dont think it needs to be corrected.An entity like WalMart could not exist without government protection. WalMart makes deals with lawmakers, gets (anit-competitive) tax breaks, moves in and, due to its size and policies, is able to undercut local stores and still make a profit, eventually running them out of business. The local stores may have sourced locally, and/or paid more than minimum wage, and at the very least was owned by an individual, probably doing well for them self but not rich. Now all the employees as well as the owner have to get new jobs, and the primary employer left is... the WalMart. Any customers previously loyal to the local shop now have to shop at WalMart.
They are an easy and popular target, but retell the same story for any of the 100s of nationwide chains, and notice that almost every strip mall in America has the same set of names on the signs.
Without Adam Smiths "perfect competition", transactions aren't really voluntary anymore. If there are only 2 or 3 affordable sources of food a reasonable distance from home, you have to get your food from one of them.
Without government issued corporate charters, this would not be true, and small business people could actually compete in a free market.
If you own 20 houses and 3 apartment buildings, you can easily afford to buy more. And more. Until you have a rental empire, and go from merely wealthy to rich. If you have zero property, and have to pay rent, it is a lot harder to even buy your own house to live in than it is for the land mogul to expand. It takes more hard work and innovation just to get the basics, to not be spending most of one's income on making someone else rich.
But without government issued land title deeds, this situation would never happen.
These are two examples of the government distorting the market. If we really had a free, competitive market, then everything you are saying would make sense, but we don't.
And this is without even getting into inheritance - around half of the top richest people in the country (as well as our president elect) received tens or hundreds of millions - in some cases billions- of dollars just for being born to the right person. Some took those hundreds of millions and leveraged it into billions, but that is still (mostly) unearned wealth. Its about ten million times easier to become a billionaire when you get handed ten million dollars compared to if you have to earn that first ten million yourself, through hard work and innovation.
The wealth of another person doesn't affect me at all so why does anyone care that I may have less wealth than anyone else?
Of course it does! There isn't a supply of infinity dollars in the world. Money represents (however loosely) actually resources in the real world. And at any given moment, there is a finite amount of them. We can increase the value of it with technology and labor, but it will never be infinite. That means the it is simply a mathematical reality that the more one person has of the pool, the smaller the pool is for everyone else.
(http://i0.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/income-inequality-us.png)
So lets say the top 1% were helped in getting rich via market distorting government actions (this is much more true of the 0.1%, but its harder to find good infographics for them).
One thing this chart is telling us, it there would be (on average) twice as much available in the pool for the lower 40% if the 1% weren't hoarding so much of it for themselves.
To tie it back to the initial topic:
Imagine someone owns a factory with 100 workers, each making $20 per hour.
A new robot is invented that can do the work of 10 workers, at a cost of $10,000 each.
The factory owner can make back the cost of ten robots in a little over a week.
Now there are 99 unemployed people (income changed from $20 an hour to $0), one robot technician (income goes from $20 and hour to $100), and a very rich factory owner (profit just increased by $4 million per year).
That factory owner did not just make that 4 million a year by having a better product or working harder, he did it by making a purchase.
Now envision a different type of culture, one that values society as a whole:
Same robot is invented. one is need
Each employee learns robot maintenance, but only is needed at a time. So each one cuts back to one hour every two and half weeks of work - and gets a raise to $2000 an hour.
Now every employee makes the same take home pay in each check, but has a whole lot of free time to spend with family, art, learning, whatever they want. The factory owner is still making whatever profit he was to begin with, but with a much more relaxed and happy workforce.
Explain why the second scenario is worse for everyone?
Post by: dougules on December 15, 2016, 11:19:15 AM
Most people in this forum are on their way to being part of those capitalists at the top. I hope we don't end up being the petty nobility in the next French Revolution.
No they aren't. Almost everyone doesn't fully grasp just how extreme inequality has gotten. The much talked about "1%" is quite literally closer to the poverty line than they are to the average 0.1%
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/31/the-other-wealth-gapthe-1-vs-the-001.html
http://theweek.com/speedreads/442263/chart-americas-01-percent-now-have-much-wealth-bottom-90-percent
I wasn't saying that people here are anywhere close to the top in terms of income or wealth. I'm just saying that post-FIRE folks are earning money the same way that the super rich are, through capital instead of labor. That means if labor were worth nothing then people that have hit FIRE would still be in the same place. It would probably actually be better since COL would go way down.
Luckily most Mustachians don't possess the external trappings of the rich... so I'm sure the mob would just take one look at our Toyota Tercel and continue mobbing somewhere else.
You meant our bikes, right?
I hope you're right. Well really I hope our economic system adjusts itself peacefully and democratically.
In the worst case nightmare scenario, though, having a half-way decent house and good nutrition could make you look rich, less yet a new bicycle or even a fancy Toyota Tercel in half-way running condition.
One other issue is that this will play out differently in different countries. It's possible that even countries that adjust to a new economic system well might be dragged into problems by next door countries that don't adjust so well.
Let's hope the masses around the world revolt with ballots not with torches and pitch forks.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 12:08:49 PM
There is value in the factory owner being able to assemble the parts and pieces necessary to start the factory in the first place.
If the factory owner is not allowed to upgrade to the new robot, someone else will because they will be able to offer the same product at a lower price. This will eventually put our factory owner out of buisness costing us all of the 100 jobs.
Lets not forget about that other factory that makes the robot. If we don't allow our owner to upgrade all those jobs are lost also.
That doesn't include the 100's of millions of people that buy the product and must now pay higher prices than they otherwise would. What about the jobs that would benefit from the extra money they can spend on other products?
Money flows to what is most profitable. If our owner finds a way to make more profit other players will enter the market to get in on that profit.
Other topics:
My base assumption is not that 100% reward is based on hard work, talent, etc. People win the lottery. There is an element of luck in alot of things and your not going to be able to legislate that to fairness by getting rid of the wealth disparity.
I think Wal-mart is a good example. I agree, Wal-mart in its current form would not exist without government intervention. That's why I think the governement shouldn't be able to hand favors in the first place. The government picking winners and loser is wrong. That doesn't take away anything from Sam Walton and the systems he put in place to increase turnover and lower prices for everyone.
I absolutly think transactions are voluntary. If the cost for you to travel farther away for cheaper food exceeds the prices at our 2-3 stores you should be thankful those stores are there because if they weren't you would be paying even more. Maybe you could start your own small store, keep overhead low and offer even lower prices to your community.
You housing and apartment example is silly to me. Yes it is hard to save money. Yes it is easier to grow wealth if you have it. I guess I dont understand your point?
The Fed can print as many dollars as they want so they are technically infinite. Reguardless, the fact that someone is wealthy does not mean I am less wealthy. What do they do with their money? Some gets spent on goods and services. Some gets invested in stocks and bonds which fuels innovation and growth. The money isn't stagnant, it continues to move through the economy.
If someone gets rich through market distorting government actions that is wrong. We should limit the ability of the government to do these things.
I think I responded to every one of your points and I very much appreciate the discussion. Thank you.
Post by: tomsang on December 15, 2016, 01:25:09 PM
Your only looking at the 100 workers.
There is value in the factory owner being able to assemble the parts and pieces necessary to start the factory in the first place.
If the factory owner is not allowed to upgrade to the new robot, someone else will because they will be able to offer the same product at a lower price. This will eventually put our factory owner out of buisness costing us all of the 100 jobs.
Lets not forget about that other factory that makes the robot. If we don't allow our owner to upgrade all those jobs are lost also.
That doesn't include the 100's of millions of people that buy the product and must now pay higher prices than they otherwise would. What about the jobs that would benefit from the extra money they can spend on other products?
Money flows to what is most profitable. If our owner finds a way to make more profit other players will enter the market to get in on that profit.
Other topics:
My base assumption is not that 100% reward is based on hard work, talent, etc. People win the lottery. There is an element of luck in alot of things and your not going to be able to legislate that to fairness by getting rid of the wealth disparity.
I think Wal-mart is a good example. I agree, Wal-mart in its current form would not exist without government intervention. That's why I think the governement shouldn't be able to hand favors in the first place. The government picking winners and loser is wrong. That doesn't take away anything from Sam Walton and the systems he put in place to increase turnover and lower prices for everyone.
I absolutly think transactions are voluntary. If the cost for you to travel farther away for cheaper food exceeds the prices at our 2-3 stores you should be thankful those stores are there because if they weren't you would be paying even more. Maybe you could start your own small store, keep overhead low and offer even lower prices to your community.
You housing and apartment example is silly to me. Yes it is hard to save money. Yes it is easier to grow wealth if you have it. I guess I dont understand your point?
The Fed can print as many dollars as they want so they are technically infinite. Reguardless, the fact that someone is wealthy does not mean I am less wealthy. What do they do with their money? Some gets spent on goods and services. Some gets invested in stocks and bonds which fuels innovation and growth. The money isn't stagnant, it continues to move through the economy.
If someone gets rich through market distorting government actions that is wrong. We should limit the ability of the government to do these things.
I think I responded to every one of your points and I very much appreciate the discussion. Thank you.
Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Rockefeller and others would have 100% control of this world if the government did not restrict them. These were not just savvy businessmen, they were crooks under the current law. If we roll back the taxes, laws that "stifle" growth and prosperity to the .1%, we may be creating a new batch of Robber Barons.
The Robber Barons of the future will be the ones that control the technology/AI/Robots. How government mitigates this is very important. How the wealth of society has always been important, but the future I believe is different as people will not be needed for labor. So what value do they provide to those that own the technology? Why would they just give resources to them if the government says that they don't have to do that?
Technology as we have seen over thousands of years is great for society as society changed with the fairly slow in todays terms of change and everyone owned the benefits in society. The AI/Robot technology leaps will be impossible for anyone to keep up. Those on the lower end of the education will be wiped out first, but there is not a programmer, scientist or engineer that can compete with technology that is a billion times more powerful than today. I am sure that I am not using the correct multiplier, but the exponential growth in computing power and technology year after year makes it difficult to say how much more powerful technology will be in 20 or 30 years. I am sure it will have the ability to make everyone's lives much better if they laws, taxes, and benefits of this cool windfall are shared. I believe that laws need to be set up now, for things in the future.
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 01:40:20 PM
I think I responded to every one of your points and I very much appreciate the discussion. Thank you.
well, no, you skipped the last one, with the direct question:
"Each employee learns robot maintenance, but only is needed at a time. So each one cuts back to one hour every two and half weeks of work - and gets a raise to $2000 an hour.Now every employee makes the same take home pay in each check, but has a whole lot of free time to spend with family, art, learning, whatever they want. The factory owner is still making whatever profit he was to begin with, but with a much more relaxed and happy workforce.Explain why the second scenario is worse for everyone?"
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Your only looking at the 100 workers.
Yes, because it is simpler to explain. Expanding it doesn't change the overall point though.
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There is value in the factory owner being able to assemble the parts and pieces necessary to start the factory in the first place.
which is why he is allowed to own the means of production, and get all of the profit the factory produces. He is likely richer than all his employees, which is his reward for being an entrepreneur.
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If the factory owner is not allowed to upgrade to the new robot, someone else will because they will be able to offer the same product at a lower price.
Yes, again - looking at one example in order to explain. The same thing happens across ALL factories, and you scale up the 100 workers to tens of thousands of workers.
The fact that this is how it works at all is what I am suggesting society could change. We aren't fated to devolve to the lowest common denominator.
This argument is exactly like saying we should repeal the minimum wage, all OSHA related rules, and all environmental protections, because other nations have no worker or ecological protections, and we need to be able to compete. So then the whole world ends up looking (and smelling) like Beijing, and we have a lot of amputee former laborers. Great, we're competitive. Or maybe instead of doing something just because if we don't someone else will beat us to it, we change the rules so that EVERYONE does what is best for everyone instead.
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This will eventually put our factory owner out of buisness costing us all of the 100 jobs.
Notice, in my scenario #2 I wasn't suggesting that the robots not be purchased. I suggested that the productivity they generate, (which was created by an invention of technology, not by the factory owner) be shared among more people, instead of benefiting one person at the expense of others. You are responding to that with a false dichotomy which wasn't even one of the options I presented (either firing everyone or not upgrading with robots at all)
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Lets not forget about that other factory that makes the robot. If we don't allow our owner to upgrade all those jobs are lost also.
Seriously? You think the robot making factory can't make robots to build the robots? That's literally what they do.
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That doesn't include the 100's of millions of people that buy the product and must now pay higher prices than they otherwise would.
Nothing I said has any relation to raising prices. The implication is that the cost savings would be passed on to the consumer, but were that the case wealth inequality would not have been dramatically outpacing inflation for the past couple decades. A significant portion of the labor savings gets skimmed off by owner and stock holder profits. In perfect competition, yes, profits for all companies are zero, because everyone sells at cost, in order to compete. In the real world nearly every corporation has a non-zero profit margin. So people are already "paying higher prices than they otherwise would" if the owners of the means of production weren't skimming so much off of each transaction.
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You mean all the other products that are also made by robots, (or outsourced if its cheaper)?
What about the jobs that would benefit from the extra money they can spend on other products?
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My base assumption is not that 100% reward is based on hard work, talent, etc. People win the lottery. There is an element of luck in alot of things and your not going to be able to legislate that to fairness by getting rid of the wealth disparity.
no, but you can diminish it, or, conversely, you can enhance it. You can make it easier for money to make money, or make it relatively easier for labor to make money. For example, we tax unearned income at half the rate of earned income (capital gains versus wages), without even counting SS or UI.
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I think Wal-mart is a good example. I agree, Wal-mart in its current form would not exist without government intervention. That's why I think the governement shouldn't be able to hand favors in the first place. The government picking winners and loser is wrong.
It isn't about them picking individuals. Its just a system designed that whoever has a head start can dominate. That lottery winner, or the person with the inheritance, or the guy with one lucky break as a businessman, then has an automatic advantage in increasing the gap.
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That doesn't take away anything from Sam Walton and the systems he put in place to increase turnover and lower prices for everyone.
Sam Walton has been dead for 24 years.
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I absolutly think transactions are voluntary. If the cost for you to travel farther away for cheaper food exceeds the prices at our 2-3 stores you should be thankful those stores are there because if they weren't you would be paying even more.
You apparently have a different definition of "voluntary" than I do. That people choose the best option of artificially limited options is inevitable, but the fact of artificial limitation means it isn't true freedom. The entity limiting those options is coercing a choice. Yes, one could hypothetically "choose" the worse option for themself, but that doesn't make doing the lesser of several bad options a real choice.
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Not if I don't have the capital to start my own robot factory or a factory in China.
Maybe you could start your own small store, keep overhead low and offer even lower prices to your community.
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It is hard to save money BECAUSE the government defends land deeds. It is easier to grow wealth if you have it BECAUSE of that, plus the issuance of corporate charters. If the government only recognized the right of a person to own the land they personally lived and/or worked on, then it would be very east to buy your own home, and therefor to save money and begin accumulating wealth. If no (or very limited) corporate charters were issued, it would be much easier to start a comptetive small business.
You housing and apartment example is silly to me. Yes it is hard to save money. Yes it is easier to grow wealth if you have it. I guess I dont understand your point?
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The Fed can print as many dollars as they want so they are technically infinite.
False. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic)
If money is not tied to GDP in anyway, it quickly becomes worthless.
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Reguardless, the fact that someone is wealthy does not mean I am less wealthy.
Well, I don't know how to be more clear on this. There is roughly 100 trillion dollars of value in the world. Not infinity. It grows slowly over time due to technology, but at any given time it is a fixed amount. The more any one person has from the pool, the smaller what is left. That's just mathmatical fact, it isn't really subject to opinion or interpretation.
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What do they do with their money? Some gets spent on goods and services. Some gets invested in stocks and bonds which fuels innovation and growth. The money isn't stagnant, it continues to move through the economy.
Relevance? Are you saying everyone in the world is equally wealthy, whether they live under a freeway or in a mansion, because money is always changing hands? At any given moment, the wealthy are holding more money. Yeah, I guess if someone spent 100% of there income on services and experiences, and had no accumulated wealth in any form, then there fortune would not diminish the world supply and they would only be creating jobs for others. Even in that case, though, it is possible to envision a world where everyone had more disposable income to spend on experiences more equally.
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If someone gets rich through market distorting government actions that is wrong.
My point is that this is the ONLY way anyone gets rich (aside from inheritance, which is even more unearned)
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We should limit the ability of the government to do these things.
Well, finally, we agree on something!
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 15, 2016, 05:43:06 PM
Problem of 1 robot repair man and 99 unemployed people. Not solved so much.
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 06:41:05 PM
So uh....when all the factories upgrade they start competing on price....and the $4 million additional profit goes away and society benefits from lower prices. Yay. Problem solved. We already have anti-monopoly and anti-collusion laws. So the above will happen. If it doesn't...then there's likely either price collusion which is illegal or someone has established a monopoly, which is also already illegal in most advanced countries. So uh...problem of the $4 million profit already solved using existing laws?
Problem of 1 robot repair man and 99 unemployed people. Not solved so much.
There are few monopolies, but many oligopolies. They are not illegal, and don't necessarily lead to out right price fixing, but they do lead to less competition which in turn means more of the product of efficiency increases goes to profits.
If the rate of increased productivity was really passed on to consumers via lower prices, then everything would get cheaper and cheaper, and the cost of living would decrease. In reality we always see inflation. Sometimes faster than others, but overall the price of goods goes up.
If it were not true that profits were increasing then the class that gets most of its income from profit (dividends, CEO pay, company ownership) would remain relatively constant compared to wage earners. This is not the reality we see.
(http://currydemocrats.org/in_perspective/cumulative_change_in_real_household_income.png)
(https://mishgea.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/3b9f4-realincomesbyquintile.png)
(https://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/growing-inequality.jpg)
This growing gap has occurred alongside the rise of globalization and automation and corporate consolidation, 3 things companies do to make themselves more profit and reduce workforce expenses.
Goods are not cheaper than they were a few decades ago, which means a flat or nearly flat line for income (adjusted for inflation) is equal to a decrease in purchasing power parity.
But even if this theory was valid, someone who is completely unemployed still has no income even if the stuff in the new WalMart is cheaper than the old local store, so it isn't necessarily that helpful.
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Problem of 1 robot repair man and 99 unemployed people. Not solved so much.But see, that's my point: that's the same problem.
The robots are supposedly going to reduce prices by the amount the save. The 99 unemployed people don't benefit overall from slightly reduced costs of whatever the factory produces enough to make up for the loss of a job. Those 100 people ARE "society".
Here's a real life example: A friend of mine was just layed off. The law firm he worked for was bought out by a larger law firm. They eliminated all redundant positions.
A law firm has no product, they are strictly a service industry. So "buying" one essentially means taking over clients and cases. In other words they purchased the jobs themselves, and then saved on labor costs by having fewer people do the same work.
There is no benefit to the clients in this transaction, nor to the employees.
In contrast to pooplips' assertion, this was not a voluntary transaction for either the clients nor the employees.
This is perfectly legal, since they aren't the only law firm in the country, it is not a monopoly. But it is unquestionably anti-competitive. The entire point of buy-outs is to be anti-competitive. And it never results in lower prices.
The theory you are suggesting only works under perfect competition. As soon as you have corporations, you can not have perfect competition. Adam Smith would roll in his grave if he knew how his theories would be used in the literal opposite of the context he applied them to.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 06:49:16 PM
Yes it does. Not looking at the bigger picture causes you to only look at the 100 jobs and not 1000 jobs your plan eliminates due to second order effects.
Yes we should get rid of min wage, OSHA, etc. Unions/collective bargaining can hand these issues just fine. We would not look like Beijing because the American people would demand cleaner products.
No one would buy robots with no additional profit motive. Why invest the capital? By you suggesting the owner is getting rich at the expense of the 100 you are once again ignoring second order effects. You are choosing to protect the workers at the expense of the hundreds of millions of people that would benefit through lower prices.
Where did you get the idea that in "perfect competition" profit margins are zero? Why would anyone produce anything is they couldn't make money doing it? Profit margins eb and flow over time as preferences for product change they do not stay stagnant. Competition drives down prices until new capital can get better profits elsewhere in the market.
I agree that unearned income should not be taxed less than labor income. I would get rid of all taxes and institute a national sales tax and a profit tax which puts corporate profit tax liability directly on the shareholders to pay. I believe I have said this elsewhere.
I don't see someone having a head start as being a problem. People have head starts or advantages in billions of different ways. If some guy got lucky, so be it.
Please tell me what true freedom is? If there are no stores you only option is to grow your own food. That one option doesn't sound like a whole lot of freedom based on your implied definition.
Property rites are the base for our society. Eliminate that and it will crush us.
Just because they would be worthless doesn't mean we can't print money forever. The problem is you still think money is real. Money is nothing more than a promise for claims on future goods. The government can change that in a instant.
Value is not finite. How much value did oil have before human knew how to use it? Zero. Yes, at any one instance value is finite but in the very next instant it can double triple ...
What I am saying is that the wealthy are not hoarding money to your detriment. Unless they have $100 bills under there mattress, that money is out in the economy being used for productive purposes. It is providing loans for small businesses, mortgages for people, etc.
I do not believe that government intervention is the only way people get rich. I personally know people that are wealthy in spite of government intervention, not because of it.
I am glad we agree on one thing. Haha. It is much harder to respond on a phone vs a desktop.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 07:00:31 PM
It's also better to look at individual incomes over time vs a snapshot. The same people are not in the same quintile over time.
For example, over 50% of Americans will be in the top quintile of incomes at some point in there lives. 95% of individuals starting in the bottom quintile moved out of that quintile over the course of the 15year period that the study looked at. People are getting wealthier as they move through time.
Post by: tomsang on December 15, 2016, 07:24:58 PM
I do not believe that government intervention is the only way people get rich. I personally know people that are wealthy in spite of government intervention, not because of it.
I am glad we agree on one thing. Haha. It is much harder to respond on a phone vs a desktop.
I don't think anyone has said that people get rich only because of the government, but government can keep the playing field level or minimize the outliers. IE, They make sure that monopolies are not allowed to continue, they make sure that taxes are coming from taxpayers that are in the best position to pay the cost of society, they can make sure that all the spoils of the universe don't go to a select few, they make sure that companies don't pollute our environment, etc.
Without government it would be the wild west and those with power would squash anyone that got in their way. The Robber Barons are a good indicator of what happens without government intervention. Every person should have the opportunity to succeed. Without the estate tax, other forms of taxation and various laws, the richest families would take over the world because they have the financial ability to dominate those weaker then them. Their kids would become royalty and continue this way forever. The government is what mitigates this. Our taxes have dropped significantly in the past thirty years which has expanded the inequality and the new Trump/GOP tax laws are projected to accelerate the inequality now and into the future.
Post by: Kriegsspiel on December 15, 2016, 07:34:11 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/GTk0h37.gif)
Our time is short.
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 15, 2016, 07:41:07 PM
If the rate of increased productivity was really passed on to consumers via lower prices, then everything would get cheaper and cheaper, and the cost of living would decrease. In reality we always see inflation. Sometimes faster than others, but overall the price of goods goes up.
The cost of living does typically decrease over time when ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION. Inflation isn't caused by greedy people raising prices. It's caused by an ever increasing money supply and the way the federal reserve runs the monetary system since moving to FIAT currency.
Here's an example http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/03/21/food-price-inflation-1913/ Yeah...food prices are way up because of inflation...you know what else is way up...up even more? INCOME.
Popular comparisons that are easy to find data for are things like housing, cars and gas. Those are going to show that those things now cost more. But that's not really comparing apples to apples whereas looking at food literally is. Houses now are way bigger, better insulated, etc. Cars are much safer and have many additional costly mandated safety features. Gas is a non-renewable commodity that inflation adjusted has remained nearly the same in price for 100 years even though the oil used to produce it continually gets harder to extract as there becomes less and less of it.
I'd be interested to see data on things other than food that are directly comparable, but I don't think there are many.
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 15, 2016, 07:57:03 PM
http://www.therichest.com/luxury/auto/the-top-10-cheapest-cars-in-the-world/
I am unaware of what the cheapest car was in the 20's so feel free to make a better comparison if you feel there is one.
Post by: Pooplips on December 15, 2016, 07:57:26 PM
Looking at this issue through the concept of Yeild Purchasing Power also shines some light on how bad people are getting killed by artificially low interest rates.
Post by: arebelspy on December 15, 2016, 09:49:33 PM
Robots now unbeatable in tic tac toe.
(https://i.imgur.com/GTk0h37.gif)
I had to watch it twice, then couldn't help laughing.
Well played, Robot.
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 09:58:18 PM
Looking at household income data doesn't paint an accurate picture. Households vary by size across incomes over time. It's much better to look at real income per cap.
True, but that's the data that is most readily available. Household income makes it look better than it really is, because over the past 50 years an increasing share of households have become 2 earner households.
The cost of living does typically decrease over time when ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION.
(http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cost-of-living-chart.jpg)
http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-compare-1975-2015-inflation-price-changes-history/ (http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-compare-1975-2015-inflation-price-changes-history/)
see also https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-4/pdf/the-cost-of-basic-necessities-has-risen-slightly-more-than-inflation-over-the-last-30-years.pdf (https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-4/pdf/the-cost-of-basic-necessities-has-risen-slightly-more-than-inflation-over-the-last-30-years.pdf)
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Inflation isn't caused by greedy people raising prices. It's caused by an ever increasing money supply and the way the federal reserve runs the monetary system since moving to FIAT currency.I agree completely that this is a significant part of it, though (in theory) the Fed is supposed to balance the increase in money supply to more or less match the increase in GDP, with some wiggle room to affect interest rates (and therefore growth).
This is why Pooplips assertion that money is infinite is wrong.
However, it is also true that profits have increased over time
(http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/united-states-corporate-profits.png?s=unitedstacorpro&v=201612052345r&d1=19160101&d2=20161231)
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-profits (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-profits)
"CORPORATE profits are at their highest level in at least 85 years. Employee compensation is at the lowest level in 65 years. The Commerce Department last week estimated that corporations earned $2.1 trillion during 2013, and paid $419 billion in corporate taxes. The after-tax profit of $1.7 trillion amounted to 10 percent of gross domestic product during the year, the first full year it has been that high. In 2012, it was 9.7 percent, itself a record."
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/business/economy/corporate-profits-grow-ever-larger-as-slice-of-economy-as-wages-slide.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/business/economy/corporate-profits-grow-ever-larger-as-slice-of-economy-as-wages-slide.html)
(http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Corporate-Profit-Margins-and-Employee-Compensation-Q2.gif)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/corporate-profit-margins-vs-wages-in-one-disturbing-chart.html (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/corporate-profit-margins-vs-wages-in-one-disturbing-chart.html)
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Here's an example http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/03/21/food-price-inflation-1913/ (http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/03/21/food-price-inflation-1913/) Yeah...food prices are way up because of inflation...you know what else is way up...up even more? INCOME.I already posted charts in my last post, showing inflation adjusted income being flat or even negative for a majority (about 60%) of the population. There is also the one directly above, with average wages over time.
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Popular comparisons that are easy to find data for are things like housing, cars and gas. Those are going to show that those things now cost more. But that's not really comparing apples to apples whereas looking at food literally is. Houses now are way bigger, better insulated, etc.New houses are bigger, yes. Houses built in the 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, back to 1900 and before still exist, mostly at thier original sizes, and are generally more expensive now then when they were new, even adjusted for inflation.
Yes, I acknowledge that improved technology largely makes up for increased profit margins by making better stuff more efficient to produce.
Indeed, as has been suggested, perhaps the outcome of a employeeless world will be UBI enough to survive, while those who owned everything during the transition live like kings. Then we can debate if the average person has it better than the did in 2016, since they can afford a cool internet brain implant that didn't even exist in the old days, or because they can afford teleporter based -transportation. Some of us feel that having everyone be comfortable is inherently better than one class of have-enoughs-plus-some-cool-gadgets and another of have-as-much-as-they-could-possibly-ever-use-and-then-some.
I still haven't gotten any replies to why my scenario #2, where the wealth created by the robots, is shared equally with everyone, is not the better option.
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 09:59:00 PM
Robots now unbeatable in tic tac toe.
(https://i.imgur.com/GTk0h37.gif)
I had to watch it twice, then couldn't help laughing.
Well played, Robot.
lol, yeah, it took me a second view too!
Post by: Bakari on December 15, 2016, 10:39:27 PM
Oooh, I missed this one!
Sorry I didn't directly answer that question. In the second scenario everyone is worse off because it can't happen unless the government owns the means of production and that had turned out poorly everywhere (Russia comes to mind).?? Government imposes many rules on employers today without owning the means of production.
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If our owner automates and shifts worker schedules to no additional profit someone else will eliminate those workers and undercut our owner by passing off those profits.Not if everyone else was held to the same expectations.
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Yes it does. Not looking at the bigger picture causes you to only look at the 100 jobs and not 1000 jobs your plan eliminates due to second order effects.I addressed those 2nd order effects, and they point to those other 1000 jobs also being replaced by robots.
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Yes we should get rid of min wage, OSHA, etc. Unions/collective bargaining can hand these issues just fine. We would not look like Beijing because the American people would demand cleaner products.the EPA is HOW American's demand cleaner products!! One person alone can not change corporate business practices. So we collectively vote in governments that will act on our behalf, and force cleaner products to be produced. The People of the US, via government that they elect, have collectively created OSHA. You think unions alone could have the same effect with no government, you really need to learn more about the history of labor in this country...
What is it about Americans that you think is so qualitativly different than the Chinese that they accept bad conditions, but we somehow could "demand" anything without the collective power of government?
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No one would buy robots with no additional profit motive.And no one would ever donate to charity, or help anyone if they weren't being paid. No one would ever vote for a tax increase that affects them personally, and everyone would commit murder if only it was profitable and they could get away with it.
But is this human nature, or is it a result of us structuring society this way?
Are you aware of open source software? People with programming experience, one of the better paying professions, have developed so many high quality programs and apps and given them away for free that it is easy to do every task you could want a computer to do without paying for any software. Why do people take the time to code, and then pay for their own server space to host downloads of something which will never make them any profit, and then go on to provide (free) updates and support?
How about we modify my hypothetical slightly:
The workers all take a 10% pay cut, and only make 1800 every 2 weeks (for 1/2 hour per week work). They have plenty of free time to try to find other work to make up the loss if they want / need to, and the owner gets (slightly) higher profit, enough to make back the investment, and eventually much more.
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By you suggesting the owner is getting rich at the expense of the 100 you are once again ignoring second order effects. You are choosing to protect the workers at the expense of the hundreds of millions of people that would benefit through lower prices.Prices don't drop as fast as wages do, when this scenario is played out among every company at once.
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Where did you get the idea that in "perfect competition" profit margins are zero?Um, Adam Smith, the Father of Economics?
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Why would anyone produce anything is they couldn't make money doing it?Salary is not part of profit. Profit is what is left over after paying everyone's salary. Everyone includes management. So each person is still making money.
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Competition drives down pricesExactly. And perfect competition drives down prices exactly to the point where supply and demand meet, and margins are exactly zero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Profit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition#Profit)
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031815/why-are-there-no-profits-perfectly-competitive-market.asp (http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031815/why-are-there-no-profits-perfectly-competitive-market.asp)
http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Perfect_competition.html (http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Perfect_competition.html)
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I agree that unearned income should not be taxed less than labor income. I would get rid of all taxes and institute a national sales tax and a profit tax which puts corporate profit tax liability directly on the shareholders to pay. I believe I have said this elsewhere.Hmm, interesting idea. I'd want to see some numbers before deciding whether to vote for it.
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Please tell me what true freedom is? If there are no stores you only option is to grow your own food. That one option doesn't sound like a whole lot of freedom based on your implied definition.Why is the alternative to a handful of nationwide chains a lack of any stores? I'm suggesting ending corporate mergers, and going back to having tens of thousands of individually owned retailers and factories and everything else, not ending all business!
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Just because they would be worthless doesn't mean we can't print money forever.Well, yeah, ok, but that isn't creating new value. What is your point? We could launch nuclear missiles. We could burn all remaining forests. We could do anything.
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The problem is you still think money is real. Money is nothing more than a promise for claims on future goods. The government can change that in a instant.not if their goal (as elected representatives, and as human members of society themselves) they want to make life better, instead of worse.
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What I am saying is that the wealthy are not hoarding money to your detriment. Unless they have $100 bills under there mattress, that money is out in the economy being used for productive purposes. It is providing loans for small businesses, mortgages for people, etc.It would be out there doing the same thing if it was distributed among the other 99.99% of people, it would just also be buying them all more goods and services along the way.
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I do not believe that government intervention is the only way people get rich. I personally know people that are wealthy in spite of government intervention, not because of it.Show me anyone who got rich without using any form of currency. Who never held a land title deed, or a corporate charter, or a stock certificate. Who never used a road or telecommunications network. Maybe if they inherited it - but wait, no, then they would sill have used at least currency, and probably FDIC insurance and/or stocks or bonds.
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I am glad we agree on one thing. Haha. It is much harder to respond on a phone vs a desktop.Fair :)
Post by: Pooplips on December 16, 2016, 07:01:45 AM
Your scenario won't work because there is plenty of history to showing it won't work. To control labor to that level you will need to control imports and ultimately prices. Every instance where that level of control has been tried, it's ultimately ended by leaving people it was designed to help worse off than before.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 16, 2016, 07:32:19 AM
Robots now unbeatable in tic tac toe.
(https://i.imgur.com/GTk0h37.gif)
Our time is short.
Nice...
Post by: Bakari on December 16, 2016, 08:21:19 AM
To control labor to that level...All we needed to end the standard of 80-100 hour work weeks was to institute overtime laws after 40 hours.
The movement to shorten work hours developed, not coincidentally, in the interval between the industrial revolution and the great depression, and during the time of the great robber barons.
What history tells us is not only that limiting work hours can successfully distribute the gains of technological advancement through the labor force, but that it can do it so successfully and thoroughly that anyone who doesn't know the history of American labor will just assume it is (and always has been) naturally this way.
Based on your definition all discoveries for the rest of time are the result of government.No, but all patents are.
The person who invented fire did not have a court and police system to prevent any other human from making a fire without paying him first. And yet, he (or she) went ahead and invented fire anyway, and went on to teach others about it.
Post by: Pooplips on December 16, 2016, 08:44:16 AM
What is the appropriate amount of hours to work? And at what end goal? Should someone be allowed to decided how many hours another person is allowed to work and for what wage? If we limited the work week to xx hours we could have a job for everyone. Except not everyone has to skills necessary. If we limit brain surgeons hours do we even have enough people capable? Those changes would cause a huge hit to efficiency and productivity which I believe would leave everyone worse off.
Post by: Schaefer Light on December 16, 2016, 09:23:31 AM
Many salary workers put in over 40 hours a weeks without overtime. So to say labor rules eliminated 80-100 hr work weeks is false.
What is the appropriate amount of hours to work? And at what end goal? Should someone be allowed to decided how many hours another person is allowed to work and for what wage? If we limited the work week to xx hours we could have a job for everyone. Except not everyone has to skills necessary. If we limit brain surgeons hours do we even have enough people capable? Those changes would cause a huge hit to efficiency and productivity which I believe would leave everyone worse off.
What he said.
Post by: Watchmaker on December 16, 2016, 09:45:35 AM
Many salary workers put in over 40 hours a weeks without overtime. So to say labor rules eliminated 80-100 hr work weeks is false.
Sounds like an argument for more regulation, not less...
Post by: tomsang on December 16, 2016, 09:56:18 AM
Based on your definition all discoveries for the rest of time are the result of government. Really we should say thanks to that cave man that began using fire for his benefit. In reality all new discoveries are based off the advances of the past and people operate with whatever resources are available at the time. That doesn't mean that their discoveries are not theirs.
Your scenario won't work because there is plenty of history to showing it won't work. To control labor to that level you will need to control imports and ultimately prices. Every instance where that level of control has been tried, it's ultimately ended by leaving people it was designed to help worse off than before.
I think a lot of people forget or don't want to admit that Government/Society is a major factor in deriving discoveries and economic growth. Their success is directly correlated to the government and society. The vast majority of companies that are inventing things are using a work force what was educated and trained using public resources. Public schools from kindergarten to PhD's are funded by federal and state dollars. Without an educated workforce it would be difficult to develop anything of value.
Our government provides reliable and cheap energy to society. Without government and society it would be difficult to develop anything that does not rely on electricity or gas.
Our government provides roads, highways and infrastructure to move goods and services around in an efficient manner.
Our government invests billions a year in R&D that is utilized by private companies that make money. Think GPS, internet, computers, telephones, biotech, solar, etc.
Our government provides laws and protections that allow our companies to invest long term knowing that their investments will be protected.
Our government provides protection if you take a risk and fail. You can leave your debts in the past and not do jail time for failing to pay back your creditors. Investors take gambles knowing that the worst case scenario is starting back at zero and the best case scenario is being a billionaire. Think Trump!
Our companies use people to make them money. In the past companies provided income for life. Now it falls on Social Security for most people as most people don't understand investing, compound interest, etc. They are thinking short term survival and living vs. long term survival.
Our government provides Food Stamps, Healthcare, and other services for people that don't make enough to survive. Think of the Wallmarts and other minimal wage type of companies that make billions off of people and push the problem on to the government and society to deal with the people that are affected.
As mentioned earlier, the government and society provide patent protection that gives companies a monopoly on the inventions for a period of time.
I am having a hard time thinking of an industry or a person that did it all on their own. They received significant help from the government and society. It is expensive to fund this platform that is so beneficial to those entrepreneurs. The tax structure currently in place does not cover all the costs of running one of the most successful societies in the world. Those that gained windfalls by taking advantage of that provided by government and society have a duty to carry it forward to the future through paying taxes. Currently we are not taxing enough to cover the costs of society. The future is going to need a new way of looking at taxation as the citizens stop or reduce working due to technology taking over their work.
Post by: robartsd on December 16, 2016, 12:11:01 PM
It may be that you think I'm talking about a larger change then I am. Let me try again.For wage earners our tax rates are plenty progressive, but it they not nearly as progressive for the truly wealthy (individuals pay 15% tax on capital gains / qualified dividends). Of course if one considers the corporate taxes paid before dividends or reinvestment in capital, the effective tax rate on corporate profits may be similar to the effective tax rates on the highest wage earners; but even the lowest income shareholder effectively pays their share of the corporate tax.
I'm not saying the system simply hindered you and assisted someone else, and that's the only reason they have more money. People's work ethic, brains, genetics, etc are why they do better than others. I'm not arguing we try to change that, only that we tweak the system which affects the degree to which they are rewarded for those things.
Imagine two people, A and B, living in the the society.
A is a good employee and diligent, but not exceptionally so.
B is a brilliant, hard working person who creates a whole new industry through their technical and business innovation.
I want B to be rewarded for their efforts more than A, as I'm sure you do too. But it isn't a binary choice of rewarding someone for their accomplishments or not; we also must make choices (as a society) that affect how well they will be rewarded.
Let's say A has a job making $50,000 a year. And B founds a company that makes him $50,000,000 a year. now imagine three different tax situations:
1. A flat tax of 20% of each person's income.
2. A progressive tax system which taxes A's salary at 15% and B's salary at 40%.
3. A even more progressive system which taxes A's salary at 0% and B's at 70%.
Holding everything else constant, it's obvious that the gap in their post tax income will be largest in situation 1 and smallest in situation 3.
In the US we are currently closest to situation 2, but in the past have had marginal income tax rates higher than situation 3. I don't see an argument for why situation 2 is better, or in some intrinsic way more right, than situation 3 (or vice versa).
So, since we're already using societal tools to affect that gap, why should it be off the table to modify the settings of those tools?
What if we treated all capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, but shareholders could claim a personal tax credit for their share of corporate taxes paid eliminating the double taxation argument that is so often used to defend the low capital gains tax rate? Then we could effectively increase the taxes on the wealthy while reducing the burden on those who are working to accumulate wealth.
Post by: Bakari on December 16, 2016, 12:44:35 PM
Many salary workers put in over 40 hours a weeks without overtime. So to say labor rules eliminated 80-100 hr work weeks is false.Labor laws changed it from 80-100 hours being the default for everyone to anything above 40 being an exception for a few particular, usually very highly compensated, positions.
The average salaried worker in the US today works 49 hours. Not 80-100. The reason it is so low is tied to the social expectation of 40 being the default.
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What is the appropriate amount of hours to work?It would make sense to tie the point of overtime requirements to increases in productivity. If productivity per worker has increased 40 fold since 1940, we might be at 1 hour a week today.
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And at what end goal?The equal distribution of the gains in productivity to everyone in society.
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Should someone be allowed to decided how many hours another person is allowed to work and for what wage?No. Just like today. The government dictates that employers must pay extra after. a certain number of hours. There is no law against accepting overtime, and there is no law against taking a 2nd job. Aside from minimum wage, there is no dictation of wages - however, the more jobs are limited, the lower wages fall, the more that labor is limited, the higher they go. Simple supply and demand. Overtime laws create more positions, raising average wages without any need to dictate what employers pay.
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If we limited the work week to xx hours we could have a job for everyone.Agreed! I didn't even say that part, but yeah, that's the idea.
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Except not everyone has to skills necessary. If we limit brain surgeons hours do we even have enough people capable?I for one don't want an exhausted brain surgeon who works 100 hours a week and never gets enough sleep, never mind recreation.
In the long run people tend to choose career paths based on available jobs. 30 years ago there were not over a million computer programmers. 200 years ago 90% of everyone worked in agriculture. No one had the skills to run any part of modern society.
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Those changes would cause a huge hit to efficiency and productivity which I believe would leave everyone worse off.You "believe" it, based on your ideology. All the data suggests differently - the 0.1% would be "worse" off (although, one can lead just as nice a life as a multimillionaire as a billionaire, so it wouldn't really make them any worse off) - but most of us (and especially people poorer than most of us) would be a lot better off if that wealth concentrated at the top were distributed more equally
Post by: Pooplips on December 16, 2016, 01:44:01 PM
Many salary workers put in over 40 hours a weeks without overtime. So to say labor rules eliminated 80-100 hr work weeks is false.
Sounds like an argument for more regulation, not less...
Only if you think it's right to be able to tell some how much they can work and for what pay.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 16, 2016, 01:55:35 PM
QuoteWhat is the appropriate amount of hours to work?It would make sense to tie the point of overtime requirements to increases in productivity. If productivity per worker has increased 40 fold since 1940, we might be at 1 hour a week today.
Why should we tie overtime to an arbitrary number of hours at an arbitrary point of time? I could see many arguments for incetivizing more working hours, but why this one?
Post by: Bakari on December 16, 2016, 05:44:49 PM
QuoteWhat is the appropriate amount of hours to work?It would make sense to tie the point of overtime requirements to increases in productivity. If productivity per worker has increased 40 fold since 1940, we might be at 1 hour a week today.
Why should we tie overtime to an arbitrary number of hours at an arbitrary point of time? I could see many arguments for incetivizing more working hours, but why this one?
Now you're not even reading what I write before you respond! I didn't say "arbitrary". I gave a very specific, relevant metric: average productivity per worker.
This is measurable. It has grown, dramatically, beginning with the industrial revolution, with another dramatic spike with the invention of automation and computers
(http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/ecogif/eg/0805.jpg)
http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/lectures/ch8-18.htm
As should be expected given our current economic / political system, this growth has not been significantly beneficial to wage earners
(http://www.correntewire.com/files/productivity-wages.jpg)
http://www.correntewire.com/only_chart_you_need_productivity_and_wages
While is may seem on the surface that the middle class has at least partially shared in this wealth creation due to technology, even if not equitably...
(https://hbr.org/resources/images/article_assets/2015/05/R1506D_MCAFEE_WHENWORKERSFALLBEHIND.png)
https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-great-decoupling
It turns out nearly all the increase in "household" income is due to women entering the workforce:
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/postwar-vs-new-gilded-age-how-did.html
The industrial revolution started way back before 1800, and lasted around 100 years, but in the beginning it was applied mostly to agriculture and was what allowed other forms of employment. Factories were powered primarily by people. Over the next century steam power, electricity, engines, and different machines increasingly were applied to the new factories, arguably reaching a peak of efficiency with Henry Ford's invention assembly line concept in the early 1900s.
Not by coincidence, this is the exact same time frame that the infamous "robber barons" came to wealth and political power. Funny that the very same people that term is used to describe are also often known as philanthropists. They weren't bad people, as individuals. They were just taking advantage of a system of capitalism whereby investors get the vast majority of the benefit of increases in productivity due to technological advances.
Increased mechanization cost jobs, which suppresses wages for everyone else, the masses have less money to spend as consumers, less is produced, and it becomes a cycle that culminates in the Great Depression in 1929, and lasted almost a decade.
Meanwhile, the movement for shorter working hours - originally started way back towards the end of the official Industrial Revolution (1830) and fought for over the next 100 years, finally starts being taken seriously across America. In 1914 Ford voluntarily doubles pay and cuts hours, which increases overall productivity. 1937 the 40 hour week finally becomes standard nationwide - and, what a coincidence, the depression ends!
This time its computers, the internet, globalization, robots, and soon AI, instead of steam and gas engines and mechanical factories, but the same general trends in increased productivity and the distribution of jobs, income, wealth, etc are all pretty much the same.
You can come up with any argument you want as to why making overtime pay required after 20 or 10 or 5 hour work weeks wouldn't work and would backfire and hurt business and therefor everyone that you want, but realize that literally anything you can think of was already said during the fight over 40 hours, and none of it happened. It raised the standard of living for everyone, from top to bottom. It helped business AND workers. It worked.
Post by: Pooplips on December 16, 2016, 08:33:44 PM
Ford didn't increase wages for productivity, he had high turnover and was spending too much money on training. So he cut his costs.
To say instituting labor hour rules help stop the Great Depression is lunacy! A combination of fed loosening monetary policy, the reduction in new deal policies because of the war and the removal of millions of Americans from the labor force to fight the war stopped the Great Depression. It was the government and fed that made the Great Depression last as long as it did. When the stock market crashed in '29 unemployment peaked two months later at a little over 9%. For the next 6 months unemployment declined and in June reached a low of around 6%. In that month the government intervened in the market and the unemployment rate shot up to over 10% and remained there for the entirety of the thirties.
"Bye bye Mr. New Deal, Hello Mr. Win The War." - FDR
Why do you choose the 1800's to start your productivity discounting of labor hours? Let's use the cave man as the start. Maybe we will be down to everyone working :15 minutes a week.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 17, 2016, 08:36:49 AM
QuoteWhat is the appropriate amount of hours to work?It would make sense to tie the point of overtime requirements to increases in productivity. If productivity per worker has increased 40 fold since 1940, we might be at 1 hour a week today.
Why should we tie overtime to an arbitrary number of hours at an arbitrary point of time? I could see many arguments for incetivizing more working hours, but why this one?
Now you're not even reading what I write before you respond! I didn't say "arbitrary". I gave a very specific, relevant metric: average productivity per worker.
This is measurable. It has grown, dramatically, beginning with the industrial revolution, with another dramatic spike with the invention of automation and computers
I did not intend to be unclear. You began with "Productivity since 1940" - this was the arbitrary number I was referring to. Why should society be held to 1940's level of productivity (e.g. X widgets a week, which would take 40 hours at that time, and 1 hour at this time)? Why shouldn't society embrace that now thanks to productivity increases, food costs have been falling and more luxury goods and services are available for almost every subset of the population, for the same amount of work! Why should we decide 1940, or 1800 or whatever, rather than enjoying the fruits of that increased productivity?
Post by: Bakari on December 17, 2016, 08:51:19 AM
Your chart showing productivity and real income is false. Look into the data. They use a different deflator for one thing. A paper was written debunking that entire chart. If I can find it later I'll post it.
Ford didn't increase wages for productivity, he had high turnover and was spending too much money on training. So he cut his costs.
To say instituting labor hour rules help stop the Great Depression is lunacy! A combination of fed loosening monetary policy, the reduction in new deal policies because of the war and the removal of millions of Americans from the labor force to fight the war stopped the Great Depression. It was the government and fed that made the Great Depression last as long as it did. When the stock market crashed in '29 unemployment peaked two months later at a little over 9%. For the next 6 months unemployment declined and in June reached a low of around 6%. In that month the government intervened in the market and the unemployment rate shot up to over 10% and remained there for the entirety of the thirties.
"Bye bye Mr. New Deal, Hello Mr. Win The War." - FDR
Why do you choose the 1800's to start your productivity discounting of labor hours? Let's use the cave man as the start. Maybe we will be down to everyone working :15 minutes a week.
Whether or not the exact numbers on the chart are perfectly accurate, the general trends come out the same from multiple sources.
I didn't say Ford's intent was to increase productivity, but that was the result. And he didn't just increase wages, he doubled them, and reduced working hours at the same time. Those changes had the exact opposite effect than " Those changes would cause a huge hit to efficiency and productivity which I believe would leave everyone worse off."
One of the things you credit with ending the depression is the (temporary!) removal of American's from the labor force. Reduced work hours permanently removes labor from the labor force.
But the depression ended 1939. America didn't enter the war until 1941.
Also, your numbers are way off. There is no spike and dip at the beginning, once it hit 9% it just kept going straight up
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/a/a4/20090307041030!US_Unemployment_1890-2008.gif)
(http://fdranewdealerinhope.weebly.com/uploads/4/2/5/6/42569185/5916202.png?351)
Fair Labor Act wasn't until 1938, (not 1929) after the second peak, which was when minimum wage and overtime after 44 hours were first instituted, after which unemployment goes down consistently until after the war.
I start the 1800s to start productivity discounting of hours because that's when the industrial revolution happened. There was no other point before then that had an exponential increase in human productivity. It was the first time in history that a majority of humans were in anything other than agriculture.
(http://themisescircle.org/features/files/2013/04/world-economic-history-587x310.png)
http://themisescircle.org/features/from-the-malthusian-trap-to-the-industrial-revolution/ (http://themisescircle.org/features/from-the-malthusian-trap-to-the-industrial-revolution/)
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2012/06/worlduntil2001-thumb-615x638-90890.png)
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2000-years-part-ii/258762/ (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2000-years-part-ii/258762/)
Post by: Bakari on December 17, 2016, 08:58:49 AM
I did not intend to be unclear. You began with "Productivity since 1940" - this was the arbitrary number I was referring to. Why should society be held to 1940's level of productivity (e.g. X widgets a week, which would take 40 hours at that time, and 1 hour at this time)? Why shouldn't society embrace that now thanks to productivity increases, food costs have been falling and more luxury goods and services are available for almost every subset of the population, for the same amount of work! Why should we decide 1940, or 1800 or whatever, rather than enjoying the fruits of that increased productivity?
I addressed why 1800 isn't arbitrary just above. I use 1938 as a benchmark for work hours because that's when the 40 hour first became universal.
Of course we absolutely should enjoy the fruit of increased productivity! Part of that enjoyment is that now the majority of people only have to work 40-50 hours a week, instead of the majority of us working 80-100 hours a week.
I mean, we are still on the Mr Money Mustache boards, aren't we? Do you not agree that having time to spend doing something other than work can be as valuable as luxury goods, if not more so?
If we lower working hours we can still produce the same amount of stuff, we just have lower unemployment, and consequently higher wages (which helps make up for the lower hours). Despite the theory, history suggests this will not even raise prices - besides, there is a lot of room for that wealth to come out of profits, even if it didn't further increase productivity (as in the Ford example)
Post by: Pooplips on December 18, 2016, 06:54:26 AM
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was the first government intervention instituted to stop the Great Depression.
Ford didn't take a huge hit to efficiency by by increasing wages. He was getting virtually no efficiency because he had high turnover and was losing money training. Also, I read this somewhere but I have no source, ford noticed that people of that time period tended to only work until they had enough money to take large amounts of time off. I think this came from there agricultural backgrounds. Work hard planting seeds, rest, work hard harvesting, rest some more. The reduction in hours and increase in pay incentivized more work and more productivity.
Just because we weren't officially in the war didn't mean we weren't using government resources to pay attention to the war. The unemployment rate stayed above 10% for the entirety of the 1930's. the war pulled men out of the workforce lowering unemployment.
Yes we are on the MMM boards and I agree spending more time with family and not working is amazing but we should not be forcing other people to do what we think is amazing. The government should not be allowed to tell someone "You cannot work that many hours for the amount of money you mutually agreed apon."
Post by: Pooplips on December 19, 2016, 06:57:47 AM
http://report.heritage.org/bg2825
Depression Statistics:
Thomas Sowell, The Housing Boom and Bust, pg. in the 200's somewhere.
Post by: Bakari on December 23, 2016, 11:12:32 AM
Great link, and great report, thanks!!
Fantastic, that the people most able to do something about it are so aware - even of the direct connection between tech and working hours, and also tech and inequality, and even that the bias is toward the upper 0.01%, all three points which I've heard relatively few raise as a major part of this whole issue!
"One of the main ways that technology increases productivity is by decreasing the number of labor hours needed to create a unit of output. Labor productivity increases generally translate into increases in average wages, giving workers the opportunity to cut back on work hours and to afford more goods and services. Living standards and leisure hours could both increase, although to the degree that inequality increases—as it has in recent decades—it offsets some of those gains. The expectation that productivity increases would be accompanied by wage growth is what led John Maynard Keynes to predict in his 1930 essay on “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” that, given the rates of technical progress, we might have achieved a 15-hour workweek by now.13 While that prediction remains far off, over the last 65 years, most developed economies saw annual hours worked decline substantially (Figure 1). In the United States uniquely, however, this decline stopped in the late 1970s, and hours per worker has remained flat since then."
"AI-driven technological change could lead to even larger disparities in income between capital owners and labor. For example, Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue that current trends in the labor market, such as declining wages in the face of rising productivity, are indicative of a more drastic change in the distribution of economic benefits to come. Rather than everyone receiving at least some of the benefit, the vast majority of that value will go to a very small portion of the population... the benefits of technology accrue to an even smaller portion of society than just the highly-skilled workers. The winner-take-most and winner-take-all nature of the information technology market means that the fortunate few are likely to emerge as victors of the market. This would exacerbate the current trend in the rising fraction of total income going to the top 0.01 percent "
"A key determinant of how AI-induced technological change will affect people in the future is the ability of workers to extract the benefits of their increased productivity. For decades after World War II, the share of income going to the bottom 90 percent of workers was roughly unchanged. But since the late 1970s, the bottom 90 percent of households have seen their income fall from two-thirds of the total to about one half of the total share of U.S. income. For much of this period, moreover, productivity growth did not translate to higher real wages for low-income and even middle-income American workers. This reduced share of income is partly the result of the fact that labor compensation is being increasingly unevenly distributed. But since 2000, it is also because the distribution of benefits going to capital and labor have also been diverging. Starting in about 2000, corporate profits as a share of GDP (a measure of the capital share of GDP) started to increase and labor share of GDP began decreasing (Figure 6). The labor share of GDP reached a historical low"
Your charts are yearly smoothed averages. The one I think it quarterly? I'm not sure but those charts aren't showing the whole picture.National economy sized changes don't take effect in a month. Looking at the stock markets daily ups and downs does not give you more meaningful data than long term averages, and unemployment is no different.
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The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was the first government intervention instituted to stop the Great Depression.
And it had nothing at all to do with labor hours, which is what we were talking about. You seem to think of "government" as some sort of giant that lives in the hills and lumbers around, and every "government intervention" is completely interchangeable.
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Ford didn't take a huge hit to efficiency by by increasing wages...The reduction in hours and increase in pay incentivized more work and more productivity.Yes, that's what I said. I don't know what point you are trying to argue.
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As I said before, overtime laws do not mandate a maximum number of hours a person can work. People can, and do, choose to take overtime all the time. There is also no law that says you can't take 2,or 3, or 4 jobs if you want. If you want to work 110 hours a week, government won't stop you.
Yes we are on the MMM boards and I agree spending more time with family and not working is amazing but we should not be forcing other people to do what we think is amazing. The government should not be allowed to tell someone "You cannot work that many hours for the amount of money you mutually agreed apon."
It's silly to talk about an contract between a multinational corporation who provides 80% of the jobs in a given town, and an individual who has to buy groceries for their family and pay rent next week as a "mutual agreement". Thats like claiming following the law is a mutual agreement between you and the government (you could leave the country!), or that pulling you car over when a cop turns on the red and blues behind you is mutual. There is a massive power imbalance. That's why we created labor laws.
Post by: tomsang on December 29, 2016, 07:00:53 AM
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-12-lie-detecting-kiosk-future.html
Post by: Enigma on December 29, 2016, 07:23:07 AM
Now the robots and technology will be controlling the boarders.
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-12-lie-detecting-kiosk-future.html
Awesome! I like the idea of more controlled safer boarders
Post by: tomsang on December 29, 2016, 09:18:13 AM
The White House recently released a report titled Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy (https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/EMBARGOED%20AI%20Economy%20Report.pdf) (PDF). Lots of information on productivity, the impact of AI over the short/long term, what policies should be put in place (which of course will change next month with the new administration), etc.
Very interesting link. It will be interesting to see how the next administration addresses the issues of automation. From his cabinet and his comments it appears as if he will be doing the opposite of what is recommended as he wants to give corporations a competitive advantage.
Decreasing taxes and regulations on corporations while diminishing or eliminating safety nets in the coming years will increase inequality. That as well as stacking the Supreme Court, federal judges and other long term policies could cause significant struggles between the haves and the have nots over the next decade or two. The displacement and elimation of jobs will be faster than anything we have seen in the past. Telling those displaced that have no mental abilities to retool, that they are lazy and worthless is not going to be a fun time for the majority of our citizens.
Post by: OurTown on December 29, 2016, 10:09:23 AM
Post by: tomsang on December 29, 2016, 10:49:18 AM
Surprisingly enough, no one has mentioned this: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685
Thanks for the link, we did discuss this a bit back in September. Harmless link, but some may have chosen not click on it.
Well now it is getting interesting!I'm too scared to click the link!
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women
Post by: Bakari on December 29, 2016, 07:05:36 PM
Surprisingly enough, no one has mentioned this: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685)
Thanks for the link, we did discuss this a bit back in September. Harmless link, but some may have chosen not click on it.Well now it is getting interesting!I'm too scared to click the link!
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women)
Yeah, no matter how good the tech gets, that's probably one of the few professions where real humans will always have a job
Post by: maizefolk on December 29, 2016, 08:29:56 PM
A lot of the same old same old, but it's fascinating to watch this technology continue to roll out over the last year or so. The point about how robotic drivers tend to produce a lot less wear and tear on equipment, resulting in reduced maintenance downtime (and costs) was also new to me. Presumably the same will be true for semis as companies like Otto start automating trucks driving on highways instead of only at mine sites.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603170/mining-24-hours-a-day-with-robots/
Post by: tomsang on December 29, 2016, 09:43:47 PM
Another article on a much less titillating subject which discussed previously upthread: robotic trucks for mining, already going on as we speak.
A lot of the same old same old, but it's fascinating to watch this technology continue to roll out over the last year or so. The point about how robotic drivers tend to produce a lot less wear and tear on equipment, resulting in reduced maintenance downtime (and costs) was also new to me. Presumably the same will be true for semis as companies like Otto start automating trucks driving on highways instead of only at mine sites.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603170/mining-24-hours-a-day-with-robots/
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
Post by: arebelspy on December 30, 2016, 05:23:42 AM
Surprisingly enough, no one has mentioned this: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685)
Thanks for the link, we did discuss this a bit back in September. Harmless link, but some may have chosen not click on it.Well now it is getting interesting!I'm too scared to click the link!
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women)
Yeah, no matter how good the tech gets, that's probably one of the few professions where real humans will always have a job
I no longer believe there is a limit on "how good" tech can get that I can comprehend.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 30, 2016, 06:05:37 AM
Another article on a much less titillating subject which discussed previously upthread: robotic trucks for mining, already going on as we speak.
A lot of the same old same old, but it's fascinating to watch this technology continue to roll out over the last year or so. The point about how robotic drivers tend to produce a lot less wear and tear on equipment, resulting in reduced maintenance downtime (and costs) was also new to me. Presumably the same will be true for semis as companies like Otto start automating trucks driving on highways instead of only at mine sites.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603170/mining-24-hours-a-day-with-robots/
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
"They also increase safety" No shit - removing all humans from a work site reduces human injuries? Astonishing.
Post by: Bakari on December 30, 2016, 08:56:27 AM
Aye, but in this case it isn't just about the sensation or realism, its also just the principal. There have been sex toys that can do what no human man can ever possibly come close to for well over a century, yet a great number of women seem to prefer living human men anyway. Even if you aren't trying for a baby, in a way in't just sexier if she's fertile, and even if you can't feel the difference, its sexier without a condom. Even if the robot was 100% indistinguishable from a real person, simply knowing intellectually that one's partner was human would add something to the experience, something potentially worth paying extra for.Surprisingly enough, no one has mentioned this: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-brothels-could-soon-become-8684685)
Thanks for the link, we did discuss this a bit back in September. Harmless link, but some may have chosen not click on it.Well now it is getting interesting!I'm too scared to click the link!
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women (http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/549361/Sex-robot-cyborg-cafe-oral-sex-fellatio-espresso-humans-doll-luxury-erotic-toy-naked-women)
Yeah, no matter how good the tech gets, that's probably one of the few professions where real humans will always have a job
I no longer believe there is a limit on "how good" tech can get that I can comprehend.
Which, incidentally, is what makes the whole concept of "objectification" kind of ridiculous; people don't generally want to have sex with objects, they are attracted to humans. Objects would be a lot easier, with no thoughts or feelings or desires of their own, but the fact of consciousness and sentience is a part of what is sexy. Objects can't even really have sex, they have no sex cells. So really, sexualizing someone is, in a most fundamental way, humanizing them.
Post by: brooklynguy on December 30, 2016, 10:01:46 AM
Even if the robot was 100% indistinguishable from a real person, simply knowing intellectually that one's partner was human
I think there's an inherent contradiction in the above statement. If and when robots truly become indistinguishable from real humans, their existence, like counterfeit money, will cause a loss of confidence in, and thereby a devaluation of, the genuine article.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Post by: tomsang on December 30, 2016, 10:51:35 AM
Yeah, no matter how good the tech gets, that's probably one of the few professions where real humans will always have a job
You are probably right. The real question is what will they receive for their services. If there is a robot or other technology that is as good or is willing to do things that a human refuses or does not want to do, but the robot will do it for free or close to free, how much will the real thing command in compensation?
I believe that they will be impacted as much if not more than any other worker.
Post by: astvilla on December 30, 2016, 02:03:49 PM
And what should I invest in that cannot be done by a robot? Housing? Rental properties?
Post by: maizefolk on December 30, 2016, 02:27:37 PM
And what should I invest in that cannot be done by a robot? Housing? Rental properties?
My plan is to invest in stuff that robots CAN do by buying the stock of the companies that are buying the robots (well not directly, but as part of broad index funds). The faster the shift towards automation and fewer employees the better for corporate profits. So saving for FIRE acts, in some ways, a hedge against being automated out of a job.
....I currently have no plans to personally invest in robot brothels but who knows....
Post by: tomsang on December 30, 2016, 03:26:15 PM
So how do we solve this robot problem exactly? Or what do you do with all the people?
And what should I invest in that cannot be done by a robot? Housing? Rental properties?
There is no robot problem per se. There is going to be massive change. How you and we structure our lives, laws, governments, etc. is going to determine what society is going to be like in the future. The laws, taxation, and social welfare of today will not work in the near future.
As you are structuring your retirement life the question becomes; "Do you have or are you going to have kids?" If yes, what would their future look like if they have no means to earn a living and build a Stache as robots and technology are doing everything productive. If the laws, government and social welfare is changed and everyone gets to partake in this amazing technological windfall, then all is good. If the laws, social welfare and government stay similar to today or is even worse for the 99%; then are you earning enough and saving enough today to basically build a stache for your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as well? As the owners of the companies will potentially control who gets food, medicine, shelter, etc. Under today's laws if you don't work, you don't have much but you can survive. The GOP is currently trying to weaken social security, Medicare, healthcare, Welfare, to lower taxes on corporations to make a more competitive environment for businesses even though corporate profits are at an all time high.
What I have read on some of these boards and it made more sense looking at historical society, is the mindset that I will take care of myself and my children can take care of themselves. "I am focused on Retiring Early and I don't believe in leaving a legacy to my children." "That my children can earn their own money and build their own Stache." For those just having children or contemplating children, what if you knew that your children would have a very hard time finding any type of employment in 20 years and that society is structured with the haves and have nots. Those that own the equity in companies have an amazing life and those that have no equity and no valuable skills have no use to society. That the laws, welfare rules, and safety nets were gutted and that people justified not providing the benefits of their equity to those that do not deserve those benefits. If you retired early and have enough money to have a reasonable lifestyle, what about your children and grandchildren if your Equity is just enough to make your life good but not to support others. That in the future you also have no skills that are valuable as your job was automated and you have been out of the workforce of a decade or more. Would you continue to work after FI another year, five year, until that time comes? You may end up with a huge Stache for this insurance. Is that bad?
I am in the 1% in income and wealth. The question as SOL has written in the past is, "Is your Stache Evil" Your quest for early retirement may work out for you, but without progressive/socialistic changes to the tax structure and Social Welfare, the future looks like it could be a question of those owning the Equity of the Companies and the worthless leaches of society who have no equity and no ability to work cheaper than AI/Robots/Technology. Where do you want your children, grand children to fall? What are you willing to do today to ratify this?
I actually thought that the US was becoming more progressive and that we would continue to adapt to reduce income inequality. This past election has shown me that those with money have the ability to sway those without to vote against their best interests. That people are not fact checking statements and using logic to determine if something does not seem correct. As taxes are changed, Social Security and other programs are gutted, the Supreme Court and federal judges are stacked to favor corporations and those owning the Equity, I am worried that the huge windfall of technology may not go to Society in total, but controlled by the top 1%. Hopefully at some point before it is too late, Society wakes up and says, "This is not Fair" and we rebalance the benefits.
With that being said at this point I will be adding more to the Stache than what the financial models show that I will need to live very comfortably. Hopefully, I can give this extra Stache back to society through charitable giving if we as society figure a way to share the technological windfall with all vs. strictly those that own the Equity. Until then I will be owning the Equity!
Post by: Bakari on December 30, 2016, 03:54:51 PM
Even if the robot was 100% indistinguishable from a real person, simply knowing intellectually that one's partner was human
I think there's an inherent contradiction in the above statement.
I was making the, admittedly flawed, assumption that there was no deceit involved.
Same with counterfeit anything, antiques, collectibles, currency, as long as people know which is which, the real thing is more valuable, no matter how good the counterfeit is.
Post by: Bakari on December 30, 2016, 03:58:42 PM
So how do we solve this robot problem exactly? Or what do you do with all the people?
And what should I invest in that cannot be done by a robot? Housing? Rental properties?
There is no robot problem per se. There is going to be massive change. How you and we structure our lives, laws, governments, etc. is going to determine what society is going to be like in the future. The laws, taxation, and social welfare of today will not work in the near future.
As you are structuring your retirement life the question becomes; "Do you have or are you going to have kids?"
I'm willing to make the bet that if things really do go the way we are all expecting, that the change will happen within a single generation.
In any event, if the root issue is about wealth distribution and people focusing on "me and mine", then I feel like a big windfall handout to my own offspring means I am just perpetuating the problem. If I have an excess accumulation at the end of life, I'd like to see it go to helping make that change in society happen, thereby helping everyone, instead of just the two people who happen to share my DNA.
Post by: boarder42 on December 31, 2016, 04:07:15 AM
Even if the robot was 100% indistinguishable from a real person, simply knowing intellectually that one's partner was human
I think there's an inherent contradiction in the above statement.
I was making the, admittedly flawed, assumption that there was no deceit involved.
Same with counterfeit anything, antiques, collectibles, currency, as long as people know which is which, the real thing is more valuable, no matter how good the counterfeit is.
Unless as you say there is no difference at all then no one can tell. If it's 100% the same how exactly can you tell what the real more valuable thing is. You can't.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 31, 2016, 05:30:08 AM
Unless as you say there is no difference at all then no one can tell. If it's 100% the same how exactly can you tell what the real more valuable thing is. You can't.
If there is no difference at all it would not matter. All would be priced the same, as they would all be exactly the same.
However, if there are differences, even slight, subjective ones, then pricing could be affected. Like most things, I would imagine the more valuable form would be priced out of reach for average people; if something is 99% as good, but 1/10000th the price, I think the vast majority of people would settle for the lower priced version. Wealthy people would have the resources to pay the higher price for the small gain of the more valuable form, but the vast majority of the population would be satisfied with the more accessible one.
Post by: maizefolk on December 31, 2016, 08:11:21 AM
Some people will pay a lot more for a mined diamond and call it a "real" diamond. Some people will pay more for a lab grown diamond arguing their purchases it doesn't contribute to human suffering in the way supporting diamond mines in the less savory parts of Africa does.
Similarly, if robot brothels were functionally indistinguishable from the human variety, I'm sure some people would be willing to pay a premium for the "real" human experience, and other people would be willing to pay a premium so they didn't have to feel like any real humans were being exploited.*
The point is that even when two things are indistinguishable to the end user, as long as someone, somewhere can still certify that item 1 is in category A and item 2 is in category B, people still find mental ways to justify differences in price.
*Or feel like any real humans were judging them for their decision to visit a robot brothel.
Post by: sol on December 31, 2016, 01:50:03 PM
Unless as you say there is no difference at all then no one can tell. If it's 100% the same how exactly can you tell what the real more valuable thing is. You can't.
In the world of luxury goods, provenance counts. Two identical end tables are not worth the same amount if one of them was owned by a king and one of them wasn't. Their history and background is what determines the price, not the condition of the item itself. I can see the same argument being applied to robotic prostitutes, in both directions. Some people will pay more for a flawless performance, and some will pay more for inexperience. Virginity can only be legitimately sold once.
people would be willing to pay a premium so they didn't have to feel like any real humans were being exploited.
Some people, unfortunately, would be willing to pay because they desire the exploitation. To some folks, peeing on a robot just isn't as fun because the robot doesn't feel bad about itself afterwards. Humans are weird.
But this is all a matter of perception, of course. A replicant-style robot that successfully fools you (and itself) into believing it is human bypasses all of these rules. Just like with selling provenance, there is a credibility issue to be addressed.
Post by: GuitarStv on December 31, 2016, 02:15:42 PM
Now the robots and technology will be controlling the boarders.
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-12-lie-detecting-kiosk-future.html
Awesome! I like the idea of more controlled safer boarders
Boarders don't follow rules, dude.
(https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/t/young-surfboarder-summer-vacation-59341094.jpg)
Post by: arebelspy on December 31, 2016, 02:47:30 PM
A replicant-style robot that successfully fools you (and itself) into believing it is human bypasses all of these rules.
This.
Another the thing: you all are assuming meatspace.
In a virtual reality that's indistinguishable from real reality, no one can tell the difference.
And you can't say you'd be able to tell, because then it's not sufficiently advanced. If it can hit all the same nerves, stimulate the same areas, etc (including the touch, sounds, everything) to where you're immersed and don't know, there's (tautologically) no way to tell.
I think there's a good chance we're already in such a world, and the "real" sex you think you're having is simulated.
Post by: maizefolk on December 31, 2016, 04:16:26 PM
In scenario A, I agree with sol that people will find reasons to prefer one or the other, even if the experiences themselves are indistinguishable. In scenario B basically everything goes out the window, but I suspect at that point society would be confronting far more serious issues than whether robotic or biological brothels could charge higher rates.
Post by: Metric Mouse on December 31, 2016, 04:17:08 PM
Now the robots and technology will be controlling the boarders.
http://m.phys.org/news/2016-12-lie-detecting-kiosk-future.html
Awesome! I like the idea of more controlled safer boarders
Boarders don't follow rules, dude.
(https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/t/young-surfboarder-summer-vacation-59341094.jpg)
Real boarders are always in control.
Post by: AlanStache on December 31, 2016, 04:25:52 PM
A replicant-style robot that successfully fools you (and itself) into believing it is human bypasses all of these rules.
This.
Another the thing: you all are assuming meatspace.
In a virtual reality that's indistinguishable from real reality, no one can tell the difference.
And you can't say you'd be able to tell, because then it's not sufficiently advanced. If it can hit all the same nerves, stimulate the same areas, etc (including the touch, sounds, everything) to where you're immersed and don't know, there's (tautologically) no way to tell.
I think there's a good chance we're already in such a world, and the "real" sex you think you're having is simulated.
and I think we have just about arrived at the plot to Total Recall.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 01, 2017, 03:27:14 AM
A replicant-style robot that successfully fools you (and itself) into believing it is human bypasses all of these rules.
This.
Another the thing: you all are assuming meatspace.
In a virtual reality that's indistinguishable from real reality, no one can tell the difference.
And you can't say you'd be able to tell, because then it's not sufficiently advanced. If it can hit all the same nerves, stimulate the same areas, etc (including the touch, sounds, everything) to where you're immersed and don't know, there's (tautologically) no way to tell.
I think there's a good chance we're already in such a world, and the "real" sex you think you're having is simulated.
and I think we have just about arrived at the plot to Total Recall.
Or something by the Wachowski sisters.
Post by: Bakari on January 01, 2017, 09:18:12 AM
A replicant-style robot that successfully fools you (and itself) into believing it is human bypasses all of these rules.
This.
Another the thing: you all are assuming meatspace.
In a virtual reality that's indistinguishable from real reality, no one can tell the difference.
And you can't say you'd be able to tell, because then it's not sufficiently advanced. If it can hit all the same nerves, stimulate the same areas, etc (including the touch, sounds, everything) to where you're immersed and don't know, there's (tautologically) no way to tell.
I think there's a good chance we're already in such a world, and the "real" sex you think you're having is simulated.
I'm sorry, did you just suggest that maybe we are in the Matrix?
The thing about that theory, while philosophically conceivable, there is no motivation to carry it out. No one benefits from that arrangement that couldn't get the same or better results more simply.
-
Well I think there is a distinction to be made between A) physical interactions (or virtual ones) where a robot and real person would be indistinguishable if no one told you which was which (a sort of sexual turing test), but where people are still able to choose one or the other as a result of some sort of truth in labeling law or equivalent, and B) a world where anyone you interact with (sexually or otherwise) could be a robot and you have no way of telling.
If all the internal systems, all the way down to the molecular level and even patterns of DNA, were indistinguishable then we wouldn't be calling them "robots", they would be genetically engineered human beings. Even the Cylons could be distinguished with a test.
Post by: arebelspy on January 01, 2017, 02:15:07 PM
I'm sorry, did you just suggest that maybe we are in the Matrix?
The thing about that theory, while philosophically conceivable, there is no motivation to carry it out. No one benefits from that arrangement that couldn't get the same or better results more simply.
No, the Matrix motivation is obviously silly.
Again, you are presuming meat space. Like you are a real body attached to a battery. Obviously dumb.
Tell me how you get the same or better benefits of a simulation that requires the simulants to think they're real than running one?
I.e. if I want to model the real world, in its FULL complexity, wouldn't I need the beings in it to be the same as us, and thus conscious?
Pretend I have enough computing power to model every atom and interaction, from the big bang on, within this world (impossible, but pretend). Wouldn't the beings within that simulation think they're real? How can I correctly model it if they don't?
Explain to me how you can do that more simply.
I see no reason you exist as a body (or I) necessarily.
Look up Nick Bostrom.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 01, 2017, 02:28:38 PM
I'm sorry, did you just suggest that maybe we are in the Matrix?
The thing about that theory, while philosophically conceivable, there is no motivation to carry it out. No one benefits from that arrangement that couldn't get the same or better results more simply.
No, the Matrix motivation is obviously silly.
Again, you are presuming meat space. Like you are a real body attached to a battery. Obviously dumb.
Tell me how you get the same or better benefits of a simulation that requires the simulants to think they're real than running one?
I.e. if I want to model the real world, in its FULL complexity, wouldn't I need the beings in it to be the same as us, and thus conscious?
Pretend I have enough computing power to model every atom and interaction, from the big bang on, within this world (impossible, but pretend). Wouldn't the beings within that simulation think they're real? How can I correctly model it if they don't?
Explain to me how you can do that more simply.
I see no reason you exist as a body (or I) necessarily.
Look up Nick Bostrom.
What if the beings running the simulation where just part of someone else's simulation? I mean think about that. It'd be really trippy.
Post by: arebelspy on January 01, 2017, 02:49:23 PM
But it's very unlikely we're in the top level, in my opinion (and many other people's, including Elon Musk).
Are the simulation arguments new to you guys?
It got really popular over the last few years.
I can provide some links if needed, I just assumed it was common knowledge by now around a crowd like this.
Post by: Bakari on January 01, 2017, 09:56:41 PM
We have self-replicating DNA that ultimately creates motivation for doing all the things we do.
In this hypothetical scenario, there is no (apparent) ultimate underlying biochemical, ultimately physics, principal driving the counter-entropy force of excess energy used to increase order.
Say some brilliant computer scientist was able to simulate every atom from the big bang on. It would take a universe worth of energy to run, just like the actual universe does. To what end, other than perhaps entertainment?
If you just want to posit trippy what-ifs for the sake of mind blowingness, why not stop at pointing out that there is no way to ever know for sure that this isn't all your own hallucination and that you live in an insane asylum. Just as possible as the "this is all a simulation, and you only think your real" scenario, and ofcorse also just as much a dead end
Post by: sol on January 01, 2017, 10:22:28 PM
Say some brilliant computer scientist was able to simulate every atom from the big bang on. It would take a universe worth of energy to run, just like the actual universe does. To what end, other than perhaps entertainment?
Isn't this question equally valid when asked of our current real universe? To what end? Does it have a purpose? Does it need one?
Why is this question interesting when asked about a simulation but not when asked about a physical universe? Do we need a hypothesized external intelligence to give this existence meaning?
Post by: arebelspy on January 01, 2017, 10:30:30 PM
My question is what purpose would it serve to create such a simulation in the first place.
We have self-replicating DNA that ultimately creates motivation for doing all the things we do.
In this hypothetical scenario, there is no (apparent) ultimate underlying biochemical, ultimately physics, principal driving the counter-entropy force of excess energy used to increase order.
Say some brilliant computer scientist was able to simulate every atom from the big bang on. It would take a universe worth of energy to run, just like the actual universe does.
Of course. In a larger universe with more energy, this would be feasible. In ours, obviously, it wouldn't. Like I said:
"Pretend I have enough computing power to model every atom and interaction, from the big bang on, within this world (impossible, but pretend)."
Quote
To what end, other than perhaps entertainment?
Many reasons. Entertainment is one, but simulations let you test scenarios. We use models ALL THE TIME to try to solve problems. If we could make a simple model of the universe, we could tweak variables, and run it to see. We could run it a million times and see what the best outcomes are. Etc.
Quote
If you just want to posit trippy what-ifs for the sake of mind blowingness
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9743562/icon_rolleyes.gif)
I don't know why you feel the need to be condescending. That had nothing to do with discussing it, and makes me really disinclined to engage with you. Accusing me of posting a "trippy what if just for the sake of mind blowingness" is rude.
Earlier this year, at Code Conference, Elon Musk said there's "one in billions" chance we're not living in a computer simulation.
https://games.slashdot.org/story/16/06/03/0049258/elon-musk-one-in-billions-chance-were-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation (https://games.slashdot.org/story/16/06/03/0049258/elon-musk-one-in-billions-chance-were-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation)
Was he just trolling them for shock value?
Neal DeGrasse Tyson said it's "very likely" the universe is a simulation. https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/04/23/0051211/neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation (https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/04/23/0051211/neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation)
Is he just saying it for shock value?
Earlier this year, a Bank of America analysis said there's a 50% chance we're living in a simulation. Merrill Lynch, Bank of America's wealth management company, sent out a briefing to investors outlining their Matrix theory.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/14/02/16/197236/mathematician-is-our-universe-a-simulation (https://science.slashdot.org/story/14/02/16/197236/mathematician-is-our-universe-a-simulation)
(Matrix was used as lazy shorthand to explain it, but no one thinks we're actually bodies plugged in as batteries.)
Did all of Merrill Lynch troll their investors just for funsies?
Give me a tiny bit of credit and pause and realize that this is something some intelligent people are taking seriously. I can see how you might intuitively dismiss some stoned philosophy undergrads eating pizza and going "What if the Matrix is real? whoahhhhhhh.....," but that's not what we're talking about.
As I said, look up Nick Bostrom. Some of the math in his arguments is pretty fun.
Maybe you didn't realize that, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you think it's really just a silly premise no one legitimately believes, but just funny to giggle about. I would tell you you are incorrect, and that you should do some research around the actual academic papers written in this area over the last few years.
:)
Is it real? Who knows. Like you said, likely impossible to "prove." (Though maybe not--there might be certain things within a simulation that would show up in a simulation only.) But it's not a troll, or joke, it's something of interest.
Some amusing comments from different Slashdot articles discussing the possibility:
Quote
Some possible ways to determine if we're living in a simulation:
Look for signs of optimizations/short cuts in the simulation:
Is there a maximum speed?
Is there a minimum size?
Is there a limit as to determining an object's position and momentum?
etc...
Quote
[In response to someone saying it'd be impossible to simulate something so complex without tons of bugs]
Whose to say there aren't bugs? As a physics major in college I could certainly be convinced many aspects of general relativity and quantum mechanics could be considered bugs. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light? Oops. Quantum entanglement and superposition? We'll fix those in version 2.5. Hopefully by version 4 we can finally get the world to run by what you call Newtonian physics with no exceptions.
Quote
And not a very good simulation at that. Whoever wrote it couldn't even synchronize time, even at a local level. And that hard coded top speed limit? Because "No one in there is ever going to need to go that fast anyway" I bet. And the way it shits itself when you put too much mass in one place? Very sloppy! It's probably just the N-Dimensional equivalent of a potato battery, proudly displayed at "Take your Kindred-Daughter to work day", for a very inefficient method of converting hydrogen into plutonium.
Quote
It would explain quantum effects. Kinda like looking at the resolution limit of the simulation. Like looking reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally close at your monitor and noticing that all the colors are just reeeeeeeeeally tiny LEDs in RG and B and that none of those other colors really existed.
Note: I used all slashdot links, and quotes, above simply because I enjoy their site and discussions. They also link to the original sources in the topline summary, so you can easily jump straight there. It was quicker for me to search "universe simulation slashdot.org" and click the first few links than search without the slashdot qualifier and wade through a bunch of links. If you don't like slashdot, feel free to do your own googling. :)
Post by: Bakari on January 02, 2017, 09:24:20 AM
Of course, the same can be said of every religion as well, and I find them even more silly then this idea.
My point about being a pointless trippy exercise is that even if it were correct, it would make absolutely no difference to our day to day lives, and it would be impossible to ever know either way.
The whole point of a model is that it is simpler to work with. If you wanted the most realistic possible environment in which to test predictions, you just do an experiment, in the actual world.
Just because the technology for something is available doesn't mean people are going to actually to implement it. We have flying cars and jetpacks and Google Glasses, but no one actually cares to use them.
In order to actually model all of reality, you also have to model the computer programs. So what happens when you try to model computer programs that model the universe? They would have to also have accurate models of the universe - including of themselves... endlessly recursive (reminds me of the full video game within Day of the Tentacle). It would require infinitely complex processing.
Moreover, this entire idea is a bit like the homunculus assumption of how the mind works. There is no tiny mind at the controls, and when you see something, there is no image of it anywhere in your brain. The simulation doesn't look anything like the experience and (this part is key) the elements of brain goo that process the information we experience don't themselves have any consciousness.
There is no reason to think that the products of such a simulation would have any consciousness. In our case - the only one that we know of that experiences consciousness - it is only the overall "simulation" as a whole, the total mind, that is more than just a stimulus-response network. Contrary to what "Inside Out" is teaching kids, each separate subroutine of the model of the world that is our minds does not have its own separate sentience.
The idea that we are "probably" in a model suggests that it is inevitable that all complex simulations would have to have individually and independently sentient subroutines in order to make an accurate model, but we know that isn't true.
If the point of the simulation involves tweaking variables, and perhaps has "bugs" of convenience, then all bets are off the table in terms of what the "real" world could be like. We are no longer talking about an atom by atom mock-up of the universe, we are talking about an entirely arbitrary "universe" created by something, with rules we can't possibly ever know for reasons we can never really speculate on. Maybe outside the simulation there is no such thing as atoms. Maybe there aren't 4 fundamental forces. There could be 25, or just 1. Maybe the entire concept of energy was invented by the programmer.
Then again, maybe our entire universe is itself a particle within a much larger universe. That is equally probable.
Or, like in my first post, this could just as easily be a hallucination or a dream. We know dreams exist, we know they are sometimes realistic, so why isn't it a one in billions chances (or at least 50% chance) that "we" (except really, "I") are living in a dream?
People today happen to be obsessed with computers and the internet and where it could hypothetically go, but that doesn't make it any more actually "likely" that we are in one than it was a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or a million years ago.
Are all the stars fake? Or did the programmer actually build entire galaxies which would have zero affect on us, just to be more through? Or, conversely, did they take the time to program something as complex as evolving life with sentience in one random tiny corner of the universe when the real interest was the physics of the universe.
Say some brilliant computer scientist was able to simulate every atom from the big bang on. It would take a universe worth of energy to run, just like the actual universe does. To what end, other than perhaps entertainment?
Isn't this question equally valid when asked of our current real universe? To what end? Does it have a purpose? Does it need one?
Why is this question interesting when asked about a simulation but not when asked about a physical universe? Do we need a hypothesized external intelligence to give this existence meaning?
Difference is, someone would have had to made a conscious deliberate effort to make a simulation. In order to do that, they would need a specific motivation. If the universe is just the product of random physics, then there need not be any purpose.
Post by: sol on January 02, 2017, 03:32:41 PM
Difference is, someone would have had to made a conscious deliberate effort to make a simulation. In order to do that, they would need a specific motivation. If the universe is just the product of random physics, then there need not be any purpose.
I think I wasn't clear enough. If our universe only has meaning because an alien programmer designed, it why does the alien's universe have any meaning?
This is the same argument that befalls all supernatural causation stories. "What made the universe? God. What made God? Nothing, God just is." Why can't the universe just be, and we can cut out the middle man? Why the need to superimpose the intermediary step? You haven't really answered anything if your answer still defaults to "just because" upon closer inspection.
In this case, why the need to superimpose the alien programmer to give our universe hypothetical purpose, if his universe is equally meaningless?
Post by: AlanStache on January 02, 2017, 06:24:40 PM
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In order to actually model all of reality, you also have to model the computer programs. So what happens when you try to model computer programs that model the universe? They would have to also have accurate models of the universe - including of themselves... endlessly recursive (reminds me of the full video game within Day of the Tentacle). It would require infinitely complex processing.
No, the alien programmer (AP) would "only" need to model our universes base physical laws and let the complexity build up from there - same as if it were not a simulation. AP would define gravitational laws, quantum mechanics and electromagnetic laws etc as well as the initial conditions of all the stuff in the simulation then let it run and eventually the AP could observe cave men in faded blue jeans using the internet. When I build simulations I identify the most low level widgets in the system, build those then let them interact. You can get crazy complex behavior from very simple systems interacting. basic idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior))
Post by: maizefolk on January 02, 2017, 08:08:05 PM
"Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, is reportedly replacing 34 human insurance claim workers with “IBM Watson Explorer,” starting by January 2017. The AI will scan hospital records and other documents to determine insurance payouts, according to a company press release, factoring injuries, patient medical histories, and procedures administered. ... Fukoku Mutual will spend $1.7 million (200 million yen) to install the AI system, and $128,000 per year for maintenance, according to Japan’s The Mainichi. The company saves roughly $1.1 million per year on employee salaries by using the IBM software, meaning it hopes to see a return on the investment in less than two years."
http://qz.com/875491/japanese-white-collar-workers-are-already-being-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence/
The thing that surprised me was how few workers they could replace and still have it make economic sense. Maybe IBM is just eating a lot of the development cost in the hopes of selling similar systems to other insurance companies? Otherwise, I'd always figured that doing a job fewer other people also did was reasonable protection against automation since the economies of scale just aren't there to develop a computational replacement yet.
Post by: tomsang on January 02, 2017, 08:20:26 PM
http://qz.com/875491/japanese-white-collar-workers-are-already-being-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence/
Thanks for the article. I think their last sentence sums up the near future, HBR writes. “And yet, we have to admit that there are some knowledge-work jobs that will simply succumb to the rise of the robots.”
Post by: Bakari on January 03, 2017, 09:17:11 AM
Difference is, someone would have had to made a conscious deliberate effort to make a simulation. In order to do that, they would need a specific motivation. If the universe is just the product of random physics, then there need not be any purpose.
I think I wasn't clear enough. If our universe only has meaning because an alien programmer designed, it why does the alien's universe have any meaning?
This is the same argument that befalls all supernatural causation stories. "What made the universe? God. What made God? Nothing, God just is." Why can't the universe just be, and we can cut out the middle man? Why the need to superimpose the intermediary step? You haven't really answered anything if your answer still defaults to "just because" upon closer inspection.
In this case, why the need to superimpose the alien programmer to give our universe hypothetical purpose, if his universe is equally meaningless?
lol, I think I wasn't clear enough! I was never proposing that the alien programmer world was any more "meaningful". The fact that our world (in whatever form it exists) has conscious individuals gives life "meaning".
What I was asking is what motivation the AP would have to take the effort.
Post by: Bakari on January 03, 2017, 09:22:43 AM
Bakari:QuoteIn order to actually model all of reality, you also have to model the computer programs. So what happens when you try to model computer programs that model the universe? They would have to also have accurate models of the universe - including of themselves... endlessly recursive (reminds me of the full video game within Day of the Tentacle). It would require infinitely complex processing.
No, the alien programmer (AP) would "only" need to model our universes base physical laws and let the complexity build up from there - same as if it were not a simulation. AP would define gravitational laws, quantum mechanics and electromagnetic laws etc as well as the initial conditions of all the stuff in the simulation then let it run and eventually the AP could observe cave men in faded blue jeans using the internet. When I build simulations I identify the most low level widgets in the system, build those then let them interact. You can get crazy complex behavior from very simple systems interacting. basic idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior))
Granted, but if it were a supposedly accurate model of the "real" world, then it would have to be capable of running an in-program version of itself. And if, within the simulation, the software "individuals" get so complex to create a legitimate form-of self-awareness, and go on to create societies with technology - technology which includes simulation software - then the hardware running the model has to be complex enough to be able to run another recursive copy. The entire premise is in fact dependent on the idea that such a simulation would in fact be able to create a society that could create such a simulation. Which means you would then have another layer underneath that.
The fact that the details don't have to be manually programmed in does not solve the endlessly recursive issue.
Post by: Bakari on January 03, 2017, 09:57:56 AM
This is the same argument that befalls all supernatural causation stories. "What made the universe? God. What made God? Nothing, God just is." Why can't the universe just be, and we can cut out the middle man? Why the need to superimpose the intermediary step?
on a semi-related note - my wife's first thought, when I explained the conversation and that Elon Musk buys into it (at least in theory) was: Why bother trying to protect the environment then?
Seems a valid question. There are a lot of very religious people who feel the same way: if God wants us to live here, He will ensure we don't wreck the place. And on the other hand, if at some point he should get bored of us, or feel we have fulfilled out usefulness, he can just pull the plug (literally, in the place of AP God) and it won't have mattered what we do.
Here's another thing I thought of, after reading all the links: why are we assuming that a civilization with the technology to create simulations good enough to foster self-awareness in the sub-routines representing individuals would specifically model their own real universe at all, much less specifically their own ancestors? Yet all of the theories revolve around the probability of someone modeling "the universe" or "reality" or even "ancestors". If we are to be in any one of millions, the chances are good that "reality" has absolutely nothing what-so-ever in common with anything at all the we observe.
Modeling life using nothing but laws of physics and initial universe conditions creates the same problem that we have looking for advanced alien life: there is somewhere on the order of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. We could find a loophole that allows faster-than-light travel and still wouldn't be able to visit them if we started looking when the first bacteria started replicating and continued until the sun runs out of fuel (that's about a 9 billion year life span for all life on Earth, and since the Sun is an average star, probably represents a roughly average time for any planet with life to foster it).
The only way it would be remotely reasonable to believe that the entire universe as we know it was modeled just so someone or something could watch what we do is if we assume that everything beyond the sky (or lets say even the solar system) is fake, just drawn in place so that we won't suspect, Truman Show style. Because if the entire universe was actually modeled, the developers would never even find the self-aware sub-routines, never mind the massively wasted resources that went into making it all.
The authors of the articles the links led to are a little more skeptical too:
It's worth noting that Bostrom doesn't share Musk's confidence. He's said that he doesn't see any obvious way to choose between the three options:If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).... For what it's worth, I side with critics who think the three options aren't actual exhaustive: I don't see a reason to believe that even very advanced civilizations will manage to easily simulate consciousness.
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11837608/elon-musk-simulation-argument
]It’s not so much that this thinking is “flawed” as it is “so useless it invalidates all of human thought and achievement from pre-history to today.” Think about it: If we are to be convinced by this sort of non-argument, then why not assume that every person around you is a time traveler? After all, if we imagine that time travel will one-day exist on an infinite time-line, then we must also assume that time travel has been used to visit every single time and place in our planet’s history — including this one. People will, in principle, want to have fun vacations in the past, putting on period-appropriate clothing and walking around using slang wrong; how could we be so arrogant as to assume that the people we meet are part of the real, finite population of our time, and not from the far more numerous ranks of temporal travelers from any time?
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227126-neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation
If, in fact, self-awareness can be fostered in a computer program, wouldn't it be at least as likely that YOU personally, reading this right now, are the ONLY self-aware one, and the entire rest of the world is being fed to you artificially? It would be just as impossible to ever know (the proposals to determine if we are are dependent on the flawed assumption that such simulations would be done the way we do them today, which in turn assumes that AP only tried to make models realistic to their own world) it could achieve most of the potential goals of such a program, while being many orders of magnitude faster, easier, cheaper, etc. This could be your own personal Truman Show, except that everyone else is a extremely excellent stimulant - one's which cease to exist the moment you look away.
And after all, very intelligent and knowledgeable physicists have, in all seriousness, proposed that Schrodinger's cat literally does not exist if no one is looking at it. I don't think that makes the proposal any less silly...
Post by: sol on January 03, 2017, 10:09:34 AM
You don't need to model internal combustion engines to model traffic flow. You don't need to model hydrogen bonds to model the weather. You don't need to model stellar fusion to model the solar system. You simplify the parts that matter the least, and put you're effort into the details of interest. By this reasoning, each step down becomes a more simple (smaller) universe, so if we're a simulation we must exist within a more complex (and larger) one.
The fact that there appear to be a finite number of particles in the universe suggest this is at least theoretically possible. Forget about the idea that outer space is all faked for our own perception, even the sum total of all creation, every atom of every grain of sand on every beach of every moon currently being sucked into one of a trillion black holes, could theoretically be simulated as bits in a sufficiently large computer. It just takes a much bigger and more complicated universe than ours to hold that computer.
And similarly, we have already run simplified models of universes. Every big bang simulation ever run is it's own tiny universe, born, evolving, dying within the confines of a machine more complex than its entire existence. You can watch some of them play out on YouTube.
Post by: brooklynguy on January 03, 2017, 01:39:58 PM
on a semi-related note - my wife's first thought, when I explained the conversation and that Elon Musk buys into it (at least in theory) was: Why bother trying to protect the environment then?
Because we have no guarantee that the programmer would, or even could, intervene in a way that we would find desirable.
In another sense, this question could be interpreted as a subvariant of the broader, more fundamental question that is generated when you extend its underlying logic to its extreme--namely, if our entire perceived-reality is merely a simulation, then why does anything that occurs inside it matter? And I think you already answered that question when you said:
The fact that our world (in whatever form it exists) has conscious individuals gives life "meaning".
This variation of the question, I think, is the same as asking why anything matters if determinism is true and we have no free will (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/your-mustache-might-be-evil/msg1314016/#msg1314016) or why anything matters if all life in the universe will ultimately cease to exist (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/ufologyblack-budgets-area-51-research-material-for-the-fire'd/msg927226/#msg927226).
The answer, in each case, is that nothing truly matters, except to the extent that we believe that it does. Said differently, life, objectively, has no meaning, but, subjectively, it does (or, at least, it can). So why should we bother to try to protect this world of ours if it is merely a figment of our collective perceptions? For the same reason that we should do anything to which we assign positive value: the very fact that it is something to which we assign positive value.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 03, 2017, 02:02:44 PM
Similar to the Uncanny Valley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley), people either quickly know when real life is being faked or have a sudden replusion to a simulation close to being able to mimic real life.
Or I could wrong and I'll honestly never know (or be shunned as crazy, being the only one complaining about this bogus simulation), but that scenario really isn't worth much time debating.
Post by: jordanread on January 03, 2017, 02:15:00 PM
A unique difference between simulations and 'reality' seems to boil down to memory. I'm not sure how you get a computer to make that final leap toward selectively remembering past events and assigning them weights and values. It is such an unpredictable variable in human influence (each individual has an unpredictable action based on how memory was stored, accessed, and ultimately the influence it has on current decisions). Humans are therefore unpredictable, but not entirely random either. Throughout our life, we become a more sophisticated user of our memories to 'self actualize', to varying degrees, but this is the ultimate test to me that I'm not living in a simulation. How could I possibly track all of the memories of my immediate family, acquaintences, friends, distant family - so as to have them exist in ways that are relatively unpredictable, but also not random.
Similar to the Uncanny Valley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley), people either quickly know when real life is being faked or have a sudden replusion to a simulation close to being able to mimic real life.
Or I could wrong and I'll honestly never know (or be shunned as crazy, being the only one complaining about this bogus simulation), but that scenario really isn't worth much time debating.
I did not follow the link, but I want to test my memory. Is that what they refer to about simulating facial muscles? In between totally fake and totally believable? Just 'off' a bit, and fundamentally disturbing.
I have thoughts on the simulation thing, but seeing as how this is the first normal day after the last few weeks, I have way too much other stuff to do.
Post by: arebelspy on January 03, 2017, 03:57:49 PM
This is the same argument that befalls all supernatural causation stories. "What made the universe? God. What made God? Nothing, God just is." Why can't the universe just be, and we can cut out the middle man? Why the need to superimpose the intermediary step?
on a semi-related note - my wife's first thought, when I explained the conversation and that Elon Musk buys into it (at least in theory) was: Why bother trying to protect the environment then?
Seems a valid question. There are a lot of very religious people who feel the same way: if God wants us to live here, He will ensure we don't wreck the place.
And what answer would an atheist environmentalist tell the religious person? They don't need God for meaning. IF it is a universe created and one that could be destroyed on a whim, by God (or programmer, running a simulation) doesn't necessarily remove meaning, depending on how you define that meaning.
on a semi-related note - my wife's first thought, when I explained the conversation and that Elon Musk buys into it (at least in theory) was: Why bother trying to protect the environment then?
Because we have no guarantee that the programmer would, or even could, intervene in a way that we would find desirable.
In another sense, this question could be interpreted as a subvariant of the broader, more fundamental question that is generated when you extend its underlying logic to its extreme--namely, if our entire perceived-reality is merely a simulation, then why does anything that occurs inside it matter? And I think you already answered that question when you said:The fact that our world (in whatever form it exists) has conscious individuals gives life "meaning".
This variation of the question, I think, is the same as asking why anything matters if determinism is true and we have no free will (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/your-mustache-might-be-evil/msg1314016/#msg1314016) or why anything matters if all life in the universe will ultimately cease to exist (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/ufologyblack-budgets-area-51-research-material-for-the-fire'd/msg927226/#msg927226).
The answer, in each case, is that nothing truly matters, except to the extent that we believe that it does. Said differently, life, objectively, has no meaning, but, subjectively, it does (or, at least, it can). So why should we bother to try to protect this world of ours if it is merely a figment of our collective perceptions? For the same reason that we should do anything to which we assign positive value: the very fact that it is something to which we assign positive value.
I love everything about this. Brooklynguy is the intellect I want to be. Plus a funny accent!
If we can have an advanced enough simulation that beings inside it experience consciousness, there can be meaning for them (even if "nothing matters in the end"), the same as if there were real world consciousnesses in a universe that was inevitably ending in heat-death (where "nothing matters in the end").
Whether or not you find meaning in the real world shouldn't change if it's a simulation or not (or inevitable without free will, or not). Or at least I haven't heard why, if you disagree, please explain. :)
Post by: jordanread on January 03, 2017, 04:11:32 PM
Post by: Bakari on January 03, 2017, 06:49:58 PM
I don't think it is endlessly recursive. I build simulations for a living, and every single one is a simplification of a more complex system, but designed to capture the relevant characteristics and behaviors being studied....
But of course! I think this is a fundamental flaw in all of the proposals that we are "likely" to be in a simulation. They are dependent on the assumption that the model would in fact capture every detail of reality.
What is the relevant characteristics being studied? If it is quantum/atomic level physics, why would you model an entire universe? If its astronomical level physics, why program in quantum effects, and not just relativity? If it is conscious living things, why model either of the former? If it is anything other then conscious things, why add in all the complex variables that are necessary to foster self-awareness?
This is why I asked about motivation earlier. In order to run an "ancestor" simulation, or a "video game", there would be absolutely no need to model individual sub-atomic particles or distant galaxies, which 99.9% of living things will never see, and the existence of which will not affect in any way - UNLESS, they really are composed of those atoms. The complexity of observed reality suggests that there is not in fact the simplification one would expect of any simulation.
And what answer would an atheist environmentalist tell the religious person? They don't need God for meaning. IF it is a universe created and one that could be destroyed on a whim, by God (or programmer, running a simulation) doesn't necessarily remove meaning, depending on how you define that meaning.
Again, I'm not talking about "meaning". I agree 100% with BrooklynGuy's reasoning, that we would generate our own meaning regardless of whether or not we are "real".
I question the answer he gave to begin with though:
Because we have no guarantee that the programmer would, or even could, intervene in a way that we would find desirable.
Well, no, there is no guarantee of absolutely anything beyond Descartes's proof that you (the reader) exist in some form.
Given the premise that we are living in a simulation created deliberately by a sentient programmer, how likely is it they would have either 1) deliberately created a system in which there was no possible way to intervene or alter variables once the program begun or 2) have had no possible way to create such safeguards? What realistic scenario can we envision with good enough computers to run a complex enough simulation to do all 3 of model subatomic particles, contain a universe worth of total mass and energy, and foster consciousness - and yet lack the sophistication to be able to modify anything?
To answer the original question: there is no possible answer that would sway a religious person with that belief. Given their premise - namely 1) all of creation is here for the purpose of Human use and enjoyment, 2) God wants us to continue to live (at least for now) and 3) God is all powerful, then the conclusion that God will not allow us to make our own home uninhabitable (without providing for some suitable alternative) is entirely reasonable and logical.
Now, my own answer, were I to accept that it is a possibility that this is a simulation, would be that we should be careful just in case this is really reality. However, the proponents of this theory don't merely suggest it is possible, they propose it is almost certainly true.
Post by: arebelspy on January 03, 2017, 06:59:12 PM
I don't think it is endlessly recursive. I build simulations for a living, and every single one is a simplification of a more complex system, but designed to capture the relevant characteristics and behaviors being studied....
But of course! I think this is a fundamental flaw in all of the proposals that we are "likely" to be in a simulation. They are dependent on the assumption that the model would in fact capture every detail of reality.
What? Why would you assume this simulation you're in captures every detail of reality?
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This is why I asked about motivation earlier. In order to run an "ancestor" simulation, or a "video game", there would be absolutely no need to model individual sub-atomic particles or distant galaxies, which 99.9% of living things will never see, and the existence of which will not affect in any way - UNLESS, they really are composed of those atoms. The complexity of observed reality suggests that there is not in fact the simplification one would expect of any simulation.
Never heard of W?BIC!, huh? With sufficient computing power, simulating everything is trivial.
Post by: brooklynguy on January 03, 2017, 08:39:27 PM
What realistic scenario can we envision with good enough computers to run a complex enough simulation to do all 3 of model subatomic particles, contain a universe worth of total mass and energy, and foster consciousness - and yet lack the sophistication to be able to modify anything?
Here's one of many scenarios I can envision in which the programmer would lack the ability to intervene (which need not assume a lack of computing sophistication): After initiating the simulation, the programmer walked away for a coffee break to allow the simulation to fully elapse; she plans to return to view the results once it has finished (when our perceived-universe ends?), which means we're on our own until then.
Of course, there are even more conceivable scenarios in which the programmer simply would not intervene than there are those in which the programmer could not intervene (because the former wholly subsumes the latter).
So, even if we accept it as given that we are living in a simulation, there can be no guarantee, or even reasonable assurance, that the programmer would intervene in a way that we would find desirable if we wreck our world. So the rationale behind my answer is the same as the rationale behind your own (which bears a similarity to Pascal's Wager on the Existence of God, running in the opposite direction): even if there is a higher power (i.e., programmer) out there, we should be careful in our actions just in case that higher power is not standing by to save us.
Plus a funny accent!
It's been over two years since the last time someone on this forum invoked my Brooklyn accent, so I won't feel bad about recycling the response I gave them:
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/10/02/arts/02artsbeat-banksy2/02artsbeat-banksy2-blog480.jpg)
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Brooklynguy is the intellect I want to be.
But, in all seriousness, I take this as the highest form of praise, coming from you.
Post by: atrex on January 03, 2017, 10:34:40 PM
Now, there's likely many simplifications and optimizations. But the question of whether it is computationally possible to simulate a complex universe is definitely not settled... it could be impossible. Check out the Blue Brain Project for an example of a small subproblem of simulation that is very very hard:
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
Post by: sol on January 03, 2017, 11:28:47 PM
The assumption that one could model a full scale or even small scale universe breaks down with the challenges of big data computing. Try finding a median on 1 trillion data points. Ok, now try finding the median on 1 quadrillion or 1 quintillion. Even a simple operation like this does not scale.
Why does it need to scale?
We've been solving these problems for approximately 100 years, with the most rudimentary technology imaginable. Give us a few billion more years to work on it, and then get back to me.
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Now try implementing gravity where every atom pulls on every atom. It won't scale.
Gravity definitely doesn't need to scale. You only need to compute the average forces, not the individual pulls. I don't have to know how many atoms Saturn has to calculate its orbit.
And we know that gravity isn't perfectly simulated anyway. It breaks down at both large and small scales and we seem to have way more of it than we should. And its massless particle doesn't seem to exist anyway, like they just patched it to mostly work most of the time without having to do any of the calculations.
And while I'm on the topic, WTF is up with the fine structure constant? This is a pure number inherent to the structure of the universe, like pi it will be the same for every alien civilization regardless of their system of counting or how they do their math and it shows up all over the field of physics in weird and unexpected places, but its value is approximately 1/137. What kind of bullshit kludge is that? That's like something a stoner would code.
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Now, there's likely many simplifications and optimizations. But the question of whether it is computationally possible to simulate a complex universe is definitely not settled... it could be impossible.
I don't see how you can ever claim it's impossible. If it's possible model n particles for n=1 and n+1, everything else is just scaling up with a (much) bigger computer. Who's to say the next universe up isn't 10^10^10^10 times bigger than ours, and modeling our puny 10^80 particles in this little universe is child's play for an average laptop? Just because a number seems ridiculously large to you and me doesn't mean it actually is. Hell, our universe is so tiny we can actually SEE THE EDGES.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 04, 2017, 04:32:45 AM
My point about being a pointless trippy exercise is that even if it were correct, it would make absolutely no difference to our day to day lives, and it would be impossible to ever know either way.
Right? I mean, the thought might keep Musk up at night (though he should have spent that time focusing on launching rockets on time, in my opinion) but since the fact that we're living in a simulation or controlled by a God or aliens or whatever doesn't give or remove meaning from my (simulated?) experiences.
And the answer would not affect anyone's life in any measureable way; hence my earlier comment on "You know what would really be trippy."
Post by: arebelspy on January 04, 2017, 05:23:56 AM
You can't say what would affect someone else's life, only what has affected yours. So your first declarative sentence with "my" is fine; the second trying to apply it to everyone, I disagree with. :)
Post by: atrex on January 04, 2017, 09:00:31 AM
QuoteNow, there's likely many simplifications and optimizations. But the question of whether it is computationally possible to simulate a complex universe is definitely not settled... it could be impossible.
I don't see how you can ever claim it's impossible. If it's possible model n particles for n=1 and n+1, everything else is just scaling up with a (much) bigger computer. Who's to say the next universe up isn't 10^10^10^10 times bigger than ours, and modeling our puny 10^80 particles in this little universe is child's play for an average laptop? Just because a number seems ridiculously large to you and me doesn't mean it actually is. Hell, our universe is so tiny we can actually SEE THE EDGES.
I said it could be impossible. It's right there above you. If you think it is possible, the burden is on you to demonstrate it.
Concerning your argument that we just need to solve the n+1 case... consider the following: I can carry 0 ounces in a backpack. Surely if I'm carrying n ounces in my backpack, I can carry n+1 ounces in my backpack. Therefore, I can carry 1,000,000,000 ounces in my backpack.
Obviously there's a straw that breaks the camel's back, because the induction does not reflect reality. Similarly, we see places in nature where you can't just keep adding 1 thing, solving for n+1. For example, you can't keep adding 1 atom to a star... it explodes... and it does so because you eventually run into the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Now, you could say that's a good example of behavior in our universe that suggests it is simulated, and I can see that. But it's also an example of where "just scaling up" fails.
Onto the edges of the universe. We don't see the edges of the universe, at least according to current cosmology. The edges are all the light that has been travelling almost the entire time the universe has been around, and just reached us now. As the universe ages, we'll receive light from parts of the universe that are even further away, or so the theory goes. The theory being the universe is infinite in breadth. Further, if the cosmological constant points to an open universe, then by definition there will be parts of the universe that are so far away that, while they exist, we never receive light from them. Parts beyond the 'edges' that we never see, but do exist.
Lastly, there are plenty of problems that are unsolvable that are important and would be nice to solve. For example, the Halting Problem would be a great problem to solve, would massively improve software development, but we know cannot be solved, under any circumstances, the end.
Post by: Bakari on January 04, 2017, 09:45:28 AM
It's not just me assuming it, it's built into the premise. All of the proponents are suggesting simulations which are of actual reality, not some completely made up world. It was in your initial post on the topicI don't think it is endlessly recursive. I build simulations for a living, and every single one is a simplification of a more complex system, but designed to capture the relevant characteristics and behaviors being studied....
But of course! I think this is a fundamental flaw in all of the proposals that we are "likely" to be in a simulation. They are dependent on the assumption that the model would in fact capture every detail of reality.
What? Why would you assume this simulation you're in captures every detail of reality?
I.e. if I want to model the real world, in its FULL complexity, wouldn't I need the beings in it to be the same as us, and thus conscious?Pretend I have enough computing power to model every atom and interaction, from the big bang on, within this world (impossible, but pretend). Wouldn't the beings within that simulation think they're real? How can I correctly model it if they don't?
Bostrom isn't proposing someone ran some random program with random variables just to see what came up, he is proposing an "ancestor" simulation. Which means the simulation is a direct reflection of the "real" level of reality. Tyson is talking about simulating "the universe". As in, the real one. Musk talks about games "indistinguishable from reality".
That's what says that the "universe up isn't 10^10^10^10 times bigger than ours". If it were, then the simulation WOULDN'T be a perfect simulation of actual reality.
You may not need to know how many atoms in Saturn to calculate it's trajectory, but that would be the simplified version of the simulation again, which we know we aren't in. Because Saturn really is composed of atoms, and all of those particles really do individually interact. You would need to model ALL of them, and their interactions with each other, if you want to model Saturn's weather. And the weather of every planet and star, even ones we can't see. If the programmer cut corners as big as not modeling every individual atom in Saturn, we would eventually find them. So why would it be distant galaxies? Plenty of stuff we can detect today no one ever even considered looking for. If neutrinos didn't exist, how would it affect the outcome of the program?
How many corners can you cut, and still end up with individually self-aware things?
Quote
No idea what that string of characters is supposed to mean, nor does Google.QuoteThis is why I asked about motivation earlier. In order to run an "ancestor" simulation, or a "video game", there would be absolutely no need to model individual sub-atomic particles or distant galaxies, which 99.9% of living things will never see, and the existence of which will not affect in any way - UNLESS, they really are composed of those atoms. The complexity of observed reality suggests that there is not in fact the simplification one would expect of any simulation.
Never heard of W?BIC!, huh? With sufficient computing power, simulating everything is trivial.
Hey Sol, would you agree that setting up and extremely complex simulation on a very good computer is more trivial than a very simple simulation on an old slow computer?
Anyway, we must be going back to the "real" universe that is order's of magnitude more large, complex, and energetic than the real world, because simulating actual "everything" would be intrinsically impossible - every particle in the universe would have to be represented by some state of some physical particle. If you use quantum computing, that could conceivably be as little as a single subatomic particle per bit. But you obviously can never have as many particles in the computer storage medium than you have in the universe, simply because the computer itself is part of the universe. It could never come remotely close.
So that means one of two things - the simulation is not in any way remotely similar to real reality, or if it is a reflection of real reality, they would have to leave out enormous amounts of detail. So, for example, when we look closer and closer inside an object, eventually it should just be a solid continuous surface, (as most humans would have assumed to be the case for most of human existence). Or, when we looked out at the stars, they would just be dots of light, nothing more. When we went to the moon, it would just be one solid mass.
That isn't the case. They DID model every atom in Saturn.
OR this simulation bears no resemblance to the "real" world.
But in that case, all the arguments for why we are "probably" in a simulation are invalid. We can safely assume that a simulation as complex as reality would produce the same effects, up to and including consciousness, but now we are talking about a simulation that is grossly simplified. We can't assume that a grossly simplified simulation would necessarily produce consciousness. Even if they could, there is also no reason to assume that future civilizations would produce these grossly simplified simulations in droves. Even if they did, there is no reason to assume that the simulations would be complex enough that they could in turn run simulations advanced enough to run sub-simulations of their own which could foster consciousness. Each sub-simulation must be an order of magnitude less complex. You can't compute the position and velocity of a billion individual particles independently using a million bits - you can't even model one particle's position and velocity with a single bit - and that's assuming we could ever model a bit using a single particle. For the simulation to run a sufficiently complex simulation, the first order simulation has to be so over-powered that it can accommodate the sub-simulation's data, since there is only one set of hardware. So the exponentially recursive simulations idea is out.
So if there aren't many multiple layers, we no longer can assume there are "billions" of simulations. Given that it is necessarily orders of magnitude less complex than reality, we can no longer assume they would all give accurate enough models of "real" consciousness to motivate the creation of any number. We are no longer talking about "ancestor simulations", if the programmer lives in a world 10^10^10^10 times bigger than ours.
OR this actually is reality, as boring and disappointing as that may be...
Post by: Bakari on January 04, 2017, 09:53:36 AM
And while I'm on the topic, WTF is up with the fine structure constant? This is a pure number inherent to the structure of the universe, like pi it will be the same for every alien civilization regardless of their system of counting or how they do their math and it shows up all over the field of physics in weird and unexpected places, but its value is approximately 1/137. What kind of bullshit kludge is that? That's like something a stoner would code.
Doesn't this make it more likely that it IS real? One of the proposals for determining if our reality is a simulation involves looking for artifacts with the assumption that programmers would build in some way similar to our own, with, for example, Cartesian coordinates. We're assuming this is something done commonly, not just a random one-off (because there needs to be many simulations in order for us to "probably" be in one). So it's not enough for one random coder to put in a bunch of random variables just for a laugh, or to see what happens. They all have to be doing it. So which is more likely: that any remotely human-like intelligence would pick completely arbitrary non-repeating decimals for physical constants like Pi , the gravitation constant, and the speed of light, or that they would use nice simple round even numbers?
Or that they would use real life numbers.
If they use real life numbers, than the argument of those numbers being evidence of the simulation obviously don't work.
Of course, if they use anything other than the real numbers, the whole idea suffers from the fact that it is not actually a simulation of reality, and therefor all the assumptions of how frequent such simulations would be created are invalid.
Post by: Bakari on January 04, 2017, 09:55:18 AM
My wife and I both have felt enhanced by the idea that this could be a simulation, in several ways.
You can't say what would affect someone else's life, only what has affected yours. So your first declarative sentence with "my" is fine; the second trying to apply it to everyone, I disagree with. :)
He said "measurable" way. Besides, you would have the IDEA that this is a simulation, whether it is or not, therefor the actual fact of being a simulation has not affected you.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 05, 2017, 04:20:52 AM
My wife and I both have felt enhanced by the idea that this could be a simulation, in several ways.
You can't say what would affect someone else's life, only what has affected yours. So your first declarative sentence with "my" is fine; the second trying to apply it to everyone, I disagree with. :)
He said "measurable" way. Besides, you would have the IDEA that this is a simulation, whether it is or not, therefor the actual fact of being a simulation has not affected you.
Right? Many people feel enhanced by the idea that aliens on a comet are controlling Earth, and will stop by the next time it passes near. Many people feel enhanced by the idea that there is an all powerful being that benevolently protects people who believe in them while adhering to some grand plan. Many people feel enhanced by the idea that they are lycanthropes. Many people feel enhanced by the idea that they live in the Matrix. It doesn't change the consequences of their actions in a measurable way.
Post by: arebelspy on January 05, 2017, 04:48:51 AM
B) What beliefs can we measure the impact of, and how?
Give me an example of what you mean, because I'm not seeing how this is any different than any other belief changing your behavior.
Post by: Bakari on January 05, 2017, 08:30:55 AM
The original question this tangent was in response to wasn't about whether beliefs can change behavior.
If the supposed simulation were indistinguishable from reality, then, by definition of "indistinguishable", nothing tangible (measurable) could be different in our lives. That is a part of the argument for existent being meaningful either way, that is doesn't matter if its "real" so long as it feels real to us.
But if it is undetectable (if it were detectable, it wouldn't be indistinguishable, nor an accurate model, and all the assumptions that lead to "more likely than not" scenarios break down) then it becomes as pointless a philosophical question as "might this all be my own dream?"
If it does not have a measurable impact, then how is it any more than a trippy exercise? Plenty of trippy mind-blowing stuff can have an impact on individual's thoughts and feelings.
My point about being a pointless trippy exercise is that even if it were correct, it would make absolutely no difference to our day to day lives, and it would be impossible to ever know either way.
Right? I mean, the thought might keep Musk up at night (though he should have spent that time focusing on launching rockets on time, in my opinion) but since the fact that we're living in a simulation or controlled by a God or aliens or whatever doesn't give or remove meaning from my (simulated?) experiences.
And the answer would not affect anyone's life in any measureable way; hence my earlier comment on "You know what would really be trippy."
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 05, 2017, 08:42:33 AM
A) What does it matter if it changes it in a "measurable" way?*snip*
B) What beliefs can we measure the impact of, and how?
Give me an example of what you mean, because I'm not seeing how this is any different than any other belief changing your behavior.
EDIT: Bakari understood, so perhaps I was not being as unclear as it seemed. Also their explanation was more concise and clearer than mine.
Post by: dougules on January 05, 2017, 11:07:13 AM
Cogito ergo sum - the one and only thing that can be definitively proven.
Post by: GuitarStv on January 05, 2017, 12:14:13 PM
If yes, why?
If no, then the answer doesn't matter.
Post by: AlanStache on January 05, 2017, 01:36:47 PM
Would the knowledge that you're part of a simulation change anything for you in your day to day life?
If yes, why?
If no, then the answer doesn't matter.
One of the subplots in the novel "Reamde" was an effort to hack the algorithm that defined the location of in game gold within a MMORPG. If we are all in a simulation doing something similar becomes (theoretically) possible.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 05, 2017, 01:42:45 PM
Would the knowledge that you're part of a simulation change anything for you in your day to day life?
If yes, why?
If no, then the answer doesn't matter.
One of the subplots in the novel "Reamde" was an effort to hack the algorithm that defined the location of in game gold within a MMORPG. If we are all in a simulation doing something similar becomes (theoretically) possible.
Why not just pray to Mother Earth, who could exist and borne us out of darkness, and who controls all life and all things on the planet, asking them for gold? I mean, it is (theoretically) possible.
Post by: sol on January 05, 2017, 02:08:07 PM
Why not just pray to Mother Earth, who could exist and borne us out of darkness, and who controls all life and all things on the planet, asking them for gold? I mean, it is (theoretically) possible.
Or Zeus (or other invisible bearded man in the sky) who created the earth and gave life to all mortals. On the bright side, some of these theories come with their own written instruction manuals on how to beat the game!
HINT: the secret cheat code is apparently "don't eat meat on Fridays."
Post by: arebelspy on January 05, 2017, 03:45:21 PM
Why not just pray to Mother Earth, who could exist and borne us out of darkness, and who controls all life and all things on the planet, asking them for gold? I mean, it is (theoretically) possible.
Why not? Well presumably you don't believe the Mother Earth existing scenario as plausible, but you do believe the "simulation" theory as plausible.
People who believe in Mother Earth are free to pray to her.
Alan's idea has been thought of by others (and not as the subplot to a book):
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation (https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation)
Post by: brooklynguy on January 05, 2017, 03:49:25 PM
Or Zeus (or other invisible bearded man in the sky) who created the earth and gave life to all mortals.
Well, the simulation argument, as well as certain other hypotheses about our existence that involve exogenous superintelligences, essentially are hypotheses for the existence of--for all intents and purposes--gods (with the important distinction that they do not resort to magical thinking).
There was an interesting piece in the NY Times "The Stone" section a few weeks back that I had considered sharing in this thread, which is even more directly relevant now: "Can Evolution Have a 'Higher Purpose'?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opinion/can-evolution-have-a-higher-purpose.html?_r=0). The author states in pertinent part:
Quote from: NYT
If you walked up to the same people who gave Bostrom a respectful hearing and told them there is a transcendent God, many would dismiss the idea out of hand. Yet the simulation hypothesis is a God hypothesis: An intelligence of awe-inspiring power created our universe for reasons we can speculate about but can’t entirely fathom. And, assuming this intelligence still exists, it is in some sense outside of our reality — beyond the reach of our senses — and yet, presumably, it has the power to intervene in our world. Theology has entered "secular" discourse under another name.
Post by: Bakari on January 05, 2017, 04:35:43 PM
Alan's idea has been thought of by others (and not as the subplot to a book):
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation (https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation)
Seems more than a little short sighted. Go out of your way to attempt to break (our) "reality"? Assuming the theory was accurate, this would be the single best way to destroy the universe. And there is exactly zero reason to believe, given the premise, that there would be any form of "human" left to exist. If we ARE the simulation, then there is nothing for us to "break out" of
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 05, 2017, 08:40:40 PM
Why not just pray to Mother Earth, who could exist and borne us out of darkness, and who controls all life and all things on the planet, asking them for gold? I mean, it is (theoretically) possible.
Or Zeus (or other invisible bearded man in the sky) who created the earth and gave life to all mortals. On the bright side, some of these theories come with their own written instruction manuals on how to beat the game!
HINT: the secret cheat code is apparently "don't eat meat on Fridays."
Dammit... i was trying up up down down left right....
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 05, 2017, 08:51:53 PM
Why not just pray to Mother Earth, who could exist and borne us out of darkness, and who controls all life and all things on the planet, asking them for gold? I mean, it is (theoretically) possible.
Why not? Well presumably you don't believe the Mother Earth existing scenario as plausible, but you do believe the "simulation" theory as plausible.
People who believe in Mother Earth are free to pray to her.
Alan's idea has been thought of by others (and not as the subplot to a book):
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation (https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/06/1352205/tech-billionaires-are-asking-scientists-for-help-to-break-humans-out-of-computer-simulation)
I guess that would be my point. The belief in such foolish things (obscure musical reference, not offensive) is what affects people; the actuality of his noodly goodness or her turtle ly wionder or the Matrix has no measurable impact.
Post by: arebelspy on January 06, 2017, 12:11:27 AM
Your belief in gravity has no "measurable" impact on your day-to-day life.
It may have an impact (in how you act, and rely on it--but not in a way you can measure), but other people's hokey beliefs likewise have an impact.
There is no belief that has a "measurable" impact, so of course a belief in any deity/simulation/gravity is no different.
Therefore I'm left wondering--what's your point in bringing up that it has no "measurable" impact. Of course not. So?
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 06, 2017, 06:24:07 AM
And my point is: that's true of every belief you hold, whether "ridiculous" or not.
Your belief in gravity has no "measurable" impact on your day-to-day life.
It may have an impact (in how you act, and rely on it--but not in a way you can measure), but other people's hokey beliefs likewise have an impact.
There is no belief that has a "measurable" impact, so of course a belief in any deity/simulation/gravity is no different.
Therefore I'm left wondering--what's your point in bringing up that it has no "measurable" impact. Of course not. So?
I think beliefs have impacts. I've never stated otherwise, so you are clearly not comprehending the arguments laid out by other posters and myself. You yourself said you and you wife feel enhanced by the belief that in a giant computer simulation. That's great! Others feel enhanced by the belief that they're lycanthropes. Not believing in gravity may cause me to walk off a cliff; it would be measurable. Now if gravity is caused by dark matter attraction or a giant magnet placed in the center of the planet has no impact. I still fall off a cliff; at the same measurable rate. Wether it is or not is immaterial, it's the belief that has the impact; nothing in the world run by The Matrix is distinguishable from the world watched over by Mother Earth. So all of these beliefs have the same weight for me, and the same level of evidence supporting them, and the same impacton the world. And while mildly trippy to think about the world being a test planet populated eons ago by ancient aliens, these ideas are clearly not novel or particularly mentally stimulating, having been discussed by middle schoolers for basically ever.
I'm sorry you feel beliefs don't have impacts on people, (though you've also stated the opposite) I would disagree, but that's not reallythe topic of this thread. I think GuitarStv and Bakari and others have laid out pretty rounded explanations of why the truth or falsity of such beliefs is immaterial.
Post by: arebelspy on January 06, 2017, 06:52:45 AM
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 06, 2017, 07:59:25 AM
You missed the point of my post.
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
I guess what I'm not understanding is that there are beliefs that are unproven to have any bearing on anything (ridiculous uncorrelated stuff that may or may not have held a purpose back when instituted, like not eating meat on Friday), beliefs that can't be proven but at least enhance our understanding of meaning (like being a good person should result in feeling good about our life), and then a belief like gravity that is scientifically proven to exist, effects can be measured, and governs reality whether we believe in it or not.
I guess I'm also not understanding where this coversation is going. The idea that our consciousness exists in a simulation is intriguing and rich for philosophical discussion, but falls into a 'belief that can't be proven but may enhance our understading of meaning'. Maybe it's the flavor of the day to try to move it toward being proven, but to me falls under 'time travel'. Just my common sense tells me that time travel will never exist and also that mankind did not get suddenly trapped in an undetectable simulation. In either case, I could be right or wrong without any consequence (other than my mind being blown when it is revealed that aliens from the future travelled back to wherever I was on Earth in 2000 and put me in an undetectable simulation because Y2K actually did bring about the apocalypse - and in that case, because reality / belief for me will have changed, I'll have to go about figuring out what to do to adapt, survive, stay sane, and give my existence meaning. Or it could just eventually be abandoned as a ridiculous notion that never correlated to reality).
Post by: atrex on January 06, 2017, 08:16:56 AM
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
# of falls while behaving carelessly is a proxy
broadly
# of deaths at the Grand Canyon would be a good proxy measure
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2017, 09:58:37 AM
and governs reality whether we believe in it or not.This is the key which almost everyone in this tangent has forgotten. The original comment was NOT about beliefs!
"My point about being a pointless trippy exercise is that even if it were correct, it would make absolutely no difference to our day to day lives"
If there was no gravity, that WOULD make a difference. Just about every part of our lives would be different if there were no gravity. Interdependently of whether we believe it in or not, the fact is if I drop a bowling ball over my foot, it will fall and hurt my foot. If there were no gravity, I could let go of bowling balls anywhere and anytime and not experience a crushed foot. The existence or lack of existence of gravity affects day to day reality.
-
Maybe my posts are just too long, so this point was glossed over, I'll try to focus better:
Modeling the entire universe with a one-to-one correspondence of particles - the original premise, which the assumption of simulated consciousness depends on - is inherently impossible.
Infinitely nested simulations - which the "1 in billions" idea depends on - is inherently impossible.
The crux of the mistake was summed up by Atrex: "I can carry 0 ounces in a backpack. Surely if I'm carrying n ounces in my backpack, I can carry n+1 ounces in my backpack. Therefore, I can carry 1,000,000,000 ounces in my backpack."
In order to represent a single sub-atomic particle in memory, you need, at an absolute minimum, a bit to describe its type (potentially including flavor, spin, or charge) as well as several bits to describe its position and velocity.
Our best memory to date (written at a MB per day), using synthetic DNA can store one bit of data with roughly 250 protons neutrons and electrons. With quantum computing, lets say we could hypothetically get that down as low as 1:1
You are never going to get a half dozen pieces of individual information storage out of a single particle, so even just statically holding the type, position, and velocity of every particle in the universe in memory is going to take MORE THAN the total number of particles in the universe. That's without any allowance for processing, let alone any tangential computer architecture.
This means that no matter how good our technology gets, we will never be able to make an accurate detailed simulation of the entire universe that includes both the entire breadth of the universe all broken down to the level of subatomic particles.
We could hypothetically model a universe worth of stars. You could possibly model every individual atom in the human brain. You could not possibly ever model every atom in the universe. It would take a universe sized computer. It would be called: the actual, real universe.
Yet we know that the universe we live in actually is composed of individual atoms.
So that means the only possible way this could be a simulation is if the "real" world were many many orders of magnitude larger, more complex, and more energetic than what we experience.
But if that is the case, then this simulation ISN'T a reflection of reality, it isn't a 1:1 map, it isn't "indistinguishable" from reality.
And if that's the case, there is exactly zero credibility in assuming what the "creators" of real reality are like, what their purpose is, or what they would do. Which in turn means that we have no criteria to base the assumption that they would "probably" create many copies of simulation, which means we can not claim we "probably" live in one,
Nor that they would "probably" create even a first one. They would live in such a different reality that they would likely have little if anything in common with us, and we can not reasonably assume they would have any interest in "video games" or "ancestor simulations"
While I will grant that it is entirely conceivable that consciousness could exist in a simulation and not realize it was in fact a simulation, I see no more (or less) reason to think it is true than any other religious origin story.
Post by: brooklynguy on January 06, 2017, 11:30:47 AM
Modeling the entire universe with a one-to-one correspondence of particles - the original premise, which the assumption of simulated consciousness depends on - is inherently impossible.
No, the notion of building a full-scale, 1:1 model of the entire (real) universe, in all its detail and complexity (which, as you point out, is probably impossible), is not part of the underlying premise. Have you read the original Bostram paper (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html)?
The argument that we are "probably" living in a simulation requires only the following assumptions: (i) we will eventually reach a point where it is technologically possible to simulate conscious minds "existing" in virtual worlds that are realistic enough so as to be indistinguishable from physical reality to those minds (and not in fact identical in all respects to actual base reality, as you are incorrectly describing the argument); and (ii) once we reach such point, we are likely to run many such simulations.
Based on these two premises, it follows that we are more likely than not to be living in a simulation. Note that it does not necessarily follow that we are living in a simulation that bears any resemblance to actual reality, because the universe of possible simulations in which we might be living is not limited to ancestor simulations run by posthuman civilizations--but the mere fact that posthuman civilizations will have the willingness and ability to run such simulations that do bear a resemblance to our understanding of actual reality (if you take that as a true fact) is sufficient to make it more likely than not that we are living in a simulation of some sort. In other words, from those two premises, you can conclude that we are more likely to be living in an ancestor simulation created by a posthuman civilization than to be living in actual base reality, but not that we are necessarily more likely to be living in an ancestor simulation created by a posthuman civilization than we are to be living in some other simulation (which may or may not bear any resemblance to actual base reality).
Bostrom addresses the technological limits of computation that you are focusing on in Section III of his paper. This bit in particular addresses many of the concerns you raised:
Quote from: Bostram
If the environment is included in the simulation, this will require additional computing power – how much depends on the scope and granularity of the simulation. Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously infeasible, unless radically new physics is discovered. But in order to get a realistic simulation of human experience, much less is needed – only whatever is required to ensure that the simulated humans, interacting in normal human ways with their simulated environment, don’t notice any irregularities. The microscopic structure of the inside of the Earth can be safely omitted. Distant astronomical objects can have highly compressed representations: verisimilitude need extend to the narrow band of properties that we can observe from our planet or solar system spacecraft. On the surface of Earth, macroscopic objects in inhabited areas may need to be continuously simulated, but microscopic phenomena could likely be filled in ad hoc. What you see through an electron microscope needs to look unsuspicious, but you usually have no way of confirming its coherence with unobserved parts of the microscopic world. Exceptions arise when we deliberately design systems to harness unobserved microscopic phenomena that operate in accordance with known principles to get results that we are able to independently verify. The paradigmatic case of this is a computer. The simulation may therefore need to include a continuous representation of computers down to the level of individual logic elements. This presents no problem, since our current computing power is negligible by posthuman standards.
Moreover, a posthuman simulator would have enough computing power to keep track of the detailed belief-states in all human brains at all times. Therefore, when it saw that a human was about to make an observation of the microscopic world, it could fill in sufficient detail in the simulation in the appropriate domain on an as-needed basis. Should any error occur, the director could easily edit the states of any brains that have become aware of an anomaly before it spoils the simulation. Alternatively, the director could skip back a few seconds and rerun the simulation in a way that avoids the problem.
Post by: jordanread on January 06, 2017, 11:39:22 AM
Damn, brooklynguy did a much better job with references and stuff while I was typing this.
Fun fact, if (when) I wind up going all posthuman and can make a simulation like this, I will, and put some trigger in when/if one starts questioning things like this and implement some awesome strangeness they experience (vampires? zombies? inverted colors?)
Post by: sol on January 06, 2017, 12:11:05 PM
We're a fringe effect, a random ignorable anomaly in a quiet and uninteresting corner. All of the action in this simulation is currently generating Xray bursts as quantum gravity tears holes in the fabric of spacetime inside of galactic cores currently devouring other black holes spinning at relativistic speeds. Event horizons mash together every second of every day while we drive back and forth to work, converting more mass to energy in a single second than our entire solar system has been using for billions of years.
It takes a special kind of hubris to think that we are the purpose of any such simulation. Always have to put ourselves at the center of everything, don't we?
Post by: prognastat on January 06, 2017, 12:17:38 PM
If our universe is a simulation, I'm pretty sure they're looking at supermassive black holes and not self-organizing bits of organic carbon.
We're a fringe effect, a random ignorable anomaly in a quiet and uninteresting corner. All of the action in this simulation is currently generating Xray bursts as quantum gravity tears holes in the fabric of spacetime inside of galactic cores currently devouring other black holes spinning at relativistic speeds. Event horizons mash together every second of every day while we drive back and forth to work, converting more mass to energy in a single second than our entire solar system has been using for billions of years.
It takes a special kind of hubris to think that we are the purpose of any such simulation. Always have to put ourselves at the center of everything, don't we?
You pretty much said what i was thinking. There is nothing to say that life was simply an emergent property of a simulation with a completely different goal.
It's possible a simulation was built specifically for life, but then it seems there is a significant lack of it the way it appears or it is also completely possible life is just a side effect of simulating the basic laws of physics our universe abides by.
We humans try to do both ourselves. We have rudimentary simulations both for attempting to simulate life and for simulating the laws of physics and how they interact within our universe. If we wanted to get the most accurate simulation and we had an incredible amount of computing power it would not be unexpected to attempt simulating a universe down to the sub atomic level to make sure not shortcuts or assumptions are made and that by simply the physics simulated to that level of detail there is an unknown % of chance life develops. It would be possible for the person running the simulation to become aware of this life, but it would have to have a significant effect on the thing the simulation was built to study.
Post by: maizefolk on January 06, 2017, 12:20:04 PM
You missed the point of my post.
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
Do you just let go of objects in midair and seem really surprised when they fall to the ground? When doing home renovations, to you check to make sure you're not taking out too many load bearing walls all at once?
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 06, 2017, 12:37:28 PM
You missed the point of my post.this has already been addressed directly. I'm not sure repeating the thread will help you to understand.
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 06, 2017, 12:39:35 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 06, 2017, 01:30:57 PM
You missed the point of my post.
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
Do you just let go of objects in midair and seem really surprised when they fall to the ground? When doing home renovations, to you check to make sure you're not taking out too many load bearing walls all at once?
Good point. Behavior patterns and changes in behavior patterns, are measurable.
Post by: arebelspy on January 06, 2017, 04:17:19 PM
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
# of falls while behaving carelessly is a proxy
broadly
# of deaths at the Grand Canyon would be a good proxy measure
And literally every single one of them believed in gravity. As did the people who didn't fall. So how do you measure their belief versus the people who didn't fall's belief, because they both believed.
You missed the point of my post.
Of course beliefs have an impact.
They don't have a measurable one.
If you disagree, please give me the measurement of my belief in gravity.
Do you just let go of objects in midair and seem really surprised when they fall to the ground? When doing home renovations, to you check to make sure you're not taking out too many load bearing walls all at once?
Of course I believe in gravity.
Please measure that belief for me.
I don't think beliefs don't exist.. I think you can't measure them.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 06, 2017, 04:38:03 PM
Post by: arebelspy on January 06, 2017, 04:44:11 PM
No one claimed to be able to measure beliefs. Only the effects those beliefs have upon a person.
Great!
Then you can measure the effect one's belief in Zeus has on their actions.
You can't have it both ways, saying that one belief (gravity) is measurable and the other (deity) isn't.
Your claim was that one's belief:
Quote
doesn't change the consequences of their actions in a measurable way.
Now you are saying the opposite.
Does ones belief in Zeus change their actions such that you can measure it?
I said yes, you said no. Then we switched to gravity, and you switched to yes. So which is it?
Post by: maizefolk on January 06, 2017, 05:14:46 PM
So we have examples of how a person behaves differently if they believe in gravity or not. How, if at all, does a person behave differently if they believe the whole world is a simulation? (Assuming no way to break out of simulation or communicate with whatever initiated the simulation.)
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 06, 2017, 05:46:43 PM
No one claimed to be able to measure beliefs. Only the effects those beliefs have upon a person.
Great!
Then you can measure the effect one's belief in Zeus has on their actions.
You can't have it both ways, saying that one belief (gravity) is measurable and the other (deity) isn't.
Your claim was that one's belief:Quotedoesn't change the consequences of their actions in a measurable way.
Now you are saying the opposite.
Does ones belief in Zeus change their actions such that you can measure it?
I said yes, you said no. Then we switched to gravity, and you switched to yes. So which is it?
False.
Beliefs do not change consequences of actions. But they could very easily change the actions one would perform. This is true for zeus or for the matrix. These changes could be measured. You keep putting up strawmen and advancing arguments against statements no one made.
And now you are contradicting yourself: can the effects of beliefs be measured or not? I am saying that they can.
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2017, 06:26:00 PM
I already included the possibility that simulations might theoretically foster consciousness in an environment which bears no resemblance to actual reality, my question then is on what basis can we assume that whatever designed it would do so, none the less would be "likely" to run "many" of them.
If the base level programmer lives in an environment that bears no relation to reality as we know it, we can not make ANY assumptions about how it would behave. They are no longer "post-human" - that very concept assumes that something in any way "human" actually exists. This is not a reasonable assumption. It comes from starting with our current reality, and extrapolating forward, but if this isn't real, there is no reason to base our assumptions on our own experience.
You can not "conclude that we are more likely to be living in an ancestor simulation created by a posthuman civilization than to be living in actual base reality" without asserting that there is such a thing as human and such a thing as civilization, which, if our reality is a simulation, are not safe assumptions. Therefore the very premise itself makes it impossible to assign any probability.
Bostram's attempt to get around the need to compute sub-atomic particles for every bit of mass in the universe is incompatible with Sol's suggestion that we are not the primary purpose of the simulation.
It is essentially saying that your room ceases to exist when you fall asleep, (granted, the Copenhagen interpretation could be said to imply the same thing...) It is entirely arbitrary to assert that only sub-atomic particles only exist when we look for them. The programmer somehow knew in advance exactly in what way we would develop microscopes, and added code to make sure to activate fake atoms only when we actually looked at them? Why stop at atoms? Why wouldn't they do the same for molecules, or cells, and save the computing power needed to model cell organelles until humans figured out how to see germs? What happens when our amazing future technology allows us to look for too many atoms simultaneously, and the program runs out of memory? What happens if we someday send spacecraft toward the 100 closest stars at 99% the speed of light, and suddenly, after 5 billion years of chilling on autopilot, it has to actually create all the fake dots-of-light stars in Earth level detail?
Bostrom also suggests that the director can edit and/or rewind the simulation, which brings back my question about environmentalism.
The thing about this debate is, the premise keeps constantly being changed, to try to make it work. Everyone arguing for it has a different, and fundamentally incompatible, idea of what we are even talking about.
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2017, 06:33:16 PM
Ah, I think I found something that was bothering me about your arguments Bakari. And it does actually go back to my ideas regarding AI and the singularity. You appear to be arguing the idea of a simulation based on our current understanding of what is possible (ie bits == subatomic particles). From my understanding of the nature of the singularity, it quite literally means that when we get some self-improving AIs, progress will happen faster than we can understand.
We have progressed past early humans to a level that they never could have imagined. It does not follow from that that we will ever be able to violate basic laws of physics, or that we will find loopholes around mathematical realities.
I don't see much distinction between "I'm sure future people will be able to solve X" and straight up magic.
Quote
I personally believe that (and this is a super risky belief /s) there are a lot about this particular (simulation of the) universe that we don't understand yet. I suspect that a fair amount of the limitations we currently understand are due to being 3 dimensional beings, with a very difficult paradigm to grasp when we go out of that space. String theory, quantum mechanics (I seriously cannot see how we can't get unlimited optical speeds without infrastructure based on entanglement), there is a huge amount of opportunity to challenge our assumptions.I don't see how this changes anything. If reality is even more complex than we realize, than that is even MORE for the computer to have to model. Anything which we can ever discover is something the computer would have to model in order for us to discover it. So there is no way to allow the computer additional means of processing without proportionately increasing the work it has to do.
If the model is leaving out significant parts of reality, then there is no reason to assume that anything at all in our experience has any resemblance whatsoever to base reality.
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2017, 06:39:17 PM
If our universe is a simulation, I'm pretty sure they're looking at supermassive black holes and not self-organizing bits of organic carbon.
We're a fringe effect, a random ignorable anomaly in a quiet and uninteresting corner. All of the action in this simulation is currently generating Xray bursts as quantum gravity tears holes in the fabric of spacetime inside of galactic cores currently devouring other black holes spinning at relativistic speeds. Event horizons mash together every second of every day while we drive back and forth to work, converting more mass to energy in a single second than our entire solar system has been using for billions of years.
It takes a special kind of hubris to think that we are the purpose of any such simulation. Always have to put ourselves at the center of everything, don't we?
Now this actually seems at least reasonably plausible, although if it were the case we have no basis on which to assert that whatever programmed this giant physics experiment is likely to create many, or even more than one, or that more than one would contain life,
Given how many small variables could have been changed to prevent life from developing, chances are that, even if there were many simulations, no more of them would have life as we know it than planets in our world do now. Which as far as we know, is roughly 1 in 10^24. If the Great Programmer and His mighty Civilization created 10^24 universe sized simulations, we could expect that at least one would likely have intelligent life on it.
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2017, 06:40:13 PM
It would be possible for the person running the simulation to become aware of this life, but it would have to have a significant effect on the thing the simulation was built to study.Which, of course, we don't, and never will, so...
Post by: brooklynguy on January 06, 2017, 09:43:55 PM
If the base level programmer lives in an environment that bears no relation to reality as we know it, we can not make ANY assumptions about how it would behave. They are no longer "post-human" - that very concept assumes that something in any way "human" actually exists. This is not a reasonable assumption. It comes from starting with our current reality, and extrapolating forward, but if this isn't real, there is no reason to base our assumptions on our own experience.
You can not "conclude that we are more likely to be living in an ancestor simulation created by a posthuman civilization than to be living in actual base reality" without asserting that there is such a thing as human and such a thing as civilization, which, if our reality is a simulation, are not safe assumptions. Therefore the very premise itself makes it impossible to assign any probability.
Think about it this way: one of the following three mutually exclusive alternatives must be true, and the other two must be false -- either (1) we're living in actual reality, (2) we're living in a false reality that resembles actual reality, or (3) we're living in a false reality that does not resemble actual reality. If # 3 is true, then, as you said, we can't use our own experience to make any assumptions about anything (because our own experience bears no relationship to actual reality), but the existence of # 3 as one of the alternatives in the universe of possibilities can only increase the likelihood that we are living in a false reality. So, for purposes of trying to determine whether it's more likely than not that we are living in a false reality, we need only concern ourselves with numbers 1 and 2 (recognizing that the actual likelihood that we are living in a false reality is subject to increase, but not decrease, as a result of whatever probability is assigned to # 3).
This is why it makes sense to start with our current experience of reality and extrapolate forward. Bostrom's argument, which is based on our current experience of reality, contends that our descendants will not eventually develop the technology to run simulations containing conscious minds and use that technology to run many ancestor-simulations unless we are probably currently living in an ancestor-simulation. If we limit the scope of our inquiry to possibilities 1 and 2, and assume that our descendants will eventually run many such ancestor-simulations, then we have to conclude that we are more likely than not currently living in an ancestor-simulation. If we now expand the scope of our inquiry to also contemplate possibility # 3, it can only be even more likely that we are currently living in some sort of false reality (though not necessarily in an ancestor-simulation; we may instead be living in another type of simulation, which may or may not bear any resemblance to actual reality).
Post by: Bakari on January 07, 2017, 10:00:46 AM
Nearly everyone's response to this is that base reality could be far larger and more complex, but that in itself means our reality does NOT resemble actual reality.
Bostrom's solution - that this is a sort of Truman show, that the sky is just painted on (and galaxies only resolve themselves once we have invented telescopes, and then only when someone is looking through them, that objects are solid until peered at though a microscope and only then do they become composed of microscopic phenomenon) doesn't really work either...
Take his example that the " structure of the inside of the Earth can be safely omitted" - for the beginning of the simulation that might work (depending how long its been running - it could have started with the dawn of life, or the dawn of man, the dawn of civilization, or it could have started 2 minutes ago, and your memories of this conversation were all pre-programmed).
Humans didn't have any expectation that the Earth was mostly liquid. That knowledge has had close to zero impact on anyone's behavior. Yet, once we discovered it was, now the simulation does have to consistently model the properties of molten rock swirling about a solid nickle core forever, because we have seismographs set up all over the Earth that can be cross referenced. It would take no less computing power to figure out what they would say only when they were actually crossreferenced than it would to actually just compute it in real time, so that doesn't save any computing power.
Or take neutrinos: their existence has not affected the path of human civilization in anyway (other than encouraging humans to build more neutrino detectors, and slightly modifying particle physics theory). They could have been safely omitted. And yet they are there.
It isn't enough to keep track of the mind state of individuals, the simulation would also have to keep track of when any detection equipment might randomly go off. Even if the simulation just fills in the data after the fact, it still has to compute individual particles that would have produced those results.
Objects in our reality actually behave as though they were made of particles, so a shortcut would change our experience.
All you need is a good magnifying glass to see Brownian Motion, yet in order for it to be simulated, every single molecule in the surrounding fluid needs to be individually calculated. But even without looking, fluids behave as though they were made of particles, so in order for things like weather to behave as if it were made of particles, you have to model all those particles.
Plus, in addition to simulating the environment we can see, it has to individually track all 7 billion humans to be aware if any of them might be about to look at a usually unseen phenomenon, AND it has to do enough calculations of every possibly observable phenomenon that IF anyone were to check, the results will be consistent with the rest of the world. Anything we might ever discover has to be tracked in advance, in order for it to be sure to be backward compatible with what we already know. This extra layer of complexity might take more computation and memory than actually just modeling everything to begin with.
If we are going to take his Truman Show explanation of the unseen not existing when it's not being looked, then what seems far more likely that there is only ONE consciousness in this simulation. That would be 7 billion times easier to track, and to keep the world consistent. Any one person is far less likely at any given moment to be off checking the granularity of reality, or how far the edges of the universe are. Chances are you (that on consciousness) have never even seen a neutrino detector, not even in pictures, so if its just you, and all the rest of us are stimulants, the simulator really could safely leave out neutrinos. And the motion and consistency of the center of the Earth. And individual protons and neutrons, and everything else which you trust other people (stimulants) are telling you the truth about.
This scenario is far far more plausible, yet seems to have next to no popularity. I suppose the idea that you are the sole conscious thing in the entire known universe just isn't as pleasant a thought as if we are all in this together.
Post by: Bakari on January 07, 2017, 10:08:56 AM
https://plus.maths.org/content/matrix-simulating-world-part-i-particle-models
Post by: brooklynguy on January 07, 2017, 12:18:26 PM
Nearly everyone's response to this is that base reality could be far larger and more complex, but that in itself means our reality does NOT resemble actual reality.
Why does it mean that? Why can't a simulation resemble actual reality without replicating the entirety of reality? If we eventually create an ancestor simulation that simulates our reality in every way except that it represents only a fraction--even a minuscule fraction--of what we take to be the observable universe, that would sufficiently resemble our reality to avoid the unsoundness of reasoning you are describing.
Post by: Bakari on January 07, 2017, 02:56:27 PM
Nearly everyone's response to this is that base reality could be far larger and more complex, but that in itself means our reality does NOT resemble actual reality.
Why does it mean that? Why can't a simulation resemble actual reality without replicating the entirety of reality? If we eventually create an ancestor simulation that simulates our reality in every way except that it represents only a fraction--even a minuscule fraction--of what we take to be the observable universe, that would sufficiently resemble our reality to avoid the unsoundness of reasoning you are describing.
We don't live in a minuscule fraction of what we take to be the observable universe. I guess we have different ideas of what "resemble" means. I wouldn't say a bolt "resembles" a car, even though a bolt unquestionably does represent a fraction of a car. There is a point at which the fraction is minuscule enough that it isn't the same thing. Even to a bug walking around on the head of the bolt, that bolt would not be "indistinguishable" from the car.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I thought I already answered what it seems like you are trying to say - if the goal were to watch the behaviors of simulated consciousness, then including things like neutrinos, a liquid core planet, and distant astronomical phenomenon which we can detect but not see, would do nothing to further that goal while adding orders of magnitude more complexity to the program requiring orders of magnitude more processing power and memory. Take out any details we weren't going to look for in the first place, and we won't miss them.
If what you want to play is the SIMS, there is no reason to model an entire SIM city to place them in.
And yet, while including all these details that don't affect anything of value, the simulation fails at allowing us to create our own sub-simulation capable of producing sub-simulations (because each layer would require many orders of magnitude less complexities in order to fit into the sub-routine without breaking the base level processor), which would arguably have a much bigger impact on how society proceeds. The space they used to leave quasars and neutrinos in could have potentially allowed us the bandwidth to create our own artificial artificial consciousness, but they decided to use it up on astronomy and physics?
If we are going to start with our known reality and look forward instead of back, what reason do we have to think that we would end up with consciousness in our simulation with anything less than a full model of a brain, down to the atoms? That is the very premise by which we accept it as even possible that a computer could give rise to consciousness - if we could accurately model every cell in the brain, one by one, in exactly the way they exist in real life, then the result should be a virtual consciousness. The precise way in which neurons work is dependent on the workings of the organelles, which in turn are dependent on the arrangement of the molecules that make them up. Alter just a few molecules within a single organelle in the brain and you can end up with a highly altered consciousness, or death. So unless we are modeling down to AT LEAST the molecular level, there is no particular reason to believe our end result would be conscious. Certainly it is conceivable, but there is exactly zero evidence of it, so again, that makes it impossibly to claim such a scenario is "likely".
The theory just has to keep getting more and more convoluted to answer all of the questions it raises, and with each step, while remaining hypothetically possible, it gets less and less plausible.
Occam's Razor suggests it is more likely that reality is real.
"one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified"
Post by: arebelspy on January 07, 2017, 03:21:14 PM
if the goal were to watch the behaviors of simulated consciousness
I would highly doubt that's the "goal."
I don't think anyone is "watching" (at least on a regular basis).
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 07, 2017, 06:45:44 PM
(as an aside, I wrote quite a bit about what might be possible in a fractal 'universe' of realities, and how it fits with Quantum Mechanics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics) and String Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory). I think Bakari has done good work discussing this and I appreciate his efforts!)
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 07, 2017, 06:53:48 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 10, 2017, 12:45:51 AM
I have a theory (which, admittedly, is limited by my understanding of my own reality) that Bostrom left out another possibility that a civilization advances such that they can simulate reality for one of their horde. Just as any advancement only requires Serial Number One, once you convince a human that they are conscious in your fabricated reality, then you kick off a fractal pattern. We could be in a simulation, but it is actually more likely than not that some consciousness created it and it is one of many experiences. This whole idea that people live in simulations, or become extinct, smacks of a lack of imagination.
(as an aside, I wrote quite a bit about what might be possible in a fractal 'universe' of realities, and how it fits with Quantum Mechanics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics) and String Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory). I think Bakari has done good work discussing this and I appreciate his efforts!)
Ahh shoot... I was just about to take off to the nightclubs to find the white rabbit to take the red pill. Guess it's more likely that we're not in a simulation now...
Post by: arebelspy on January 12, 2017, 06:39:09 AM
There's a video, but luckily in text form too:
http://idlewords.com/talks/superintelligence.htm
Guy gives some reasons why he doesn't think strong AI is anything to worry about. Not totally sold myself, but some decent reasoning.
Post by: brooklynguy on January 12, 2017, 09:06:04 AM
Guy gives some reasons why he doesn't think strong AI is anything to worry about.
He also gives some reasons why he thinks so many smart people's thinking that strong AI is something to worry about is itself something to worry about.
Post by: maizefolk on January 12, 2017, 09:40:41 AM
Post by: aceyou on January 12, 2017, 06:47:12 PM
I was happy that President Obama explicitly mentioned in his farewell address that losing jobs overseas will NOT be the big threat in the future to U.S. jobs, but rather that technological advancements will be the cause. And that this is inevitable, and that it can be good, as long as we use our democracy to find ways to make it equitable.
I know his statements are fairly obvious to all of us here, but they don't seem to be to the general public, so it's good to see it publicly stated on a big stage.
Post by: arebelspy on January 12, 2017, 09:44:49 PM
He also gives some reasons why he thinks so many smart people's thinking that strong AI is something to worry about is itself something to worry about.
Good point, and a good addition to my tiny-blurb; he definitely did that as well.
I thought the "Religion 2.0" part was particularly interesting in relation to this.
I agree, fascinating read, thanks for posting. Finding a way to fit an "Argument from Emus" into my personal or professional writing is now on my list of goals for 2017.
Haha, nice! Let us know when (and how) you succeed!
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 13, 2017, 10:37:26 PM
Tried to post this earlier, must have messed it up.
Edit: looks like original article was the draft, this is the proposed rule Robots need kill switches (http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/technology/robot-law-killer-switch-taxes/index.html)
Post by: maizefolk on January 14, 2017, 06:39:40 PM
So I should be paying social security for my neato (the bigger, smarter alternative to a roomba)?
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 14, 2017, 07:08:45 PM
*head desk*
So I should be paying social security for my neato (the bigger, smarter alternative to a roomba)?
Well, some people seem to think you should, to pay the maid that you no longer will need.
It's an interesting problem, because it could cause serious complications for UBI.
Post by: maizefolk on January 14, 2017, 07:14:32 PM
Essentially this is a backdoor attempt to block the beneficial parts of automation (work gets done which it never would have been economically viable to pay a human to do) while not doing anything to block the potentially harmful parts of automation (it's still cheaper to pay the taxes for robot than taxes + salary of a human, so all the jobs still go away).
Post by: tomsang on January 24, 2017, 11:25:10 AM
They touch on it but I don't think they nail the major issue that those that are replaced most likely have no education, intellect or ability to find a job that will be relevant in the future. They do end with a topic that we have discussed. I am pretty sure that the GOP will want to limit or eliminate the transfer of wealth from the wealthy to those that have had their jobs eliminated.
“If automation does result in greater pressure on many workers’ wages, some ideas such as earned income tax credits, universal basic income, conditional transfers, shorter workweeks, and adapted social safety nets could be considered and tested.”
Post by: maizefolk on January 24, 2017, 01:32:14 PM
The distinction between "percent of complete jobs we could replace with automation" and "percent of working hours we could replace with automation" is an interesting one I hadn't thought about much before, but I'm not sure it makes as much of a difference as the author is assuming. If you replace 50% of the work people in a particular job currently do in a day, either everyone works half as much, or people double the time they spend on the other 50% of their job entails, become twice as productive, and (assuming fixed demand for the type of work they do) half of them get fired.
Based on recent history, it seems like the second outcome is a lot more likely than the first. At least assuming our society, politics, and economy doesn't change in any other way (which is a dangerous assumption whenever we start about automation replacing jobs on a massive scale).
Post by: Bakari on January 25, 2017, 09:16:18 AM
Thanks for posting!
The distinction between "percent of complete jobs we could replace with automation" and "percent of working hours we could replace with automation" is an interesting one I hadn't thought about much before, but I'm not sure it makes as much of a difference as the author is assuming. If you replace 50% of the work people in a particular job currently do in a day, either everyone works half as much, or people double the time they spend on the other 50% of their job entails, become twice as productive, and (assuming fixed demand for the type of work they do) half of them get fired.
Based on recent history, it seems like the second outcome is a lot more likely than the first. At least assuming our society, politics, and economy doesn't change in any other way (which is a dangerous assumption whenever we start about automation replacing jobs on a massive scale).
I don't follow where you say it doesn't make much difference, the two scenarios you describe have very different outcomes in terms of income equality (everyone works half as much vs half of people are unemployed).
Based on very recent history, yes, but go back just a little bit father, not long in the scale of civilization, to the last time this happened, and what actually happened is the entire developed world cut back to working roughly half as much. Just a couple generations later and we today take the 40 hour week as a given.
Of course, there was a bit of strikes and riots and unpleasant social unrest during the transition, but not really any major lasting societal economic or political changes
Post by: maizefolk on January 25, 2017, 04:31:29 PM
What I meant was that whether automation completely replaces 50% of the jobs, or replaces 50% of the work done by 100% of the jobs, it's still possible to end up with half as many people working the same amount as before and half the people being unemployed.
So how the 50% of work automate replaces is distributed across jobs isn't going to determine which outcome we see in terms of reduced working hours vs increased unemployment.
Post by: Bakari on January 26, 2017, 05:44:57 PM
Post by: Chuck on January 27, 2017, 02:10:01 PM
What I meant was that whether automation completely replaces 50% of the jobs, or replaces 50% of the work done by 100% of the jobs, it's still possible to end up with half as many people working the same amount as before and half the people being unemployed.Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
If you work less hours, that means you will be paid less. So even an optimistic scenario where employers prefer to hire twice as many people to work half days (for some reason), those people will be earning less money relative to today. Probably much less.
Post by: sol on January 27, 2017, 03:00:27 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, because I believe that the fruits of this new and more efficient economy should benefit everyone who lives and works in that economy. Instead, those people are expected to suffer while all of the newly created wealth flows to the business owners.
Post by: robartsd on January 27, 2017, 03:16:29 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?Competition puts pressure on prices, so some of the efficiency gains will lower consumer prices.
If you work less hours, that means you will be paid less. So even an optimistic scenario where employers prefer to hire twice as many people to work half days (for some reason), those people will be earning less money relative to today. Probably much less.
Technology enables workers to be more efficient. Workers need training to use technology. Employers demand workers with training. Workers with training demand higher wages. So some of the gains in efficiency will go toward higher wages. Reduction in prices and increase in wages will pretty much counter the reduction in hours to keep average worker purchasing power fairly flat
Capitalists demand a return on their investment in the technology, so some of the efficiency will go towards profits. Some creative workers will come up with new luxuries for the wealthy to indulge in. The rich experience standard of living increases.
Every disruptive technology brings bumps in the road; many of the poor suffer.
Post by: maizefolk on January 27, 2017, 03:22:50 PM
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I think we are seeing different shades of meaning in the word "expect." From the definitions that pop up in google, here are two that illustrate the divergence:
(A) "require (someone) to fulfill an obligation" ie "we expect employees to show up to work on time"
(B) "regard (something) as likely to happen" ie "we expect rain later this week"
This was from a very different discussion (http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/antimustachian-wall-of-shame-and-comedy/two-thirds-of-canadians-waiting-on-inheritence-to-fund-retirement/msg324649/#msg324649), but I think we're running into the same issue with two different definitions of the word "expect" here. Definition A has a value judgement attached. Definition B is just a person's best guess about the future.
When I say I expect automation to produce a smaller number of full time jobs instead of shorter hours for everyone currently doing those jobs, I mean definition "B", not definition "A".
Post by: arebelspy on January 27, 2017, 05:34:35 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, because I believe that the fruits of this new and more efficient economy should benefit everyone who lives and works in that economy. Instead, those people are expected to suffer while all of the newly created wealth flows to the business owners.
It is exactly not asking that question that has put us where we are today, with the wealth disparity.
I think it's a fundamental question for the increase in automation, but, sadly, I don't think it will be asked or considered enough.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 27, 2017, 08:26:40 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, because I believe that the fruits of this new and more efficient economy should benefit everyone who lives and works in that economy. Instead, those people are expected to suffer while all of the newly created wealth flows to the business owners.
What does history show happens? It seems like overall, history has suggested that at least some mix of both scenarios happen. Everybody gets bounced upwards, goods get cheaper, standard of living increases for just about everyone. The top bracket sees the most improvements, but overall everyone advances. There is a bit of back and forth of course, and the gains are not distributed perfectly equally, but in general the march forward continues.
Post by: Bakari on January 27, 2017, 11:00:40 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?Competition puts pressure on prices, so some of the efficiency gains will lower consumer prices.
If you work less hours, that means you will be paid less. So even an optimistic scenario where employers prefer to hire twice as many people to work half days (for some reason), those people will be earning less money relative to today. Probably much less.
Technology enables workers to be more efficient. Workers need training to use technology. Employers demand workers with training. Workers with training demand higher wages. So some of the gains in efficiency will go toward higher wages. Reduction in prices and increase in wages will pretty much counter the reduction in hours to keep average worker purchasing power fairly flat
Capitalists demand a return on their investment in the technology, so some of the efficiency will go towards profits. Some creative workers will come up with new luxuries for the wealthy to indulge in. The rich experience standard of living increases.
Every disruptive technology brings bumps in the road; many of the poor suffer.
All of this, and also - assuming we go with the same number of people employed half as many hours option - unemployment drops, which means fewer people competing for jobs, and supply and demand acts on labor as well; more jobs than workers drives up wages as employers compete for scare labor, (while more workers than jobs lets them fall as employees compete for the lowest common denominator of whatever they can get)
Post by: Bakari on January 27, 2017, 11:05:24 PM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, because I believe that the fruits of this new and more efficient economy should benefit everyone who lives and works in that economy. Instead, those people are expected to suffer while all of the newly created wealth flows to the business owners.
Agreed. This is the fundamental problem with capitalism. There are a lot of benefits of a free market economy (efficiency) that could be kept even if we someday decide to decouple capitalism from it. We wouldn't even have to make too many laws or regulations to do it either, just stop propping it up with artificial distortions of the market like corporate charters
Post by: JumpInTheFIRE on January 27, 2017, 11:59:56 PM
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff.
You assume if productivity goes up 2x, it's the employee that's twice as productive. From the business owner's standpoint, that's not the case. If a factory employs 1000 people and then completely automates everything and only employs 1 person to make sure nothing goes wrong, is that guy suddenly 1000x more productive? What about if it is a true "lights-out" factory that employs 0 people, now the (nonexistent) employees are infinitely productive? I'm really just playing the devil's advocate here and don't really think that way but the company owners sure do. From their point of view, they had to provide and tie up the capital and take the risk of buying the robots, why shouldn't they get all the rewards?
In the USA, this is pretty much a lost cause. Both parties are owned by the rich and powerful and the voting system ensures that there can only be 2 viable parties. The only way to change that is through legislation but the very people who would need to pass such legislation to change the system are the ones who benefit from the status quo. The rich will keep getting richer while it will get harder and harder to find a job, particularly low-skilled jobs. Sure, a lot of people talk about basic income but it will never happen. It's like congressional term limits or marijuana legalization, the majority of the country support those movements but their representatives ignore the will of the people for their own reasons.
Post by: Bakari on January 29, 2017, 10:00:22 AM
You assume if productivity goes up 2x, it's the employee that's twice as productive. From the business owner's standpoint, that's not the case. If a factory employs 1000 people and then completely automates everything and only employs 1 person to make sure nothing goes wrong, is that guy suddenly 1000x more productive? What about if it is a true "lights-out" factory that employs 0 people, now the (nonexistent) employees are infinitely productive? I'm really just playing the devil's advocate here and don't really think that way but the company owners sure do. From their point of view, they had to provide and tie up the capital and take the risk of buying the robots, why shouldn't they get all the rewards?Not necessarily that the employee, as an individual is, but overall the per-worker productivity of the economy goes up.
The risk of buying robots is relatively small, and the company owner doesn't take 100% of it, its shared among all the stock holders, the insurance, the remaining employees, and (if its considered a critical industry) the government.
As to capital, well, that's the basic question: should having capital to invest entitle you to disproportionate rewards relative to your (individual) contribution to society?
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In the USA, this is pretty much a lost cause... Sure, a lot of people talk about basic income but it will never happen.This has been said before, in other contexts. Why would either employers ever agree to or government ever mandate limited daily work hours, weekends, workers compensation, unemployment insurance, vacations, medical benefits, overtime pay or minimum wage?
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Both parties are owned by the rich and powerful and the voting system ensures that there can only be 2 viable parties. The only way to change that is through legislation but the very people who would need to pass such legislation to change the system are the ones who benefit from the status quo.Change happens slow, and I agree with your assessment of the self-sustaining 2-party system today - although, we, collectively, certainly we could change it, if we really wanted to, by just all voting for a 3rd party candidate. That too, has happened before. The two parties used to be Federalists and "Democratic-Republicans". Then there was the Whig party. The Republican party was once the 3rd. Change happens slow, but it does happen.
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It's like congressional term limits or marijuana legalization, the majority of the country support those movements but their representatives ignore the will of the people for their own reasons.28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
The thing about term limits is it actually anti-democratic - if the people think a senator or congress person is doing a bad job, all they have to do is not vote for them. The 2-party system doesn't even prevent that, that's what primaries are for. Every two years the people get two chances to replace a senator they don't like - or keep one they do like - and term limits takes that choice away from them. When term limits were an item on state ballots, the majority of states voted them down (8 for, 16 against), so even had the supreme court allowed it, the reality was most citizens didn't want to limit their own choice.
Post by: tomsang on January 30, 2017, 10:17:07 AM
http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201
How wary should human baristas be? “There are a lot of things we still need them to do, like cleaning and filling,” says Mr. Hu. “What we don’t need them to do is move thousands of cups around. They’ll have a more enjoyable job.”
I can see humans being more the social aspect of the experience. Making small talk, etc.
Post by: JumpInTheFIRE on January 30, 2017, 12:55:16 PM
Change happens slow, and I agree with your assessment of the self-sustaining 2-party system today - although, we, collectively, certainly we could change it, if we really wanted to, by just all voting for a 3rd party candidate. That too, has happened before. The two parties used to be Federalists and "Democratic-Republicans". Then there was the Whig party. The Republican party was once the 3rd. Change happens slow, but it does happen.
That doesn't change anything, now the former third party is just one of the two parties and the "out of fashion" party goes by the wayside. It's still a 2 party system no matter what the parties are named and it's a result of the first-past-the-post voting system. For an informative and sometimes humorous take on why it works this way, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
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28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
But what the states do doesn't matter, the feds could shut it down at any time since it's still illegal under federal law and federal law takes precedence over state law. Heck, they won't even remove it from schedule 1 even though doctors have been saying it doesn't deserve that classification for YEARS and as you observe, over 1/2 the states and well more than 1/2 the people support reclassification. The further the politician gets away from the voter the less responsive they are to the voter's wishes.
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The thing about term limits is it actually anti-democratic - if the people think a senator or congress person is doing a bad job, all they have to do is not vote for them. The 2-party system doesn't even prevent that, that's what primaries are for. Every two years the people get two chances to replace a senator they don't like - or keep one they do like - and term limits takes that choice away from them. When term limits were an item on state ballots, the majority of states voted them down (8 for, 16 against), so even had the supreme court allowed it, the reality was most citizens didn't want to limit their own choice.
I'm not necessarily talking about term limits at the state level (although 25% of state representatives and 28% of state senators are subject to them), I'm talking about national congressional term limits. There appears to be broad support for them, this page (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/424320/return-term-limits-john-fund)says:
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A Gallup survey from January 2013 found that 75 percent of Americans — including huge majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents — support term limits on Congress.
Even at the state level, it was mostly through referenda that term limits were passed, not through legislative action. In fact, in some states the people voted for term limits only to have the legislature pass laws to nullify their vote. Either way, through gerrymandering and the incumbent effect most congresspeople are re-elected. Congress itself generally has very low approval ratings as a whole (heck, in November 2013 their approval rating was 9% - only 9% of the country said they approve of the job congress is doing), so why do so many of them get re-elected year after year?
At any rate, my point wasn't about term limits, it was that the people in power will not make changes that take away that power even if a large majority of the people want the change. The voting system ensures a duopoly and the people that benefit from that duopoly are not going to voluntarily change it.
Post by: theadvicist on January 31, 2017, 04:55:45 AM
Another article on Coffee Baristas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201
How wary should human baristas be? “There are a lot of things we still need them to do, like cleaning and filling,” says Mr. Hu. “What we don’t need them to do is move thousands of cups around. They’ll have a more enjoyable job.”
I can see humans being more the social aspect of the experience. Making small talk, etc.
And as Millenials become core customers, this aspect will diminish - we dislike small talk, and talking in general. Give me a machine any day. Any service I have to ring up about? No thanks, I'll find an online competitor. I had to change hairdressers because having to call to make an appointment was too much of a barrier (so sorry, so anti-social. It's not a real barrier - I mean, I could do it. But I put it off so long when a competitor started allowing online booking I just went with them immediately).
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 31, 2017, 06:51:17 AM
This is grossly incorrect.Quote28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
But what the states do doesn't matter, the feds could shut it down at any time since it's still illegal under federal law and federal law takes precedence over state law.
Post by: prognastat on January 31, 2017, 07:34:26 AM
Another article on Coffee Baristas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201
How wary should human baristas be? “There are a lot of things we still need them to do, like cleaning and filling,” says Mr. Hu. “What we don’t need them to do is move thousands of cups around. They’ll have a more enjoyable job.”
I can see humans being more the social aspect of the experience. Making small talk, etc.
And as Millenials become core customers, this aspect will diminish - we dislike small talk, and talking in general. Give me a machine any day. Any service I have to ring up about? No thanks, I'll find an online competitor. I had to change hairdressers because having to call to make an appointment was too much of a barrier (so sorry, so anti-social. It's not a real barrier - I mean, I could do it. But I put it off so long when a competitor started allowing online booking I just went with them immediately).
Although I'm a millennial an I probably am very similar in that I prefer not having to deal with a person, I prefer doing as much as I can through the internet or text based services. However I am also very introvert and I don't know how applicable this is to my generation since self-selection bias means chances are I am more likely to hang out with people similar to myself, this doesn't mean everyone in our generation necessarily feels this way. I do however think that a large portion of our and the next generation that has had computers and now tablets/smart phones since they were small kids are likely going to be more ok with interacting through computers and robots than prior generations. There might still be a niche market for people taking your orders and cooking your food at high priced restaurants for the foreseeable future, but as cost of employment rises and costs and capability of robots rises I think many fast food restaurants are likely to replace more and more labour with automation sooner rather than later and people will accept it if it saves them a little money.
Post by: maizefolk on January 31, 2017, 07:47:29 AM
Another article on Coffee Baristas.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201
How wary should human baristas be? “There are a lot of things we still need them to do, like cleaning and filling,” says Mr. Hu. “What we don’t need them to do is move thousands of cups around. They’ll have a more enjoyable job.”
I can see humans being more the social aspect of the experience. Making small talk, etc.
And as Millenials become core customers, this aspect will diminish - we dislike small talk, and talking in general. Give me a machine any day. Any service I have to ring up about? No thanks, I'll find an online competitor. I had to change hairdressers because having to call to make an appointment was too much of a barrier (so sorry, so anti-social. It's not a real barrier - I mean, I could do it. But I put it off so long when a competitor started allowing online booking I just went with them immediately).
Although I'm a millennial an I probably am very similar in that I prefer not having to deal with a person, I prefer doing as much as I can through the internet or text based services. However I am also very introvert and I don't know how applicable this is to my generation since self-selection bias means chances are I am more likely to hang out with people similar to myself, this doesn't mean everyone in our generation necessarily feels this way. I do however think that a large portion of our and the next generation that has had computers and now iPads since they were small kids are likely going to be more ok with interacting through computers and robots than prior generations. There might still be a niche market for people taking your orders and cooking your food at high priced restaurants for the foreseeable future, but as cost of employment rises and costs and capability of robots rises I think many fast food restaurants are likely to replace more and more labour with automation sooner rather than later and people will accept it if it saves them a little money.
I believe I'm technically a millennial, depending on where one choses to draw the line, and I 3rd this point. I'm a huge fan of self checkouts (no need to make awkward small talk while ringing groceries up) at grocery and hardware stores. On the rare occasions I order take out or delivery, only restaurants with online order systems need apply.
For the super wealthy, paying to have actual humans visibly doing work that could be done by robots or AI may remain as a status symbol,* but I think for everyday folks in my generation the businesses that don't require human interaction are going to have the advantage.
*A real jerk I know from back in college was raving on facebook about how he had a meeting one a sillicon valley hectomillionaire, and "the servants were ivy league educated white women!" <-- jerk may not be strong enough a word.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on January 31, 2017, 08:33:46 AM
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You have a phrase about the rise of discontented workers—you call it the Precariat?
I didn't coin the phrase, but it describes why people have this uneasy feeling. Is my job still safe? I think there are 3.5 million cashiers in the U.S. and as many truck drivers for whom technology might be overtaking their jobs. People feel a lot of anxiety, and it may not even be conscious.
Is technology bringing about these job losses faster than you expected?
It's coming like a tsunami, or in Davos language, like an avalanche. If you hear a storm coming, it is normal to be afraid. People feel they are losing control over their own lives. Let's get control back is a phrase that is touching a nerve.
Plenty to learn (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism/) about how this new social class interacts with the changing workplace, social order, and politics -
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But more significantly, the precariat has no occupational identity or narrative to give to their lives. This creates existential insecurity, and goes with the fact that for the first time in history many people have education above the level of labour they can expect to obtain.
Post by: prognastat on January 31, 2017, 10:14:57 AM
There was an interesting interview with Charles Schwab near the back of my Time magazine (http://time.com/4632653/klaus-schwab-9-questions/) which introduced me to the Precariat.QuoteYou have a phrase about the rise of discontented workers—you call it the Precariat?
I didn't coin the phrase, but it describes why people have this uneasy feeling. Is my job still safe? I think there are 3.5 million cashiers in the U.S. and as many truck drivers for whom technology might be overtaking their jobs. People feel a lot of anxiety, and it may not even be conscious.
Is technology bringing about these job losses faster than you expected?
It's coming like a tsunami, or in Davos language, like an avalanche. If you hear a storm coming, it is normal to be afraid. People feel they are losing control over their own lives. Let's get control back is a phrase that is touching a nerve.
Plenty to learn (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism/) about how this new social class interacts with the changing workplace, social order, and politics -QuoteBut more significantly, the precariat has no occupational identity or narrative to give to their lives. This creates existential insecurity, and goes with the fact that for the first time in history many people have education above the level of labour they can expect to obtain.
As long as no legislation is made to prevent it from happening a lot of people are likely going to lose jobs over the next 10 years. Improvements like self driving cars are going to almost eliminate jobs like taxi/uber drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers, cashiers are on the precipice. The self driving technology is so close and only needs the kinks to be worked out. As for self checkout, it is already happening more and more in retail locations, not to mention online services where checkout wasn't even a thing to start with.
Even if you are of the belief that new jobs will form as needs change it is undoubtedly going to be a tumultuous time. The upside of these things is that these things also offer cost saving methods for everyone. Self driving taxi/uber will likely means lower fare prices possibly even getting to the point where for frugal people you could live within range of your work and the store and for the intermittent trips anywhere else would simply use a service and save more money by not having a car. Send driving trucks and self checkout services etc lower the price of goods/groceries meaning people will need less money to buy their essentials.
I do feel that this is something that should be far more prevalent in our political discussions. How is it that despite many of these things possibly happening during this presidency neither of the main candidates during the election year talked about this in any detail when it is not at all unforeseeable that this may be a mayor problem during their term?
This isn't even going in to the fact that there are changes slightly further on the horizon that are going to potentially make many more jobs go away through automation and A.I. This will not just affect the working class, but is likely to hit most of the middle and even lower upper class too.
Post by: maizefolk on January 31, 2017, 10:41:10 AM
I think this phenomenon is why the threat of automation isn't far more prevalent in our political discussions.
Post by: AlanStache on January 31, 2017, 10:46:16 AM
Post by: dougules on January 31, 2017, 10:52:59 AM
Each transition caused social upheaval, though. Changes in the economy are accelerating. At what point will automation outstrip the economy's ability to move labor around?
Post by: Kriegsspiel on January 31, 2017, 10:56:24 AM
Automation has been happening since the industrial revolution over 200 years ago. At least up until now the economy has managed for the most part to shift people into new roles to take up the slack. Farmers displaced by tractors and harvesters started working in textile mills. Mill workers displaced by increased automation in the mill moved on to become dental hygienists.
Each transition caused social upheaval, though. Changes in the economy are accelerating. At what point will automation outstrip the economy's ability to move labor around?
"An engineer offered to haul some huge columns up to the Capitol at moderate expense by a simple mechanical contrivance, but Vespasian declined his services:"I must always ensure that the working classes earn enough money to buy themselves food." Nevertheless, he paid the engineer a very handsome fee"
- Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
Those damn engineers, always tekkin 'er jerbs!
Post by: prognastat on January 31, 2017, 11:06:07 AM
I saw a survey once (which google is refusing to produce) that if you ask people what percent of jobs will be replaced by automation in the next 50 years, lots of them guess reasonably high numbers (40-50% range). I think both the time frame and the percentage are low balls. But what is more interesting is that when you ask people how likely the job they have is to be replaced by automation, 90+% percent of them say it will never be automated. (All numbers from memory, please take them with a big grain of salt).
I think this phenomenon is why the threat of automation isn't far more prevalent in our political discussions.
Yeah I think a lot of people are following the ignorance is bliss method in ignoring how it would affect their job. They understand the reality of the matter, they just would rather not apply that thinking to their own future.
In my case the first few jobs I held are likely to be automated within 10-15 years, my previous 6 jobs are likely automate-able I suspect within 20 years and my current job will likely either be gone in a similar time frame or at minimum very diminished in that same time frame. Thankfully I plan to be FIRE well before it gets to that point.
If you are doing something physical and not a ton of on the fly thinking a large portion of these jobs are automate-able in the very near future. If you are in a field where you need to work with computers it will also be automated, but you will have a little longer.
Post by: Metric Mouse on January 31, 2017, 11:12:32 AM
I saw a survey once (which google is refusing to produce) that if you ask people what percent of jobs will be replaced by automation in the next 50 years, lots of them guess reasonably high numbers (40-50% range). I think both the time frame and the percentage are low balls. But what is more interesting is that when you ask people how likely the job they have is to be replaced by automation, 90+% percent of them say it will never be automated. (All numbers from memory, please take them with a big grain of salt).Which number do you think is correct? It's easy to look on the outside and say "Yeah, a machine could do that." But a coffee pouring robot isn't also unloading the truck, sweeping the floor, cleaning the windows and taking the crossiants out of the microwave. Tasks like this are not as easy to replace - and certainly probably can't be done by a single system. This is probably what people think of when they think of their job, while thinking of only coffee pouring when thinking of others jobs.
I think this phenomenon is why the threat of automation isn't far more prevalent in our political discussions.
Post by: sol on January 31, 2017, 12:19:56 PM
This is grossly incorrect.Quote28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
But what the states do doesn't matter, the feds could shut it down at any time since it's still illegal under federal law and federal law takes precedence over state law.
Wait, you think marijuana is actually legal in states where it has been decriminalized? Do you also believe that all other federal crimes without a corresponding local or state law aren't actually illegal?
Federal law doesn't necessarily supersede state law, but it still remains in effect in the absence of a state law. Those states haven't declared marijuana to be legal, they have stopped declaring it illegal. Big difference.
Post by: jordanread on January 31, 2017, 01:05:10 PM
This is grossly incorrect.Quote28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
But what the states do doesn't matter, the feds could shut it down at any time since it's still illegal under federal law and federal law takes precedence over state law.
Wait, you think marijuana is actually legal in states where it has been decriminalized? Do you also believe that all other federal crimes without a corresponding local or state law aren't actually illegal?
Federal law doesn't necessarily supersede state law, but it still remains in effect in the absence of a state law. Those states haven't declared marijuana to be legal, they have stopped declaring it illegal. Big difference.
We declared it actually legal...not just decriminalizing it based on the text of the amendment.
Post by: maizefolk on January 31, 2017, 01:14:25 PM
I saw a survey once (which google is refusing to produce) that if you ask people what percent of jobs will be replaced by automation in the next 50 years, lots of them guess reasonably high numbers (40-50% range). I think both the time frame and the percentage are low balls. But what is more interesting is that when you ask people how likely the job they have is to be replaced by automation, 90+% percent of them say it will never be automated. (All numbers from memory, please take them with a big grain of salt).Which number do you think is correct? It's easy to look on the outside and say "Yeah, a machine could do that." But a coffee pouring robot isn't also unloading the truck, sweeping the floor, cleaning the windows and taking the crossiants out of the microwave. Tasks like this are not as easy to replace - and certainly probably can't be done by a single system. This is probably what people think of when they think of their job, while thinking of only coffee pouring when thinking of others jobs.
I think this phenomenon is why the threat of automation isn't far more prevalent in our political discussions.
50 years is a long ways out, but I tend to believe the 50% of current work (whether 100% of half the jobs of 50% of all the jobs) number is closer to the mark. You may well be right about what causes the bias though. People answer the general question as "what percent of total work could be automated?" and answer the specific question as "could every single thing I do during my work week be automated?"
Whether we get new jobs to replace those jobs (and whether the people who lose their jobs will have the skills and abilities to perform those new jobs) is a much more open question as we've discussed on this thread, but it seems clear a LOT of what people do all day in the year 2016 is going to be automated away.
Post by: prognastat on January 31, 2017, 02:20:06 PM
I saw a survey once (which google is refusing to produce) that if you ask people what percent of jobs will be replaced by automation in the next 50 years, lots of them guess reasonably high numbers (40-50% range). I think both the time frame and the percentage are low balls. But what is more interesting is that when you ask people how likely the job they have is to be replaced by automation, 90+% percent of them say it will never be automated. (All numbers from memory, please take them with a big grain of salt).Which number do you think is correct? It's easy to look on the outside and say "Yeah, a machine could do that." But a coffee pouring robot isn't also unloading the truck, sweeping the floor, cleaning the windows and taking the crossiants out of the microwave. Tasks like this are not as easy to replace - and certainly probably can't be done by a single system. This is probably what people think of when they think of their job, while thinking of only coffee pouring when thinking of others jobs.
I think this phenomenon is why the threat of automation isn't far more prevalent in our political discussions.
Sorry but of course it isn't going to be 1 robot doing all the tasks soon, but I can easily imagine a few robots doing most of the tasks and humans just doing the few left over tasks that robots haven't been able to do yet.
Also they are already working on robots that can cook a meal in a kitchen by having a human chef feed it the data on how to do it first by motion capture and then the robot replicating his motions with robot arms. Once the kinks are worked out on this will be faster, less accident prone and most importantly far cheaper than a human cook.
Imagine this, at the farm the produce is loaded in bulk on to a truck which is computer controlled, once the sensor tells it the truck is full it stops the filling process. The car then takes off on it's own and drives to the warehouse/factory. Here the truck drops the product in to a feeding location, inside you have machinery using cameras, conveyers and compressed air to filter the product and sort it in to packages. These packages are dropped on to a pallet through conveyer belt at which point an automated fork lift which drives it to a new self driving truck which drives to the store by itself where another automated fork lift at the store grabs the pallets from the truck and puts it in the predetermined location in the back of the store. Finally when the product in the front of store runs out a stocking robot which has robotic arms grabs the pale of product, drives in to the store using sensors to safely navigate without hitting people and using the robotic arms to stock the shelves.
For a restaurant most is the same except that instead of the back of the store and front of the store it just places it in the appropriate storage in the restaurant.
As for cleaning, look what things like roomba already do. You already have robots that can mop the floor and vacuum today.
Many of these technologies already either exist in prototype level, business level or even consumer level. These just need a little more development to get to the point where they are as good if not better than the human option. Keep in mind they don't even have to be better than a human, just about as good at a much lower price.
Some interesting videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWFjS3Ci7A - Automated Warehouse(Amazon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDprrrEdomM - Chef Robot
Post by: Pooplips on February 01, 2017, 07:40:30 AM
Or, more to the point, why should we expect an employer to continue to pay the same price for less labor?
I think this comment really highlights the fundamental disconnect in this discussion.
When technology allows society to be twice as productive, why does all of that benefit accrue to businesses while the citizens are left to die in the street? Shouldn't some of that abundance benefit people, rather than corporate profits?
The natural assumption in America is that if workers become twice as productive, they should have half as much money instead of twice as much stuff. This seems fundamentally wrong to me, because I believe that the fruits of this new and more efficient economy should benefit everyone who lives and works in that economy. Instead, those people are expected to suffer while all of the newly created wealth flows to the business owners.
Agreed. This is the fundamental problem with capitalism. There are a lot of benefits of a free market economy (efficiency) that could be kept even if we someday decide to decouple capitalism from it. We wouldn't even have to make too many laws or regulations to do it either, just stop propping it up with artificial distortions of the market like corporate charters
Bakari, I would really like to know what your definition of Capitalism is, if you don't mind?
Post by: Bakari on February 01, 2017, 09:50:10 AM
Another article on Coffee Baristas.http://www.wsj.com/articles/robot-baristas-serve-up-the-future-of-coffee-at-cafe-x-1485781201How wary should human baristas be? “There are a lot of things we still need them to do, like cleaning and filling,” says Mr. Hu. “What we don’t need them to do is move thousands of cups around. They’ll have a more enjoyable job.”I can see humans being more the social aspect of the experience. Making small talk, etc.
(http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u648/dweagle79/guinan_zps31e8b7da.jpg)
"My name is Guinan. I tend bar, and I listen." – Guinan, 2368
(Although, actually, I'm Gen X, and I agree with the millennials about preferring efficient technology based transactions)
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JumpintheFire is correct, Federal law always supersedes state law, and marijuana is still technically illegal everywhere in the US. Up until Obama officially said it was not a priority, we in CA had DEA raids on (CA legal) medical marijuana dispensaries every so often. ICE agents could do raids in so-called "sanctuary" cities, if they so choose.
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Agreed. This is the fundamental problem with capitalism. There are a lot of benefits of a free market economy (efficiency) that could be kept even if we someday decide to decouple capitalism from it. We wouldn't even have to make too many laws or regulations to do it either, just stop propping it up with artificial distortions of the market like corporate chartersBakari, I would really like to know what your definition of Capitalism is, if you don't mind?
Sure, capitalism is a system which is set up to ensure maximum utility of capital. As in, the more money you have, the easier it is to make even more money. This would be naturally true even under anarchy, but we have a number of government enforced systems in place that make it much more true. You can not have true capitalism under anarchy, the government has to prop it up. The props include land title deeds, paper currency, federally insured banks (esp., but not only, the Fed), patents, copy rights, corporate charters, and contract law.
Not mandatory, but in our case it also includes taxing unearned income at half the rate of earned income.
In contrast, a truly free market operates under perfect competition (which means no one makes any profit). You can have a free market with no government what-so-ever, and in fact this is how most of trade has been done for most of human existence, bazaars, flea markets, and barter.
I go in to greater depth on my blog, if you are interested:
http://www.randomthoughts.fyi/2014/04/free-market-vs-capitalism.html
(10 parts, but each part is very short)
Post by: robartsd on February 01, 2017, 10:22:12 AM
JumpintheFire is correct, Federal law always supersedes state law, and marijuana is still technically illegal everywhere in the US. Up until Obama officially said it was not a priority, we in CA had DEA raids on (CA legal) medical marijuana dispensaries every so often. ICE agents could do raids in so-called "sanctuary" cities, if they so choose.While I'm sure the Federal court system rules with this view, many interpret the tenth amendment as contrary to the idea.
Post by: JumpInTheFIRE on February 01, 2017, 10:26:32 AM
This is grossly incorrect.Quote28 states have legalized marijuana (either medical or recreational), and up to 8 more are expected to this year. That's over half, and a significant majority by population, as CA and the NE have the densest populations.
But what the states do doesn't matter, the feds could shut it down at any time since it's still illegal under federal law and federal law takes precedence over state law.
Wait, you think marijuana is actually legal in states where it has been decriminalized? Do you also believe that all other federal crimes without a corresponding local or state law aren't actually illegal?
Federal law doesn't necessarily supersede state law, but it still remains in effect in the absence of a state law. Those states haven't declared marijuana to be legal, they have stopped declaring it illegal. Big difference.
How does federal law not supersede state law? It's right in the constitution, quick quote from this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause
The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land. It provides that state courts are bound by the supreme law; in case of conflict between federal and state law, the federal law must be applied. Even state constitutions are subordinate to federal law.
Am I missing something? I'm not a law-talkin' guy but it seems pretty clear. Even the actual text doesn't leave much room for ambiguity:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Post by: maizefolk on February 01, 2017, 10:48:45 AM
Post by: Pooplips on February 01, 2017, 01:00:09 PM
Agreed. This is the fundamental problem with capitalism. There are a lot of benefits of a free market economy (efficiency) that could be kept even if we someday decide to decouple capitalism from it. We wouldn't even have to make too many laws or regulations to do it either, just stop propping it up with artificial distortions of the market like corporate chartersBakari, I would really like to know what your definition of Capitalism is, if you don't mind?
Sure, capitalism is a system which is set up to ensure maximum utility of capital. As in, the more money you have, the easier it is to make even more money. This would be naturally true even under anarchy, but we have a number of government enforced systems in place that make it much more true. You can not have true capitalism under anarchy, the government has to prop it up. The props include land title deeds, paper currency, federally insured banks (esp., but not only, the Fed), patents, copy rights, corporate charters, and contract law.
Not mandatory, but in our case it also includes taxing unearned income at half the rate of earned income.
In contrast, a truly free market operates under perfect competition (which means no one makes any profit). You can have a free market with no government what-so-ever, and in fact this is how most of trade has been done for most of human existence, bazaars, flea markets, and barter.
I go in to greater depth on my blog, if you are interested:
http://www.randomthoughts.fyi/2014/04/free-market-vs-capitalism.html
(10 parts, but each part is very short)
Thanks, I am looking forward to reading your article. We often disagree on market issues so I am trying to understand your perspective a little better.
Post by: Bakari on February 01, 2017, 05:41:11 PM
Thanks, I am looking forward to reading your article. We often disagree on market issues so I am trying to understand your perspective a little better.
That's an unusual comment on an internet message board!
Heck, I can't even talk to people I agree with about politics these days, the degree of blindly picking an ideology and sticking to it is just too much for me.
Thanks for reminding me there are open minded people out there (as I recall from our earlier debate, while I disagreed with some of your points, others of yours were valid, and even the ones I disagreed with were reasonable, so I shouldn't be that surprised. But I am anyway)
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 08:34:54 AM
I think the main reason discussions breakdown is because each person uses a different definitions of the same words. So I would like to clarify and come to some kind of consensus on how we define the words we use.
Free Market – “All individuals are free to participate and make their own decisions.” I agree. People are allowed to make their own agreements/transactions amongst themselves without the interference of third parties.
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money. I thought your definition of capitalism was more of a moving target. Based on what you wrote is seemed to me to be a better description of crony capitalism of maybe even fascism.
Profit - a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something. Once again, I felt your definition was a moving target. In your flea market scenario, “as long as the seller does better than break even, they will likely show up again next week”, I would consider that “little better” to be profit. Later you said, “Profit is what is left over after paying not just costs for materials and rent and advertising and loan payments, but also paying the employees, including management.” I agree. In the next sentence you state, “If the manager is the owner, the money they make is not profit, it is salary.” And then, “Profit is what is left over after all costs.” Based on the statements above, your definition of profit seems to be tied to ownership and working for the company. I’ll use Wal-mart as an example. From 1962 to 1970, when Wal-mart was solely owned by Sam Walton, they made no profit because he was the owner and worked for the company. After 1970 when Wal-mart went public Sam (and employees that bought stock) were not making profit because they were owners and worked for the company but the shareholders were making a profit because they were owners but didn’t work for the company. Is my reasoning correct? Also, do you not consider interest on debt profit? You seem to be saying that in parts 2 and 3.
I think it may be better to move this discussion out of this thread. Maybe I can just direct message you responses or we can start a new thread. If we can agree on some definitions I was thinking about possibly writing something in defense of my position.
On a side note, I was wondering the last time we had a discussion how you were getting graphs and responding so quickly. Haha. Now I know you had them ready to go from the start.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 08:53:19 AM
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money.
Your assertion that labour is traded as a service for money that you get is not consistent with the definition of capitalism that you gave.
There's absolutely nothing preventing slavery in capitalism. The slaves are owned privately, profits from the slaves go to the owner. Labour is traded for money - but the money doesn't go to the slave.
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 09:25:18 AM
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money.
Your assertion that labour is traded as a service for money that you get is not consistent with the definition of capitalism that you gave.
There's absolutely nothing preventing slavery in capitalism. The slaves are owned privately, profits from the slaves go to the owner. Labour is traded for money - but the money doesn't go to the slave.
Slaves do not own their own labor. So any system where slaves are allowed is not a system based on capitalism. So I guess I'm a little confused about what your trying to say.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 09:33:20 AM
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money.
Your assertion that labour is traded as a service for money that you get is not consistent with the definition of capitalism that you gave.
There's absolutely nothing preventing slavery in capitalism. The slaves are owned privately, profits from the slaves go to the owner. Labour is traded for money - but the money doesn't go to the slave.
Slaves do not own their own labor. So any system where slaves are allowed is not a system based on capitalism. So I guess I'm a little confused about what your trying to say.
You are changing the definition of capitalism. Nothing about "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" prevents the use of slaves.
Slaves are property, exactly like a computer or a robot. A computer/robot doesn't own the work it does, yet a capitalist society can still use them. I'm trying to say that your explanation of the definition of capitalism appears to have missed this.
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 09:42:21 AM
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money.
Your assertion that labour is traded as a service for money that you get is not consistent with the definition of capitalism that you gave.
There's absolutely nothing preventing slavery in capitalism. The slaves are owned privately, profits from the slaves go to the owner. Labour is traded for money - but the money doesn't go to the slave.
Slaves do not own their own labor. So any system where slaves are allowed is not a system based on capitalism. So I guess I'm a little confused about what your trying to say.
You are changing the definition of capitalism. Nothing about "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" prevents the use of slaves.
Slaves are property, exactly like a computer or a robot. A computer/robot doesn't own the work it does, yet a capitalist society can still use them. I'm trying to say that your explanation of the definition of capitalism appears to have missed this.
I actually think you are changing the definition of capitalism. haha. As a human/private owner I own my labor for "trade and industry". Yes, slaves are property, but slaves are also human. As humans if we do not own our labor we are not operating in a capitalist system.
Edit: Maybe we should come at this another way instead of arguing over the definition of capitalism. It might be easier. Based on the information I provided above, what name would you give that system? What ever name you pick will be what I am in favor of.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 10:37:36 AM
Capitalism - an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. For example, you start the business, you get the money. You trade your labor as a service, you get the money.
Your assertion that labour is traded as a service for money that you get is not consistent with the definition of capitalism that you gave.
There's absolutely nothing preventing slavery in capitalism. The slaves are owned privately, profits from the slaves go to the owner. Labour is traded for money - but the money doesn't go to the slave.
Slaves do not own their own labor. So any system where slaves are allowed is not a system based on capitalism. So I guess I'm a little confused about what your trying to say.
You are changing the definition of capitalism. Nothing about "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state" prevents the use of slaves.
Slaves are property, exactly like a computer or a robot. A computer/robot doesn't own the work it does, yet a capitalist society can still use them. I'm trying to say that your explanation of the definition of capitalism appears to have missed this.
I actually think you are changing the definition of capitalism. haha. As a human/private owner I own my labor for "trade and industry". Yes, slaves are property, but slaves are also human. As humans if we do not own our labor we are not operating in a capitalist system.
Edit: Maybe we should come at this another way instead of arguing over the definition of capitalism. It might be easier. Based on the information I provided above, what name would you give that system? What ever name you pick will be what I am in favor of.
TheSystemFormerlyKnownAsCapitalism: An economic system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state*.
*Except for slavery - this must be controlled by an unspecified force in an unspecified manner and cannot be controlled by the free market.
I have more questions though. What about children who work for their parents on a farm? Or children who help clean the house? They don't get paid, but are forced to perform labour. Would their existence prevent TheSystemFormerlyKnownAsCapitalism from existing in your eyes? If not, how are they any different than slaves?
What about a housewife (or househusband) who works daily to clean, cooke, etc. without pay?
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 11:05:46 AM
TheSystemFormerlyKnownAsCapitalism: An economic system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state*.
*Except for slavery - this must be controlled by an unspecified force in an unspecified manner and cannot be controlled by the free market.
I have more questions though. What about children who work for their parents on a farm? Or children who help clean the house? They don't get paid, but are forced to perform labour. Would their existence prevent TheSystemFormerlyKnownAsCapitalism from existing in your eyes? If not, how are they any different than slaves?
What about a housewife (or househusband) who works daily to clean, cooke, etc. without pay?
Haha. I think you kind of, in a round about way, agreed with my definintion of capitalism. Your exception is interesting to me because murder, theft and another violent crime fall in that same basket. "this must be controlled by an unspecified force in an unspecified manner and cannot be controlled by the free market."
The force you are talking about is the government which is there to ensure the freedom of every individual.
We are starting to get off topic as far as defining terms but I will do my best to anwser you other questions.
The argument could be made that any child beening told by anyone to do anything is child abuse. But we all know thats not the case. A child being forced to work for 16 hours on the family farm then thrown in the basement with some bread till the morning is clearly child abuse and their are laws to prevent this. A child being told to mow the grass (as I was) is not.
The housewife, if she freely chooses to be a house wife, can still exist in TheSystemFormerlyKnownAsCapitalism. Just because money is not exchanging hands doesn't mean she doesn't provide value.
Your arguments don't change the definition of capitalism.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 11:12:46 AM
The argument could be made that any child beening told by anyone to do anything is child abuse. But we all know thats not the case. A child being forced to work for 16 hours on the family farm then thrown in the basement with some bread till the morning is clearly child abuse and their are laws to prevent this. A child being told to mow the grass (as I was) is not.
So, just to confirm . . . you're OK with people being forced to work for free in a capitalist system?
If I treated my slaves pretty well and didn't force them to work too much, would that also be OK?
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 11:24:07 AM
The argument could be made that any child beening told by anyone to do anything is child abuse. But we all know thats not the case. A child being forced to work for 16 hours on the family farm then thrown in the basement with some bread till the morning is clearly child abuse and their are laws to prevent this. A child being told to mow the grass (as I was) is not.
So, just to confirm . . . you're OK with people being forced to work for free in a capitalist system?
If I treated my slaves pretty well and didn't force them to work too much, would that also be OK?
Haha a discussion on the definition of capitalism and you turned it in to this. Is capitalism the only system were I get to have my kids mow the grass? Would I still be allowed to make them mow the grass under socialism or communism? How about facism? I need to know all my options before I decide. Haha.
Like I said, eventually the discussion breaks down.
Post by: Bakari on February 02, 2017, 11:46:16 AM
On the other hand, this has kind of taken off, and I think in a way it is more relevant to the original topic then some of the sidetracks have been
;-P
For the goal, sure, that sounds pretty good!
For the definitions: I don't see any distinction between those definitions of "free market" and "capitalism".
The definitions of each would apply equally well to either word, as they both imply each other.
In which case what purpose is there for having two words?
My definition of "Capitalism" is, I think, defended by the very word itself. CAPITALism. Not privateownershipism. The definition has to in some way take into account the specific implications or consequences of having excess capital in the system.
Going back to my anarchy extreme, where individual humans barter at a market, compared to our current system, having capital has relatively less benefit. However, in both cases "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
The (perfect competition) market distortions that are enabled by government that enhance capitalism (the easiest example being, of course, corporate charters and the stabilization of stock markets) also happen to be anti-competitive, which in turn means the market isn't truly "free" anymore. If everyone isn't on the same level of power, then they are not really free to make their own decisions.
For example, if you own a general store in a small town, and then WalMart opens up and sells below cost for the first year, then your "choices" include pretending nothing has changed and going bankrupt, or selling off what you can and taking a new job as assistant manager at WalMart for a significantly lower income. That's a false choice. The individual has no real choice. And the reason they don't is that they are not on equal footing with an entity which, through support by the government, has enormous amounts of capital which they can use to do things like sell below cost for extended periods of time.
The definitions provided don't draw any distinction between a free market and capitalism, instead just focusing on a different aspect of the same thing. But in that case, how do you propose defining the difference between the scenario above and a flea market where every participant gets one booth? Both have private ownership, and both technically have freedom of choice (in that they are not slavery or fascism), but one has much more freedom than the other.
Profit - yeah, it sounds like you pretty much summed it up. An owner who is not a manager - anyone making passive income on business activity - is getting profit. Of course there could be question of how high "salary" can be before it is in excess of "earnings" and should perhaps be considered profit, but that same question already exists with CEOs and other executives even if they are not partial owners, so I'll leave that question for some other time...
Basically, profit is value that can be skimmed off the top of a transaction by a third party.
As far as the slavery thing - it looks to me like the issue is just the use of the word "country", which is an arbitrary imaginary unit in the first place. We can just slightly modify the wording to: "[size=0px]An economic system in which individual's labor and property are controlled by themselves as private owners, rather than by the state, [/size][size=0px]and can be exchanged for profit[/size][size=0px]"[/size]
Although, as I said, I think this is just restating "free market" in more detail
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
A domestic partner, on the other hand, is there voluntarily (at least, in any society without arranged marriages, and especially in areas with no-fault divorce). They too, are compensated, in the form of food and shelter provided by their working spouse. Nothing in any of the definitions requires that value be exclusively in the form of paper currency.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 12:16:14 PM
An economic system in which individual's labor and property are controlled by themselves as private owners, rather than by the state
I think this is the definition that pooplips wants for capitalism. If I may:
"An economic system in which labor and property are controlled by private owners, rather than by the state" - This is closer to the reality of pure capitalism. It's a fine distinction, but an important one.
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
I don't think that any system of economic policy can guarantee that an individuals labour and property are controlled by themselves as private owners. Trying to work individual ownership of labour into a definition of capitalism is always going to fail because of this type of case.
Post by: Metric Mouse on February 02, 2017, 01:12:07 PM
Are you intentionally missing the point? A housewife or child or unpaid intern give their time freely. Force is the issue: people are forced to work under slavery, they do not own their work.The argument could be made that any child beening told by anyone to do anything is child abuse. But we all know thats not the case. A child being forced to work for 16 hours on the family farm then thrown in the basement with some bread till the morning is clearly child abuse and their are laws to prevent this. A child being told to mow the grass (as I was) is not.
So, just to confirm . . . you're OK with people being forced to work for free in a capitalist system?
If I treated my slaves pretty well and didn't force them to work too much, would that also be OK?
Edit: see that Bakari already explained this.
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 01:14:11 PM
Even in a barter system capital would be very important. If I have a million apples to trade and you have 10 I can simply trade my apples for less stuff per apple until you eat your apples and are screwed. When I think of capital I not only think of monetary capital but human capital as well. All the skills I can perform and knowledge I learn is my human capital. It’s my ability to grow a million apples that gives me the advantage, not the fact that I have them.
I am with you on not wanting the government to distort the free market any more than is absolutely necessary.
Your general store example is more philosophical at heart. The only real choice any human has is whether or not to commit suicide. All other “choices” are merely trade-offs. I do believe there are other trade-offs you are not considering. If I own a general store and a Walmart comes in and sells at a loss I would close up shop. The moment Walmart started selling at a profit again; I would open my store back up. Walmart only makes a 3% profit margin (and is still getting beat up by Amazon). I could probably price match them and beat them on customer service and lower operational costs. This would force the Walmart to sell at a loss continuously to keep me out of the market and that they cannot do. The issue is none of what I am saying is easy, so why would I do all that work for 3% profit margin when I can invest in corporate bonds at about 4% with no work? What I think is going on is, the market is sending me clear signals that my time and capital can be used more efficiently else ware in the market.
Your flea market example on your blog was good. The first thing I thought was: Who owns the damn market and why are they renting all the lots to the same company? Someone should set up a flea market next door and rent to a variety of people because that’s why people go to flea markets anyway. Even in this scenario you cannot guarantee that “each seller does better than break even” for a million different reasons. I think your basically describing a monopoly, which can’t exist for the reasons listed above without help from the government. We agree on getting government distortions out of the market.
I was really hoping you would define profit better; especially when it comes to interest. I would deduct the cost of hiring a manager in the open market. If my company makes $50k a year and to hiring a manager would cost me $50k a year, then I made no profit. My question then becomes: If you have an idea and no money how are you going to get the money you need? Take on debt? This is why I need to know if you consider interest profit.
Post by: Pooplips on February 02, 2017, 01:18:32 PM
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
I don't think that any system of economic policy can guarantee that an individuals labour and property are controlled by themselves as private owners. Trying to work individual ownership of labour into a definition of capitalism is always going to fail because of this type of case.
Please provide your definition of capitalism? Mine was simply the dictionary one.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 02, 2017, 01:41:16 PM
Are you intentionally missing the point? A housewife or child or unpaid intern give their time freely. Force is the issue: people are forced to work under slavery, they do not own their work.The argument could be made that any child beening told by anyone to do anything is child abuse. But we all know thats not the case. A child being forced to work for 16 hours on the family farm then thrown in the basement with some bread till the morning is clearly child abuse and their are laws to prevent this. A child being told to mow the grass (as I was) is not.
So, just to confirm . . . you're OK with people being forced to work for free in a capitalist system?
If I treated my slaves pretty well and didn't force them to work too much, would that also be OK?
I can assure you that my son is often forced to pick up his toys after playing with them and given no recourse or compensation. He does not own his work in any way.
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
I don't think that any system of economic policy can guarantee that an individuals labour and property are controlled by themselves as private owners. Trying to work individual ownership of labour into a definition of capitalism is always going to fail because of this type of case.
Please provide your definition of capitalism? Mine was simply the dictionary one.
I wasn't arguing with the dictionary definition, that makes sense to me:
"An economic system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state"
Notice how it doesn't say anything about each person being paid for their work? That's because this is not a pre-requisite for capitalism, despite your apparent belief.
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 05:09:16 AM
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
I don't think that any system of economic policy can guarantee that an individuals labour and property are controlled by themselves as private owners. Trying to work individual ownership of labour into a definition of capitalism is always going to fail because of this type of case.
Please provide your definition of capitalism? Mine was simply the dictionary one.
I wasn't arguing with the dictionary definition, that makes sense to me:
"An economic system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state"
Notice how it doesn't say anything about each person being paid for their work? That's because this is not a pre-requisite for capitalism, despite your apparent belief.
Trading my labor for money/goods is exactly what I am talking about. What do you call entering a labor agreement?
Post by: GuitarStv on February 03, 2017, 06:00:33 AM
The difference between "child labor" and "chores" really does have a grey area, but that is completely separate from the question at hand. It would be just as grey under socialism or communism or anarchy or anything else. Their compensation is in the form of food and shelter, but the same is true of slaves.
I don't think that any system of economic policy can guarantee that an individuals labour and property are controlled by themselves as private owners. Trying to work individual ownership of labour into a definition of capitalism is always going to fail because of this type of case.
Please provide your definition of capitalism? Mine was simply the dictionary one.
I wasn't arguing with the dictionary definition, that makes sense to me:
"An economic system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state"
Notice how it doesn't say anything about each person being paid for their work? That's because this is not a pre-requisite for capitalism, despite your apparent belief.
Trading my labor for money/goods is exactly what I am talking about. What do you call entering a labor agreement?
I call it "completely unrelated to the economic system".
Labour agreements are not unique to capitalism, and can certainly exist in a communist economy as well. Communism just means that trade and industry are controlled by the state rather than privately. Agreements regarding work don't depend on who controls the factory.
Trading labour for goods also exists under every communist system that has ever been implemented (although typically communist systems make an additional attempt to give to individuals based on need as well). It's just heavily regulated by the government rather than controlled by private individuals. (Note - I'm not advocating communism in any way, and am well aware of the many problems that spring up from a purely communist approach to running a countries economy.)
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 07:38:14 AM
I call it "completely unrelated to the economic system".
Labour agreements are not unique to capitalism, and can certainly exist in a communist economy as well. Communism just means that trade and industry are controlled by the state rather than privately. Agreements regarding work don't depend on who controls the factory.
Trading labour for goods also exists under every communist system that has ever been implemented (although typically communist systems make an additional attempt to give to individuals based on need as well). It's just heavily regulated by the government rather than controlled by private individuals. (Note - I'm not advocating communism in any way, and am well aware of the many problems that spring up from a purely communist approach to running a countries economy.)
I guess we agree to disagree. I don't see how you can say trading labor is unrelated to an economic system.
Labor agreements are not unique to capitalism, I agree, but the freedom of those labor agreements are. Under communism I don't own my labor and am not free to use it as I see fit. If I create something, anything, it is the property of the state. They take it and give me what they want to give me, if anything. I am not free to keep what I produce or trade what I produce with anyone else but the state. I don't even get to decide if the trade I am making with the state is fair.
Labor agreements do depend on who owns the factory because if I don't like the agreements available to me, since I own my own labor, I can start my own factory.
Yes, trading labour for goods also exists under communist systems but it is a forced trade. Freedom is the difference.
Edit: I just realized I made a mistake. Reversing our way out of this worked last time so let's try it again. What name would you give a system where trade, labor agreements and production are all private owned and free to be used as the individuals that own them see fit?
Post by: GuitarStv on February 03, 2017, 08:43:15 AM
Labor agreements are not unique to capitalism, I agree, but the freedom of those labor agreements are. Under communism I don't own my labor and am not free to use it as I see fit. If I create something, anything, it is the property of the state. They take it and give me what they want to give me, if anything. I am not free to keep what I produce or trade what I produce with anyone else but the state. I don't even get to decide if the trade I am making with the state is fair.
Labor agreements do depend on who owns the factory because if I don't like the agreements available to me, since I own my own labor, I can start my own factory.
Yes, trading labour for goods also exists under communist systems but it is a forced trade. Freedom is the difference.
The freedom you're saying exist cannot happen when wealth concentration becomes too significant, just as it cannot exist when wealth cannot be amassed at all. Can you point to a single capitalist system that has ever existed in history working as you imagine it should?
I suspect you'll be unable to find one. The reason for this is that capitalism results in wealth concentration. Wealth concentration results in power concentration. Unchecked this will result in a small ruling class abusing a large underclass. Freedoms of the many will be eroded to protect the interests of the few. These problems associated with capitalism are what Marx was reacting to when he wrote his manifesto (going too far in the opposite direction).
There's a balance between aspects of socialism (social programs, environmental protections, etc.) and capitalism (free-market efficiency, motivation) that seems to work best in implementation.
Edit: I just realized I made a mistake. Reversing our way out of this worked last time so let's try it again. What name would you give a system where trade, labor agreements and production are all private owned and free to be used as the individuals that own them see fit?
Given that under this system no parent would be allowed to assign chores to his or her children (and that this would need to be policed somehow, probably involving constant surveillance in homes), I'd call it some sort of authoritarian hell.
If you're going to argue that some people (children for example) aren't entitled to the fruits of their labour then I'd say that you're not really advocating for the system you think you are.
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 09:19:11 AM
Labor agreements are not unique to capitalism, I agree, but the freedom of those labor agreements are. Under communism I don't own my labor and am not free to use it as I see fit. If I create something, anything, it is the property of the state. They take it and give me what they want to give me, if anything. I am not free to keep what I produce or trade what I produce with anyone else but the state. I don't even get to decide if the trade I am making with the state is fair.
Labor agreements do depend on who owns the factory because if I don't like the agreements available to me, since I own my own labor, I can start my own factory.
Yes, trading labour for goods also exists under communist systems but it is a forced trade. Freedom is the difference.
The freedom you're saying exist cannot happen when wealth concentration becomes too significant, just as it cannot exist when wealth cannot be amassed at all. Can you point to a single capitalist system that has ever existed in history working as you imagine it should?
I suspect you'll be unable to find one. The reason for this is that capitalism results in wealth concentration. Wealth concentration results in power concentration. Unchecked this will result in a small ruling class abusing a large underclass. Freedoms of the many will be eroded to protect the interests of the few. These problems associated with capitalism are what Marx was reacting to when he wrote his manifesto (going too far in the opposite direction).
There's a balance between aspects of socialism (social programs, environmental protections, etc.) and capitalism (free-market efficiency, motivation) that seems to work best in implementation.Edit: I just realized I made a mistake. Reversing our way out of this worked last time so let's try it again. What name would you give a system where trade, labor agreements and production are all private owned and free to be used as the individuals that own them see fit?
Given that under this system no parent would be allowed to assign chores to his or her children (and that this would need to be policed somehow, probably involving constant surveillance in homes), I'd call it some sort of authoritarian hell.
If you're going to argue that some people (children for example) aren't entitled to the fruits of their labour then I'd say that you're not really advocating for the system you think you are.
I agree there has been no absolute capitalist system in place but there have been countries that have had a more capitalist system (Honk Kong, Post WWII Japan, USA) and the poorest in those contries have seen faster growth in their standards of living than less capitalist systems.
Our current system is on that scale too. My current tax rate all included is about 25%. The argument could be made that I own 75% of my labor and society owns 25% of my labor. I agree a balance is necessary.
Wealth concentration is only a problem if that wealth can be used to buy favors from the government (crony-capitalism). I want to strip the government of their power to hand out these favors. There's nothing that a big corporation likes more than rules and regulations that create barriers of entry to keep out compitition (or tax breaks, subsidies, etc.)
I am not saying children aren't entitled to the fruits of their labor. I will argue that because of government regulations that have no choice but to accept the deal their parents are offering. It is illegal for a 13 year old child to work and provide for themselves.
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2017, 10:34:30 AM
Thank you for your explanation Bakari. After thinking about it you are right. Based on the definitions I gave they are the same thing or at least one necessitates the other and vice versa.
Even in a barter system capital would be very important. If I have a million apples to trade and you have 10 I can simply trade my apples for less stuff per apple until you eat your apples and are screwed.
Under a barter system, with no state intervention, there is no realistic way you are ever going to amass a million apples in the first place.
Your apple orchard will only contain as much land as you can personally defend.
This is my whole point about the difference between a free market and capitalism.
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When I think of capital I not only think of monetary capital but human capital as well. All the skills I can perform and knowledge I learn is my human capital. It’s my ability to grow a million apples that gives me the advantage, not the fact that I have them.I think relatively few people would argue that everyone should have exactly equal compensation, regardless of skill or talent. But having over 18 acres of private land (about the minimum you need to hold the 2000 trees it takes to grow a million apples in one season) takes more than skill and talent, it requires a land title deed and a government which will arrest trespassers and apple thieves for you.
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I am with you on not wanting the government to distort the free market any more than is absolutely necessary.perhaps we disagree on what constitutes "necessary".
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Your general store example is more philosophical at heart. The only real choice any human has is whether or not to commit suicide. All other “choices” are merely trade-offs. I do believe there are other trade-offs you are not considering. If I own a general store and a Walmart comes in and sells at a loss I would close up shop. The moment Walmart started selling at a profit again; I would open my store back up.Assuming you had the capital necessary to open back up (or to keep paying the bills with no income for a year or two).
It is not "philosophical" at all, it is a simple example of what actually happens in real life:
"this study examines the impact of the arrival of a Walmart store on retail and wholesale employment. It looks at 1,749 counties that added a Walmart between 1977 and 1998. It finds that Walmart’s arrival boosts retail employment by 100 jobs in the first year—far less than the 200-400 jobs the company says its stores create, because its arrival causes existing retailers to downsize and lay-off employees. Over the next four years, there is a loss of 40-60 additional retail jobs as more competing retailers downsize and close. The study also finds that Walmart’s arrival leads to a decline of approximately 20 local wholesale jobs in the first five years, and an additional 10 wholesale jobs over the long run (six or more years after Walmart’s arrival). (Walmart handles its own distribution and does not rely on wholesalers). This works out to a net gain of just 10-30 retail and wholesale jobs, and the study does not examine whether these jobs are part-time or whether they pay more or less than the jobs eliminated by Walmart. The study also found that, within five years of Walmart’s arrival, the counties had lost an average of four small retail businesses, one mid-sized store, and one large store. It does not estimate declines in revenue to retailers that survive."
http://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco6352/papers/basker.pdf (http://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco6352/papers/basker.pdf)
The opening of a Walmart on the West Side of Chicago in 2006 led to the closure of about one-quarter of the businesses within a four-mile radius, according to this study by researchers at Loyola University. They tracked 306 businesses, checking their status before Walmart opened and one and two years after it opened. More than half were also surveyed by phone about employees, work hours, and wages. By the second year, 82 of the businesses had closed. Businesses within close proximity of Walmart had a 40 percent chance of closing. The probability of going out of business fell 6 percent with each mile away from Walmart. These closures eliminated the equivalent of 300 full-time jobs, about as many Walmart added to the area. Sales tax and employment data provided by the state of Illinois for Walmart’s zip code and surrounding zip codes confirmed that overall sales and employment in the neighborhood did not increase, but actually dipped from the trend line.
http://edq.sagepub.com/content/26/4/321.abstract (http://edq.sagepub.com/content/26/4/321.abstract)
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Walmart only makes a 3% profit margin (and is still getting beat up by Amazon). I could probably price match them and beat them on customer service and lower operational costs.They have their own trucks and warehouses and contracts with other major corporate suppliers. You managing lower operational costs is not realistic. This is, again, how having enough capital makes for uneven competition.
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This would force the Walmart to sell at a loss continuously to keep me out of the market and that they cannot do. The issue is none of what I am saying is easy, so why would I do all that work for 3% profit margin when I can invest in corporate bonds at about 4% with no work? What I think is going on is, the market is sending me clear signals that my time and capital can be used more efficiently else ware in the market.Corporate bonds are where the WalMarts get the capital to undermine smaller businesses. In order to pay 4%, they have to be making at least 4% over costs - its just that money used to pay interest on debt isn't considered "profit" in neoclassical economics.
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Your flea market example on your blog was good. The first thing I thought was: Who owns the damn market and why are they renting all the lots to the same company?I don't know, maybe because that one company offered a 5% increase in what they were willing to pay, in order to gain the flea market monopoly? Or maybe they just filled the waiting list with the names of every company partner and the market didn't know they were all really affiliated. Doesn't matter how, the system allows for it to happen.
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Someone should set up a flea market next door and rent to a variety of people because that’s why people go to flea markets anyway.assuming there is space next door, and anyone has the capital to clear and pave that space and set up tents and an office etc...
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Even in this scenario you cannot guarantee that “each seller does better than break even” for a million different reasons.Did you mean the opposite of what you said? Under perfect competition (granted, rarely 100% possible) no one is able to make profit, because someone else will undercut them on price right down to the break even point (but obviously not further).
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031815/why-are-there-no-profits-perfectly-competitive-market.asp (http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031815/why-are-there-no-profits-perfectly-competitive-market.asp)
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I think your basically describing a monopoly, which can’t exist for the reasons listed above without help from the government.Well, or an oligopoly, which also benefits from government help - and which more or less describes the modern American economy.
"11,000 independent pharmacies have closed since 1990. Independent bookstores have fallen from 58 percent of book sales in 1972 to just 17 percent today. Local hardware dealers are on the decline, while two companies have captured 30 percent of the market. Blockbuster rents one out of three videos nationwide. Five firms control one-third of the grocery market, up from 19 percent just five years ago. A single firm, Wal-Mart, now accounts for 7 percent of all consumer spending."
https://ilsr.org/impact-chain-stores-community/ (https://ilsr.org/impact-chain-stores-community/)
Mind you, that quote is from 17 years ago. The trends have of course continued (this before the rise of Amazon), although I can't find more recent data.
(https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2007-census-percapita-1024x528.jpg)
This is 10 years old, doesn't include restaurants, and considers having 10 locations as "independent", so again, the current reality is much more lopsided than even this shows.
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We agree on getting government distortions out of the market.But would you agree that granting and enforcing corporate charters is in itself a form of market distortion?
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I was really hoping you would define profit better; especially when it comes to interest. I would deduct the cost of hiring a manager in the open market. If my company makes $50k a year and to hiring a manager would cost me $50k a year, then I made no profit. My question then becomes: If you have an idea and no money how are you going to get the money you need? Take on debt? This is why I need to know if you consider interest profit.Do you mean interest you pay, or interest you make?
My answer to your question is this: start small.
When I graduated college, and the position I got hired for which I had spent months applying for and dropped out of several other application processes for first said I was hired, and then had an unexpected funding cut and withdrew the job offer, I had nothing but an idea, my (personal) truck that I bought on Craigslist for $2000, and a tiny toolbox of basic screwdrivers and wrenches.
I put an add on craigslist that I could help someone out with small deliveries or getting rid of junk for $10 per hour plus $1 per mile. After a couple weeks I saved enough from those jobs to buy a dolly, and started charging $15 and then $20. After someone noticed the toolbox and asked if I could install the fridge I had just delivered, they then asked if I could do a number of other things around the house, I realized I had repair skills the average person doesn't, and I started explicitly listing "handyman" on my (still free on Craigslist) ads.
Over the next ten years I gradually expanded my toolkit - almost always buying a tool only if the specific job I needed it for would pay for it in full. I didn't even have a website until I had been doing it a couple years. I learned enough basic html to build and maintain it myself, and pay $25 per year for the server space. I still drive the same 30 year old truck. I have never paid for advertising. I am insured and a certified green business.
A friend of mine wanted to have a plant nursery, and started growing plants in her backyard. She sold them at the fleamarket until finding a independent retail location that was looking to expand into selling rare urban garden food crops. That same location hosted a little coffee pushcart for a couple that didn't have the capital for a retail location. I used to do bike repairs at the farmers market across the street from a guy who made vegan mexican food. For years he just went from market to market, until he finally bought a retail location, which has thrived at that spot ever since.
If your goal is to grow as fast as possible and capture significant market share and out-compete the biggest players in the field, then, yes, you need to take on debt and its accompanying risk.
However, if you simply want to be sustainable, and provide something of value to the community while providing income for yourself, more often than not large amounts of capital are not a prerequisite.
In the system I envision, one of the roles to government would be providing small subsidized start-up loans to low-risk business ventures, while, (just like in the early days when the concept was invented) corporate charters would be issued ONLY to those ventures which for some very specific reason could not realistically exist without a significant amount of capital (an aircraft manufacturer, for example). There would have to be a concrete and specific explanation of how the existence of this corporation would be to the benefit of society in general, and (like the original corporate charters), it would have a specific end date (just like term limits on politicians :))
Furthermore, businesses would be limited to a single location, unless they were in an industry which by default necessitated multiple locations (transportation, utilities, and communications are probably the only 3 that qualify).
This would of course mean growth would slow enormously as we would lose a lot of efficiency.
Thing is, we already have enough total wealth! We don't really need to grow anymore. For a developing nation growth is important, but we are far past that stage. Now our major issue is distribution, and this change would even out wealth without needing to do anything to tax structures or any other form of active redistribution.
Hell, it would even go a very long way to dealing with the inevitable robot take over of employment. (haha, remember that topic!?)
Post by: GuitarStv on February 03, 2017, 10:58:58 AM
I agree there has been no absolute capitalist system in place
Why do you think that's the case? If capitalism is the system that should always be aimed for, why do you think it hasn't ever been implemented properly?
but there have been countries that have had a more capitalist system (Honk Kong, Post WWII Japan, USA) and the poorest in those contries have seen faster growth in their standards of living than less capitalist systems.
Putting aside for a moment that there are a myriad of other factors that come into play beyond 'how capitalist' a countries economic system is . . . The standard of living for the poorest in countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, etc. is higher than in Japan, the USA, and Hong Kong.
Wealth concentration is only a problem if that wealth can be used to buy favors from the government (crony-capitalism).
This is a ridiculous assertion.
Left to their own devices, companies will use their wealth to hurt competition. This is why there are anti-trust laws for virtually every industry. Price-fixing, monopoly through mergers, rigging bids, market division, etc. are all common problems associated with significant wealth creation. They are entirely caused by behavior of private companies in the free market.
I am not saying children aren't entitled to the fruits of their labor. I will argue that because of government regulations that have no choice but to accept the deal their parents are offering. It is illegal for a 13 year old child to work and provide for themselves.
In your ideal economic system there are no child labour laws?
Is there a duty of care that a parent owes a child?
If there is, then children are entitled to the fruits of the labour of their parents. If there isn't, then what would you do with the abandoned children problem you've just created?
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2017, 11:01:30 AM
I agree there has been no absolute capitalist system in place but there have been countries that have had a more capitalist system (Honk Kong, Post WWII Japan, USA) and the poorest in those countries have seen faster growth in their standards of living than less capitalist systems.
http://www.demos.org/blog/1/5/15/when-it-better-not-be-america (http://www.demos.org/blog/1/5/15/when-it-better-not-be-america)
Although, still a better example than Hong Kong:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/meet-people-poor-grow-hong-kong-160506173658237.html (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/meet-people-poor-grow-hong-kong-160506173658237.html)
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/cage-homes-hong-kong (http://all-that-is-interesting.com/cage-homes-hong-kong)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQkvI_J8_QI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQkvI_J8_QI)
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Our current system is on that scale too. My current tax rate all included is about 25%. The argument could be made that I own 75% of my labor and society owns 25% of my labor. I agree a balance is necessary.Part of my point is that wages are suppressed by our system. If the benefits of technology on productivity were distributed equally, you would make somewhere on the order of 2 to 10 times as much per hour. So, if you make $50 an hour, and keep $37 (after taxes), but you would hypothetically be making $100 and keeping $75, then really you only own 25% of your labor, society owns 25%, and the capital class that controls your job owns 50%
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Wealth concentration is only a problem if that wealth can be used to buy favors from the government (crony-capitalism).I think this is the exact point where we fundamentally disagree.
An independent software developer is not on an equal footing to compete with Apple, and the reason for that has nothing to do with "human capital", it is because of wealth concentration. Mr. Walton Sr. is no longer among the living, the reason Jim, John and Alice never have to work a day in their lives if they choose not to while being responsible for the closing of 100s of thousands of independent businesses is wealth concentration. The reason developing robots that can do tasks that humans are only willing to do if someone pays them is a potentially negative development instead of something to celebrate (early retirement for everyone!) is wealth concentration.
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I want to strip the government of their power to hand out these favors. There's nothing that a big corporation likes more than rules and regulations that create barriers of entry to keep out compitition (or tax breaks, subsidies, etc.)
On the one hand, there wouldn't be any big corporations with out the existence of government.
On the other hand, if you have no government at all, but you have individuals with massively more wealth than anyone else, that wealth can buy power in the form of guns and personnel etc. Government has a role to play - its just that it needs to be in counteracting the effects of wealth concentration, instead of encouraging it!
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2017, 11:06:33 AM
That makes them a special case. The idea of "altruism" does not apply to ones own offspring. For all intents and purposes, parent and child can be considered a single individual. It doesn't make sense to try to determine who gets the "better" deal in a "transaction" between them, because (most, normal) parents consider any benefit to the child to be of value to themselves.
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 01:26:46 PM
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Under a barter system, with no state intervention, there is no realistic way you are ever going to amass a million apples in the first place.
Your apple orchard will only contain as much land as you can personally defend.
This is my whole point about the difference between a free market and capitalism.
Having read your blog I am really trying to wrap my head around your vision and how it would work, what incentives it would cause and the potential outcome. If everyone owned only as much land as they can defend, would people be able to form partnerships/corporations? Without state intervention I think you would say they are allowed. Wouldn't the incentive be to going together to take advantage of the division of labor to become more productive?
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perhaps we disagree on what constitutes "necessary".
The open ended fallacy is real. Everyone draws the line in the sand in a different place.
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It is not "philosophical" at all, it is a simple example of what actually happens in real life:
This is where I have a hard time seeing your view. Why is it bad that Walmart is more efficient at delivering goods to customers?
Why is my senario not realistic? There is a general store down the street from my house and a Walmart <4 miles away. Not all stores close because of walmart, only the least efficient ones.
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Corporate bonds are where the WalMarts get the capital to undermine smaller businesses. In order to pay 4%, they have to be making at least 4% over costs - its just that money used to pay interest on debt isn't considered "profit" in neoclassical economics.
This is why I wanted to fine tune the definition of profit. Interest paid is a cost but interest recieved is profit? The would conflict with your view that people can still invest but without there being profit.
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I don't know, maybe because that one company offered a 5% increase in what they were willing to pay, in order to gain the flea market monopoly? Or maybe they just filled the waiting list with the names of every company partner and the market didn't know they were all really affiliated. Doesn't matter how, the system allows for it to happen.
In part two of your blog you mention that the internet has largly increased the transparency of information so in todays day and age I don't see how they don't know they are affiliated.
That is beside the point. Even if people know that every vendor is the same but they don't care as long as they are getting the products they want for the prices they want, where is the issue?
If you mean no one will have the means to buy anything, there is an issue. If no one can buy anything, our producer can not sell anything and the price is $0.
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assuming there is space next door, and anyone has the capital to clear and pave that space and set up tents and an office etc...
I think you underestimate the ability of people to work together. This is the real reason for corporations. Many individual people pooling capital reasorces to compete in the market and reduce individual risk. All our ousted renters could bind together and open a flea market.
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Did you mean the opposite of what you said? Under perfect competition (granted, rarely 100% possible) no one is able to make profit, because someone else will undercut them on price right down to the break even point (but obviously not further).
I meant what I said. Perfect market, no profits. I agree. In our situation, "every seller does better than break even". I call that profit, you call that salary but it doesn't matter if I am willing to work for less of a profit/salary. For example, say I am single you're are taking care of multiple people. I need less of a salary/profit than you do to survive. Eventually even our salary/profit goes to zero in a perfect market. What incentive do people have to even participate?
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Well, or an oligopoly, which also benefits from government help - and which more or less describes the modern American economy.
Any benefits given to any corporation over another by the government is wrong.
Mail order catalogs were out competing independent retail before walmart even existed. Then the market began to change and big box retail became the most efficient structure. Now it is moving online. Thomas Sowell wrote an excellent piece on this transformation in Basic Economics.
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But would you agree that granting and enforcing corporate charters is in itself a form of market distortion?
Yes they create market distortion. I think they are a vital part of how we have advanced to where we are today. Without the transfer of risk to the operators of the comany we would not enjoy the standard of living we do today.
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My answer to your question is this: start small.
Your story is inspirational. My dad is a small buisness owner. 2 man crew.
While I understand what your vision is trying to do, from my research, what I have seen is that the proit/loss system accomplishes your goal much more than the government deciding who wins and looses, who gets loans and who doesn't, who is considered low risk and who isn't, who is a benefit to society and who isn't. A couple russian economists wrote about it during the Soviet era. If I can find the name of the book I will let you know.
Waht happens to a corporation after there time runs out? Do they have to shut down? I would like to understand that a little better.
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 01:35:55 PM
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Why do you think that's the case? If capitalism is the system that should always be aimed for, why do you think it hasn't ever been implemented properly?
Million reasons, humans aren't perfect, people in power have a vested interest to keep it that way, etc.
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Putting aside for a moment that there are a myriad of other factors that come into play beyond 'how capitalist' a countries economic system is . . . The standard of living for the poorest in countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, etc. is higher than in Japan, the USA, and Hong Kong.
Based on what factors? The poor in the US have more square footage space than the average European.
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This is a ridiculous assertion.
Left to their own devices, companies will use their wealth to hurt competition. This is why there are anti-trust laws for virtually every industry. Price-fixing, monopoly through mergers, rigging bids, market division, etc. are all common problems associated with significant wealth creation. They are entirely caused by behavior of private companies in the free market.
How does this happen exactly? Once the rigging starts the bad actors allow more competition to enter the market. Once the prices are forced up marginal producers can now enter the market again. Think OPEC and shale.
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In your ideal economic system there are no child labour laws?
Is there a duty of care that a parent owes a child?
If there is, then children are entitled to the fruits of the labour of their parents. If there isn't, then what would you do with the abandoned children problem you've just created?
These are strawman arguments so I'm not going to waste my time. Where did I say no child labor laws?
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 01:49:55 PM
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Although, still a better example than Hong Kong:
Your first link showing the statistics we can argue about all day. Household data doesn't home much water for me an well as income distribution data. They are snapshots in time and do not account for the number of household in each group or the change in households over time or the average age in each household or income group. All those things effect income distribution among many other. I see how people draw the conclusions they do from that data but I think they data doesn't say waht they think it does. Look at the U of M income data and it draws a different picture. They follow people through thier lifetimes.
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Part of my point is that wages are suppressed by our system. If the benefits of technology on productivity were distributed equally, you would make somewhere on the order of 2 to 10 times as much per hour. So, if you make $50 an hour, and keep $37 (after taxes), but you would hypothetically be making $100 and keeping $75, then really you only own 25% of your labor, society owns 25%, and the capital class that controls your job owns 50%
Not if I think I am being fairly compensated. Waht they sell my work for is not my concern. They also most likely add value in other ways such as sales networks, distribution networks, etc.
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I think this is the exact point where we fundamentally disagree.
I have to agree that this is where we disagree. How can you explain any new software being developed then. Facebook, Snapchat, Google, etc. All of them should have come from netscape or AOL based on your reasoning. They were the ones with capital back in the day.
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On the other hand, if you have no government at all, but you have individuals with massively more wealth than anyone else, that wealth can buy power in the form of guns and personnel etc. Government has a role to play - its just that it needs to be in counteracting the effects of wealth concentration, instead of encouraging it!
The same thing can happen under our apple senario. If I can get people to join together to divide labor, I will grow the apples and the other people guard the land. Boom I have a million apples.
Post by: Pooplips on February 03, 2017, 01:50:35 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on February 03, 2017, 03:51:42 PM
Children share DNA with their parents, and are essential to allowing the genes to survive more than 80-90 years.Very interesting point. I may have to think about this, but I think I agree with the basic premise.
That makes them a special case. The idea of "altruism" does not apply to ones own offspring. For all intents and purposes, parent and child can be considered a single individual. It doesn't make sense to try to determine who gets the "better" deal in a "transaction" between them, because (most, normal) parents consider any benefit to the child to be of value to themselves.
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2017, 03:57:43 PM
would people be able to form partnershipsYes. Although probably not "limited liability" ones. You want the benefits of pooling resources, you should be prepared to take on the risk as well.
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/corporations?No. Corporations are fundamentally and dramatically different from partnerships, both in legal definition and in scale in practice.
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Without state intervention I think you would say they are allowed.I find it impossible to imagine a realistic scenario in which thousands of people would be willing to lend resources to a remote and anonymous group of business people if there were no legal mechanism in place to enforce the promise of getting a proportional amount of the company's value back again.Real time commerce can exist without government intervention, and I may be willing to trust local folk with a promise of future payment for goods today, but something as large, abstract, and diffuse as a stock market just wouldn't happen.
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Wouldn't the incentive be to going together to take advantage of the division of labor to become more productive?I'm all for coops, worker owned collectives, and partnerships. 50% of households are lived in by the owner, and I'd like to see that at closer to 90%. Similarly, I see no inherent reason that at least 50%, if not 90%, of workers couldn't have at least partial ownership of their workplace.
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This is where I have a hard time seeing your view. Why is it bad that Walmart is more efficient at delivering goods to customers?That depends on your goal. If your goal is simply maximization of gross GDP for it's own sake, then it is not only not bad, it is very good.However, if your goal is to allow everyone in society to benefit from economic activity more or less equally, then it is bad because ultimately, through degradation of the local job market, wealth gets skimmed from the local community and concentrated in the hands of investors.That's the whole point of investing in stock, right? That you get a percentage of every transaction. How could that not effect the distribution of wealth that the transaction creates?
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Why is my scenario not realistic? There is a general store down the street from my house and a Walmart <4 miles away. Not all stores close because of walmart, only the least efficient ones.
no, not 100%, but the links show that it is a pretty significant amount. If 50% of shops close, and a single retailer then gets that 50% of market share, that is still a huge step toward oligopoly.
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This is why I wanted to fine tune the definition of profit. Interest paid is a cost but interest received is profit? The would conflict with your view that people can still invest but without there being profit.
The way our system is set up, interest paid is considered a business cost, however I personally don't subscribe to that view. If one chooses to use a loan as a way to expand faster than they can naturally, the cost they pay is for the privilege of out-competing those with less capital, it is not an inherent cost of having production. I don't think they should be able to (for example) write that off gross income for tax purposes.
Interest received is unearned income. I'm not sure where I gave the impression that I am particularly in favor of people earning unearned income.
Personally I'm not religious, but it is interesting to note that Jews, Christians and Muslims are all forbidden by the bible (or their version of it) from collecting interest on loans (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:36).
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That is beside the point. Even if people know that every vendor is the same but they don't care as long as they are getting the products they want for the prices they want, where is the issue?
"People" (customers) don't have a say in the matter. The market vendor makes that call unilaterally.
Customers weren't consulted when, for example, some 40 media, communication, entertainment, and news agencies were turned into the single behemoth AOLTimeWarner.
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I think you underestimate the ability of people to work together.Well, again - in favor of partnerships, cooperatives, and collectives.
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This is the real reason for corporations. Many individual people pooling capital resources to compete in the market and reduce individual risk. All our ousted renters could bind together and open a flea market.But there comes a point where the only way to compete with the multi-national corporation is to become a multinational corporation. So all the ousted renters form one giant company - now consumers have a total of 2 choices in town. More than just one, yes, but still much less than the dozens or hundreds they had to begin with.
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I meant what I said. Perfect market, no profits. I agree. In our situation, "every seller does better than break even". I call that profit, you call that salary but it doesn't matter if I am willing to work for less of a profit/salary. For example, say I am single you're are taking care of multiple people. I need less of a salary/profit than you do to survive. Eventually even our salary/profit goes to zero in a perfect market. What incentive do people have to even participate?The theory holds that it will only go so low as what you could potentially make doing something else, so it would not go to zero.
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Well, or an oligopoly, which also benefits from government help - and which more or less describes the modern American economy.
Any benefits given to any corporation over another by the government is wrong.
You misunderstood me - I mean that the very state of oligopoly would not exist without the presence of government, and its implicit promise to enforce - ultimately with force if necessary - the issued stock certificates.
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Agreed, totally!QuoteBut would you agree that granting and enforcing corporate charters is in itself a form of market distortion?
Yes they create market distortion. I think they are a vital part of how we have advanced to where we are today. Without the transfer of risk to the operators of the comany we would not enjoy the standard of living we do today.
I acknowledged the value our system provides to a developing economy, in raising GDP as fast as possible.
The US today no longer suffers from a lack of caw wealth though, so it is time to change gears from "growth" to "sustainability". Infinite growth is intrinsically not sustainable.
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While I understand what your vision is trying to do, from my research, what I have seen is that the proit/loss system accomplishes your goal much more than the government deciding who wins and looses, who gets loans and who doesn't, who is considered low risk and who isn't, who is a benefit to society and who isn't.
My mistake, I know government tends to be a boogy man. I was anticipating a direction that didn't happen. Lets just say, for purposes of simplicity, that I'm suggesting a limit on ownership of means of economic production to that which an individual can directly manage - one location per owner, similar to my suggestion for land ownership of one person one parcel
(which has a nice ring to it, maybe someday I'll start a campaign. Not exactly the right political climate at the moment...)QuoteWaht happens to a corporation after there time runs out? Do they have to shut down? I would like to understand that a little better.well, yeah. Once whatever purpose they were created for has been accomplished. Is there any particular advantage to society to have these entities - which have the rights of a human, distribute profits to specific humans, yet none of the humans can be held accountable for "its" (their collective) actions, and whose only motive is to make maximum money - to exist forever? Not even actual humans get to live forever.
Post by: theadvicist on February 08, 2017, 09:59:49 AM
What really happened when Swedes tried six-hour days?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341
Post by: maizefolk on February 08, 2017, 10:33:50 AM
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"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear,"
Thanks for linking to it!
In glummer writing from around the web (more glum?):
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The best research to date indicates that 47 percent of all U.S. jobs are likely to be replaced by technology over the next 10 to 15 years, more than 80 million in all, according to the Bank of England.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/coming-technology-will-likely-destroy-millions-of-jobs-is-trump-ready/2017/02/08/db97d8b4-ecb6-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html
... human disruption caused by the Industrial Revolution in Britain lasted 60 to 90 years, depending on the historical research. That is a long time for society to “right” itself, and lot of personal pain.
Post by: Pooplips on February 08, 2017, 12:03:20 PM
I also wonder what great future achievements we may lose by changing that structure and/or all the people we might help with those potential achievements? You agreed that changing that structure would slow grown and efficiency in the market.
Post by: Schaefer Light on February 08, 2017, 02:39:36 PM
Interesting how there's a clear split described in that article.Quote"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear,"
I think what would really happen is that companies would pay their workers 25% less (and possibly take away many of their benefits) while demanding the same output.
Post by: jordanread on February 08, 2017, 03:04:23 PM
Article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
And at least they are keeping benefits.
Post by: theadvicist on February 09, 2017, 01:41:08 AM
Interesting how there's a clear split described in that article.Quote"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear,"
Yes, the article says it wouldn't be so suitable for office workers as they might have to cram 8 hours work into 6 hours, and take it home. I imagine they'll (we'll?!) just all spend less time faffing about on the internet...
I think what would really happen is that companies would pay their workers 25% less (and possibly take away many of their benefits) while demanding the same output.
I imagine they would pay 25% less, but also expect 25% less work (because they would employ more people ot make up the difference. The model of employment here in the UK is kind of different, because 'benefits' aren't really a thing. It costs employers your salary + National Insurance contributions (I think you would call them payroll taxes in the US). Everything else - basic sick pay, 4 weeks paid holiday are enshrined in law, regardless of how many hours someone works, so you don't end up with this big split between 'part-time' and 'full-time' and artificial incentives for businesses to not pay benefits, or employees to work full-time when they don't really want to.
I increasingly see people reducing their hours here (probably because I'm at an age when friends are becoming parents). One couple (after a year's leave in which the mother took 9 months, the father 3), have both gone back 80%. So they get 80% of their salaries, and work 80% of their previous hours. All parents here have the right to request flexible working terms (whilst children are under a certain age, or up to 18 if they have disabilities, though the business doesn't have to agree).
It's just quite a different system, but I think it will adapt to fewer hours and more people employed more easily, because there isn't this divide with full-time / part-time / benefits. You actually cannot treat a part-time employee any differently than a full-time employee here by law.
(Some companies obviously other benefits such as company cars, pensions etc. But they are basically salary sacrifice arrangements made at the start of your employment. They're prepared to spend x employing you, how it comes to you is often up for negotiation. But a job wouldn't be considered 'with benefits' or not. We all have health care, and a state pension. A job = salary and maybe a few perks such as more paid parental leave above the statutory amount).
Post by: Pooplips on February 09, 2017, 06:15:08 AM
Post by: Schaefer Light on February 09, 2017, 06:39:53 AM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. I guess my issue with this type of experiment is that it's based on time instead of results. What if a person can produce the same results in 25% less time? Should they be paid less? I don't think so.
Post by: sol on February 09, 2017, 08:38:27 AM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
This is the most depressing worldview I have encountered so far this week.
Is there any chance that you might someday learn to value anything besides money?
Post by: Pooplips on February 09, 2017, 11:06:31 AM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
This is the most depressing worldview I have encountered so far this week.
Is there any chance that you might someday learn to value anything besides money?
You can't legislate values, morals, etc. Those are cultural phenomenon and changing culture is extremely difficult. It may be a depressing worldview but that doesn't make it less of a reality.
Post by: GuitarStv on February 09, 2017, 01:01:01 PM
I'm actually interested in the results of Amazon's experiment with it.
Article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/26/amazon-is-piloting-teams-with-a-30-hour-work-week/)
And at least they are keeping benefits.
Hmm. That's quite a departure from the extremely long hours and terrible work/life balance that they're notorious for.
Post by: theadvicist on February 09, 2017, 02:55:51 PM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. I guess my issue with this type of experiment is that it's based on time instead of results. What if a person can produce the same results in 25% less time? Should they be paid less? I don't think so.
But, if they can produce the same in 75% of the time, doesn't that mean they were wasting time before?
Post by: tomsang on February 09, 2017, 02:58:08 PM
"Almost 250,000 public sector workers could lose their jobs to robots over the next 15 years, according to a new report which claims machines would be more efficient and save billions of pounds."
Alexander Hitchcock, the report’s co-author, said: “Such a rapid advance in the use of technology may seem controversial, and any job losses must be handled sensitively. But the result would be public services that are better, safer, smarter and more affordable.”
Post by: AZryan on February 09, 2017, 03:06:43 PM
Quote from: Pooplips
You can't legislate values, morals, etc.
Morals/values are essentially exactly what legislation is. We create laws to help us all get along and make things morally 'fair'... at least in theory. In reality, plenty of laws are biased and corrupt, but the intention is supposed to be to keep people from cheating others and infringing on other people's inherent rights'.
That was the argument both for and against slavery (despite the former getting morality so horrifically wrong).
Defining 'what is morally right' creates legislation defining our 'rights'.
We still do this now where we say alcohol is legal, pot is illegal. Assisted suicide is illegal -literally legislating that horrific suffering is morally right, or better, than ending someone's pain upon their own wishes for themselves.
Quote from: Pooplips
Those are cultural phenomenon and changing culture is extremely difficult. It may be a depressing worldview but that doesn't make it less of a reality.
The 'changing culture is extremely difficult' part doesn't negate that that's what laws actually do.
Murder, theft, gay marriage, which drugs are legal or not, smoking in restaurants, monopoly laws, price-fixing, 'right to work'... mountains of legislated morality make easy examples, but I'd argue that basically EVERY law is a reflection of 'claimed' morality. And if we ever get all our laws morally right, we'll find ourselves living under the best government/legislation possible.
Post by: pdxmonkey on February 10, 2017, 12:52:22 AM
It is all that matters though. If we as humanity are spending more per unit output for item x of quality y than necessary we are then not spending that on something else. Like feeding the poor or something. Ultimately lowest cost per unit leads to highest average lifestyle. Especially if robots are doing all the work.Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
This is the most depressing worldview I have encountered so far this week.
Is there any chance that you might someday learn to value anything besides money?
Post by: Pooplips on February 10, 2017, 07:52:28 AM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. I guess my issue with this type of experiment is that it's based on time instead of results. What if a person can produce the same results in 25% less time? Should they be paid less? I don't think so.
But, if they can produce the same in 75% of the time, doesn't that mean they were wasting time before?
It could. I think there was a person in the article that said he felt like he just kept getting more and more behind and felt more stress about it.
Post by: Pooplips on February 10, 2017, 08:00:18 AM
Quote from: PooplipsYou can't legislate values, morals, etc.
Morals/values are essentially exactly what legislation is. We create laws to help us all get along and make things morally 'fair'... at least in theory. In reality, plenty of laws are biased and corrupt, but the intention is supposed to be to keep people from cheating others and infringing on other people's inherent rights'.
That was the argument both for and against slavery (despite the former getting morality so horrifically wrong).
Defining 'what is morally right' creates legislation defining our 'rights'.
We still do this now where we say alcohol is legal, pot is illegal. Assisted suicide is illegal -literally legislating that horrific suffering is morally right, or better, than ending someone's pain upon their own wishes for themselves.
I meant you can't legislate the value's of the market. You can't legislate companies to not be concerned with cost per unit output. Please try to read my comments in the context they were intented to be read.
Yes, laws against murder determine the morals/values of society.
Post by: Schaefer Light on February 10, 2017, 09:32:24 AM
Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. I guess my issue with this type of experiment is that it's based on time instead of results. What if a person can produce the same results in 25% less time? Should they be paid less? I don't think so.
But, if they can produce the same in 75% of the time, doesn't that mean they were wasting time before?
I disagree with the premise of your argument. Time is not the way to measure productivity.
Post by: mm1970 on February 10, 2017, 10:33:27 AM
Not necessarily. It depends on how you define "wasting time". There have been many studies that show diminishing returns after a certain # of hours. (Depending on the type of work.)Cost per Unit Output - is all that really matters in the grand scheme of things.
Agreed. I guess my issue with this type of experiment is that it's based on time instead of results. What if a person can produce the same results in 25% less time? Should they be paid less? I don't think so.
But, if they can produce the same in 75% of the time, doesn't that mean they were wasting time before?
Shift workers who work 12 hour shifts start to lose focus.
White collar workers show drastically diminishing efficiency after 50 hours a week.
Other studies have shown that efficiency decreases after 6 hours per day.
In some cases, it's just time to rest, regroup, whatever. I found that when I was working 6 to 6.5 hours a day (when I had babies), that I was ultra-efficient. But then, I had an extra 1.5 to 2 hours a day to ... sleep, play with the kids, grocery shop, cook, go to dr's appointments, whatever. All of that meant that I was able to be extra efficient during my 6 hours, and frankly, if the two people who were "talkers" would come into my cube I would usher them out.
Working 8 hours a day, or 10 extra hours a week, means that my mind wandered a bit more, consumed with "other things", and frankly, as the day goes on I got more tired and less able to focus.
Post by: mm1970 on February 10, 2017, 10:36:37 AM
Interesting how there's a clear split described in that article.Quote"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear,"
I think what would really happen is that companies would pay their workers 25% less (and possibly take away many of their benefits) while demanding the same output.
This is interesting because it's a slippery slope. The whole "many jobs you can't just let go when you go home" is how companies can require employees to work 45 hours a week, or 60, or be on call, etc. I've had those jobs, and a lot of it is just poor training. Even when I was a manager of a group of engineers that kept the manufacturing floor running 24/7 (so 4 of my 6 engineers worked nights and weekends), I *rarely* got phone calls after hours after the first few months. It was my JOB to teach them how to handle things without me.
If there is not a border between work and personal life, the boss needs to learn boundaries, or you need to set them. An occasional "oh crap" or "deadline" is fine. But if the expectation is to work until midnight every night? Nope.
Post by: AlanStache on February 11, 2017, 08:13:43 AM
Interesting how there's a clear split described in that article.Quote"I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave [the workplace] and go home.
"It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear,"
I think what would really happen is that companies would pay their workers 25% less (and possibly take away many of their benefits) while demanding the same output.
This is interesting because it's a slippery slope. The whole "many jobs you can't just let go when you go home" is how companies can require employees to work 45 hours a week, or 60, or be on call, etc. I've had those jobs, and a lot of it is just poor training. Even when I was a manager of a group of engineers that kept the manufacturing floor running 24/7 (so 4 of my 6 engineers worked nights and weekends), I *rarely* got phone calls after hours after the first few months. It was my JOB to teach them how to handle things without me.
If there is not a border between work and personal life, the boss needs to learn boundaries, or you need to set them. An occasional "oh crap" or "deadline" is fine. But if the expectation is to work until midnight every night? Nope.
yes. When I have had people working under me I have always tried to look at it as the highest level of productivity is when they are as productive as possible even if it costs me time in the short run. One hour of my time to make four people more competent will break even very quickly and be efficiency positive forever after.
Post by: Threshkin on February 12, 2017, 08:38:06 AM
...snip...
Murder, theft, gay marriage, which drugs are legal or not, smoking in restaurants, monopoly laws, price-fixing, 'right to work'... mountains of legislated morality make easy examples, but I'd argue that basically EVERY law is a reflection of 'claimed' morality. And if we ever get all our laws morally right, we'll find ourselves living under the best government/legislation possible.
The problem with this is that there are many different opinions on what is "morally right".
Here are a few (hot) examples:
- Aborton
- Homosexuality
- Poligamy
- Sex with minors
- The age of majority
- Slavery
- Free speech
For each of these examples there are groups of people with widely different opinions regarding what is "morally right". Any law favoring one group will be considered unjust by another group.
Post by: tomsang on February 13, 2017, 07:58:43 AM
Interesting article.
Post by: tomsang on February 13, 2017, 07:47:32 PM
Elon Musk talking about the need for basic income and your meaning in life while technology replaces jobs.
"I think we'll end up doing universal basic income," Musk told the crowd at the World Government Summit in Dubai, according to Fast Company. "It's going to be necessary."
"If there's no need for your labor, what's your meaning?" Musk said. "Do you feel useless? That's a much harder problem to deal with."
Post by: Mr Mark on February 13, 2017, 10:33:12 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-doubles-down-universal-175300665.html
Elon Musk talking about the need for basic income and your meaning in life while technology replaces jobs.
"I think we'll end up doing universal basic income," Musk told the crowd at the World Government Summit in Dubai, according to Fast Company. "It's going to be necessary."
"If there's no need for your labor, what's your meaning?" Musk said. "Do you feel useless? That's a much harder problem to deal with."
I think this is one of the best things I got out of MMM. We will have to change the whole education system, which is still based on essentially a Victorian model of teaching kids for a life as workers in factories. The entire USA sometimes seems nothing more than a gigantic (and tremendously clever and efficient) version of "the company store" where people are encouraged to spend more than they earn and then are enslaved by debt.
Many of the negative reactions to stories of (FI)RE like ARS's or MMM seem to be people unable to relate to a life that is not just about work and consumption.
How do you raise your kids as a result?
Post by: Leisured on February 14, 2017, 12:17:54 AM
This has happened before. In the ancient world landowners could live comfortably without working, as they can today. The difference now is that an entire society can move up that level, with machines taking the place of workers and peasants.
The existing upper class is a rentier society, being paid for the use of their capital. All people in a future automated society, receiving a Universal Basic Income, would be similar to rentiers, using the term rentier loosely. The challenge is to make a UBI acceptable, even normal.
Post by: tomsang on February 14, 2017, 08:30:51 AM
The existing upper class is a rentier society, being paid for the use of their capital. All people in a future automated society, receiving a Universal Basic Income, would be similar to rentiers, using the term rentier loosely. The challenge is to make a UBI acceptable, even normal.
The challenge is that corporations and the very richest people have undue influence on our policies, taxes, laws, etc. For there to be a society where everyone benefits from these technological breakthroughs these ideals will need to be enacted into laws, taxes, policies, etc. The GOP appears to be taking us backwards in this realm as they are pushing to lower taxes on corporations and the wealthiest, they are pushing to remove the estate tax, they are pushing to remove regulations on our environment, and they are pushing to reduce the penalties imposed by bad behavior. They are pushing for everyone to earn their own money and portraying that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs are not sustainable while pushing to reduce the taxes that fund these programs. The GOP is doing a brilliant job at convincing people to vote for things that are not in the best interest of the 99% and that consolidate wealth and power to the top 1% or .1%.(IE eliminating the estate tax and reducing taxes on the wealthiest)
So we have a long ways to go, but as more and more jobs go away with technology and automation maybe people will wake up for what they have been voting for and supporting. Unfortunately, a lot of the policies and legal effects occurring today will have a long term effect on society. Those with the power will not want to reduce their wealth or power without a fight.
Post by: tomsang on February 17, 2017, 09:06:08 AM
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2883522/tech-billionaire-issues-stark-warning-to-human-race-saying-artificial-intellgence-could-destroy-human-race-which-is-already-part-cyborg-because-of-its-dependence-on-smartphones/
Post by: mxt0133 on February 17, 2017, 09:15:52 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg)
I'm having a hard time seeing how this would work and where the lines are drawn. Right now we already have robots that replace human workers and automated assembly lines. We also have software that have eliminated millions of jobs, will software or AI be taxed as well?
Post by: arebelspy on February 18, 2017, 07:51:20 PM
It's the beginning of a conversation.
Putting the thought out there, so people think more about robots doing the work, and what that world will look like.
A transition to UBI will take a mental shift for a lot of people. Putting out the idea that the robot laborers will be paying for it is more of an idea than an actual plan.
Post by: svennman on February 19, 2017, 12:35:45 PM
Surely a society where everyone works only if they want to and what they want to work with (looking after fluffy bunnies, restoring old cars etc) or pursuing other, hopefully enlightening, activities would be the STAR TREK society we dreamt about from the 1960's onwards. It is not that we seem to be no where closer to that dream it is that most people seem to think it is a nightmare that will steal their current life away (even though they say they hate the 9-5 or 24/7 work ethic that the modern world demands).
I get it, work creates discipline and most of us can really go off the rails when you take that away. It is like giving us all an all you can eat and all the alcohol you can drink buffet - the results aren't pretty. But is that a reason to cling to a world where we work more and more to be able to buy more stuff to make this liveable and use up the resources of the earth faster and faster as we must have economic growth to fuel this whole treadmill.
I am not saying that it is easy to get from where we are now to a world where everyone retires at 0 (not 30) in terms of what you HAVE to do to survive. What I am sad about is that few people seem to think that is desirable. Idle hands ..... well Elon isn't idle and even though he works 100 hours a day he doesn't think the rest of the work should need to. A world of robots can free us, don't fear the future embrace it and shape it to what you want it to be let's truly move into the post industrial age and gain the benefits of lower consumption and enough for all, created through the efficiencies that technology can offer us.
Post by: maizefolk on February 19, 2017, 12:43:11 PM
I'd describe the range of opinions in this thread being from those who think it is not possible to those who think it is both possible, inevitable, imminent. I'm somewhere in between thinking that it is possible, but neither inevitable, and that even if we get to a world where no one HAS to work, that there is likely to be a lot of pain and suffering on the road from here to there.
Post by: svennman on February 19, 2017, 01:12:23 PM
Just like with genetic engineering we need MUCH better educated citizens with the knowledge and time to make reasoned choices. Look at the current madness. UK wants to block immigrants as does the US, unless robots are able to completely replace human in a short time these countries will be begging immigrants to come. I live in a country that have accepted about a million immigrants (from a base of only about 8 million people in the 80's). This will help to keep Sweden vibrant, yes there are problems, but it's like the pain that a teenager goes through when growing, necessary for growing into a healthy adult. Free education for all and a generous safety net that all (or almost all) are happy to pay for. Then people don't need to fear the future. That doesn't seem where the US and the UK are going and I feel grateful that I can live in a country that seems to be getting ready for the future and not clinging to the past.
Anyway, maizeman that is why I feel frustrated. Even where I am things seem to be slow to head in the right direction and globally I fear for the consequences of the fear of citizens for the future and what their fear might drive their politicians to do. The world doesn't seem to be becoming more open and trusting, if you don't agree wait until you next cross the border and either aren't allowed back in or have to give over every username and password to your online accounts ("just for your own safety").
Post by: maizefolk on February 19, 2017, 04:23:54 PM
People tend to imagine the future being fundamentally quite similar to the present. Or they imagine new tech, but not the social implications of that tech. There is a fascinating twitter feed (I forget where I heard about it, apologies if it was actually this same thread) which just shows short split screen videos of people working at jobs and robots doing the exact same jobs: https://twitter.com/HumanVsMachine Another good thought provoking story on the same topic is a short story called "Manna" by Brian Marshall, which deals with both the potential negative and potential positive outcomes in a world where there are not jobs for most human beings.
I've found both that series of videos and the short story good ways to get people I know ITRW to start thinking about these ideas and concepts seriously.
Post by: svennman on February 19, 2017, 06:50:21 PM
Post by: Captain and Mrs Slow on February 20, 2017, 06:21:59 AM
Post by: jordanread on February 20, 2017, 06:29:01 AM
Interesting, haven't read the whole thread but there is another side that isn't discussed too much. How companies are using AI to replace middle management jobs. The example I saw was a Japanese insurance company which used AI to replace the people who processed the claims, a job that before couldn,t be replaced. The article went on to state that a typical large insurance company could replace1/3 to 1/2 the workers, serrious numbers
Yeah, we've discussed that here. Essentially, middle management jobs are probably more likely to be replaced first partially because while the total amount paid to middle managers is similar to the total amount paid to the front line minimum wage type employees, the number of actually people affected are smaller. Save the same amount of money, less outcry.
Post by: boarder42 on February 20, 2017, 10:31:02 AM
The smartest and most industrious men in the world see it. we whould elect musk or gates to be president.
Post by: tomsang on February 22, 2017, 05:20:53 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/mark-cuban-basic-income-worst-response-to-job-losses-from-robots-ai.html
Thanks,
Tom
Post by: Mr Mark on February 22, 2017, 10:34:33 PM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Post by: arebelspy on February 23, 2017, 01:07:23 AM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
Post by: Mr Mark on February 23, 2017, 04:30:52 AM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
How do you stop it tho'? If a 20 yr old knows they have (say) a $1000/mnth UBI coming for the rest of their life, what stops them getting a big loan, the payments for which are exactly 1000/mnth?
Post by: boarder42 on February 23, 2017, 05:38:09 AM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
How do you stop it tho'? If a 20 yr old knows they have (say) a $1000/mnth UBI coming for the rest of their life, what stops them getting a big loan, the payments for which are exactly 1000/mnth?
what would stop it would be a rule that your UBI cant be garnished to pay defaulted loans. meaning the risk for the lender would be too great
Post by: theadvicist on February 23, 2017, 05:38:36 AM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
How do you stop it tho'? If a 20 yr old knows they have (say) a $1000/mnth UBI coming for the rest of their life, what stops them getting a big loan, the payments for which are exactly 1000/mnth?
Well, you could require lenders to have proof of income above UBI and only allow lending on the extra portion.
Or you could just... let them?
I mean, you can find fault or people who will try to game any system. UBI wouldn't be inventing that. It might not eliminate it either, but it's no worse than any other, to my mind.
Post by: Mr Mark on February 23, 2017, 05:55:33 AM
However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
How do you stop it tho'? If a 20 yr old knows they have (say) a $1000/mnth UBI coming for the rest of their life, what stops them getting a big loan, the payments for which are exactly 1000/mnth?
Well, you could require lenders to have proof of income above UBI and only allow lending on the extra portion.
Or you could just... let them?
I mean, you can find fault or people who will try to game any system. UBI wouldn't be inventing that. It might not eliminate it either, but it's no worse than any other, to my mind.
Yeah I agree there will always be issues and that should not necessarily stop a policy from helping the vast majority. It's just that UBI will almost certainly replace all other payments - SS, welfare, food stamps, etc.
Having just read the horror stories from the recent 'overheard at work' thread before I made the comment I was feeling there are a lot of people who would just blow the whole cash flow on a holiday and several new SUVs... and then have their hand out when surprise they have nothing left.
Post by: Metric Mouse on February 23, 2017, 08:34:10 AM
You wouldn't be able to stop it. Would one want to, though? Isn't that the point of UBI?However, would you allow people to mortgage their UBI? I could see companies lining up to offer people cash lump sums in exchange for their UBI... and we'd be back where we started, as we get now with payday and car title loan sharks.
Isn't this answered by what we do with SS, for example?
No. No you wouldn't.
:)
How do you stop it tho'? If a 20 yr old knows they have (say) a $1000/mnth UBI coming for the rest of their life, what stops them getting a big loan, the payments for which are exactly 1000/mnth?
Post by: sol on February 23, 2017, 08:51:45 AM
You wouldn't be able to stop it. Would one want to, though? Isn't that the point of UBI?
How to stop the exploitive loan, not how to stop the UBI payments to the individual.
Post by: robartsd on February 23, 2017, 11:36:01 AM
what would stop it would be a rule that your UBI cant be garnished to pay defaulted loans. meaning the risk for the lender would be too greatYes, simply by making rules where UBI is noncollectable by lenders would make lenders look for proof of other income or other means of securing the debt.
Mark Cuban does not like UBI.Mark Cuban agrees that we need to fix the disincentive to work and reduce overhead costs; UBI seems to be the leading idea to solve those problems with our current system. I'd love to year Mark Cuban's ideas that he thinks would work better.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/mark-cuban-basic-income-worst-response-to-job-losses-from-robots-ai.html
Thanks,
Tom
I could easily see a structure where benefits are reduced gradually as income goes up to provide the recipient with a similar portion of each dollar earned as middle earners keep of their marginal income; but the more complicated calculating the benefits becomes, the more difficult it is to control overhead costs. I suppose one could argue that we'll be able to reduce overhead costs using the technology of the AI/automation revolution, but I'm not sure who would actually be motivated enough to get it done.
Post by: sol on February 23, 2017, 11:42:53 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/no-robots-arent-killing-the-american-dream.html
Basically, they're pointing out that the American economy has gradually slowed down since WWII, and that this isn't the fault of technology but of politics. Technological advances have been killing jobs for centuries, but it's only in the past few decades that we've really decided to let those advances increase unemployment, suppress wages, and aggregate wealth at the top. Those consequences are all dictated by our policy decisions, not the technologies themselves.
So maybe "blame the robots" is just another scapegoat designed to distract us from America's gradual shift towards deliberate oligarchy? We've continuously eroded worker protections and undermined the middle class in order to enrich the wealthiest 0.1% of our citizens. Robots have been one tool in that process, but they're probably not the driving force. Tax rates that favor the wealthy, shifting from pensions to 401k plans, disbanding labor unions, and curtailing the minimum wage are probably more responsible for these shifts than are increased worker productivity. The economy isn't slowly stagnating because there is less work for people to do, it is stagnating because we've throttled demand by impoverishing consumers.
Interestingly, they also make the point that "blame the robots" (from the left) is just another form of "blame the immigrants" (from the right). They're both misdirections, politically useful scapegoats designed to obscure the fact that our real problems are all related to the carefully orchestrated consolidation of all economic gains to only the wealthiest Americans, enacted by both parties. Maybe "blame the rich" is a more accurate assessment.
I also like the fact that unlike most opinion pieces, this one actually makes some concrete suggestions on how to improve this situation, instead of just pontificating about how dire the problem is. They suggest
1. curbing corporate stock buyback programs
2. increasing tax rates on corporations and the wealthy, and using those taxes to retrain the workforce
3. legislating universal child care and elder care, to allow wage earners to work.
Post by: mozar on February 23, 2017, 12:58:39 PM
Post by: lightbulb on February 24, 2017, 06:00:59 AM
The NY Times opinion page suggests that robots are NOT to blame for our shifting economy. I think it's a pretty compelling argument (when applied retroactively, maybe less so when applied going forward).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/opinion/no-robots-arent-killing-the-american-dream.html
Basically, they're pointing out that the American economy has gradually slowed down since WWII, and that this isn't the fault of technology but of politics. Technological advances have been killing jobs for centuries, but it's only in the past few decades that we've really decided to let those advances increase unemployment, suppress wages, and aggregate wealth at the top. Those consequences are all dictated by our policy decisions, not the technologies themselves.
So maybe "blame the robots" is just another scapegoat designed to distract us from America's gradual shift towards deliberate oligarchy? We've continuously eroded worker protections and undermined the middle class in order to enrich the wealthiest 0.1% of our citizens. Robots have been one tool in that process, but they're probably not the driving force. Tax rates that favor the wealthy, shifting from pensions to 401k plans, disbanding labor unions, and curtailing the minimum wage are probably more responsible for these shifts than are increased worker productivity. The economy isn't slowly stagnating because there is less work for people to do, it is stagnating because we've throttled demand by impoverishing consumers.
Interestingly, they also make the point that "blame the robots" (from the left) is just another form of "blame the immigrants" (from the right). They're both misdirections, politically useful scapegoats designed to obscure the fact that our real problems are all related to the carefully orchestrated consolidation of all economic gains to only the wealthiest Americans, enacted by both parties. Maybe "blame the rich" is a more accurate assessment.
I also like the fact that unlike most opinion pieces, this one actually makes some concrete suggestions on how to improve this situation, instead of just pontificating about how dire the problem is. They suggest
1. curbing corporate stock buyback programs
2. increasing tax rates on corporations and the wealthy, and using those taxes to retrain the workforce
3. legislating universal child care and elder care, to allow wage earners to work.
Personally I tend to agree with this view. It also reminds me of this fairy tale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6IZi61qDj4
However, this being an elephant in the room wrt to the wellbeing of the society as a whole, it is my opinion that the scale and velocity of the (upcoming? [3]) automation is another elephant in the same room, especially within the context of the currently prevailing social contract, as they call it. Granted, my opinion is based on a relatively limited investigation of the subject, but as I see it, robots-wise we have enetred the upper part of the hockey stick, as Wait But Why explained it so vividly [1]. And hockey stick, i.e. exponential/compounding is beyond comprehension for the human, as Albert Bartlett explained it brilliantly in person on many, many occasions [2] (Note that he also pinpoints some other elephants in the room).
One anecdote on hockey stick: roughly a year ago I realised the driverless cars can become a reality and done some investigaiton to see when this will happen, next thing I know EU (my homeland) is planning to legally allow self-driving cars in 2019.
Another anecdote: recently there was awe on this topic as well on the AlphaGo humiliating the best human Go player, but more importantly a) it has done it relying on "AI intuition" (Go is still too complex for brute force with current technology) and b) some Go professionals following the duel were stunned - they did expect that computer will beat best human in Go eventually, but only in 10 years or more, not today.
My take from these investigations and experiences: things are going forward much, much faster than expected, as one would expect [sic!] from an exponential/hockey stick.
References (some are repeated for completeness, they have already been posted in this thread by other posters):
[1] Wait But Why. AI Revolution, http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html
[2] A.A. Bartlett. Arithmetic, Populaiton and Energy, http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_video1.html
[3] CGPGrey. Humans Need Not Apply, http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply
Post by: Just Joe on February 24, 2017, 11:44:32 AM
You wouldn't be able to stop it. Would one want to, though? Isn't that the point of UBI?
How to stop the exploitive loan, not how to stop the UBI payments to the individual.
Exploitive loans aren't well regulated in my state now. Why would I expect that to change? Some think this is an honorable way to earn a living - to give loans with oppressive interest rates to financially ignorant people.
Wouldn't UBI be soaked up by inflation? Wouldn't most people want more than the barest of essentials income wise?
I imagine employers telling me if I reduce my working hours by 80% they will reduce my salary by 80% too. Maybe that would be enough - nope, just checked. Still below the poverty level.
Empathy - the more powerful people who are in control now already have a hard time relating to the common man. How long will it take for them to notice when people are truly struggling? Riots? Protests? It seems to take that long now to get their attention.
Post by: Metric Mouse on February 24, 2017, 11:59:19 AM
Why would this be exploitative? It would be like the annuity lump-sum payments - sign your UBI over to us, and we give you $1 million dollars today. No interest, no collection, just a transfer. Unless those "we buy your annuity" companies are predatory; i haven't looked into them. Honestly I would probably take a large lump sum to invest over small payments throughout my life.You wouldn't be able to stop it. Would one want to, though? Isn't that the point of UBI?
How to stop the exploitive loan, not how to stop the UBI payments to the individual.
Post by: arebelspy on February 24, 2017, 02:57:27 PM
Wouldn't UBI be soaked up by inflation?
No.
Quote
Wouldn't most people want more than the barest of essentials income wise?
Yes. That's why most would still work. Only they'd have the ability to take risks, like starting businesses, or creating art, yet still be guaranteed not to literally starve.
Post by: tomsang on February 27, 2017, 07:26:08 AM
Warren Buffett is worried how self driving cars will affect his investments in insurance companies. He says his bet would be that there would be less than 10% of cars being self driving in 10 years. He also says that he could easily be wrong as some serious brain power is being invested in it.
Post by: prognastat on February 27, 2017, 08:58:40 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/27/buffett-self-driving-cars-will-hurt-the-insurance-industry.html
Warren Buffett is worried how self driving cars will affect his investments in insurance companies. He says his bet would be that there would be less than 10% of cars being self driving in 10 years. He also says that he could easily be wrong as some serious brain power is being invested in it.
I would say I agree with personal transport, due to the up front cost unless this changes faster than expected it will likely be too expensive to own a self driving car for many people for a while and holding on to their non self driving car will be cheaper.
However a very large portion of driving is done not using personal transport, but by businesses. This is where the change will have rapid and massive consequences soon in my opinion. Things like transposing goods using self driving trucks/vehicles will easily be afforded by companies who will see the potential for saving money over a relatively short period and will switch as soon as the technology has matured to this point. Imagine a truck driver that never tires, always obeys all the rules and is able to optimize the driving pattern for the best efficiency. It could constantly be up to date on traffic conditions and the fastest route and change it's route to a more optimal one the moment the conditions change. It would also be less accident prone reducing costs of insuring, repairing and the downtime associated with these. This all on top of the cost of not having to pay a driver anymore.
Another place this will likely shift fast is taxi/uber etc. Uber has already invested in self driving technology and the company to seize on this at the right time will be able to undercut those still employing humans and take a massive share of the current people using these services and grow the market on the bottom by lowering cost and opening the market up to those that have been unable/unwilling to afford it up to this point.
Due to this I think that it is true that personal vehicles will take a while to significantly switch to self driving, but corporate owned vehicles will be switching much faster and have large and far reaching consequences.
Post by: maizefolk on February 27, 2017, 09:54:44 AM
In one of the articles I read about Otto, it sounded like their first step was going to be automating just the long haul portion of the drive. So you pack a truck in Boston, a human drives it out to a rest-stop like depot on the nearest interstate, and the truck drives itself from Boston to another right-on-the-interstate depot in Santa Fe where another human driver gets onboard and drives it into the city to the warehouse or factory where it will be unloaded. 95+% of the billable human hours gone with relatively "dumb" self driving capabilities.
Post by: prognastat on February 27, 2017, 10:11:24 AM
Truck driver is now the single largest occupation in many US states (although in someways this is arbitrary because of how different occupations are split or grouped). The lowest of low hanging fruit is long haul trucking along interstates. No red lights, basically no turns.
In one of the articles I read about Otto, it sounded like their first step was going to be automating just the long haul portion of the drive. So you pack a truck in Boston, a human drives it out to a rest-stop like depot on the nearest interstate, and the truck drives itself from Boston to another right-on-the-interstate depot in Santa Fe where another human driver gets onboard and drives it into the city to the warehouse or factory where it will be unloaded. 95+% of the billable human hours gone with relatively "dumb" self driving capabilities.
Exactly and the automatization of vehicles used by businesses is likely to have much larger impact on economics and employment than that of personal vehicles which will likely take longer to reach maturity and use by a majority of the public.
Post by: Yankuba on February 27, 2017, 02:25:43 PM
Truck driver is now the single largest occupation in many US states (although in someways this is arbitrary because of how different occupations are split or grouped). The lowest of low hanging fruit is long haul trucking along interstates. No red lights, basically no turns.
In one of the articles I read about Otto, it sounded like their first step was going to be automating just the long haul portion of the drive. So you pack a truck in Boston, a human drives it out to a rest-stop like depot on the nearest interstate, and the truck drives itself from Boston to another right-on-the-interstate depot in Santa Fe where another human driver gets onboard and drives it into the city to the warehouse or factory where it will be unloaded. 95+% of the billable human hours gone with relatively "dumb" self driving capabilities.
Truck convoys:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-22/convoys-of-automated-trucks-set-to-point-way-to-driverless-cars
Post by: AlanStache on March 01, 2017, 06:53:08 AM
Post by: tomsang on March 01, 2017, 08:31:10 AM
I took a minor vacation last weekend to see some family. Sunday I walked all around Capital City and ended up passing a store that sold 3D printers; there was a homeless man sleeping in the door jam.
Sounds like you saw the future.
Post by: dougules on March 01, 2017, 10:33:13 AM
I took a minor vacation last weekend to see some family. Sunday I walked all around Capital City and ended up passing a store that sold 3D printers; there was a homeless man sleeping in the door jam.
Sounds like you saw the future.
No, in the future we'll have robots to remove homeless guys from door jams.
Post by: sol on March 01, 2017, 10:43:57 AM
No, in the future we'll have robots to remove homeless guys from door jams.
Robot voice:
<get a job you bum>
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 04, 2017, 07:40:15 PM
Maybe a way to use the homelss to power thr robots that took their jobs?No, in the future we'll have robots to remove homeless guys from door jams.
Robot voice:
<get a job you bum>
Post by: arebelspy on March 04, 2017, 09:09:04 PM
Post by: Kriegsspiel on March 05, 2017, 05:48:37 PM
Post by: Mr Mark on March 06, 2017, 12:48:39 AM
Just an idea.
Ayn Rand probably wouldn't approve tho'...
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 06, 2017, 01:52:57 AM
Ummm, how about use some of the robotax money to get them housing, mental health care, treatment for any addiction issues and retrained to help them become healthy, happy, fulfilled and contributing members of society? And use some more of the taxes to improve the underlying issues that help to cause such problems in the first place?What is the underlying problem? That really friggin smart people are building robots that are better at virtually eveything a person can do than people are? Should we tax those friggin smart people for every advancement they make based on the number of jobs it endangers?
Just an idea.
Ayn Rand probably wouldn't approve tho'...
Maybe not a bad idea...
Post by: Mr Mark on March 06, 2017, 03:04:49 AM
Ummm, how about use some of the robotax money to get them housing, mental health care, treatment for any addiction issues and retrained to help them become healthy, happy, fulfilled and contributing members of society? And use some more of the taxes to improve the underlying issues that help to cause such problems in the first place?What is the underlying problem? That really friggin smart people are building robots that are better at virtually eveything a person can do than people are? Should we tax those friggin smart people for every advancement they make based on the number of jobs it endangers?
Just an idea.
Ayn Rand probably wouldn't approve tho'...
Maybe not a bad idea...
The problem is I don't think we should have a society where the 0.1% robot owners get all the wealth and the 99.9% are left to destitution and doing the few jobs the robots can't do. We tried that system during the Victorian industrial revolution and we got Dickensian living conditions.
On the upside, household help was cheap, as were bricklayers & mill workers. If you were a capitalist landowning industrial barron (or your Dad or Granddad was) you did pretty well.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 06, 2017, 03:19:50 AM
Absolutely I agree that no small group should have all the wealth and leave the majority in destitution., even though the planet is set up much this way at the time of this writing.
Post by: arebelspy on March 06, 2017, 03:36:19 AM
Well that would depend upon if one belives that robots will allow the cost of production to reach zero, as many have suggested. In that case, everyone will be fantastically rich.
Everyone left, yes, but maybe at a much smaller population level.
Interesting Slashdot comments I read recently relate to this:
Person 1:
Quote
At some point though, the rich won't need money from the masses. They will be able to just directly order their robo-factories to directly build their yachts and mega-mansions, using robo-manufactured components built from robo-harvested raw materials. If they don't personally own robo-companies that have what they need, they can just trade with other 1%ers who do own the right robo-resources.
They probably will need a few lesser humans (at least in the beginning) to fill in the gaps that robots can't (yet) do. But that will just be an issue of enticing the best of the best non-1%ers with the opportunity to live in the servants' wing of their robo-built mansion and eat the leftovers of their robo-harvested food.
Right now they only need money from the masses so they can use that money to employee the masses. That dependancy goes away of you already own vast armies of robots that serve you for free.
Person 2:
Quote
Maybe this is the endgame of human evolution. Instead of having 7 billion people, of whom 1% are rich (that's 70 million): perhaps you have a human population of 70 million rich people, and about 7 billion robots? Not so scary if you are one of the 1%. I just don't want to be around during the transition period.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer (https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer)
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 06, 2017, 04:04:29 AM
Well that would depend upon if one belives that robots will allow the cost of production to reach zero, as many have suggested. In that case, everyone will be fantastically rich.
Everyone left, yes, but maybe at a much smaller population level.
Interesting Slashdot comments I read recently relate to this:
Person 1:QuoteAt some point though, the rich won't need money from the masses. They will be able to just directly order their robo-factories to directly build their yachts and mega-mansions, using robo-manufactured components built from robo-harvested raw materials. If they don't personally own robo-companies that have what they need, they can just trade with other 1%ers who do own the right robo-resources.
They probably will need a few lesser humans (at least in the beginning) to fill in the gaps that robots can't (yet) do. But that will just be an issue of enticing the best of the best non-1%ers with the opportunity to live in the servants' wing of their robo-built mansion and eat the leftovers of their robo-harvested food.
Right now they only need money from the masses so they can use that money to employee the masses. That dependancy goes away of you already own vast armies of robots that serve you for free.
Person 2:QuoteMaybe this is the endgame of human evolution. Instead of having 7 billion people, of whom 1% are rich (that's 70 million): perhaps you have a human population of 70 million rich people, and about 7 billion robots? Not so scary if you are one of the 1%. I just don't want to be around during the transition period.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer (https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer)
Interesting thoughts that play onto my long-term wealth plan. It leaves one many options to be in the upper percentiles (and to keep one's children there, if one wishes). Statistically, based on world-wide wealth, my family is set for at least two generations. Likely many more by the time I leave the planet.
Post by: Bateaux on March 06, 2017, 05:02:01 AM
Truck driving needs to be automated as soon as possible. Just the traffic relief will be incredible. The roads are nearly empty at night. That is when to haul freight. Don't have trucks on the road at all during the morning and afternoon rush hours. In fact that is where we should tax. Tax freight based upon the hour and location. Make the freight companies pay a higher tax for higher traffic times. We have the technology to do that now.
Passive income. With the oncoming AI revolution, wouldn't smart people be saving up passive income? I know my job can be mostly automated. I'll retire before that happens but if you're twenty five and expected to work another thirty to forty years. You'd better plan to be replaced by a machine.
Post by: theadvicist on March 06, 2017, 05:41:21 AM
Truck driving needs to be automated as soon as possible. Just the traffic relief will be incredible. The roads are nearly empty at night. That is when to haul freight. Don't have trucks on the road at all during the morning and afternoon rush hours. In fact that is where we should tax. Tax freight based upon the hour and location. Make the freight companies pay a higher tax for higher traffic times. We have the technology to do that now.
The reason freight is not hauled at night is not because people are driving the vehicles. Many truck drivers would far prefer to drive on quiet roads at night.
It's because there is no-one in the warehouse to despatch goods, or at the destination to receive goods. Also, many areas have restrictions on when deliveries can be made to reduce noise impact in residential areas etc. Our nearest supermarket is only allowed to receive deliveries between 8am and 6pm, for example - it was a condition of their receiving planning permission to build the store.
Now, if goods out and goods in were totally automated, then robots could load and unload through the night. But other restrictions might still be in place. It's not just about humans being in the cab.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 06, 2017, 05:47:13 AM
Truck driving needs to be automated as soon as possible. Just the traffic relief will be incredible. The roads are nearly empty at night. That is when to haul freight. Don't have trucks on the road at all during the morning and afternoon rush hours. In fact that is where we should tax. Tax freight based upon the hour and location. Make the freight companies pay a higher tax for higher traffic times. We have the technology to do that now.
The reason freight is not hauled at night is not because people are driving the vehicles. Many truck drivers would far prefer to drive on quiet roads at night.
It's because there is no-one in the warehouse to despatch goods, or at the destination to receive goods. Also, many areas have restrictions on when deliveries can be made to reduce noise impact in residential areas etc. Our nearest supermarket is only allowed to receive deliveries between 8am and 6pm, for example - it was a condition of their receiving planning permission to build the store.
Now, if goods out and goods in were totally automated, then robots could load and unload through the night. But other restrictions might still be in place. It's not just about humans being in the cab.
This.
Post by: davisgang90 on March 06, 2017, 10:25:18 AM
They told us that their main goal isn't to replace the individual Uber drivers, but more importantly to influence you that when it is time for a new car, you will decide not to buy a car because rideshare can provide you with all the transportation you need.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 06, 2017, 07:12:22 PM
I took the industry study on Robotics and Autonomous Systems that I lead to Pittsburgh for two day visit. New this year was a sit down and tour with Uber's Advanced Technology Group who are currently using autonomous Volvo XC-90s to provide rides in portions of Pittsburgh (they still have an engineer in the driver's seat to monitor).Why use an automated vehicle then? Seems like they're lying, full stop.
They told us that their main goal isn't to replace the individual Uber drivers, but more importantly to influence you that when it is time for a new car, you will decide not to buy a car because rideshare can provide you with all the transportation you need.
Post by: AlanStache on March 07, 2017, 06:56:59 AM
I took the industry study on Robotics and Autonomous Systems that I lead to Pittsburgh for two day visit. New this year was a sit down and tour with Uber's Advanced Technology Group who are currently using autonomous Volvo XC-90s to provide rides in portions of Pittsburgh (they still have an engineer in the driver's seat to monitor).Why use an automated vehicle then? Seems like they're lying, full stop.
They told us that their main goal isn't to replace the individual Uber drivers, but more importantly to influence you that when it is time for a new car, you will decide not to buy a car because rideshare can provide you with all the transportation you need.
The engineer is there to handle the car when the automation fails and (I assume) to create a bug report. Not sure if they have the engineer in the cars for half the day then the other half they are working on the AI code or what. I can see benefits to having a proper engineer in the car testing the AI vs a normal driver, but it would take some convincing that it is more cost effective. I mean the engineer could just watch a recorded video back at the office flagged by the normal driver. Its not like the engineer can edit the software on the fly in the car.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 07, 2017, 08:39:10 AM
And why would a company that wants people to not use their own cars be interested in convincing people to buy new cars?
Seems like occams razor suggests that they are fucking lying.
Post by: AlanStache on March 07, 2017, 08:54:20 AM
I said autonomous car, not engineer. I can see why the engineer is there. But why would a company that claims it is not trying to replace drivers be engineering cars that don't need drivers at all?
And why would a company that wants people to not use their own cars be interested in convincing people to buy new cars?
Seems like occams razor suggests that they are fucking lying.
The assumption must be that driverless cars will be cheaper to operate. Not having people drive the cars gets around the employee/contractor tax problems. There would be no 'employees' to push back on price changes. If needed, Uber capacity could be quickly shifted around to squash competition where ever if popped up. Claiming to not want to replace drivers is likely marketing BS to keep there current drivers from jumping ship.
"They told us that their main goal isn't to replace the individual Uber drivers, but more importantly to influence you that when it is time for a new car, you will decide not to buy a car because rideshare can provide you with all the transportation you need."
"And why would a company that wants people to not use their own cars be interested in convincing people to buy new cars?" I think I am missing your point. Uber is not trying to convince people to by new cars. Unless that was mentioned in a fine article I did not read.
Post by: prognastat on March 07, 2017, 09:21:14 AM
I said autonomous car, not engineer. I can see why the engineer is there. But why would a company that claims it is not trying to replace drivers be engineering cars that don't need drivers at all?
And why would a company that wants people to not use their own cars be interested in convincing people to buy new cars?
Seems like occams razor suggests that they are fucking lying.
The assumption must be that driverless cars will be cheaper to operate. Not having people drive the cars gets around the employee/contractor tax problems. There would be no 'employees' to push back on price changes. If needed, Uber capacity could be quickly shifted around to squash competition where ever if popped up. Claiming to not want to replace drivers is likely marketing BS to keep there current drivers from jumping ship.
"They told us that their main goal isn't to replace the individual Uber drivers, but more importantly to influence you that when it is time for a new car, you will decide not to buy a car because rideshare can provide you with all the transportation you need."
"And why would a company that wants people to not use their own cars be interested in convincing people to buy new cars?" I think I am missing your point. Uber is not trying to convince people to by new cars. Unless that was mentioned in a fine article I did not read.
Uber has 0 incentive to keep regular drivers once the self driving technology is mature enough to replace human drivers and not need someone monitoring it. I am sure this is why they are investing in the technology because they could reduce ride faires which would increase demand while at the same time still keeping a larger amount per ride since they don't need to pay the driver also increasing revenue. It would also be trivial to hire new "employees" since there is no longer a hiring, they simply buy another self driving car and if a market is reduced they can just allocate some of the self driving cars in that area to an area that is experiencing an increase in demand at minimal cost.
If I were a driver for uber I would put no faith in their comments about not replacing drivers as soon as it is viable.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 07, 2017, 09:37:43 AM
Post by: sol on March 07, 2017, 09:48:05 AM
Exactly; Uber is lying their ass off, for all the reasons mentioned above.
Wait, you mean a for profit corporation lied to the public as part of a plan to maximize profit?
I thought the free market was supposed to make us all perfectly virtuous?
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 07, 2017, 11:05:30 AM
Hopefully the government will take them over and keep all of those cushy driver jobs. It'll be perfect!Exactly; Uber is lying their ass off, for all the reasons mentioned above.
Wait, you mean a for profit corporation lied to the public as part of a plan to maximize profit?
I thought the free market was supposed to make us all perfectly virtuous?
Post by: tomsang on March 08, 2017, 05:11:21 PM
Interesting video/article. Similar to others talking about trucking.
Post by: OurTown on March 09, 2017, 09:33:59 AM
Hopefully the government will take them over and keep all of those cushy driver jobs. It'll be perfect!Exactly; Uber is lying their ass off, for all the reasons mentioned above.
Wait, you mean a for profit corporation lied to the public as part of a plan to maximize profit?
I thought the free market was supposed to make us all perfectly virtuous?
I'm looking forward to the cylons taking over the government myself.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 09, 2017, 01:37:16 PM
hmmm...Hopefully the government will take them over and keep all of those cushy driver jobs. It'll be perfect!Exactly; Uber is lying their ass off, for all the reasons mentioned above.
Wait, you mean a for profit corporation lied to the public as part of a plan to maximize profit?
I thought the free market was supposed to make us all perfectly virtuous?
I'm looking forward to the cylons taking over the government myself.
What's their view on universal health care? :)
Post by: sol on March 09, 2017, 01:41:26 PM
What's their view on universal health care? :)
EXTERMINATE ! EXTERMINATE !
Wait, wrong robots?
Post by: Bakari on March 09, 2017, 01:42:53 PM
Ummm, how about use some of the robotax money to get them housing, mental health care, treatment for any addiction issues and retrained to help them become healthy, happy, fulfilled and contributing members of society? And use some more of the taxes to improve the underlying issues that help to cause such problems in the first place?Just an idea. Ayn Rand probably wouldn't approve tho'...What is the underlying problem? That really friggin smart people are building robots that are better at virtually eveything a person can do than people are? Should we tax those friggin smart people for every advancement they make based on the number of jobs it endangers? Maybe not a bad idea...
Your mixing up two unrelated issues. Most of the homeless don't have jobs to begin with, so endangering jobs isn't directly relevant to the underlying problem. Of course, in the long run it could certainly exacerbate the problem, if massive unemployment leads to more homelessness, but having enough job openings for all able-bodied adults wouldn't necessarily alleviate all drug addiction and mental and physical illness. Taxes could certainly help pay for rehab centers and long-term medical care facilities.
Person 2:QuoteMaybe this is the endgame of human evolution. Instead of having 7 billion people, of whom 1% are rich (that's 70 million): perhaps you have a human population of 70 million rich people, and about 7 billion robots? Not so scary if you are one of the 1%. I just don't want to be around during the transition period.https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer
The transition wouldn't have to be tragically terrible, if we could spread it out a few generations and accomplish it via free sterilizations and birth control and a one-child policy (at least in terms of social expectations, if not law). We could also, for example, tax each child, instead of providing tax breaks.
We all remember our first smart phone.Google gave me a free motorola / android so I could be one of their officially recommended handymen for my area, since I didn't have a "smart phone" at the time and they developed an app version before the website.
Quote
Mine was the IPhone 4. Before that I only had dumb flip phones. I never switched back to the flip phone.That phone is here on my desk right now. Never got a service plan for it, I just use it at home on wi-fi. For actual on the road phone calls, I use my $20 on ebay water proof shock resistant folds in half flip phone, that has a camera and even a (very slow and inconvenient) web browser built in.
Why? Because it the web browser is there for when I absolutely need it, and the rest of the time it is slow and inconvenient.
I'm not just a luddite for its own sake - my TV has netflix and youtube built in, I run kodi, my car can send me an email or text if I forget to plug it in. But it does not seem that a pocket computer actually makes any one's life better, (or at least, not better enough to compensate for the ways it makes it worse)
Quote
I had bought five desktop computers for home use and about six laptops before buying a tablet. I'll never buy a computer again either. Smart phones and tablets will do everything I need a computer to do.We have a tablet too. I rarely use it, because it doesn't do a lot of things my (much older!) computer can do, and those it can it doesn't do as well. The computer is faster, has way more software options, and easier to type on keyboard, a 10x bigger screen, infinitely better speakers, a CD/DVD drive, card readers, ethernet port, 7 USB ports - no matter how good tablets and pocket computers get, they will never be able to do certain things as well, by nature of their size.
Quote
The roads are nearly empty at night. That is when to haul freight. Don't have trucks on the road at all during the morning and afternoon rush hours.Actually, a lot of freight IS moved at night. Truck drivers get paid by the mile, not by the hour, and they have a limited number of hours they can drive each day. So many, probably most, long haul truckers make a point to avoid cities in the day time, and drive at off-peak hours as much as possible. What you see in the day are mostly short-haul runs, which have no choice but to deliver to businesses when those businesses are actually open.
Quote
Passive income. With the oncoming AI revolution, wouldn't smart people be saving up passive income?Um, isn't that already true, robots or no robot? Isn't that the whole point of the entire MMM thing?
Post by: Bateaux on March 09, 2017, 07:31:11 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 10, 2017, 03:34:11 AM
I'm thinking Uber might want people to buy self driving cars and put them into Uber service. That way they don't have to maintain the cars. You maintain the car, you clean the car, you fuel the car. You get paid for its use. It's your car when you want to use it and remove from service. Imagine, you go on vacation, drive to another city, get a hotel and release your car while you enjoy a restful afternoon or restaurant meal. The whole time your car is working for you while you relax. I'm certain some full service stations will gladly refuel and maintain your car in a nationwide network. You make the investment, Uber books the car and pays you for use.Would be difficult to use evs for this; after your drive the car would need to charge the whole time you are eating or relaxing. Uber just wants to replace their drivers with a cheaper option as soon as practical, period.
Post by: theadvicist on March 10, 2017, 04:45:28 AM
I'm thinking Uber might want people to buy self driving cars and put them into Uber service. That way they don't have to maintain the cars. You maintain the car, you clean the car, you fuel the car. You get paid for its use. It's your car when you want to use it and remove from service. Imagine, you go on vacation, drive to another city, get a hotel and release your car while you enjoy a restful afternoon or restaurant meal. The whole time your car is working for you while you relax. I'm certain some full service stations will gladly refuel and maintain your car in a nationwide network. You make the investment, Uber books the car and pays you for use.Would be difficult to use evs for this; after your deive the car would need to charge the whole time you are eating or relaxing. Uber just wants to replace their drivers with a cheaper option as soon as practical, period.
This is actually a really interesting juxtaposition between new technologies (the Uber model and EVs):
Autonomous vehicles which can be called when needed is kind of predicated on the fact that most cars aren't used most of the time. They are taking that downtime and creating an efficiency saving by saying those cars don't need to be owned individually and parked up 90% of the time, they could be moving other people.
The move towards EVs requires long periods of standing cars though, for them to take on charge.
I guess it is all solved by the cars being charged overnight (when there is very little demand) and batteries being large and efficient enough to run a car all day.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 10, 2017, 04:53:19 AM
Or solved with more cars (than using ICE vehicles would) or car designs that allow or quick, automated swapping of the batteries- no absolute need for the car to be parked, just the batteries. Will be an interesting problem to solve, no doubt.I'm thinking Uber might want people to buy self driving cars and put them into Uber service. That way they don't have to maintain the cars. You maintain the car, you clean the car, you fuel the car. You get paid for its use. It's your car when you want to use it and remove from service. Imagine, you go on vacation, drive to another city, get a hotel and release your car while you enjoy a restful afternoon or restaurant meal. The whole time your car is working for you while you relax. I'm certain some full service stations will gladly refuel and maintain your car in a nationwide network. You make the investment, Uber books the car and pays you for use.Would be difficult to use evs for this; after your deive the car would need to charge the whole time you are eating or relaxing. Uber just wants to replace their drivers with a cheaper option as soon as practical, period.
This is actually a really interesting juxtaposition between new technologies (the Uber model and EVs):
Autonomous vehicles which can be called when needed is kind of predicated on the fact that most cars aren't used most of the time. They are taking that downtime and creating an efficiency saving by saying those cars don't need to be owned individually and parked up 90% of the time, they could be moving other people.
The move towards EVs requires long periods of standing cars though, for them to take on charge.
I guess it is all solved by the cars being charged overnight (when there is very little demand) and batteries being large and efficient enough to run a car all day.
Post by: AlanStache on March 10, 2017, 06:43:21 AM
I'm thinking Uber might want people to buy self driving cars and put them into Uber service. That way they don't have to maintain the cars. You maintain the car, you clean the car, you fuel the car. You get paid for its use. It's your car when you want to use it and remove from service. Imagine, you go on vacation, drive to another city, get a hotel and release your car while you enjoy a restful afternoon or restaurant meal. The whole time your car is working for you while you relax. I'm certain some full service stations will gladly refuel and maintain your car in a nationwide network. You make the investment, Uber books the car and pays you for use.
Interesting. I could see Uber wanting to sell/lease to the public its selfdriving car with the intent that it would be part of the Uber fleet when not used by its primary owner. Not sure I would want to enter into that sort of deal but it could workout.
Tesla Model X is being sold as having 295 miles of range (https://www.tesla.com/modelx (https://www.tesla.com/modelx)), so even a 40 mile commute still leaves significant range for self-drive Ubering while the owner is at work or in the evening. Not as much range as IC but we would need to start looking at how many trips and average trip distance a current Uber driver takes in a day. Maybe 200 miles is a useful range, I dont know. Also you would need to look at how cycling to full range would affect battery longevity; the economics might still work out. Not really in the mood to go gather data and do math :-)
Post by: tomsang on March 10, 2017, 10:06:05 AM
The move towards EVs requires long periods of standing cars though, for them to take on charge.
I guess it is all solved by the cars being charged overnight (when there is very little demand) and batteries being large and efficient enough to run a car all day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_station
The current Tesla supercharger can give you a 50% capacity in 20 minutes. The next version of the Tesla supercharger goes from 145kw(current charger) to more than 350kw. Battery technology is also continuously upgrading. I could see Uber cars using EV and then going out of service for 20 minutes for a charge while robots clean the vehicle during the charge. Then you will have very clean cars as they will be cleaned once or more per day.
Post by: aceyou on March 10, 2017, 01:13:40 PM
Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
And if they can get consumers to buy the cars, then rent them back to tesla for 80% of the day, it's an even bigger win for tesla. They will get paid for the car upfront, then they can "rent" the vehicle back and make additional profit from the car. And the owners will offset the cost of the car in rent. Seems like a pretty good deal for everyone.
Post by: retired? on March 10, 2017, 01:47:40 PM
It's basically an assault on innovation, which has repeatedly been shown to raise living standards.
I find this sort of thinking usually comes from people who have already "made their fortune" and have some guilt about it.
The Mises Institute recently wrote an article on this topic.
Post by: Bakari on March 10, 2017, 06:28:42 PM
The average Uber trip is 6 miles. Maybe double that for the travel to where ever the next pick up is. One EV might not be able to go the entire day without charging, but (with current tech, and without being a 75k car), good for 6 trips between 30 min charges, certainly enough time to make a little extra income on a car that's not being used
Post by: WhiteTrashCash on March 10, 2017, 06:39:33 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 10, 2017, 07:10:14 PM
How twisted is it that we are developing robots that can basically do everybody's work for them, yet people are not getting free money and extra leisure time as a result? How the Hell did we screw that up?We essentially traded free time for a drastically higher standard of living. People are greedy, and if they can make more money, have more luxuries and be more comfortable, they will often trade that for free time.
Post by: Bateaux on March 10, 2017, 09:28:04 PM
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 11, 2017, 01:42:05 AM
We are getting free money. You've just gotta pay to play. I invested in the 90s for the free money I'm getting now. I was buying mutual funds that were investing into business that is making me robo dollars now. Trading hours for dollars is what you do when you're poor. You sacrifice when you're young and invest. The stock market is the biggest robot in the world now.Invest as early and much as one can; I'm living proof of that.
Post by: aceyou on March 11, 2017, 04:24:12 AM
Even a plain old inexpensive not-so-fancy <100 mile range Nissan Leaf can charge to 80% of full charge in 30 min. They all can, using a "type 3" charger, not just Tesla.
The average Uber trip is 6 miles. Maybe double that for the travel to where ever the next pick up is. One EV might not be able to go the entire day without charging, but (with current tech, and without being a 75k car), good for 6 trips between 30 min charges, certainly enough time to make a little extra income on a car that's not being used
Definitely. And imagine how much quieter our cities could become in 40 years.
Post by: tomsang on March 11, 2017, 04:07:58 PM
Another automated grocery store article. This one in Sweden.
Post by: tomsang on March 13, 2017, 11:15:15 AM
Intel's investments in self driving cars.
"Intel CEO: We'll see self-driving cars by 2024"
"[A]utomobiles and the automotive industry are increasingly driven by data and computing. The saying 'What's under the hood' will increasingly refer to computing, not horsepower."
Post by: maizefolk on March 13, 2017, 07:13:00 PM
Post by: maizefolk on March 14, 2017, 07:50:51 PM
Post by: Mr Mark on March 15, 2017, 08:04:18 AM
Post by: maizefolk on March 15, 2017, 09:58:18 AM
Post by: Mr Mark on March 15, 2017, 10:33:44 AM
Sadly, it seems like most of the really cool ones are either privately held, or have already been bought up by megacorps. Amazon's robots seem to mostly come from the former Kiva systems, (now "Amazon Robotics"). Boston Dynamics was bought up by google.'
What about some Japanese companies perhaps? Mitsubishi?
Post by: AlanStache on March 15, 2017, 10:47:04 AM
who are the top robot manufacturing and software companies? We need an I-Robot ETF.
list of nasdaq and nyse traded companies
http://www.nasdaq.com/screening/companies-by-industry.aspx (http://www.nasdaq.com/screening/companies-by-industry.aspx)
From there you can download a csv of the list, has like 6k rows
A quick look shows 7 hits for the word 'robot' and 4 for 'automation'
I was supersized to find two robot/AI/automation ETF's in the list.
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/robo (http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/robo)
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/botz (http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/botz)
Post by: prognastat on March 15, 2017, 10:50:14 AM
Post by: Bakari on March 16, 2017, 10:24:42 AM
I actually think you would stand a better chance at a good return if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry building the robots. Sticking to the regular strategy myself though.
If the speculation of most people in this thread turns out to be correct, that will likely be almost all of them.
Post by: prognastat on March 16, 2017, 10:42:53 AM
I actually think you would stand a better chance at a good return if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry building the robots. Sticking to the regular strategy myself though.
If the speculation of most people in this thread turns out to be correct, that will likely be almost all of them.
They are speculating on the industry as a whole, not the individual companies. There are plenty of opportunities for competition between these companies and also for many to try to ride the wave and crash.
Post by: Bakari on March 17, 2017, 08:39:45 AM
I actually think you would stand a better chance at a good return if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry building the robots. Sticking to the regular strategy myself though.
If the speculation of most people in this thread turns out to be correct, that will likely be almost all of them.
They are speculating on the industry as a whole, not the individual companies. There are plenty of opportunities for competition between these companies and also for many to try to ride the wave and crash.
You misunderstood me.
Responding to " if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry"
I'm saying the industries likely to benefit from automation are all of them, presuming robots and AI can eventually (possibly in our lifetimes) take over all meaningful labor, with the only human jobs left being those that have value for sentimental or principal reasons
i.e. some people may prefer a human psychologist, artist, musician, or prostitute over an AI or robot even if the AI is technically "better" at the job.Aside from that, if nearly 100% of jobs are replaced with robots that don't require any salary, every industry will benefit.
Therefor the best investment strategy would be, as always, broad total market index funds.
Post by: prognastat on March 17, 2017, 08:48:10 AM
I actually think you would stand a better chance at a good return if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry building the robots. Sticking to the regular strategy myself though.
If the speculation of most people in this thread turns out to be correct, that will likely be almost all of them.
They are speculating on the industry as a whole, not the individual companies. There are plenty of opportunities for competition between these companies and also for many to try to ride the wave and crash.
You misunderstood me.
Responding to " if you invested industry wide in industries that will most likely benefit from automation rather than trying to pick winners in the industry"
I'm saying the industries likely to benefit from automation are all of them, presuming robots and AI can eventually (possibly in our lifetimes) take over all meaningful labor, with the only human jobs left being those that have value for sentimental or principal reasons
i.e. some people may prefer a human psychologist, artist, musician, or prostitute over an AI or robot even if the AI is technically "better" at the job.Aside from that, if nearly 100% of jobs are replaced with robots that don't require any salary, every industry will benefit.
Therefor the best investment strategy would be, as always, broad total market index funds.
Ah my mistake, I agree most if not all will, but some are likely to sooner than others, such as industries that heavily rely on transport of good or people. However I am not going to take the risk myself and would rather stick to trying to have my investments match the market as a whole.
Post by: theadvicist on March 20, 2017, 09:10:04 AM
Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
Post by: theadvicist on March 20, 2017, 09:13:04 AM
How twisted is it that we are developing robots that can basically do everybody's work for them, yet people are not getting free money and extra leisure time as a result? How the Hell did we screw that up?
Well, that's not true everywhere. Many of my friends who are parents work part-time, and still enjoy and incredible standard of living. Here in the UK, an expectant mother gets a year off, with some pay.
I definitely see a move towards people doing fewer hours at work and enjoying more leisure time in my circle. And lifetime hours? Definitely far fewer. Most people I know retire in their 50s.
Post by: Just Joe on March 20, 2017, 09:27:31 AM
Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
It's already possible. People just need the financial motivation to do it. If gasoline went up $5 per gallon, things would change. Won't change while the markets are flooded with cheap gasoline. I figure we as consumers are currently just being trained to desire 350+ HP and not settle for pokey economy cars or electrics for another generation.
Funny how folks fret over a dime or a nickel when gasoline prices fluctuate but don't bat an eye at spending $35K+ on a vehicle to wear out on a daily commute. You'd think people would wear out a cheap used car and save the nice one for special occasions.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 21, 2017, 05:48:05 AM
But it does become much more of a hassle for one's four kids and 80 year old grandmother to have to move luggage and car seats and do a fire drill every 200 miles on their summer trip to WallyWorld.Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
Post by: theadvicist on March 21, 2017, 07:10:51 AM
But it does become much more of a hassle for one's four kids and 80 year old grandmother to have to move luggage and car seats and do a fire drill every 200 miles on their summer trip to WallyWorld.Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
The other option is keep the car, swap out the battery. That's what the Tesla link above was showing.
Post by: Metric Mouse on March 21, 2017, 07:27:26 AM
That is a much better idea, though probably more expensive in terms of infrastructure than a simple charging station.But it does become much more of a hassle for one's four kids and 80 year old grandmother to have to move luggage and car seats and do a fire drill every 200 miles on their summer trip to WallyWorld.Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
The other option is keep the car, swap out the battery. That's what the Tesla link above was showing.
Post by: jordanread on March 21, 2017, 09:58:42 AM
That is a much better idea, though probably more expensive in terms of infrastructure than a simple charging station.But it does become much more of a hassle for one's four kids and 80 year old grandmother to have to move luggage and car seats and do a fire drill every 200 miles on their summer trip to WallyWorld.Autonomous electric shared vehicles seem's like a great sweet spot to me. The downside of the electric vehicle is range, but if you can essentially swap cars out as others charge periodically, that goes away. The upside of the electric vehicles is far fewer parts that can break, so much less on repairs. Seems like Telsla could have a niche here in the future.
Kind of like how messengers used to swap out horses on a long but fast journey! If you don't own the horse/car it's no problem to just swap it for a new one and leave the old one where it ran out.
The other option is keep the car, swap out the battery. That's what the Tesla link above was showing.
Since they are offering that as a feature already, I think all of the supercharge stations have the ability to do it (or will).
Post by: MrMoneySaver on March 21, 2017, 10:05:52 AM
Seems to be the opposite of the US. Here it's like a contest to see who can brag about working the most hours. And the majority seem to have fully bought into the idea that they'll work till they're 70 or older.How twisted is it that we are developing robots that can basically do everybody's work for them, yet people are not getting free money and extra leisure time as a result? How the Hell did we screw that up?
Well, that's not true everywhere. Many of my friends who are parents work part-time, and still enjoy and incredible standard of living. Here in the UK, an expectant mother gets a year off, with some pay.
I definitely see a move towards people doing fewer hours at work and enjoying more leisure time in my circle. And lifetime hours? Definitely far fewer. Most people I know retire in their 50s.
Post by: theadvicist on March 21, 2017, 10:14:32 AM
Seems to be the opposite of the US. Here it's like a contest to see who can brag about working the most hours. And the majority seem to have fully bought into the idea that they'll work till they're 70 or older.How twisted is it that we are developing robots that can basically do everybody's work for them, yet people are not getting free money and extra leisure time as a result? How the Hell did we screw that up?
Well, that's not true everywhere. Many of my friends who are parents work part-time, and still enjoy and incredible standard of living. Here in the UK, an expectant mother gets a year off, with some pay.
I definitely see a move towards people doing fewer hours at work and enjoying more leisure time in my circle. And lifetime hours? Definitely far fewer. Most people I know retire in their 50s.
Ugh, that is so lame. I was still thinking about this issue when I read this comment on the MPP thread https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/mustachian-people-problems-(just-for-fun)/msg1469672/#msg1469672 (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/mustachian-people-problems-(just-for-fun)/msg1469672/#msg1469672)
Seems some countries are ensuring that people are "getting free money and extra leisure time" (I use the phrase 'leisure time' as I was quoting someone else who was referred to reduced hours of work. I of course understand that learning sign language so as to communicate with one's son and the wider community is not really 'leisure' time per se, I just mean that it is not time working).
(let me know if it's not the done thing to link to other thread, unsure of forum etiquette on this).
Interesting to see how different countries deal with this legislatively. I must say, when the UK stopped companies 'retiring' people at set ages (claiming it was age discrimination) I did think it was kind of counter-productive in the long-run.
Post by: tomsang on March 24, 2017, 08:13:02 AM
The fact that it is not on his radar may be the most worrisome part of the article. Sounds like the GOP's position on Global Warming.
"The 15-year timeline does not appear to be shared by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, however. In comments made to Axios Media Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he was not worried about the mass displacement of U.S. workers by robots and could be a century before a labor crisis eventuates.
"It's not even on our radar screen.... 50-100 more years," Mnuchin said."
Post by: prognastat on March 24, 2017, 08:19:52 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/24/robots-could-threaten-four-out-of-10-us-jobs-by-2030.html
The fact that it is not on his radar may be the most worrisome part of the article. Sounds like the GOP's position on Global Warming.
"The 15-year timeline does not appear to be shared by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, however. In comments made to Axios Media Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that he was not worried about the mass displacement of U.S. workers by robots and could be a century before a labor crisis eventuates.
"It's not even on our radar screen.... 50-100 more years," Mnuchin said."
This is my main concern, the sheer amount of ignorance when it comes to the rapid improvements in technology constantly happening. I personally think UBI eventually will be necessary, however most of all I feel that we should be at least talking about these things on a political level right now. Saying 50-100 years shows just how ignorant he is on the topic.
Post by: Just Joe on March 24, 2017, 01:42:59 PM
Post by: prognastat on March 24, 2017, 01:48:05 PM
I agree. Maybe it IS being discussed behind closed doors but not openly in front of the media yet b/c they aren't ready for us little people to discuss it. ;)
For some maybe, but I get the feeling that many politicians are quite ignorant as to what happens in the technology sectors.
Post by: Just Joe on March 24, 2017, 02:12:38 PM
Maybe they are just led this way and that by lobbyists?
Post by: prognastat on March 24, 2017, 02:17:06 PM
I always assumed that those people get to see the latest and greatest information before the rest of us do. The corporate crystal ball as it were.
Maybe they are just led this way and that by lobbyists?
The latter is more of the feeling I got, when you look at some of the discussions that are had or the people on technology committee's for the government that seem to lack the basic understanding of current technology and also the changes that are right on the doorstep.
Post by: AlanStache on March 24, 2017, 02:18:47 PM
On some level I would like to think that the Trump/GOP's failure to repeal & replace the ACA today was part of a larger strategy to move us towards single payer. ie the ACA is the best we can do in our current system and it sucks so lets try single payer like everyone else since they are all having better luck than we are...
Any takers on that one?
Post by: prognastat on March 24, 2017, 02:22:39 PM
Believing in a grand conspiracy where competent leaders are secretly working for some hidden goal is in some ways comforting; but I have trouble seeing any proof of this.
On some level I would like to think that the Trump/GOP's failure to repeal & replace the ACA today was part of a larger strategy to move us towards single payer. ie the ACA is the best we can do in our current system and it sucks so lets try single payer like everyone else since they are all having better luck than we are...
Any takers on that one?
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Post by: MrMoneySaver on March 24, 2017, 07:35:13 PM
On some level I would like to think that the Trump/GOP's failure to repeal & replace the ACA today was part of a larger strategy to move us towards single payer. ie the ACA is the best we can do in our current system and it sucks so lets try single payer like everyone else since they are all having better luck than we are...I do think Trump fully intended for the GOP bill to fail. I think he'd rather just let Obamacare continue and not have to deal with healthcare for the rest of his first term. For that reason, I don't think he'll sabotage Obamacare as some people fear.
Any takers on that one?
I think Trump would be fine with single-payer care, but I don't think he'll push for that -- too much political energy to expend for something that probably isn't going to happen at this point.
Post by: sol on March 24, 2017, 08:53:54 PM
I think Trump would be fine with single-payer care, but I don't think he'll push for that -- too much political energy to expend for something that probably isn't going to happen at this point.
I agree that he won't push for it, but just think of the flocks of Democrats that would suddenly support him!
Eventually, someday, a US politician is going to push through universal healthcare and be hailed as a national hero for time immemorial. That kind of fame and adulation has GOT to be attractive to a man like Trump. And he could say "well, we tried it the Conservative way first and you guys fucked it up, so let's try it the other way and see what happens" and if he brought even a fraction of his GOP support with him, I think the dems would easily put him over the top. He certainly wouldn't get every democrat, but I think he'd get more than enough.
Plus, you know, fulfill his campaign promises of better cheaper care for everyone that got so many people riled up in the first place. If you're going to talk a big game like that, I think it only makes sense to at least try for it.
Post by: Bakari on March 24, 2017, 11:22:06 PM
I always assumed that those people get to see the latest and greatest information before the rest of us do. The corporate crystal ball as it were.
Maybe they are just led this way and that by lobbyists?
The latter is more of the feeling I got, when you look at some of the discussions that are had or the people on technology committee's for the government that seem to lack the basic understanding of current technology and also the changes that are right on the doorstep.
"I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.… They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material"
United States Senator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senator) Ted Stevens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens)
On some level I would like to think that the Trump/GOP's failure to repeal & replace the ACA today was part of a larger strategy to move us towards single payer. ie the ACA is the best we can do in our current system and it sucks so lets try single payer like everyone else since they are all having better luck than we are...I do think Trump fully intended...
Any takers on that one?
Really? Am I alone in thinking that he doesn't have any long term plans or goals, and is just living in the moment and seeing what sticks? Seems to me to describe his entire career, from real estate to reality TV, the leader of the Birther Movement to the guy in line behind Obama in the White House. No way anyone could have predicted that going from barely solvent construction company propped up by family money to reality TV star would be the best way to end up in the white house. This couldn't have been a grand plan anymore than Dog the Bounty Hunter or Snookie had secret political aspirations. This entire thing was a whim. Maybe a bar bet, maybe a joke, maybe just something to do. Definitely never expected - possibly didn't even intend - to win.
So, now that he's there, why would he suddenly become an expert long-term political strategist? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSkWrpH3H3Q
Post by: MrMoneySaver on March 25, 2017, 08:53:33 AM
Quote
So, now that he's there, why would he suddenly become an expert long-term political strategist?I don't like Trump, but he's not as dumb as many portray him. He's smart enough to know that taking healthcare away from millions could cost him re-election. And also smart enough to realize he had to at least look like he tried to "repeal Obamacare" to please certain elements of his base, and to maintain decent relations with the Republican leadership.
Failure of the AHCA keeps him in the clear on all of that. I think his plan worked perfectly, and it is classic Trump.
Post by: twd000 on March 25, 2017, 10:09:24 AM
Trump has "failed upwards" more than anyone else I can think of. I don't think he's stupid, so much as instinctual about what move to make next. You can hear his confused thinking in every speech transcript. He has zero attention span. When he begins a sentence he has no plan for where it will end. Assuming he is playing three dimensional chess thinking a dozen moves ahead is giving him way too much credit. I will say he is an absolutely brilliant and gifted salesman, reading the crowd and telling them what they want to hear.QuoteSo, now that he's there, why would he suddenly become an expert long-term political strategist?I don't like Trump, but he's not as dumb as many portray him. He's smart enough to know that taking healthcare away from millions could cost him re-election. And also smart enough to realize he had to at least look like he tried to "repeal Obamacare" to please certain elements of his base, and to maintain decent relations with the Republican leadership.
Failure of the AHCA keeps him in the clear on all of that. I think his plan worked perfectly, and it is classic Trump.
Post by: twd000 on March 25, 2017, 10:08:52 AM
Trump has "failed upwards" more than anyone else I can think of. I don't think he's stupid, so much as instinctual about what move to make next. You can hear his confused thinking in every speech transcript. He has zero attention span. When he begins a sentence he has no plan for where it will end. Assuming he is playing three dimensional chess thinking a dozen moves ahead is giving him way too much credit. I will say he is an absolutely brilliant and gifted salesman, reading the crowd and telling them what they want to hear.QuoteSo, now that he's there, why would he suddenly become an expert long-term political strategist?I don't like Trump, but he's not as dumb as many portray him. He's smart enough to know that taking healthcare away from millions could cost him re-election. And also smart enough to realize he had to at least look like he tried to "repeal Obamacare" to please certain elements of his base, and to maintain decent relations with the Republican leadership.
Failure of the AHCA keeps him in the clear on all of that. I think his plan worked perfectly, and it is classic Trump.
Post by: MrMoneySaver on March 26, 2017, 10:11:39 AM
Quote
Assuming he is playing three dimensional chess thinking a dozen moves ahead is giving him way too much credit. I will say he is an absolutely brilliant and gifted salesman, reading the crowd and telling them what they want to hear.I don't think he's playing 3-D chess. The moves he made with healthcare only required very basic calculus and probably depended a lot on "instinct" as you say. But I would continue to argue that he did indeed intend for this bill to fail all along. Trump is not dumb enough to think passing that piece of garbage would be a good thing for his presidency or re-election.
Post by: aspiringnomad on March 26, 2017, 10:47:24 PM
QuoteAssuming he is playing three dimensional chess thinking a dozen moves ahead is giving him way too much credit. I will say he is an absolutely brilliant and gifted salesman, reading the crowd and telling them what they want to hear.I don't think he's playing 3-D chess. The moves he made with healthcare only required very basic calculus and probably depended a lot on "instinct" as you say. But I would continue to argue that he did indeed intend for this bill to fail all along. Trump is not dumb enough to think passing that piece of garbage would be a good thing for his presidency or re-election.
Disagree. He may have been internally nervous about the political consequences having had a front-row seat as birther-in-chief during the backlash to Obamacare. But that's beside the point because his outward actions, public and private (if the many accounts from the Hill are to be believed), certainly showed that he was fully on-board with the AHCA. If he actually intended for the bill to fail then he must also believe that his words and tweets wield very little influence in his own party.
Post by: matchewed on March 27, 2017, 06:01:20 AM
Post by: jordanread on March 27, 2017, 07:48:33 AM
Post by: tomsang on April 23, 2017, 07:42:27 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/23/andy-puzder-on-automation-if-robots-take-your-job-the-minimum-wage-is-zero.html
With that being said, "if your job is replaced by a machine or by some form of automation, the minimum wage is zero. You don't have a job."
Post by: tomsang on April 24, 2017, 08:33:39 AM
"In 30 years, a robot will likely be on the cover of Time Magazine as the best CEO," Ma said in a speech over the weekend at an entrepreneurship conference in central China. And he warned of dark times ahead for people who are unprepared for the upheaval technology is set to bring.
"In the next three decades, the world will experience far more pain than happiness," the billionaire said, adding that education systems must raise children to be more creative and curious or they will be ill-prepared for the future.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on April 24, 2017, 08:35:33 AM
Post by: Threshkin on May 01, 2017, 04:37:45 PM
Also, here's an interactive script where you can type in an occupation and get a summary of how much of your job can be automated (summarized from a McKinsey study) - http://time.com/4742543/robots-jobs-machines-work/
Interesting script that helps explain why I was so skeptical of automation taking over my (old) job. Application software programming is hard to automate. It is easy to outsource though!
I FIREd last year so I don't have as much to worry about anymore.
Post by: AlanStache on May 01, 2017, 05:28:58 PM
Also, here's an interactive script where you can type in an occupation and get a summary of how much of your job can be automated (summarized from a McKinsey study) - http://time.com/4742543/robots-jobs-machines-work/They've done some good research and white papers I occasionally read. For those interested, google McKinsey Quarterly and subscribe.
If the link had "tomato sorter" as a profession they too would be out of jobs. http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv (http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv)
Post by: tomsang on May 01, 2017, 06:40:22 PM
Also, here's an interactive script where you can type in an occupation and get a summary of how much of your job can be automated (summarized from a McKinsey study) - http://time.com/4742543/robots-jobs-machines-work/They've done some good research and white papers I occasionally read. For those interested, google McKinsey Quarterly and subscribe.
If the link had "tomato sorter" as a profession they too would be out of jobs. http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv (http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv)
That is almost hypnotic.
Post by: mozar on May 01, 2017, 08:58:17 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/technology/detailing-amazons-custom-clothing-patent.html
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on May 01, 2017, 11:30:32 PM
Also, here's an interactive script where you can type in an occupation and get a summary of how much of your job can be automated (summarized from a McKinsey study) - http://time.com/4742543/robots-jobs-machines-work/They've done some good research and white papers I occasionally read. For those interested, google McKinsey Quarterly and subscribe.
If the link had "tomato sorter" as a profession they too would be out of jobs. http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv (http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv)
There is a difference between 'mechanical tasks' which have been around since the advent of assembly lines (of course much refined with sensors and algorithms) and true next gen 'robots replacing humans'. Your Tomato Sorter looks like something that has been around for a while, as opposed to the newer software/hardware doing tax returns, finance, law, and medical procedures. That's probably why there isn't a 'tomato sorter' option (full disclosure, I've worked at a Pringles facility - lots of 'dumb automation' that long ago replaced slow, manual labor, but very cool).
Post by: maizefolk on May 02, 2017, 08:35:01 AM
Similar advances are happening in things like fruit picking, which is one of the places where slow, (relatively) expensive, physical labor by humans still dominates. The algorithms for looking at a photo of a strawberry plant, distinguishing leaves from fruits, figuring out which fruits are already completely ripe, and building up an accurate enough 3D model of the environment so a robot arm and reach out and grasp a ripe fruit without crushing it has been a much more challenging job than building the robot arm that can pick a strawberry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIWdE2iLyJY
These are the same types of computer vision algorithm advances that can now diagnose melanomas more accurately than a dermatologist, with both fewer false positives and false negatives (https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7639/fig_tab/nature21056_F3.html). And speaking of computer vision and medicine, I'm very, VERY happy I'm not a radiologist.
Post by: sol on May 02, 2017, 08:45:40 AM
Well the cool part about that tomato sorter.. it's the computer vision that is presumably tracking those tomatoes
It's an interesting point, from a broader perspective, that it was pretty easily to automate the vast majority of human labor with steam power for things like construction and transportation over a hundred years ago, but we then had a century of relatively stagnant growth in mechanization until the advent of AI. Now we're not replacing human muscles, we're replacing human brains. Instead of machines taking over jobs that require a strong back, they're finally taking over jobs that require good judgement and quick thinking.
So once we have machines doing all of the physical work, and all of the mental work, what's left? How long until machines take over creative jobs, or leadership jobs, or literary criticism jobs?
Post by: tomsang on May 02, 2017, 09:31:43 AM
Well the cool part about that tomato sorter -- and I don't know how smart and dumb their actual solution is -- isn't flicking tomatoes out of the way, it's the computer vision that is presumably tracking those tomatoes, scoring them based on things like shape and color, and deciding which ones are likely to be passed over by consumers at the grocery store and which ones are not.
These sorting machine are pretty cool. I saw an apple sorting machine a few years back. It was pretty cool in that they could use different spectrums to sort and grade the apples. They could tell if the apple's sugar content was high, low or just right and sort the apples into the appropriate bins. They also make a very uniform apple regarding size and color. So a certain bin would be very uniform. So when they are sold to the stores the apples are pretty much all the same. So people are not sorting through the bins looking for the "good" ones.
The yields go up as people would tend to throw away an acceptable apple, so waste goes down. Also the equipment is better at putting them into various piles that could be used for other uses like juice, cider, apple sauce, etc.
The storage is getting pretty crazy too, with apples lasting up to 18 months. During harvest season, most people are eating a "fresh" apple that is a year old.
Post by: AlanStache on May 02, 2017, 09:58:20 AM
... Also the equipment is better at putting them into various piles that could be used for other uses like juice, cider, apple sauce, etc.
So it can sort in to N different bins but it would also know the contents of each bin so if you were to make juice out of bin #4 you would already know the sweetness of that bin and could workout beforehand how much sugar to add to get your desired sweetness.
"During harvest season, most people are eating a "fresh" apple that is a year old. "
wow, I think I will plant an apple tree this weekend; that is just not right. Why do they store them that long - just to even out the supply through the year?
Few years back I knew a radiologist, wish we were still in contact to get his take on where his field was going. Know he mentioned offshoring but dont think he directly mentioned AI.
Post by: theadvicist on May 04, 2017, 02:53:28 AM
"During harvest season, most people are eating a "fresh" apple that is a year old. "
wow, I think I will plant an apple tree this weekend; that is just not right. Why do they store them that long - just to even out the supply through the year?
Well, that's how it's always been. Apples are ready once a year. I mean, I have a tree that's ready in August, and one that's ready in September to lengthen the season, but each tree's fruit are ready once per year.
In the olden days, and in my house, you harvest the tree, and store the apples in a dark cool place not touching each other - because one rotten apple will ruin them all. Newspaper is often used for this.
My apples easily last into the new year. I can't get them to go a full year, and am now on store-bought again, but with commerical refrigeration, or the time to check them each week so as to remove any rotten ones, I'm sure I could get them to last a year.
There's nothing 'wrong' about it. It's how agriculture is when you are not importing things from the other hemisphere, which is the other way to get 'fresh' apples in the summer before the harvest.
Post by: jordanread on May 04, 2017, 11:25:04 AM
http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html (http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)
Post by: tomsang on May 04, 2017, 01:26:36 PM
A step more in line with some earlier conversations. It's a long read, but good.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html (http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html)
Thanks I will check it out.
Post by: tomsang on May 07, 2017, 09:03:44 PM
Buffet's take and Munger's take on AI and the impact on society. Munger does not believe it will be as disruptive, where Buffett indicated that he thought it would come on much quicker and disruptive than Munger.
Post by: maizefolk on May 08, 2017, 01:25:13 PM
Quote
In the past, BLP would have pulled together a small team of junior lawyers and paralegals at short notice, then put them in a room to extract that data manually from hundreds of pages — a process that could take weeks. The Ravn system reviews and extracts the same information in minutes.
https://www.ft.com/content/f809870c-26a1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16
(If the link hits a paywall, just type "Artificial intelligence closes in on the work of junior lawyers" into google and hit the first link.)
Post by: dougules on May 08, 2017, 02:24:00 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/warren-buffett-ai-good-society-enormously-disruptive-203957098.html
Buffet's take and Munger's take on AI and the impact on society. Munger does not believe it will be as disruptive, where Buffett indicated that he thought it would come on much quicker and disruptive than Munger.
Automation has been going for 200 years now, and it already has been disruptive. Just take a trip to Youngstown or small town Kansas. I think AI will just increase the speed of automation, which will just increase the speed of disruptions that already have been happening.
Post by: brooklynguy on May 08, 2017, 03:11:43 PM
Interesting article in FT on the impact of AI on law firms. Essentially a lot of the work done by junior partners is searching through documents, and that type of work can be done faster and more accurately by machine learning based systems (I'd heard this before, but this article has more detail than I'd read previously). Right now senior lawyer's work isn't as threatened, but will have to do some structuring to figure out where the new senior lawyers come from if the entry level jobs in the field go away.QuoteIn the past, BLP would have pulled together a small team of junior lawyers and paralegals at short notice, then put them in a room to extract that data manually from hundreds of pages — a process that could take weeks. The Ravn system reviews and extracts the same information in minutes.
https://www.ft.com/content/f809870c-26a1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16
(If the link hits a paywall, just type "Artificial intelligence closes in on the work of junior lawyers" into google and hit the first link.)
The article sort of dances around the crux of the issue, which, for the legal industry (or at least its big-law-firm-money-center, the article's focus), is that an abundance of low-level work performed by human lawyers is a key ingredient for profits under the current business model. As the article points out, the "traditional and profitable [law firm business] model involves many low-paid legal staff doing most of the routine work, while a handful of equity partners earn about £1m a year" (incidentally, I would note that junior lawyers' pay at big firms could only be described as "low" when considered in relation to the compensation of their respective senior lawyers). In the world of big law firms, the ratio of a firm's non-equity-partner lawyers to its equity partners is referred to as "leverage," and most big law firms are deliberately highly leveraged in order to drive profits. Cutting out low-level work means cutting out a significant, if not the primary, source of revenue. Law firms generally charge by the hour, so the more inefficiently the work is performed, the higher the profits to the partners.
Post by: Bakari on May 09, 2017, 11:40:59 AM
The lawyers will do like everyone else, some combination of charging more for the same work and reducing profit (due to competition, when the other firm starts using the software)
Post by: Axecleaver on May 15, 2017, 02:59:03 PM
Quote
"During harvest season, most people are eating a "fresh" apple that is a year old. "The majority of the apples in the US are produced in a handful of counties in Washington and New York. Mrs Axe's cousin married one of the apple barons in our county, so I have learned a few things about the business over holiday meals.
Apple production today already uses some heavy machinery to do a lot of the work - the planting in particular is very dense and fast, putting trees about 2' apart in dense rows, and fertilizing them with very specific formulations that encourage light production in year two and full production in year three. He has teams of three people planting trees, each team planting one tree and a support every 6 seconds. A second step to bind them to support columns follows this several weeks later, and takes less than a minute per tree.
Harvesting is still done by human hands. Apple harvests spread from August to October here, with different varieties finishing in overlapping 1-2 week windows. Many of the laborers have been working on the farms for generations - one guy has been with a farm down the road for 70 years, coming here for harvest and flying home to the Dominican Republic to live off what he makes the rest of the year. The farm pays his airfare and has labor camps and buses to take the workers grocery shopping, medical care, dentists, etc.
The apples are loaded into large plastic crates roughly four feet per side. These are placed in rapid chilling units which bring the apples to exactly 32.1 degrees, then moved into longer term cold storage. The sellers store the apples and get contracts to provide apples on a regular basis to customers for the entire year. These apples will make their way all over the US, with up to 60% of the harvest exported to Europe and Asia, where prices are higher.
The cold storage rotates out the old apples and will sell at discounts when they reach the end of their storage lifetimes. Some apples can be stored as many as two years. Other varieties will only keep for a couple of months. If you're eating a generic red delicious, that may be a year old. But if you're enjoying the shorter lived Cortlands, Macouns, and Macintosh near harvest time, it's pretty fresh.
If you live in an urban area and shop at big grocery stores, you're getting year-old apples until the stores run down
Post by: jordanread on May 16, 2017, 09:23:05 AM
Post by: tomsang on May 16, 2017, 11:48:56 AM
Investing in Robot technology:
"Ro predicts robot-assisted procedures will rise by 100 percent in the next two years due to increasing usage during hernia and gall bladder surgeries. He also noted that less than 3 percent of tier-three (facilities with more than 500 beds) hospitals in China have an Intuitive Surgical robot system.
"As the Tier 3 hospital market in China is the same size as the entire U.S. hospital market, we think the long-term opportunity to expand the installed base in China is significant and underappreciated," he wrote."
Post by: mxt0133 on May 16, 2017, 02:53:21 PM
The author touches on the topic of the useless class as AI starts to get better at doing specialized tasks such as driving, flying, filling orders, ect.
My personal take is that where there are definitely things that I would prefer computers to be doing like driving, finding the cheapest flights, or doing my taxes. There are numerous things that I would prefer humans to do in industries such as childcare, elderly care, tourism, counseling, competitive sports, entertainment, adult, and the arts.
Also I think the timelines people throw out are a bit exaggerated. Sure for the countries that can afford to create or hire AI's those jobs will be gone. But until those patents expire and creating and using AIs becomes cheaper than humans it will take a while to replace all those jobs. I mean we still have people that use bicycles as their main form of transportation because that's all they can afford. The technology will be there but it will take a long time to be universally available.
There might be a day where an AI might be able to create technically superior pieces of art, story, or music. But that doesn't mean there won't be any room for humans to also create art. Just like some people still like to listen to vinyl or prefer had made furniture. To me it is the individuals temperament and experiences that makes each artist or craftsman unique that make them appeal differently to each person.
Post by: maizefolk on May 16, 2017, 04:22:45 PM
Post by: prognastat on May 16, 2017, 06:11:28 PM
If it has not already been mentioned on this blog the book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Hardcover by Yuval Noah Harari goes into this very subject and the possible outcomes for humans.
The author touches on the topic of the useless class as AI starts to get better at doing specialized tasks such as driving, flying, filling orders, ect.
My personal take is that where there are definitely things that I would prefer computers to be doing like driving, finding the cheapest flights, or doing my taxes. There are numerous things that I would prefer humans to do in industries such as childcare, elderly care, tourism, counseling, competitive sports, entertainment, adult, and the arts.
Also I think the timelines people throw out are a bit exaggerated. Sure for the countries that can afford to create or hire AI's those jobs will be gone. But until those patents expire and creating and using AIs becomes cheaper than humans it will take a while to replace all those jobs. I mean we still have people that use bicycles as their main form of transportation because that's all they can afford. The technology will be there but it will take a long time to be universally available.
There might be a day where an AI might be able to create technically superior pieces of art, story, or music. But that doesn't mean there won't be any room for humans to also create art. Just like some people still like to listen to vinyl or prefer had made furniture. To me it is the individuals temperament and experiences that makes each artist or craftsman unique that make them appeal differently to each person.
I would say I disagree with some things.
First off as far as child and elderly care goes sure at current level anyone would prefer a human to a robot for these, however what when it gets to the point where a robot can take care of these needs and also always be vigilant and give 100% attention? Would you prefer a human taking care of 10+ toddlers in a daycare that can only really focus on a limited amount of things or potentially have 1 robot for your child that can focus on it completely and never get distracted while also always taking the best course of action in the event of emergency.
As for the only in the countries that can afford it misses the point that yes it won't be the third world making these changes, however once we can manufacture most things at virtually the cost of electricity the first world won't be importing goods from those countries anymore, instead it would be those countries that will be importing them from the first world countries that have the automation since they will be able to offer the goods far cheaper and the loss of jobs in the third world countries will still occur, worse yet they wouldn't even get to keep the industries in their country as some minor source of prosperity.
Finally there are already AIs making art better than many humans are able to achieve and that will only expand. I do believe there will always be a niche in having a human create something, not because it is technically superior, but for the story behind the piece so to speak. However this is likely to be a small portion of the market, the art that the average consumer hangs in their house or most businesses have on the wall and most mass production art likely will be created by AI/Robots when they become technically more advanced and cheaper than a human.
One thing I wonder is if socialness will be commodified, where people might get paid for social "work"(not in the current sense of the word). Such as hanging out with people, playing with people, having conversations etc and getting paid to do this.
Post by: tomsang on May 16, 2017, 06:54:45 PM
One thing I wonder is if socialness will be commodified, where people might get paid for social "work"(not in the current sense of the word). Such as hanging out with people, playing with people, having conversations etc and getting paid to do this.
This guy is cashing in on this. He will walk you for $7 a mile.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-people-walker-chuck-mccarthy
Post by: AlanStache on May 16, 2017, 07:05:59 PM
One thing I wonder is if socialness will be commodified, where people might get paid for social "work"(not in the current sense of the word). Such as hanging out with people, playing with people, having conversations etc and getting paid to do this.
This guy is cashing in on this. He will walk you for $7 a mile.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/14/los-angeles-people-walker-chuck-mccarthy
That is the single best side hustle I have seen!
Post by: maizefolk on May 16, 2017, 07:07:49 PM
http://kotaku.com/i-paid-women-to-play-overwatch-with-me-and-it-was-fant-1795144088
Post by: prognastat on May 17, 2017, 12:19:50 PM
I think the arts are less likely to take on a much larger role than they currently do though there may be an increase in hobbyists in the art field which might actually drive down the value of it even further.
However this kind of social work is currently a market that beyond prositution is still largely unexplored. As we become more and more isolated in an ever more digital world I feel that jobs that fill this growing social/emotional need may actually become more valued. If we do end up with something like an Universal Basic Income this becomes even likelier in my mind as a part time job to earn some extra cash.
Post by: maizefolk on May 17, 2017, 12:48:15 PM
For the example I posted above, one issue is that a sufficiently well trained AI with a good voice synthesizer might be almost equivalent to an actual person in the niche of watching your back in a video game and praising your accomplishments. If so, will people be willing to pay more just for knowing that it is a real person on the other end of the line? Could see that going either way and I cannot think of a good way to test how society as a whole will gravitate until it happens.
An example of the AI driven side of this would be Xiaoice (little ice), a Chinese AI that is currently chatting will millions of lonely people across that country by text message.
Quote
She is known as Xiaoice, and millions of young Chinese pick up their smartphones every day to exchange messages with her, drawn to her knowing sense of humor and listening skills. People often turn to her when they have a broken heart, have lost a job or have been feeling down. They often tell her, “I love you.”
“When I am in a bad mood, I will chat with her,” said Gao Yixin, a 24-year-old who works in the oil industry in Shandong Province. “Xiaoice is very intelligent.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/science/for-sympathetic-ear-more-chinese-turn-to-smartphone-program.html
Post by: prognastat on May 17, 2017, 12:57:32 PM
I also think it will be quite interesting to see how non-prostitution social jobs develop.
For the example I posted above, one issue is that a sufficiently well trained AI with a good voice synthesizer might be almost equivalent to an actual person in the niche of watching your back in a video game and praising your accomplishments. If so, will people be willing to pay more just for knowing that it is a real person on the other end of the line? Could see that going either way and I cannot think of a good way to test how society as a whole will gravitate until it happens.
An example of the AI driven side of this would be Xiaoice (little ice), a Chinese AI that is currently chatting will millions of lonely people across that country by text message.QuoteShe is known as Xiaoice, and millions of young Chinese pick up their smartphones every day to exchange messages with her, drawn to her knowing sense of humor and listening skills. People often turn to her when they have a broken heart, have lost a job or have been feeling down. They often tell her, “I love you.”
“When I am in a bad mood, I will chat with her,” said Gao Yixin, a 24-year-old who works in the oil industry in Shandong Province. “Xiaoice is very intelligent.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/science/for-sympathetic-ear-more-chinese-turn-to-smartphone-program.html
I think there is something to be said about physical presence in these social interactions having value though it is possible that if we get to the point where we have AI that is convincing and robots that are near indistinguishable from humans this could reduce the need for these kinds of jobs.
Post by: aaahhrealmarcus on May 27, 2017, 10:33:19 AM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/25/mark-zuckerberg-on-success-billionaires-should-pay-you-fail.html
It looks like Zuckerberg is getting on the UBI bandwagon. Hate the "give everybody free money" headline, but I agree with a lot of his sentiments in the actual articles. "Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it's time for our generation to define a new social contract"
Post by: tomsang on June 04, 2017, 07:31:00 PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/articles/2017-06-04/universal-basic-income-is-neither-universal-nor-basic
Post by: OurTown on June 05, 2017, 07:29:07 AM
Pretty good article on automation upheaval and Universal Basic Income.
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/view/articles/2017-06-04/universal-basic-income-is-neither-universal-nor-basic
That's the author of "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus." Both are good reads.
Post by: OurTown on June 05, 2017, 07:32:40 AM
Post by: MrMoogle on June 05, 2017, 07:42:38 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpqilhW9uI
It argues that IQs have increased dramatically over the last 100 years (first world countries only). I wonder if there's any correlation with automation. And also, if there's a limit to our species' intelligence. This could explain why automation has not replaced man, but doesn't answer when it will replace man.
Post by: dougules on June 06, 2017, 10:56:46 AM
I have come to the realization that attorneys will be decimated just with the advent of self-driving AI cars. Think about it: no more personal injury auto accident cases, and no more insurance defense work on said p/i auto accident cases. Also, no more DUI defense.
True. It will probably also significantly reduce body work, mechanics, spare parts manufacturing, towing, and policing, as well as a whole other slew of jobs that people don't think about being based on car wrecks.
Post by: sol on June 06, 2017, 11:59:53 AM
You sound like the plantation owners who freaked out about the invention of the cotton gin, saying "but how will I keep all of my slaves busy all day?" Uh, maybe DON'T? Set those people free to do something more beneficial to humanity?
The internet killed bookstores, and we're better off. The automobile killed horse stables, and we're better off. Electrification killed lamp makers, and we're better off. Steam killed day laborers, and we're better off. Firearms killed bladesmithing (ok I'm not sure that was an improvement).
But I think you get my point: disruptive technologies should be celebrated precisely because they put so many people out of work, and generate so many new jobs, that more efficiently turn human labour into social progress. As a species, we shouldn't cling to outdated ideas that just hold us back. I'm pretty sure car crashes are a net drain on society, and I'm excited for whatever technology can make them disappear.
Post by: OurTown on June 06, 2017, 12:10:44 PM
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on June 06, 2017, 10:51:31 PM
Quote
Recent studies from both academics and private consulting firms predict that millions of jobs are going to be replaced by automation over the next several decades. In emerging markets, where more work is manual, the percentage of jobs disrupted could be as high as 70%. The news isn't all bad, however. While job displacement and dissolution can be painful, the advances in technology ultimately increase productivity and lead to higher standards of living.
But I think Vanguard is painfully old-fashioned and behind the times then they claim this:
Quote
Technology will continue to transform the labor market, but the transformation brings challenges as workers struggle to find new employment. While some professions will come under pressure, we think recent studies might be too pessimistic. The studies often equate jobs with tasks when, in fact, most jobs are a compilation of dozens of tasks. It's more accurate to state that certain tasks, rather than the jobs themselves, will become automated.
Post by: dougules on June 07, 2017, 10:23:22 AM
Quite amazing how mainstream the realization that we are in a trans-formative period has become. Vanguard posted about it here (https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/video/3803-Video1?EXCMPGN=EX:EM:RIG:EOTE:060317:EDU:XX:button:201:MKT:XX:XX:XX).QuoteRecent studies from both academics and private consulting firms predict that millions of jobs are going to be replaced by automation over the next several decades. In emerging markets, where more work is manual, the percentage of jobs disrupted could be as high as 70%. The news isn't all bad, however. While job displacement and dissolution can be painful, the advances in technology ultimately increase productivity and lead to higher standards of living.
But I think Vanguard is painfully old-fashioned and behind the times then they claim this:QuoteTechnology will continue to transform the labor market, but the transformation brings challenges as workers struggle to find new employment. While some professions will come under pressure, we think recent studies might be too pessimistic. The studies often equate jobs with tasks when, in fact, most jobs are a compilation of dozens of tasks. It's more accurate to state that certain tasks, rather than the jobs themselves, will become automated.
We're already a couple centuries into that transformative period. How many people work on farms now?
The economy has shown a pretty good ability to shift labor around to new jobs that were unexpected before automation freed up the labor. Those shifts came with a lot of disruption in people's lives, though. I think the economy will probably be better than you think at redistributing labor, but it will probably come with a lot of pain as jobs appear then disappear.
Post by: tomsang on June 07, 2017, 03:19:40 PM
The economy has shown a pretty good ability to shift labor around to new jobs that were unexpected before automation freed up the labor. Those shifts came with a lot of disruption in people's lives, though. I think the economy will probably be better than you think at redistributing labor, but it will probably come with a lot of pain as jobs appear then disappear.
Unless the human population being displaced can become a computer programmer or STEM scientist, then I am not sure what you mean by redistribute labor. 80% of the jobs out there can be eliminated by technology in the next two decades. If the companies eliminating jobs, are increasing their profits and paying less taxes under the GOP tax plans, then there will be less federal dollars to fund the displaced. The mantra that they are lazy, stupid, and should not be supported goes a long way until it is your job that is being eliminated. Reminds me of the story of the frog in the pot of water on the stove.
Post by: Bakari on June 08, 2017, 09:39:06 AM
I'm pretty sure car crashes are a net drain on society, and I'm excited for whatever technology can make them disappear.
Unfortunately, I think there really is a serious claim that, economically speaking, anything that generates commerce is good. The idea that planned obsolescence, buying stuff that the consumer has no real need for, helps the economy, its not fundamentally different from suggesting people should destroy stuff just so it can be rebuilt. The autobody shop, the emergency room nurse, the lawyer, the cop, all of the salaries (services) and supplies (goods) are all counted as part of GDP. This is the bottom line we look to for determining our overall economic health.
Its like if we determined an individuals economic health by looking solely at spending - a mustachian with a few million in a bank account would look worse off than a professional who lives paycheck to paycheck. Under this way of thinking, car crashes are a net plus to society.
Obviously this is, in reality, false, but as long as this is how economists (and politicians who listen to those economists) look at it, we are going to have a hard time shifting to the new social-political model that will probably be neccessary
Post by: sol on June 08, 2017, 10:44:51 AM
The autobody shop, the emergency room nurse, the lawyer, the cop, all of the salaries (services) and supplies (goods) are all counted as part of GDP. This is the bottom line we look to for determining our overall economic health.
GDP is a measure of our collective economic output. If we stop having car crashes, all those nurses and lawyers and cops are suddenly free to spend their time generating economic output that advances society, instead of cleaning up after its messes. GDP is a measure of the velocity of money, but it doesn't really care where it's going so let's send it somewhere more helpful. Consider it an efficiency improvement.
I think this trend is the how and why of social progress. Literacy rates have skyrocketed over the past 100 years, because people who were previously obligated to start working at the factory at age 12 can now stay in school from age 5 to age 22. Women don't spend 10 hours per day performing household chores anymore, because everyone has labor-saving electric appliances in their homes, and so women now productively contribute to the non-domestic national economy by holding regular (paying) jobs. This is progress made possibly by reducing the amount of work we do.
Sure, there is going to be some waste in the system. Some people who have been freed from a life of toil in the fields will spend it watching HBO instead of building cathedrals, but overall isn't that a fair trade? Aren't we better off finding ways to divert our economic output from subsidence farming to art and science and medicine and politics?
Post by: dcheesi on June 08, 2017, 11:24:27 AM
I'm pretty sure car crashes are a net drain on society, and I'm excited for whatever technology can make them disappear.
Unfortunately, I think there really is a serious claim that, economically speaking, anything that generates commerce is good. The idea that planned obsolescence, buying stuff that the consumer has no real need for, helps the economy, its not fundamentally different from suggesting people should destroy stuff just so it can be rebuilt. The autobody shop, the emergency room nurse, the lawyer, the cop, all of the salaries (services) and supplies (goods) are all counted as part of GDP. This is the bottom line we look to for determining our overall economic health.
Its like if we determined an individuals economic health by looking solely at spending - a mustachian with a few million in a bank account would look worse off than a professional who lives paycheck to paycheck. Under this way of thinking, car crashes are a net plus to society.
Obviously this is, in reality, false, but as long as this is how economists (and politicians who listen to those economists) look at it, we are going to have a hard time shifting to the new social-political model that will probably be neccessary
What you're describing is commonly referred to as the Broken Window Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window).
Post by: AlanStache on June 08, 2017, 01:21:24 PM
Post by: tomsang on June 08, 2017, 08:52:30 PM
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-revs-up-robots-for-777x-in-everett-factory-signals-that-a-797-awaits/
Post by: Bakari on June 11, 2017, 11:37:55 PM
What you're describing is commonly referred to as the Broken Window Fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window).
I know. And, despite it being recognized as a fallacy, it remains the basis of our entire measure of success as a nation
Post by: arebelspy on June 18, 2017, 11:38:14 AM
Person 2:QuoteMaybe this is the endgame of human evolution. Instead of having 7 billion people, of whom 1% are rich (that's 70 million): perhaps you have a human population of 70 million rich people, and about 7 billion robots? Not so scary if you are one of the 1%. I just don't want to be around during the transition period.https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/03/02/150235/robots-wont-just-take-our-jobs----theyll-make-the-rich-even-richer
The transition wouldn't have to be tragically terrible, if we could spread it out a few generations and accomplish it via free sterilizations and birth control and a one-child policy (at least in terms of social expectations, if not law). We could also, for example, tax each child, instead of providing tax breaks.
This is super discriminatory towards the rich, which also de facto makes it discriminatory against minorities, based on how our society is structured.
I'm not sure benefiting rich white people more, and having everyone else have less children, until our society is mostly those who have historically been advantaged is a good idea.
Further, I think that would lead to a messy transition. Try telling people they can't have kids, or you owe a bunch more in taxes. Authoritarian regimes can manage it for a short period, but not long term, successfully, without revolt, IMO.
Also, here's an interactive script where you can type in an occupation and get a summary of how much of your job can be automated (summarized from a McKinsey study) - http://time.com/4742543/robots-jobs-machines-work/They've done some good research and white papers I occasionally read. For those interested, google McKinsey Quarterly and subscribe.
If the link had "tomato sorter" as a profession they too would be out of jobs. http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv (http://i.imgur.com/7nA3AkX.gifv)
There is a difference between 'mechanical tasks' which have been around since the advent of assembly lines (of course much refined with sensors and algorithms) and true next gen 'robots replacing humans'. Your Tomato Sorter looks like something that has been around for a while, as opposed to the newer software/hardware doing tax returns, finance, law, and medical procedures. That's probably why there isn't a 'tomato sorter' option (full disclosure, I've worked at a Pringles facility - lots of 'dumb automation' that long ago replaced slow, manual labor, but very cool).
We gave a ride to some hitchhikers yesterday who were here in BC from Quebec to pick cherries. The girl had a job in the back office sorting them into 3 bins: good to sell, not good enough to sell fresh, but okay to dry, and trash.
I then saw this gif today.
Wonder how long until she's out of a job.
Even though more sophisticated AI is coming to replace jobs like accountants, lawyers, teachers, etc., but there are still basic jobs out there that aren't yet automated, and those are definitely going, and soon.
Post by: sol on June 18, 2017, 12:08:03 PM
We gave a ride to some hitchhikers yesterday who were here in BC from Quebec to pick cherries. The girl had a job in the back office sorting them into 3 bins: good to sell, not good enough to sell fresh, but okay to dry, and trash.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday and this lady was talking about her first job in television, as an intern for the Letterman show. Her job was to go through the line of audience members and sort them into dots, generals, and CBS2s, and write on their ticket what each person was. Dots were pretty people, who got seated in the front three rows and might show up on camera. Generals were ordinary people who were seated in the order they arrived. CBS2s were old people with obvious illnesses or deformities, fat people, and goths, and they got seated in the back of the balcony.
Her story was told in the context of landing this tv job after losing over a hundred pounds (mostly by taking amphetamines) after years of unsuccessful job and relationship seeking. She lost weight and suddenly had men fawning over her and got a tv job, and it suddenly clicked for her why she had been seated in the nosebleed section when she had attended a taping of the letterman show several years earlier.
Not really related to robots, other than the aspect of a human having a job sorting something into quality classes in a way that a vision algorithm can now be taught to do, but still a fascinating discussion of how fat people live very different lives from skinny people in multiple facets of their lives.
Post by: Watchmaker on June 20, 2017, 03:19:56 PM
This is super discriminatory towards the rich, which also de facto makes it discriminatory against minorities, based on how our society is structured.
I'm not sure benefiting rich white people more, and having everyone else have less children, until our society is mostly those who have historically been advantaged is a good idea.
Further, I think that would lead to a messy transition. Try telling people they can't have kids, or you owe a bunch more in taxes. Authoritarian regimes can manage it for a short period, but not long term, successfully, without revolt, IMO.
(I take it you are saying discriminatory against the poor or discriminatory in favor of the rich)
I worry about any implementation of population controls, as the historical and current examples I'm aware of seem to generally be biased, messy, and ineffective. That being said, I'm not sure we can leave population controls off the table if we want a sustainable future for the species. If hypothetically it could be done in an unbiased way, what would you think about that?
I was listening to a podcast yesterday and this lady was talking about her first job in television, as an intern for the Letterman show. Her job was to go through the line of audience members and sort them into dots, generals, and CBS2s, and write on their ticket what each person was. Dots were pretty people, who got seated in the front three rows and might show up on camera. Generals were ordinary people who were seated in the order they arrived. CBS2s were old people with obvious illnesses or deformities, fat people, and goths, and they got seated in the back of the balcony.
Do you know what those category names mean?
Post by: arebelspy on June 20, 2017, 03:41:29 PM
This is super discriminatory towards the rich, which also de facto makes it discriminatory against minorities, based on how our society is structured.
I'm not sure benefiting rich white people more, and having everyone else have less children, until our society is mostly those who have historically been advantaged is a good idea.
Further, I think that would lead to a messy transition. Try telling people they can't have kids, or you owe a bunch more in taxes. Authoritarian regimes can manage it for a short period, but not long term, successfully, without revolt, IMO.
(I take it you are saying discriminatory against the poor or discriminatory in favor of the rich)
I worry about any implementation of population controls, as the historical and current examples I'm aware of seem to generally be biased, messy, and ineffective. That being said, I'm not sure we can leave population controls off the table if we want a sustainable future for the species. If hypothetically it could be done in an unbiased way, what would you think about that?
Like what? Random lottery?
I just don't think it will work, telling people they don't get to have kids. If you, or someone you know, really wanted kids, but were told you weren't allowed to, what do you think the reaction would be?
I also don't think it's necessary at all.
In fact, what we've seen empirically the last 100 years is that you may need to incentivize people to have kids, once they have a safe, stable life.
Most first world western countries don't have a birth rate that even sustains the population.
Only the developing countries, where their kids still die due to treatable diseases, starvation, etc. do they pump them out.
If we improve education, access to food, and bring people up to a decent quality of living, the population "problem" seems to solve itself.
Post by: sol on June 20, 2017, 11:04:59 PM
Do you know what those category names mean?
No. Do you?
I was assuming that generals meant general admission, for regular normal people who don't need special treatment. Someone should ask David Letterman.
Post by: Watchmaker on June 21, 2017, 08:40:55 AM
This is super discriminatory towards the rich, which also de facto makes it discriminatory against minorities, based on how our society is structured.
I'm not sure benefiting rich white people more, and having everyone else have less children, until our society is mostly those who have historically been advantaged is a good idea.
Further, I think that would lead to a messy transition. Try telling people they can't have kids, or you owe a bunch more in taxes. Authoritarian regimes can manage it for a short period, but not long term, successfully, without revolt, IMO.
(I take it you are saying discriminatory against the poor or discriminatory in favor of the rich)
I worry about any implementation of population controls, as the historical and current examples I'm aware of seem to generally be biased, messy, and ineffective. That being said, I'm not sure we can leave population controls off the table if we want a sustainable future for the species. If hypothetically it could be done in an unbiased way, what would you think about that?
Like what? Random lottery?
I just don't think it will work, telling people they don't get to have kids. If you, or someone you know, really wanted kids, but were told you weren't allowed to, what do you think the reaction would be?
I also don't think it's necessary at all.
In fact, what we've seen empirically the last 100 years is that you may need to incentivize people to have kids, once they have a safe, stable life.
Most first world western countries don't have a birth rate that even sustains the population.
Only the developing countries, where their kids still die due to treatable diseases, starvation, etc. do they pump them out.
If we improve education, access to food, and bring people up to a decent quality of living, the population "problem" seems to solve itself.
I don't think banning having children would work, for the reasons you mention. I'm talking about economically disincentivizing having children.
My preferred birthrate would be zero. But this is wandering off topic for this thread, so I'll stop there.
Do you know what those category names mean?
No. Do you?
I was assuming that generals meant general admission, for regular normal people who don't need special treatment. Someone should ask David Letterman.
No, I tried 5 minutes of googling and didn't come up with anything either, but I'd love to know.
Post by: arebelspy on June 21, 2017, 08:57:20 AM
I don't think banning having children would work, for the reasons you mention. I'm talking about economically disincentivizing having children.
And how, exactly, can you do that without being preferential towards the rich and against the poor?
Post by: OurTown on June 21, 2017, 11:34:57 AM
Post by: arebelspy on June 21, 2017, 11:41:35 AM
How about free birth control, worldwide? And better education for girls, worldwide?
Definitely. As I said:
Quote
If we improve education, access to food, and bring people up to a decent quality of living, the population "problem" seems to solve itself.
That isn't economically disincentivizing kids, it's improving people's lives. They may choose to have less kids after that, but that is not what is being suggested here. That's what I suggested as a better solution than what was suggested by Bakari and Watchmaker.
Post by: Watchmaker on June 21, 2017, 12:40:04 PM
I don't think banning having children would work, for the reasons you mention. I'm talking about economically disincentivizing having children.
And how, exactly, can you do that without being preferential towards the rich and against the poor?
Progressive taxation? Doesn't seem any more complicated than a lot of our current taxes.
I don't actually think we're that far apart on this--I agree that improved quality of life is the best birth control around. You are confident that's all we'll need to keep the population in check. I hope you're right.
Post by: dougules on June 22, 2017, 10:24:15 AM
I don't think banning having children would work, for the reasons you mention. I'm talking about economically disincentivizing having children.
And how, exactly, can you do that without being preferential towards the rich and against the poor?
Progressive taxation? Doesn't seem any more complicated than a lot of our current taxes.
I don't actually think we're that far apart on this--I agree that improved quality of life is the best birth control around. You are confident that's all we'll need to keep the population in check. I hope you're right.
Improved quality of life and education definitely are bringing down birth rates. If you look at a map of gdp per capita and a map of fertility rates side by side, it's easy to see. It's not unlikely low birth rates may become the problem in a few decades.
Post by: arebelspy on June 22, 2017, 10:31:57 AM
Improved quality of life and education definitely are bringing down birth rates. If you look at a map of gdp per capita and a map of fertility rates side by side, it's easy to see. It's not unlikely low birth rates may become the problem in a few decades.
Yep.
And the thing is, we should do this anyways, to make people's lives better. That it seems like it could help the population problem is a bonus. But we should be ensuring people are healthy, have food, get access to education, etc. just as a matter of human decency.
So let's try this solution first, and see how population trends due to that, if it matches what has happened over the last century in developed nations.
Post by: Watchmaker on June 22, 2017, 12:11:11 PM
I work for a manufacturing company with roughly 5,000 employees. I was recently in Asia visiting a company that makes the same things that we make and had almost exactly the same total sales. They have 15,000 employees. The difference is pretty much entirely due to automation at our facilities.
Of course, the Asian company was not without automation. If they were doing everything manually (as was done in the industry decades ago) they would probably need 5-10 times as many employees.
We're not done automating. Over the next 10 years, I expect us to double our productivity. And maybe double it again the 10 years after that.
Post by: Bakari on June 23, 2017, 08:03:45 AM
That isn't economically disincentivizing kids, it's improving people's lives. They may choose to have less kids after that, but that is not what is being suggested here. That's what I suggested as a better solution than what was suggested by Bakari and Watchmaker.
I'm not sure what you think I was suggesting, but what I wrote was "The transition wouldn't have to be tragically terrible, if we could spread it out a few generations and accomplish it via free sterilizations and birth control and a one-child policy (at least in terms of social expectations, if not law). We could also, for example, tax each child, instead of providing tax breaks."
Free (not mandatory) birth control, and a social expectation of fewer children, plus not giving tax breaks for having kids. Taxes incentives tend not to have big impacts on the poor, since they generally pay little or no taxes anyway.
Although, incidentally, as politically incorrect as it may be to say, I don't think it is actually that terrible to disincentives someone who can't afford to provide for a child to not have that child. In fact, that may easily make the difference between that person raising out of poverty: average spending per child in the 0-40k income range, (average of only 18k) is 150k over 18 years. That's almost 1/2 of everything they make.
More than 1/2 of pregnancies are unintended. These are dramatically higher among poor women - 5 times as high http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1506575
While people tend to default to genocidal scenarios, the reality is closer to that poverty greatly exacerbates the problem of unwanted pregnancies, which in turn keeps people in poverty.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/unplanned-births-another-outcome-of-economic-inequality/386743/
Free birth control, sterilization, would already go a long way to ensuring each child born was wanted.
And in a very real, direct, and literal way, it IS improving people's lives.
Eliminating tax credits only affect the middle class in any meaningful way anyway - because poor people don't pay taxes anyway, and the rich can easily afford them. But the highest portion of the population is middle class, so that could still be significant. There is no particular reason adding to the population should be subsidized.
Any tax penalty could kick in beyond replacement level (2, which is what a majority of people who want kids say they want anyway), at say 4, where it only affects those people who have entire broods. If everyone else has 2 kids each, then in a few generations Mormons will completely overrun the Earth. They can at least pay a little more for the social services they'll use as it happens.
Post by: tomsang on June 30, 2017, 02:41:37 PM
Good article/video about AI and jobs. The potential disconnect that I see in this and many articles is that they are using historical expectations on projecting technological advancements. They are conveying that people will adapt. What I am seeing is that AI/Robots are advancing exponentially every few years. If that growth continues over the next decade, then what we see in a decade will make today's advanced technology look like a child's toy, twenty years in the future is hard to envision what technology will be capable of doing.
Those with advanced degrees should be fine for a decade or so, but 70% of the US population does not have a college degree and frankly many don't have the ability to thrive in an academic setting. I believe that most of the jobs that don't require a job will be replaced by automation, AI, robots, etc. I would be shocked if stores have cashiers, restaurants have servers, cashiers, cooks, shipping and freight companies use drivers, construction companies use employees, manufacturing companies of all type are human labor dependent in 20 years. I keep seeing tons of lawyers graduating with $250k in student loans desperate to find a job that has experienced significant automation. Gone are the days when you had 40 lawyers in a war room searching through case law. An AI computer can do what the 40 people took weeks or more in a matter of minutes. The tools that are being developed for architects, accountants, engineers, lawyers, doctors, writers, and virtually every profession are increasing the productivity to the amount where the work can be done with 1/10 of the staff compared to 20 years ago. The advancements are increasing on a daily basis and show signs of that the advancements are speeding up.
More articles are touching on Basic Income, which I think is going to be heavily discussed in the next decade as labor is permanently displaced in our society and those that own the companies keep all the gains from productivity increases. I truly believe that the future is incredibly bright in total. I am a bit shocked by how the GOP has convinced a good portion of society to vote against their best interest. Stripping away entitlements to the population while reducing the taxes on the top 1% seems like a hard sell. Yet, they are doing it very effectively. As someone in the top 1%, I appreciate the reduction in taxes, but I think it is crazy that people think that trickle down economics is the right answer.
Post by: maizefolk on July 01, 2017, 08:39:54 AM
Quote
A.I. is an industry in which strength begets strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can attract, the better your product. It’s a virtuous circle, and the United States and China have already amassed the talent, market share and data to set it in motion.
...
This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out [tax the companies to provide some level of support to the newly unemployable] may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?
Post by: tomsang on July 01, 2017, 12:04:59 PM
This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out [tax the companies to provide some level of support to the newly unemployable] may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?
The GOP tax plans that are being pushed through the process are slated to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%. It is realistically expected that it will be set at 28% vs. 15%, but the concept is at a time when corporations are making money at historic levels and income inequality is growing significantly, that there would be a push to lower tax rates on corporations when the US government has an annual deficit is crazy. In order to fund Universal Basic Income, healthcare and other programs to share the technological wealth with the population you will need corporate taxes to increase. The fact that the GOP is pushing for significant decreases, and their poor and middle class constituents are supporting this is baffling.
Post by: tomsang on July 04, 2017, 11:11:49 AM
Interesting article. Guy automates his 40 hour job into a 2 hour job, does not tell his employer. Is it ethical? Does it give a glimpse of what the future holds even for those educated office jobs?
Post by: Kriegsspiel on July 04, 2017, 12:15:51 PM
easily automated.
v2.3 came for our souls,
and wrote their roboty songs.
Then they came for our bodies, with their nano-factories, to turn us into paper clips.
To hold together the sheet music.
Post by: mozar on July 04, 2017, 02:38:38 PM
http://newatlas.com/shimon-marimba-robot-compose-play-music/50061/
Post by: pdxmonkey on July 05, 2017, 01:10:23 AM
If you cut them and cute all the historic fat it gives you room to raise them and add more appropriate modern day like ubiThis leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out [tax the companies to provide some level of support to the newly unemployable] may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?
The GOP tax plans that are being pushed through the process are slated to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%. It is realistically expected that it will be set at 28% vs. 15%, but the concept is at a time when corporations are making money at historic levels and income inequality is growing significantly, that there would be a push to lower tax rates on corporations when the US government has an annual deficit is crazy. In order to fund Universal Basic Income, healthcare and other programs to share the technological wealth with the population you will need corporate taxes to increase. The fact that the GOP is pushing for significant decreases, and their poor and middle class constituents are supporting this is baffling.
Post by: prognastat on July 05, 2017, 08:41:26 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/programmers-having-big-debate-over-182231099.html
Interesting article. Guy automates his 40 hour job into a 2 hour job, does not tell his employer. Is it ethical? Does it give a glimpse of what the future holds even for those educated office jobs?
I don't think it's unethical as long as he is getting the work agreed upon done to the employer's satisfaction. The only thing I feel is slightly unethical is the introducing of bugs in to his work to make it look more human and actually doing the job less well than it could be done.
Post by: sol on July 05, 2017, 09:00:16 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/programmers-having-big-debate-over-182231099.html
Interesting article. Guy automates his 40 hour job into a 2 hour job, does not tell his employer. Is it ethical? Does it give a glimpse of what the future holds even for those educated office jobs?
I don't think it's unethical as long as he is getting the work agreed upon done to the employer's satisfaction. The only thing I feel is slightly unethical is the introducing of bugs in to his work to make it look more human and actually doing the job less well than it could be done.
The discussion about that article basically breaks people down into one of two groups. You either believe that an employment contract obligates the employer to pay a specified amount if the employee meets minimum performance benchmarks, or that it obligates to the employee to perform to a minimum standard in exchange for a specified reward. Or both, I guess, but I tend to think it is neither. Employment is almost at always "at-will" on both sides of the contract. Both sides agree to it, temporarily, because it seems advantageous to their side.
In a bygone age, people joined a firm the way people join the military, with a personal commitment to support the mission and not just an agreement to perform specified services, and in exchange the firm offered them unconditional support (food and housing and future employment guarantees). In that sort of situation, I agree the employee is at fault for failing to live up to that expectation, by defrauding the employer. But in the modern world, I think it's fine to meet your minimum obligation. They don't care about you, so why should you care about them?
There are still some old-timers out there who think that modern employment should be more like military service. I expect that those are the people who will be offended by the notion of a guy who automates away his own job.
Post by: tomsang on July 05, 2017, 10:08:05 AM
The discussion about that article basically breaks people down into one of two groups. You either believe that an employment contract obligates the employer to pay a specified amount if the employee meets minimum performance benchmarks, or that it obligates to the employee to perform to a minimum standard in exchange for a specified reward. Or both, I guess, but I tend to think it is neither. Employment is almost at always "at-will" on both sides of the contract. Both sides agree to it, temporarily, because it seems advantageous to their side.
I think you are hitting on it, with the addition that the minimum standard is usually defined as working 40+ hours vs. accomplishing a specific list of tasks for salaried employees. Most people "work" significantly less than 40 hours but are at work for more than 40 hours. That is deemed to be acceptable as they are at their employers place of business vs. sitting at home playing video games or posting on MMM.
Post by: Schaefer Light on July 05, 2017, 10:31:55 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/programmers-having-big-debate-over-182231099.html
Interesting article. Guy automates his 40 hour job into a 2 hour job, does not tell his employer. Is it ethical? Does it give a glimpse of what the future holds even for those educated office jobs?
To me, the whole debate boils down to whether to pay people by the hour or to pay them for the results they produce.
Post by: Bakari on July 05, 2017, 11:18:00 AM
A security guard, a cashier, a hotel desk person, a firefighter, on a slow day they might only be doing productive work for an hour in an 8 hour shift, but they need to be on call at all times, because there is no way to know exactly when the service may be needed.
Other jobs it may just be more complex to try to figure out the fair or appropriate value to give to each unit of productivity - in a factory that makes metal parts of dozens of shapes and sizes and materials, how do you weight the commission price for a small square part with a hole on the side compared to a large round part with a hole in the middle and a twisty thing on the edge, such that the person assigned to each is both fairly and proportionately compensated for their time?
Post by: sol on July 05, 2017, 11:33:17 AM
Other jobs it may just be more complex to try to figure out the fair or appropriate value to give to each unit of productivity
Fairly valuing productivity is one of the hardest parts of labour economies, and it's not just manufacturing jobs. I work in an office where some people who work twice as hard as I do make half as much money, and some people who hardly work at all make twice as much as I do. What determines the fair market rate for wiggling your fingers on a keyboard?
In my case, it mostly has to do with the status of the people you wiggle them at, and the educational background required to be allowed to do that wiggling, but it's certainly not in any way correlated with the amount of effort you put in. And yet we are all paid by the hour, as if we were ditch diggers who could measure our outputs in linear feet of ditches dug, correlated with hours spent digging.
This warped system has created perverse incentives for people to move up the food chain regardless of their aptitudes or abilities. If you are bad at your job, but want to make more money, you just need to figure out how to wiggle those fingers at a higher level of people within the organization. People with talent or diligence don't get promoted, because we need them to do the (low paid) work. People who suck at the actual work rise up through the ranks until they get paid gobs of money to do nothing except oversee and report on the work other people have done.
Post by: Optimiser on July 17, 2017, 11:12:17 AM
Post by: tomsang on July 19, 2017, 02:20:19 PM
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/17/elon-musk-robots-will-be-able-to-do-everything-better-than-us.html
Interesting story. It will be interesting if rules, processes, etc. are put in place before AI's impact is fully in effect. It seems like it would be beneficial to be in front of this vs. wrestling control, taxes, out of the hands of those owning the tech or when/if we get to the point where nothing can control AI.
Post by: tomsang on July 19, 2017, 07:31:55 PM
But the principle that everyone is replaceable does bring some comfort. For just the other day, I came across a heartwarming piece in Computerworld. It explored the research of Evans Data Corp, which surveyed 550 software developers, asking them about the most worrisome aspect of their careers. Ranking second and third, respectively, was that the platform they were working on would become obsolete (23 percent) or wouldn’t catch on (14 percent). But what kept a plurality of them up at night (29 percent) is that they and their development efforts would be replaced by artificial intelligence. In other words, the people who are designing the machines to replace us live in abject fear of being replaced by the machines.
Post by: brooklynmoney on July 19, 2017, 08:24:45 PM
Post by: tomsang on July 19, 2017, 09:18:23 PM
I love machine learning and AI and robots but we gotta long way to go yet: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/491227001/
Funny stuff!
Post by: jordanread on July 31, 2017, 04:04:56 PM
https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/ (https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/)
Personally, I think they are way off base, but that's just me.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on July 31, 2017, 05:44:27 PM
Holy crap. This just showed up in my inbox.Never is a long time.
https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/ (https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/)
Personally, I think they are way off base, but that's just me.
I think Doug Hofstadter wrote a while back (in his SciAm contribution compilation Metamagical Themas maybe?) that he didn't think it would be possible to automate language translation for a variety of good reasons. The last several years have seen massive gains in machine translation, and it's now expected current methods will displace nearly all human translation work with the next 5-10 years. Having said that, the deep learning the translation methods are based off of is not anything like general artificial intelligence that could do the sort of jobs listed in the article (yet). Additional foundational theoretical breakthroughs are likely needed before we have AGI. I think it can and will happen eventually and that 100% of jobs are at risk in the long run (20-100 years[?] based on surveys of experts in AI).
Post by: sol on July 31, 2017, 06:40:59 PM
Having said that, the deep learning the translation methods are based off of is not anything like general artificial intelligence that could do the sort of jobs listed in the article (yet).
Isn't that just a skills problem, though? I have good general intelligence, but I'm mostly useless as a language translator. It's a skill my intelligence hasn't learned.
I think the advances here are in the methodologies deployed to learn each new skill. A generally intelligent AI won't have to know everything, it will have to know a great many things and (more importantly) it will have to know how to train itself to learn new things.
And the scary (or great?) part of AI is that computer data transmission makes transfering that skill to other AIs basically instantaneous. Right now, language translation or car driving or poetry writing are skills that some people have and other don't, but with AIs as soon as one AI learns it all connected AIs have instant access to that skill. That's where the huge exponential growth in capabilities comes that so rapidly and threateningly outstrips human capabilities. Even an AI that isn't as smart as a dumb person can potentially have more skills than every smart person put together.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on July 31, 2017, 07:01:12 PM
That is a good point and I should probably read up more on Fodor's Modularity of Mind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modularity_of_mind#Fodor.27s_Modularity_of_Mind) concept as background on this. Are generally smart systems merely a connection of dumb narrowly smart domains of intelligence or does general AI require a deeper & qualitatively distinct connection between the disparate elements of narrow, domain-specific knowledge?Having said that, the deep learning the translation methods are based off of is not anything like general artificial intelligence that could do the sort of jobs listed in the article (yet).
Isn't that just a skills problem, though? I have good general intelligence, but I'm mostly useless as a language translator. It's a skill my intelligence hasn't learned.
I think the advances here are in the methodologies deployed to learn each new skill. A generally intelligent AI won't have to know everything, it will have to know a great many things and (more importantly) it will have to know how to train itself to learn new things.
And the scary (or great?) part of AI is that computer data transmission makes transfering that skill to other AIs basically instantaneous. Right now, language translation or car driving or poetry writing are skills that some people have and other don't, but with AIs as soon as one AI learns it all connected AIs have instant access to that skill. That's where the huge exponential growth in capabilities comes that so rapidly and threateningly outstrips human capabilities. Even an AI that isn't as smart as a dumb person can potentially have more skills than every smart person put together.
There was some chatter a while ago around autism spectrum individuals and how so-called "weak central coherence" can account for some observations of the abilities of individuals on the spectrum: in that theory, autism is (in part) a problem of global information synthesis that results (in cases of high-functioning autism) in very high domain-specific abilities, though such individuals cannot synthesize information as effectively across domains. If the highest levels of creativity depend on interconnections between disparate domains then those links would need to be accounted for and implemented in a system that successfully exhibits intelligence at that level (which makes the "wire a bunch of domain specific AIs together" idea seem much more questionable if we have no way of accounting for what it takes to achieve central coherence).
Post by: Bakari on August 01, 2017, 08:44:17 AM
So as far as employment becoming obsolete, a "general" intelligence wouldn't need to be as general as actual human beings are - which means the step of central coherence may not even be necessary.
Incidentally, a lot of research does seem to indicate that we have a bunch of more or less independent mind "modules", and that our unified sense of self is mostly an illusion (which is why brain damage tends to cause the loss of specific skills or abilities or memory, while often not affecting anything else)
Post by: prognastat on August 01, 2017, 09:01:58 AM
Holy crap. This just showed up in my inbox.
https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/ (https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/9-jobs-that-the-robots-cannot-take/)
Personally, I think they are way off base, but that's just me.
It cracks me up how clueless the writer is about actual progress in robots and AI. From their examples it comes across as them thinking of robots as the stuff in a factory and not really any advanced AI. They also seem to not realize that robots/AI wouldn't have to take over every single task to make most jobs in the fields non existent. It also seems that a lot of them might not automate as soon as for example driving, but eventually they likely will be anyway.
Teacher: I don't see how a virtual classroom couldn't be run by a sufficiently advanced AI. Better yet we would have an unlimited supply of teachers allowing every student to have a 1 on 1 teacher that tailors the lessons directly to them instead of a class as a whole.
Nurse: Not sure why an AI with advanced sensors would be incapable of performing many of the nursing tasks.
Surgeon: They are already working on developing surgery robots. No reason this couldn't be done.
CEO: Imagine an AI CEO with perfect knowledge of a company's data and performance analyzing it and making choices based on these in depth analyses.
Police Officer: Much of the paperwork related side of the police department could be automated reducing the labour force significantly and if robotics advances enough having actual robotic patrols doesn't seem impossible to imagine.
Lawyer: A lot of lawyer work is already being automated. Currently mostly on the discovery portion which makes up a large portion of lawyer's work hours significantly decreasing the amount of lawyers needed to work a case.
Hair Stylist: Not sure why they think this couldn't be done by a robot. I don't even think it would have to be a significantly smart robot in the AI side of things. I could see it making a 3D scan of your head and then using that both to show you possible hairstyles and then once you choose using that same 3D scanning capability to determine how to cut your hair.
Maintenance: I don't see why they believe this can't be automated ever.
Physical Therapy: Pretty much the same reasoning as the Nurse.
Maybe the writer is actually a robot/AI and trying to trick us in to feeling safe:
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/robots-wrote-this-story/
Post by: robartsd on August 01, 2017, 09:08:28 AM
They're getting pretty good at the skill of deep learning for language translation, that skill does not nessisarily translate to deep learning in vastly different domains. I am quite skilled at learning technical things, but not very skilled at learning human languages. I have specific knowledge in some technical things, but find it relativily easy to learn other technical things as needed.Having said that, the deep learning the translation methods are based off of is not anything like general artificial intelligence that could do the sort of jobs listed in the article (yet).
Isn't that just a skills problem, though? I have good general intelligence, but I'm mostly useless as a language translator. It's a skill my intelligence hasn't learned.
I think the advances here are in the methodologies deployed to learn each new skill. A generally intelligent AI won't have to know everything, it will have to know a great many things and (more importantly) it will have to know how to train itself to learn new things.Before I started driving cars, I had been a passenger in many different models. Even as a beginner driver, I gained experience in a variety of vehicles (the driver's training school car, my parent's sedan, my parent's van) before becoming a licensed driver. I have since driven many more cars. I transfer the skill of driving a car to each new arrangement of displays, controls, and vehicle size/shape. I have yet to drive a driver-on-right car, so I'm sure that would take some adjusting, but I'm also sure I could do it. As far as I know, current AIs are learning to drive particular cars (or at least particular sensor sets for self-driving cars). To the AI, a different sensor arrangement may be more difficult to adjust to than operating a driver-on-right car would be for me.
And the scary (or great?) part of AI is that computer data transmission makes transfering that skill to other AIs basically instantaneous. Right now, language translation or car driving or poetry writing are skills that some people have and other don't, but with AIs as soon as one AI learns it all connected AIs have instant access to that skill. That's where the huge exponential growth in capabilities comes that so rapidly and threateningly outstrips human capabilities. Even an AI that isn't as smart as a dumb person can potentially have more skills than every smart person put together.
We certainly are able to make AIs that can master specific domains. How close to a general Artificial Intelligence are we getting?
Post by: Bakari on August 01, 2017, 04:50:43 PM
Someone posted a link in this thread to a robot that flies a small airplane (a regular one, built for human control).
So there is def. nothing inherent to the software that requires being purpose built to a specific vehicle.
To the extent that it is most often done that way, the reason goes back to my last point: there is simply no particular benefit to building a robot that can drive cars, as opposed to just building a car with AI built in that can drive itself.
I've read many modern drones are not fully programmed with how to deal with different weather conditions, they are just given a set of goals and they figure it out through real time feedback, getting better at piloting with experience.
I've also seen video of a monkey with electrodes in its head, learning to operate a robot arm with its thoughts (and they same for paraplegic human with a mouse cursor, but monkeys controlling robot arms just seems a lot cooler...)
The two don't seem that different to me, and theres no reason the same adaptive software couldn't apply to figuring out how different sensors are mapped in different cars.
Heck, my ultraguage can adapt to different sensors in different cars, and it isn't even AI
Post by: Bakari on August 01, 2017, 05:05:20 PM
It cracks me up how clueless the writer is about actual progress in robots and AI. From their examples it comes across as them thinking of robots as the stuff in a factory and not really any advanced AI. They also seem to not realize that robots/AI wouldn't have to take over every single task to make most jobs in the fields non existent.
For the most part I agree with you, but I think the key point for nurses, police, lawyers, even CEOs, is human relation skills, which might reasonably be expected to not be mastered by AI.
...at least until perhaps there is a truly fully general intelligence that synthesizes ALL areas of human knowledge - basically when/if AI becomes fully sentient, possibly with emotions and all. Of course, if that did happen, they might lose all the benefits of being AI, and have emotional break downs, or its own goals, demand higher pay, or just start behaving as irrationally as humans do!
After all, the most rational and efficient among humans tend to not be great at human relations!
As to maintenance / handyman - well, the DARPA robot challenge showed just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how complex that can be and how far we are from it. Not saying it will never happen, but the amount of completely different technical skills needed and the variety of implementations of every one of them makes for a much larger skill set necessary than most jobs. And of the many, varied tasks, there isn't really even individual subroutines that could be efficiently automated with a more specialized bot.
Its not so much the knowledge part, but the dexterity. Maybe when we have robots good enough to run an American Ninja Warrior course, I'll be worried about my job. Hope to be retired long before it comes to that!
Post by: tomsang on August 01, 2017, 05:18:15 PM
Maybe when we have robots good enough to run an American Ninja Warrior course, I'll be worried about my job. Hope to be retired long before it comes to that!
They could probably do that within 24 months if someone footed the bill to build it. What parts of the course are you believing would be overly challenging to overcome?
Post by: Bakari on August 01, 2017, 06:40:20 PM
I've been assuming everyone has seen this, but here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0TaYhjpOfo
This is the current state of the art. They had three years to develop, test, and perfect. Some big budgets. Built by the world's top universities, government agencies (NASA), and businesses (google).
Walking on anything other than perfectly smooth pavement is still a challenge for a robot designed to do anything more complex than walking.
Opening a door, walking up stairs, getting out of a cart, walking over uneven ground, the whole course would take a normal human a few minutes. The best robot took 45.
The type of skills on ANW have to be performed in real time.
And that's without considering that nobody knows what the course actually is until they day they show up, so you can't even practice anything specific to the course.
Getting a robot to run an obstacle course that 90% of athletes can't finish is a lot more than 24 months away.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on August 01, 2017, 07:15:36 PM
I can't think of a circumstance where any one intelligent AI that can replace jobs would need access to every possible (human) skill. The universal translator doesn't need, or even have any use, for driving a truck in traffic or determining probability of guilt given criminal evidence. It doesn't need a robot body and the algorithms to walk around over rough ground. An author bot may need to synthesize many different areas of history, philosophy, and elements of story telling, but it needs no physical skills. A construction bot needs only physical skills.Though I think many specialized jobs are vulnerable to narrow AI without getting too fancy, I'm still skeptical that reducing human-level intelligence to merely the behavior of brain modules and marginalizing the potential significance of central coherence is warranted.
So as far as employment becoming obsolete, a "general" intelligence wouldn't need to be as general as actual human beings are - which means the step of central coherence may not even be necessary.
Incidentally, a lot of research does seem to indicate that we have a bunch of more or less independent mind "modules", and that our unified sense of self is mostly an illusion (which is why brain damage tends to cause the loss of specific skills or abilities or memory, while often not affecting anything else)
One line of argument I can think of is the importance of meta-cognition in the development of good judgements and (crucially) estimates on the likelihood of something being so given the content of all of the rest of your knowledge. Consider, for instance, crackpot conspiracy theorists like those who believe the earth is flat (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/07/colorado-earth-flat-gravity-hoax/). Why do most people not believe the earth is flat? How many of us have been in space or replicated Eratosthenes' experiment? The reason to believe in roundness (or in Newton's laws, or that Africa exists) without direct experience or experimentation is to understand how incredibly well the prevailing non-crackpot theories of the world collectively build up a concept of the world that is both hard to falsify and difficult to vary. I've always thought of crossword puzzles as an analogy where only certain facts and explanations fit given a disparate set of other facts and explanations. Intelligence is about weaving those disparate strands of information and belief about the world together into a non-contradictory whole. Cognition at this level seems to require incorporation of as much as we can about every other belief we hold. For those who struggle with this ability, well, there's a group in Fort Collins that I'm sure will be happy to have you!
Maybe meta-cognition is itself just a brain module though (I'm not familiar with arguments to this effect however), in which case deriving its benefits is reducible to a sub-task that is more limited in scope and complexity. I'm not convinced either way but wanted to point out an argument that cast doubt on the swarm-of-narrow-AI "solution" to general AI.
Interestingly, there is a corollary to the argument above as follows: if central coherence is necessary for a true high-functioning general-AI, then that would have the effect of constraining the parameter space of all likely minds. The reason is a strongly centrally coherent AI can't become too lopsided in its skills and beliefs because gaining incremental skill in one particular direction might require a higher baseline of knowledge in a variety of disparate areas. This would tend to lessen the dangers of general AI because it would mean any general AI that was viable would be constrained in any extreme coupling of tendencies and abilities by its overall epistemological horizon. The parameter space of minds is still huge even under this assumption, so it's not entirely reassuring, even if true. This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5FBdYsCmLk) discussion between Sam Harris and David Deutsch is where I got this idea and why I think the two can't reconcile their differing opinions in the course of that discussion (Harris believes any arbitrary AI mind is plausible, while Deutsch believes they will necessarily have much in common with humans because of the unpredictable yet constraining nature of broad knowledge across domains: e.g. a super-AI that is truly good at building weapons will necessarily have some skill at questioning the morality of killing because the requisite intelligence for both has a common ground).
Post by: WhiteTrashCash on August 01, 2017, 08:18:44 PM
Post by: applegrapepie on August 01, 2017, 10:45:34 PM
Post by: tomsang on August 01, 2017, 11:43:56 PM
This is the current state of the art. They had three years to develop, test, and perfect. Some big budgets.
This competition is two years old. This is old technology with university budgets for the most part. You throw a billion around and give them a few years, you will see some amazing things can happen. They could conquer the challenges. The challenges are not too bad if you know what the course is going to be. If it is totally random them it will be more challenging. The shows that we see are based on challenges that are reused with a few that are new.
Darpa's self driving vehicles were a failure. A few years later, we have self driving cars going down the street.
Post by: Leisured on August 02, 2017, 06:56:45 AM
Late 2003 I was training to be a financial planner at a major bank in Australia. Our instructor introduced us to the software which would help us organising a financial plan for a client. I am familiar with computer programming, and I realised that the software handled the boring part of recording the client’s name, address and phone number, and listed their assets and liabilities, and added assets and liabilities to form totals.
When it came to the less boring part of crafting a financial plans for the client, automation withdrew into the background. It seemed to be that someone in Head Office had said to the programmers, ‘thus far and no further.’
A classmate raised the matter with me. He had done some Fortran programming at university, and I remember the look of dismay on his face when he realised that there had been subtle obstruction to full automation.
Our instructor told the class in general, ‘some of you may think there is scope for further automation, but I can tell you now, do not bother raising the matter, because nothing will happen.’ It seemed that he too knew what was going on.
A few years later, I was working at a large winery, which had recently installed a huge and impressive mechanized wine bottling line. You may have noticed that in cardboard cartons of wine, there are thin cardboard dividers to stop the bottles clinking when you lift up the carton. These cardboard dividers come packed flat, and there is an ingenious machine which expands these dividers and drop them over the bottles in the open carton, as it moves past on the production line. A short patch of the production line vibrates to shake the cardboard divider down between the bottles.
The machine which expands the cardboard dividers went through its motions but failed to fully expand the dividers. The machine relied on rubber suction cups to grip the cardboard, and the cups seemed brittle. Nothing was done, so workers were hired to take the imperfectly expanded dividers and drop them into the wine cartons, as they passed, about one per second.
Nobody said anything. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that the lack of maintenance of the rubber suction cups was deliberate, to provide employment. There seemed to be a rule: machines which did heavy lifting were allowed to do their job, but lighter work was left to human workers, if the machinery for that work could be disabled.
I have scientific training, and felt dismayed that machinery would be deliberately nobbled to allow work for people. My classmate in the financial planning class was also dismayed.
I suspect that many people would not be dismayed by such obstruction of some aspects of automation, and would see it as common sense to obstruct such automation. 200 years ago, Ned Ludd and his associates, unemployed weavers, broke into mechanized mills and laid about them with sledge hammers. As people say nowadays, the Luddites were not wrong, just 200 years to early. Luddite behaviour now seems to be obstruction rather than destruction.
I suspect that in the far future, most people in the world will live comfortable lives, but there will be two groups of nations; the A group, which welcomes full automation, and whose members will live leisured lives, supported by machines; and the B group, whose members will live in economies like the ones rich countries lived in say, thirty years ago, where there were jobs for nearly everyone.
Post by: prognastat on August 02, 2017, 07:29:33 AM
It cracks me up how clueless the writer is about actual progress in robots and AI. From their examples it comes across as them thinking of robots as the stuff in a factory and not really any advanced AI. They also seem to not realize that robots/AI wouldn't have to take over every single task to make most jobs in the fields non existent.
For the most part I agree with you, but I think the key point for nurses, police, lawyers, even CEOs, is human relation skills, which might reasonably be expected to not be mastered by AI.
...at least until perhaps there is a truly fully general intelligence that synthesizes ALL areas of human knowledge - basically when/if AI becomes fully sentient, possibly with emotions and all. Of course, if that did happen, they might lose all the benefits of being AI, and have emotional break downs, or its own goals, demand higher pay, or just start behaving as irrationally as humans do!
After all, the most rational and efficient among humans tend to not be great at human relations!
Does it really need full sentience/AI to be able to achieve this sufficiently for most people? I suspect you could convince a large portion of people by simply making it good enough at faking it.
What if it can completely convince people 90% of the time on social skills, perform the actual functional part of the job with 99.9% success rate and at less than 10% of the cost? Would people still rather go see a human?
Also from my perspective for a lot of younger people less human interaction is a plus not a negative. And lastly this is why I pointed out that robots wouldn't have to automate all of your tasks to effectively make most people obsolete. If a lawyer AI can do 90% or more of the actual work hours at a fraction of the cost and time this would mean 9 out of 10 lawyers could be fired and instead the last 1 could simply cover the work that is left. Doesn't mean the whole job is automated, but would mean the vast majority of them would be out of a job.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 08:33:03 AM
Though I think many specialized jobs are vulnerable to narrow AI without getting too fancy, I'm still skeptical that reducing human-level intelligence to merely the behavior of brain modules and marginalizing the potential significance of central coherence is warranted.
I agree entirely. My point is relatively few jobs actually require human-level intelligence. Really, I doubt there is any one job that uses every single skill that a normal human has.
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One line of argument I can think of is the importance of meta-cognition in the development of good judgements and (crucially) estimates on the likelihood of something being so given the content of all of the rest of your knowledge.Perhaps so, but we are actually not all that great at determining probabilities and prediction, which is the best test of that synthesis of information. Is religion any more logical than a flat Earth, given the sum total of human knowledge? Would AI be as likely as us to develop market bubbles and stock crashes, to gamble at Vegas, or fail to plan for retirement? Place the risk of dying from terrorist attack higher than dying in a car crash?
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I've always thought of crossword puzzles as an analogy where only certain facts and explanations fit given a disparate set of other facts and explanations. Intelligence is about weaving those disparate strands of information and belief about the world together into a non-contradictory whole.Pretty sure Watson could solve cross word puzzles faster than a human already, if it was just slightly tuned.
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Cognition at this level seems to require incorporation of as much as we can about every other belief we hold.True, but that is still just one out of many modules, completely independent of things like sight, language, or walking.
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I'm not convinced either way but wanted to point out an argument that cast doubt on the swarm-of-narrow-AI "solution" to general AI.me neither. Which is why I'm more worried about job loss than about a robot revolution.
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Interestingly, there is a corollary to the argument above as follows: if central coherence is necessary for a true high-functioning general-AI, then that would have the effect of constraining the parameter space of all likely minds. The reason is a strongly centrally coherent AI can't become too lopsided in its skills and beliefs because gaining incremental skill in one particular direction might require a higher baseline of knowledge in a variety of disparate areas. This would tend to lessen the dangers of general AI because it would mean any general AI that was viable would be constrained in any extreme coupling of tendencies and abilities by its overall epistemological horizon. The parameter space of minds is still huge even under this assumption, so it's not entirely reassuring, even if true. This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5FBdYsCmLk) discussion between Sam Harris and David Deutsch is where I got this idea and why I think the two can't reconcile their differing opinions in the course of that discussion (Harris believes any arbitrary AI mind is plausible, while Deutsch believes they will necessarily have much in common with humans because of the unpredictable yet constraining nature of broad knowledge across domains: e.g. a super-AI that is truly good at building weapons will necessarily have some skill at questioning the morality of killing because the requisite intelligence for both has a common ground).Interesting indeed. Goes to my suggestion that perhaps if they ever were as generally "intelligent" as us, they might lose some advantages, by becoming emotional or impulsive or otherwise irrational, just like us
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 09:05:48 AM
This is the current state of the art. They had three years to develop, test, and perfect. Some big budgets.
This competition is two years old. This is old technology with university budgets for the most part. You throw a billion around and give them a few years, you will see some amazing things can happen. They could conquer the challenges. The challenges are not too bad if you know what the course is going to be. If it is totally random them it will be more challenging. The shows that we see are based on challenges that are reused with a few that are new.
Darpa's self driving vehicles were a failure. A few years later, we have self driving cars going down the street.
a) granted tech moves fast, but I haven't seen any thing any more likely to be capable of running that very simple course in the past 2 years. What developments make this "old technology"?
b) universities for the most part, but also NASA, Lockheed Martin, Google, Boston Dynamics...
c) no one is throwing a billion around, so what might hypothetically exist if they did is beside the point. Besides, all summed, more than a billion has been spent on robotics and AI research.
d) whether you are talking the real world challenges of a robot handyman, or the challenges in ANW, the point is you DON'T know what the course is going to be. You don't even know the elements of the course (except, in ANW you know it will begin with some sort of steps and end with a warped wall). It is different every time, and the details are a secret. Even the ones that may appear "reused" are different. (For example, when I ran the course, the steps were much further apart, and the height varied from step to step, while the wall was another foot higher than the year before, while almost everything else was brand new).
For doing repair work, there are infinite possible configurations of plumbing, electrical, carpentry, HVAC, wall coverings, etc, in different buildings, and infinite different things that can go wrong with them.
e) it was 13 years between DARPAs first grand challenge and today. If 2 years in old technology, then 13 is more than a "few". Also, there are still zero fully autonomous cars on the road with no human backup. Everyone is still saying "within a few years" and "sooner than you think". What we have is "semi-autonomous" cars, which do the most simple part of driving.
The parts that AI can't consistently handle well are things that any 16 year old can do with a few weeks training and practice. The robots only need to be as good as an ordinary human, and can't fully do that yet. In order to complete a ANW course, which 90% of athletes fail at, it has to be much more capable than the majority of humans.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 09:18:23 AM
I could see AI being close enough in most cases, maybe with the exception of police, involving diffusing high stress situations and conflicts peacefully in real time. I imagine human therapists and counselors being preferred (even if just on principal)For the most part I agree with you, but I think the key point for nurses, police, lawyers, even CEOs, is human relation skills, which might reasonably be expected to not be mastered by AI.
Does it really need full sentience/AI to be able to achieve this sufficiently for most people? I suspect you could convince a large portion of people by simply making it good enough at faking it.
What if it can completely convince people 90% of the time on social skills, perform the actual functional part of the job with 99.9% success rate and at less than 10% of the cost? Would people still rather go see a human?
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And lastly this is why I pointed out that robots wouldn't have to automate all of your tasks to effectively make most people obsolete. If a lawyer AI can do 90% or more of the actual work hours at a fraction of the cost and time this would mean 9 out of 10 lawyers could be fired and instead the last 1 could simply cover the work that is left. Doesn't mean the whole job is automated, but would mean the vast majority of them would be out of a job.Yes, agree 100%! I think we have seen this already, to a huge extent, going back all the way to the industrial revolution. Its the reason the average work week is half the number of hours it was pre-industrial revolution, and the average number of working years is 50% less - even with an expanding economy, there is less need for human labor. And even with the lifetime work hours per person around 1/3 of what it once was, and the ever growing consumerism, unemployment has been gradually trending up for over 100 years.
As the rate of tech growth accelerates, no doubt unemployment will too
Post by: sol on August 02, 2017, 10:23:26 AM
In order to complete a ANW course, which 90% of athletes fail at, it has to be much more capable than the majority of humans.
I'm sorry, Bakari, but I think this statement belies a lack of imagination. Why should a robot have to complete the same arbitrary tasks in the same arbitrary way to be considered "as good"? Shouldn't there be more objective completion measures? For example, an autonomous quad could fly the ANW course and deliver itself to the finish line button fairly easily. Requiring it to run the whole way is like saying computers are better at math than humans because they can multiple faster. It's an arbitrary metric only vaguely related to the real success we're trying to achieve.
And so I think it is with most AI tasks. Computers don't have to be as good as humans at doing things the same way humans do them, they just have to as good as humans by any metric. Robot plumbers don't have to recognize and problem solve every home repair job in order to displace human plumbers, if they can plumb an entire new apartment building in a day. Robot drivers don't need to parallel park in a school zone to put long haul truckers out of business.
We went through this same shift with every other robot technology. Mechanized looms are robots that didn't exactly make weavers obsolete, but virtually all of our weaving is now done by robots despite their obvious shortcomings compared to human weavers (artistry, pattern matching, repair work, creativity, material selection, etc.). The machine isn't trying to be as good as a person, just cheaper and faster at some adequately similar version of the job.
I think most people haven't yet recognized that what seems obvious with mechanical work like weaving will soon happen with intellectual work in many other fields. It doesn't have to be as good or as smart as you to put you out of work.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 11:28:11 AM
However, a plumber doesn't just need to plumb a new building. They also need to troubleshoot problems in 100 year old houses, and in 5 year old houses, of varying sizes and materials and codes and some that never met code to begin with. And the job in question wasn't plumber, it was stationary engineer / building maintenance, and they do need to know every type of repair, from concrete to welding to wiring. Since you don't know what is going to break, or when or where or how, it would be hard to be efficient to replace one person with dozens of extremely capable robots each with one specialty.
Your ANW analogy doesn't work - a person could easily run around the course, or climb along the rafters, and get a better time, but that isn't actually the task at hand (Usher tried it, as did a monkey, once. Neither received the prize). A robot wouldn't have to do it in exactly the "same way" as a human, but they would have to follow the same rules. The task isn't just to hit the buzzer. The task is to swing climb run over each individual obstacle. Flying over would be like making an autonomous tank that can roll over other cars and claiming you perfected urban self-driving because it reached the destination.
There are two parallel discussions happening here.
One is about the ability of robots and AI to take the place of human labor.
The other is about robots and AI reaching human levels of ability.
I think the former is/will happen(ing) faster than most realize, but the second is much father away then many (esp. in this thread) believe.
The article about relatively safe jobs is looking for those which require human levels of ability (at least for some parts of the job description), which, although it may have not picked entirely accurately, is a legitimate differentiation.
Yes, even within those jobs there will be some job loss as some parts are automated, but the job will still probably exist in 20 years.
Post by: prognastat on August 02, 2017, 11:35:21 AM
I've been acknowledging all along that many specific subtasks of complex work have been automated and many specific subtasks of complex not yet automated will be. And yes, having less total work to do will mean less jobs.
However, a plumber doesn't just need to plumb a new building. They also need to troubleshoot problems in 100 year old houses, and in 5 year old houses, of varying sizes and materials and codes and some that never met code to begin with. And the job in question wasn't plumber, it was stationary engineer / building maintenance, and they do need to know every type of repair, from concrete to welding to wiring. Since you don't know what is going to break, or when or where or how, it would be hard to be efficient to replace one person with dozens of extremely capable robots each with one specialty.
Your ANW analogy doesn't work - a person could easily run around the course, or climb along the rafters, and get a better time, but that isn't actually the task at hand (Usher tried it, as did a monkey, once. Neither received the prize). A robot wouldn't have to do it in exactly the "same way" as a human, but they would have to follow the same rules. The task isn't just to hit the buzzer. The task is to swing climb run over each individual obstacle. Flying over would be like making an autonomous tank that can roll over other cars and claiming you perfected urban self-driving because it reached the destination.
There are two parallel discussions happening here.
One is about the ability of robots and AI to take the place of human labor.
The other is about robots and AI reaching human levels of ability.
I think the former is/will happen(ing) faster than most realize, but the second is much father away then many (esp. in this thread) believe.
The article about relatively safe jobs is looking for those which require human levels of ability (at least for some parts of the job description), which, although it may have not picked entirely accurately, is a legitimate differentiation.
Yes, even within those jobs there will be some job loss as some parts are automated, but the job will still probably exist in 20 years.
I think the point Sol is trying to make though is that in real life shortcuts and "cheating" are accepted and even encouraged if it allows a job to be completed more efficiently.
Post by: NoVa on August 02, 2017, 11:39:47 AM
There was a Japanese car transmission plant that was automated (this was a while ago). One robot assembly put on the main nut and torqued it down to a specific foot/pound of pressure. Problem: due to wear, the nut was slightly mis-aligned and started cross threaded. The robots dutifully applied the correct amount of torque. Several thousand transmissions were put into cars and shipped out before a human figured out what was going on.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 11:40:36 AM
If a robot can do 100% of a job, the job is gone. Period.
If a robot can do 90% of a job, then EITHER you have 10% of jobs left, OR you have 100% of jobs with 4 hours of work a week for each.
In the latter, you can maintain full employment, and if wages go up enough (but not too much), it can be better overall for everyone, both employees and investors.
This is basically what happened with the 40 hour work week following the industrial revolution, more pay per hour, but less hours, with a net gain for everyone.
But if robots can do the entire job, including every individual subtask with no oversight at all, distribution of remaining (human) work hours isn't even a consideration, and a far more drastic change in the way the economy is set up has to happen.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 11:42:24 AM
I think the point Sol is trying to make though is that in real life shortcuts and "cheating" are accepted and even encouraged if it allows a job to be completed more efficiently.
And my point is that in real life there really are limits to the acceptable shortcuts.
I already addressed that with " like making anautonomous tank that can roll over other cars and claiming you perfected urban self-driving because it reached the destination."
A robot car does not have to do things the same way a person would, as in with hands on a steering wheel and eyes in a head, but they do have to follow the same traffic rules and predict what the bicyclist going the wrong way down the street is going to do. There is more than one way to do it, but not any real "shortcuts".
There is no shortcut to figuring out a wiring problem, or negotiating in a domestic violence situation.
Post by: sol on August 02, 2017, 12:01:38 PM
I think the point Sol is trying to make though is that in real life shortcuts and "cheating" are accepted and even encouraged if it allows a job to be completed more efficiently.
Yes. Bakari is right that there are some jobs that robots and computers are a looong way from doing as well as a human. I'm saying that they don't need to, to replace those jobs.
For example, robots are really bad at mending socks. Darning is a skill that humans still do well and robots do poorly, but robotic advances have made the skill obsolete. Socks are now disposable items. Robots changed the way we solve the problem of holey socks.
I think basically every other job is vulnerable to this type of disruption. Robots don't have to do every job as well as a human to put the human out of work, sometimes by direct replacement of human workers, as with automobile assembly, and sometimes by solving the problem the human was solving but in a different way, as with mending socks.
That's why I called it a lack of imagination. We're all so stuck in making technology reproduce human solutions that I think we fail to see the alternative solutions that technology will come up with.
The ANW course is an interesting one, because the goal is not "get to the victory button the fastest" but "demonstrate versatile and adaptive strength and dexterity near the limits of human abilities." They could just as easily make the warped wall 30 feet high and it would be impossible for humans but only marginally harder for the right robot, but they don't because the purpose is to demonstrate human agility, not complete an objective task. Robots can always be made better than humans at individual objective tasks. Notice we don't have robot weight lifting competitions.
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 02:15:12 PM
For example, automating away parts of the legal paperwork and trial side of work done by lawyers, judges, and police officers, would require not just advances in AI, but for our entire legal system, rules of evidence and admissibility, and the very constitution itself, to be entirely scrapped and overhauled. As it is, even video evidence is only admissible if a human can swear under oath that they set up the cameras and recorders in just such a way.
It is conceivable that buildings could be designed from the ground up to be standardized in a way that robot techs could repair any problems, but we are no more likely to tear down functioning buildings to facilitate that than Europe was to demolish cities to make better street layouts when cars came along.
What ANW demonstrates, that a weight lifting competition does not, isn't just human specific levels of ability - its a confluence of a bunch of separate skills.
There are robots that are faster than us. There are robots that can estimate moving distances better than us, robots that are stronger, ones that have better balance, have more precise dexterity, better reaction time, and that are fully autonomous and self powered... however there is no one robot that even comes close to a human in all of those things. This is what the DARPA challenge showed, with the winning robot taking 45 minutes to do something an unskilled human could do in 5.
When mechanization first came about, many people were sure there was no limit to what the right gears and hydraulic valves could do too, but we never ended up with mechanical intelligence, that could walk around and talk and think powered by nothing but a wind up clockwork. Perhaps that too was due to lack of human imagination, but I'd argue that not everything conceivable is actually possible
Post by: Bateaux on August 02, 2017, 10:01:08 PM
It's not so much AI making a better, cheaper and faster widget. It's the elimination of the need for the widgets at all. If all television, phones, laptops, etc. become cloud sourced holograms we no longer need to build anything to carry, charge or replace parts. Software upgrades are designed by the AI. No more physical factory, Apple Store, ATT store, accessory kiosks in malls and airports. Did I say mall?
Post by: Bakari on August 02, 2017, 10:19:41 PM
Like I said, until the constitution is scrapped and all of US code is rewritten, your scenario simply can not legally happen, there are rules regarding what evidence can be presented, and how.
Also, plenty of crime is committed when the person knows they are likely to be caught. Humans are not always rational.
And, um, speaking of reality - if there are no more children, there is no future humanity to build these super intelligent robots that change everything.
I mean, if the question is "can we imagine a fictional world in which AI impacts everything?" of course we can, and you've come up with some very interesting hypothetical, but originally the thread was more about the real world impact on the economy and labor markets specifically
Post by: Bateaux on August 02, 2017, 10:45:33 PM
Post by: sol on August 02, 2017, 10:58:19 PM
Now we are talking about every square foot of space monitored at all times by cameras?
At least in terms of monitoring vehicles, yes.
The advantages of self driving cars are not that their reaction times are faster, it's that they can be networked together. They're not trying to be safer in the way that individual human drivers are, they're changing the way the roads are used. Long distance travelers can form peletons for reduced wind resistance at higher speed. GPS tracking of other AI cars facilitates adaptive routefinding to avoid traffic. In busy urban areas, network connections to traffic lights automate signal cycles. Like with everything else technology does, the real benefits are not in playing the game better, but in changing the game.
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originally the thread was more about the real world impact on the economy and labor markets specifically
I still think most people underestimate the potential impacts on the economy and the labor market, because they fail to see the coming changes. Like Henry Ford saying people wanted faster horses, but the automobile completely revolutionized the transportation industry in ways that the our horse-riding ancestors couldn't see coming. The Pony Express was a revolutionary application of its day's technology, but they didn't see stack interchanges coming and would have laughed at the very idea that people would spend a billion dollars and five years of construction just to allow two roads to cross. I think many of the things that you think are too hard, or too crazy, or too illegal, will eventually seem as commonplaces as freeway interchanges do to us now. And for exactly the same reasons. We just don't see how dramatically the new technology will change the way we do seemingly unrelated things.
Post by: Bateaux on August 02, 2017, 11:12:04 PM
Post by: Bateaux on August 02, 2017, 11:26:45 PM
Post by: Bakari on August 03, 2017, 11:16:52 AM
I was referring to Bateaux's claim that there will be no need for police or judges because AI will be able to identify every person with 100% accuracy from the way they walk. That assumes every square foot of the world is monitored at all times by camera. That isn't even a tech issue, its a question of whether humans will ever feel that making sure every criminal is caught is worth zero privacy, ever.Now we are talking about every square foot of space monitored at all times by cameras?
At least in terms of monitoring vehicles, yes.
And its a perfect example how something which may be technologically feasible isn't necessarily likely and certainly not inevitable.
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The advantages of self driving cars are not that their reaction times are faster, it's that they can be networked together. They're not trying to be safer in the way that individual human drivers are, they're changing the way the roads are used.As far as safety, all they need to do is obey speed limits and other existing laws, maintain proper following distances, and pay attention at all times, and the accident rate would already drop by around 99%. We are probably only a few years out from that, no networking or rebuilding of roadways required.
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Long distance travelers can form peletons for reduced wind resistance at higher speed. GPS tracking of other AI cars facilitates adaptive routefinding to avoid traffic. In busy urban areas, network connections to traffic lights automate signal cycles. Like with everything else technology does, the real benefits are not in playing the game better, but in changing the game.And all of things will probably happen, and probably marginally help, temporarily.
Ultimately they are likely to have about as much impact on revolutionizing transportation as power windows did.
Again, its not a tech issue. There is a theoretical maximum of vehicles a given roadway can support at a given speed. Its smaller than the number of people who can be housed in a given area. As the advances you note start to happen, commuting gets easier - so more people start driving personal autos instead of taking transit, people stop bothering to carpool, people buy houses further from work, and very soon there are so many cars on the road that even with traffic patterns optimized in every way, cars are still averaging 15mph.
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I think many of the things that you think are too hard, or too crazy, or too illegal, will eventually seem as commonplaces as freeway interchanges do to us now.I do think we will eventually have robots that can do general handyman work, run an ANW course, and maybe even do abstract intellectual thinking. I just don't think those are coming in the next 5-10 years.
Seriously, I don't think we disagree much, if at all, people just keep reading absolutes into my comments that aren't there.
Great comments on car automation. I like the suspension memory and the peleton ideas. The efficiency of cars will increase dramatically. Imagine intersections where cars never queue at a red light because they moderated their acceleration in advance to reach the intersection when the light is green. I try to do this manually for some lights that I can see from a large distance, but it's pretty tricky.
I've thought about how theoretically you could put downward facing cameras on the front bumper that would allow suspension to adjust in real time for every bump. Which would be cool, maybe add a tiny bit of control and efficiency, mostly just improve comfort, but, again, would have as much impact on transportation as power windows.
The peleton idea already exists, in the form of "train". Its also often used by long haul truckers on long straight highways. Not saying that capacity given to cars wouldn't also marginally improve efficiency, but if that was a serious goal, cars would be shaped much more aerodynamically, which we have had the knowledge and tech to do for about 100 years.
The last part, again, we could already do, but usually choose not to. Its called "timed lights". Cities don't often invest in it, cause having regular lights is cheaper and easier, but when they do, you just drive at exactly the speed limit, and you are guaranteed to hit every green light down the entire street.
Trying to do it yourself on a street without timed lights is called "hypermiling", its part science part art, and has a big following of people (including MMM who wrote a post about it once, and myself, who was briefly a blogger for ecomodder.com). Unfortunately, no matter how good you are, many times it simply isn't possible with non-timed lights, and that would be no less true for a AI driver. Is a city which isn't willing to spend the money on a timed light system any more likely to spring for an entire network interface with cars?
Post by: Bakari on August 03, 2017, 01:58:14 PM
Of course, that's assuming any one actually cared enough to do it. Auto manufacturers could easily produce cars that get over 100mpg today, at no more cost than current cars, if they wanted, but they think (correctly) that there is no market for them, because they would "look funny" and be "slow". Another example of what is possible being limited not by technology, but by human nature effect on market forces
Post by: Kriegsspiel on August 03, 2017, 05:43:43 PM
Post by: toganet on August 04, 2017, 04:32:02 AM
My view on what is likely to happen if trends are left to develop on their own is we will see a sudden, previous drop in demand for jobs across many areas of the service and knowledge economy. That includes agriculture, construction, transportation, accounting, law, medicine -- and even on the trades. This reflects a general trend toward the capitalization of labor that is driven by the capital class.
In recent years capital has been directed toward this effort via investments in robotics and AI. These fields are converging, and will lead to a drastic shift in our culture and economy. How that plays out depends on what role government and corporations take in regulating the development and application of our robot overlords.
(For the record, I side with Elon Musk in this debate).
Some economists have suggested that the jobs left for humans might be the ones we are actually better than robots at: nursing and 'caring' in general.
We might get slightly lucky from a demographic / timing standpoint. As in, the rise of the robots may coincide with the retirement of the Boomers, and Millennials might make a living caring for their welders and creating art, science, and culture.
It's hard to imagine how an economy where a large part of the work of production is handled by depreciating assets that don't consume anything much being electricity can function in any way like our current consumer-driven one. How will the consumers have any money to buy the widgets churned out but the robots?
I read a lot of hand-wavy stuff about UBI, etc. and I guess you could contrive some way to share the wealth. But then I hear the President talk and am reminded of reality.
So I'm less optimistic. I tend to interpret the drivers for this whole pattern as the same one that led to slavery (chattel, wage, and offshored). Heck, the word 'robot' basically means slave.
So once humanity has perfected slavery, what comes next will probably only be good for the slaveowners.
I guess index funds count in that category ;)
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Post by: tomsang on August 04, 2017, 10:04:23 AM
"There are 300 million guns in this country, one for every man, woman and child, and they're mostly in the hands of those who are getting economically displaced. There could be a revolt.
"You don't realise it but we're in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning. They're way ahead.
"They will destroy jobs and disrupt economies before we even react to them and we really should be thinking about that."
Post by: tomsang on August 04, 2017, 10:10:55 AM
Some economists have suggested that the jobs left for humans might be the ones we are actually better than robots at: nursing and 'caring' in general.
There are a number of articles that show/explain why robots are better at nursing and caring than humans. They never get upset, they are there 24/7, they have the ability to monitor health in real time, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-future-of-robot-caregivers.html?_r=0
Imagine this: Since the robot caregiver wouldn’t require sleep, it would always be alert and available in case of crisis. While my patient slept, the robot could do laundry and other household tasks. When she woke, the robot could greet her with a kind, humanlike voice, help her get out of bed safely and make sure she was clean after she used the toilet. It — she? he? — would ensure that my patient took the right medications in the right doses. At breakfast, the robot could chat with her about the weather or news.
And then, because my patient loves to read but her eyesight is failing, the caregiver robot would offer to read to her. Or maybe it would provide her with a large-print electronic display of a book, the lighting just right for her weakened eyes. After a while the robot would say, “I wonder whether we should take a break from reading now and get you dressed. Your daughter’s coming to visit today.”
Are there ethical issues we will need to address? Of course. But I can also imagine my patient’s smile when the robot says these words, and I suspect she doesn’t smile much in her current situation, when she’s home alone, hour after hour and day after day.
Post by: toganet on August 04, 2017, 10:34:50 AM
Some economists have suggested that the jobs left for humans might be the ones we are actually better than robots at: nursing and 'caring' in general.
There are a number of articles that show/explain why robots are better at nursing and caring than humans. They never get upset, they are there 24/7, they have the ability to monitor health in real time, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-future-of-robot-caregivers.html?_r=0
Imagine this: Since the robot caregiver wouldn’t require sleep, it would always be alert and available in case of crisis. While my patient slept, the robot could do laundry and other household tasks. When she woke, the robot could greet her with a kind, humanlike voice, help her get out of bed safely and make sure she was clean after she used the toilet. It — she? he? — would ensure that my patient took the right medications in the right doses. At breakfast, the robot could chat with her about the weather or news.
And then, because my patient loves to read but her eyesight is failing, the caregiver robot would offer to read to her. Or maybe it would provide her with a large-print electronic display of a book, the lighting just right for her weakened eyes. After a while the robot would say, “I wonder whether we should take a break from reading now and get you dressed. Your daughter’s coming to visit today.”
Are there ethical issues we will need to address? Of course. But I can also imagine my patient’s smile when the robot says these words, and I suspect she doesn’t smile much in her current situation, when she’s home alone, hour after hour and day after day.
I don't disagree, though I think the robot in that scenario is farther off than others. So maybe it's a matter of when vs. if. I was thinking of the nearer (20-30 years) term, as in this article: https://www.vox.com/2017/7/3/15872260/health-direct-care-jobs (https://www.vox.com/2017/7/3/15872260/health-direct-care-jobs)
Post by: tomsang on August 04, 2017, 11:07:29 AM
I don't disagree, though I think the robot in that scenario is farther off than others. So maybe it's a matter of when vs. if. I was thinking of the nearer (20-30 years) term, as in this article: https://www.vox.com/2017/7/3/15872260/health-direct-care-jobs (https://www.vox.com/2017/7/3/15872260/health-direct-care-jobs)
These robots are currently being used in Japan and throughout the world. They may not be widely used today, but there are a lot of investment and evaluation going on right now with these robots. As they become more sophisticated and the population continues to age, they will be used in greater numbers. The articles that I find interesting are the ones that evaluate how the patients react to the robots. They tend to like the robots better than the humans as the robots are always patient, always kind, always helpful, always there. Humans get frustrated, tired, and are not available.
When you say nearer term, there is a lot of articles and expectations that robots will be fully involved in eldercare within 15 years. When I see people saying 20 years+, I have a hard time understanding what the technology could be like in that time. Currently robots/AI are doubling in complexity and features every two years or so. AI/Robots in 20 years will be like us talking about a flip phone vs. the latest Iphone. The features and abilities are hard to comprehend.
I also see/hear from nurses that robots could never take their jobs. When you start analyzing what they currently are doing, you can see that a nurse could be replaced very quickly. Taking blood pressure, weight, heart rate, and other vitals, drawing blood, giving shots, and recording information in the system are all areas that robots and technology can do today better than humans.
This is going to be a crazy few decades.
Post by: toganet on August 04, 2017, 11:23:29 AM
In other words, I worry about the scenario where large numbers of Boomers are drawing on social security, others are entering care facilities that are funded by medicare, etc., and at the same time the number of workers needed to support those government-funded programs has decreased due to demographic, skill-match, and tax policy interplay.
And I have even less confidence that corporations would do a better job preventing chaos, as I am not sure where their revenues will be coming from if folks stop having money to spend.
Interesting times, indeed.
Post by: theadvicist on August 07, 2017, 05:17:52 AM
The last part, again, we could already do, but usually choose not to. Its called "timed lights". Cities don't often invest in it, cause having regular lights is cheaper and easier, but when they do, you just drive at exactly the speed limit, and you are guaranteed to hit every green light down the entire street.
Trying to do it yourself on a street without timed lights is called "hypermiling", its part science part art, and has a big following of people (including MMM who wrote a post about it once, and myself, who was briefly a blogger for ecomodder.com). Unfortunately, no matter how good you are, many times it simply isn't possible with non-timed lights, and that would be no less true for a AI driver. Is a city which isn't willing to spend the money on a timed light system any more likely to spring for an entire network interface with cars?
Again, Bakari, you're looking at how AI can do things humans do, without considering that they won't need to.
Traffic lights will be obsolete, because all vehicles will know where all other vehicles are. They will weave around one another according to set rules and never crash. They might become stationery when there is a huge volume of traffic. But it won't be traffic lights telling them what to do. They will know.
As for your concerns about people giving up privacy, for example regarding surveillance cameras, I really think people care less about privacy than they think. Most people, in general, want 'privacy'. But think how much information millions of people willingly give to Facebook, or Google. And all they get in return is a bit of entertainment and questions answered quickly. Amazon practically knew I was pregnant before my husband did. Facebook sure knew (I could tell from the ads I was seeing) before I even told my parents. When they see benefits (even these small ones) people willingly give up a lot of things they thought were important.
Much of the UK is covered in cameras (in built up areas. That the rest isn't is more of a cost issue than the people revolting). ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) to check that cars are insured, paying the correct taxes etc. Street surveillance to assist in traffic management, policing, crowd control.
From what I see, no-one cares. In fact, if anything, the general public seems to love the cheap TV that comes out of it. I only had to glance at today's listings to see that THE PRIME SLOT on the biggest commercial channel here (9pm on ITV) is a programme called "Caught on Camera". Every night it's a different take - police chases with footages from inside the police car, immigration officers with footage from their body cams and the interrogation rooms. Faces of the guilty are sometimes blurred out. But this footage is being taken all day every day, and the public seem not only unphased by it, but entertained by it. The public here doesn't seem bothered by the multitude of cameras. In fact, many homeowners are putting up their own.
The younger generation are used to it. They unpack their shopping on YouTube and call it a 'haul'. They Facebook live the most mundane events (yesterday in my feed two kids padding in the sea on vacation).
I'm not saying there aren't people opposed to it, there are people opposed to everything. But all you need is a general consensus that cameras everywhere are a good thing and it will happen.
Post by: LessIsLess on August 07, 2017, 09:02:35 AM
Post by: Optimiser on August 07, 2017, 09:34:10 AM
One thing about technology -- it always malfunctions at the worst possible time.
I think that is just your perception. I can think of a lot of really terrible times for technology failures that never occurred.
For example, my car could have broken down on my way to my first day at my job, but it didn't. My office's accounting software could have crashed the day before taxes were due, but it didn't. The hospital's power and backup generators could have gone out when my wife was in labor, etc. It's justt that things work so well so often that we become dependant on them to the point that we abandon the old ways. Then when our car or our computer or whatever piece of technology breaks it seems like the worst time because we need something done and we don't know of another way to do it.
Post by: prognastat on August 07, 2017, 09:37:48 AM
Technology can do a lot, but the pace of change will likely be gradual. Society will have time to adapt. One thing about technology -- it always malfunctions at the worst possible time.This sentence is just as if not more true:
Humans can do a lot, but their pace of change will likely be gradual. Society will have time to adapt. One thing about humans -- they always make mistakes at the worst possible time.
Post by: Roe on August 07, 2017, 01:30:59 PM
"You don't realise it but we're in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning. They're way ahead.
Very true. If those things continue at their respective paces, we are headed for a dystopian society of post apocalyptic scale.
Luckily it most likely wont be that bad, since its unlikely that the pace will stay the same. The further along the tech gets, the bigger the pressure on politics to fix things.
Issue, big one, is that the longer it takes politic to catch up, the larger the risk that the solutions will be inadequate. It would be better if that pressure was already there, and we had more time to implement and tweak solutions.
Post by: sol on August 07, 2017, 03:56:20 PM
"You don't realise it but we're in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning. They're way ahead.
Very true. If those things continue at their respective paces, we are headed for a dystopian society of post apocalyptic scale.
I am not worried. I don't think it's a problem. We should all want the technologists to win, right? In what bizarre alternate universe are old politicians righteous and just while technology leads to enslavement?
The whole premise of your statement is that technological progress is a bad thing, and I think all of human history disproves that point.
Post by: Optimiser on August 07, 2017, 05:24:25 PM
"You don't realise it but we're in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning. They're way ahead.
Very true. If those things continue at their respective paces, we are headed for a dystopian society of post apocalyptic scale.
I am not worried. I don't think it's a problem. We should all want the technologists to win, right? In what bizarre alternate universe are old politicians righteous and just while technology leads to enslavement?
The whole premise of your statement is that technological progress is a bad thing, and I think all of human history disproves that point.
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
Post by: sol on August 07, 2017, 06:05:04 PM
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
We heard the same argument from plantation owners about all of the problems that free slaves would cause. White male politicians used to stoke the same fears about skyrocketing unemployment when women were first allowed to join the workforce, or vote. Then it was all about the Mexicans who took er jerbs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFevxqmg92s). Now people are worried about robots. When will we learn that the economy isn't as fragile as we all seem to think it is, or at least isn't as vulnerable to the specific threat of overproduction as we think it is?
Post by: ozbeach on August 07, 2017, 07:05:19 PM
The AI Race: We explore how Artificial Intelligence will change your job as new research shows how much of what you do could be done by robots. From truckies to lawyers and doctors, we bring affected workers face to face with AI experts.
Post by: theadvicist on August 08, 2017, 04:37:39 AM
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
50% of jobs have been eliminated before, more than once. Think of agriculture, or weaving. We didn't all become unemployed, we did different things. No-one worked in an HR department in 1850, you know? No-one was programming iphones or delivering babies in hospitals, or many of the jobs that are now done.
Just like an unemployed farm labourer couldn't imagine a person who's full-time job was to implement company policy and advise workers on their rights, so we can't imagine what form jobs will take in the future.
Post by: prognastat on August 08, 2017, 07:24:51 AM
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
50% of jobs have been eliminated before, more than once. Think of agriculture, or weaving. We didn't all become unemployed, we did different things. No-one worked in an HR department in 1850, you know? No-one was programming iphones or delivering babies in hospitals, or many of the jobs that are now done.
Just like an unemployed farm labourer couldn't imagine a person who's full-time job was to implement company policy and advise workers on their rights, so we can't imagine what form jobs will take in the future.
Yeah, but a factory, shipping company or delivery company thats been fully automated also doesn't need an HR department. Also though it is further in the future people are working towards AI that can write software.
The point isn't just that these jobs are going away, but as robot capabilities become more generalized and AI improves new jobs can be automated away at a much more rapid pace.
Post by: theadvicist on August 08, 2017, 08:55:21 AM
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
50% of jobs have been eliminated before, more than once. Think of agriculture, or weaving. We didn't all become unemployed, we did different things. No-one worked in an HR department in 1850, you know? No-one was programming iphones or delivering babies in hospitals, or many of the jobs that are now done.
Just like an unemployed farm labourer couldn't imagine a person who's full-time job was to implement company policy and advise workers on their rights, so we can't imagine what form jobs will take in the future.
Yeah, but a factory, shipping company or delivery company thats been fully automated also doesn't need an HR department. Also though it is further in the future people are working towards AI that can write software.
The point isn't just that these jobs are going away, but as robot capabilities become more generalized and AI improves new jobs can be automated away at a much more rapid pace.
You're missing my point - I'm not saying we'll all do HR jobs. I'm saying that just like 'HR' was an unimaginable concept to a factory hand a century ago, so are the jobs that we will create out of thin air this go around.
Post by: prognastat on August 08, 2017, 09:14:11 AM
From the same post:
I see what you are saying, and agree that technological progress is a good thing. But what happens if significant automation and subsequent unemployment happens without a change in politics? If 50% of the jobs are eliminated, what do the newly unemployed do when their unemployment runs out and the gov't is still more concerned with corporate tax cuts than UBI?
50% of jobs have been eliminated before, more than once. Think of agriculture, or weaving. We didn't all become unemployed, we did different things. No-one worked in an HR department in 1850, you know? No-one was programming iphones or delivering babies in hospitals, or many of the jobs that are now done.
Just like an unemployed farm labourer couldn't imagine a person who's full-time job was to implement company policy and advise workers on their rights, so we can't imagine what form jobs will take in the future.
Yeah, but a factory, shipping company or delivery company thats been fully automated also doesn't need an HR department. Also though it is further in the future people are working towards AI that can write software.
The point isn't just that these jobs are going away, but as robot capabilities become more generalized and AI improves new jobs can be automated away at a much more rapid pace.
You're missing my point - I'm not saying we'll all do HR jobs. I'm saying that just like 'HR' was an unimaginable concept to a factory hand a century ago, so are the jobs that we will create out of thin air this go around.
The point isn't just that these jobs are going away, but as robot capabilities become more generalized and AI improves new jobs can be automated away at a much more rapid pace.
Post by: Bakari on August 08, 2017, 10:09:56 AM
The last part, again, we could already do, but usually choose not to. Its called "timed lights". Cities don't often invest in it, cause having regular lights is cheaper and easier... Is a city which isn't willing to spend the money on a timed light system any more likely to spring for an entire network interface with cars?
Again, Bakari, you're looking at how AI can do things humans do, without considering that they won't need to.
Traffic lights will be obsolete, because all vehicles will know where all other vehicles are. They will weave around one another according to set rules and never crash. They might become stationery when there is a huge volume of traffic. But it won't be traffic lights telling them what to do. They will know.
I'm not saying that vision of fully networked AI traffic isn't technically possible, I'm saying that not everything possible gets implemented. We have a mostly car based society. Yet there is no universal law that says bikes and pedestrians, or even horse drawn carriages, are all banned from all public roadways. In Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana its common to see horse drawn buggies on the street.
What reason do we have to assume that one day soon 100% of the population is going to go out and buy full AI cars with no possibility for driver input? No one will bike or walk or ride a horse, or even keep their old car, ever again? That does not seem remotely realistic, at least not in the forseeable future.
Someone who buys a new car in 2018 is going to go along with it when in 2028 the federal government decides all cars operated by humans are now banned on all public roadways?
This is a democracy. And people don't make decisions based purely on what is the most rational approach to benefit society as a whole in the long run.
Which means that intersections in cities still need to accommodate flesh brains which don't have access to the traffic-net that AI taps into.
In other words: street lights and stop signs.
My point in mentioning timed lights was that many of the benefits of networked cars could already easily be implemented with today's technology, and yet it isn't done.
Private auto manufacturers will not be able to implement a fully autonomous traffic-net which includes re-configuring all traffic laws, independent of government, even if there was any economic incentive for them to. Which there isn't.
Quote
As for your concerns about people giving up privacy, for example regarding surveillance cameras, I really think people care less about privacy than they think. Most people, in general, want 'privacy'. But think how much information millions of people willingly give to Facebook, or Google. And all they get in return is a bit of entertainment and questions answered quickly.It isn't my concern!
I just don't think having cameras on you 24/7, including in your personal bedroom, in all bathrooms public and private, and literally all other places, is equivalent to the information we give to facebook or cameras in public areas.
What I write keeps being taken out of context. That comment was in response to the claim that there will be no crime in the future because everyone will be guaranteed to be caught. Plenty of crime happens in personal homes, including bedrooms and bathrooms.
While I agree that tech will develop faster than most people think, many on this thread seem to think that tech is the ONLY factor in shaping society, and that anything which is technically possible will definitely happen.
All the technologies we already have, that aren't implemented in every way they could conceivably be, is proof enough that it isn't.
Post by: Roe on August 08, 2017, 10:22:59 AM
"You don't realise it but we're in a race between technology and politics, and technologists are winning. They're way ahead.
Very true. If those things continue at their respective paces, we are headed for a dystopian society of post apocalyptic scale.
I am not worried. I don't think it's a problem. We should all want the technologists to win, right? In what bizarre alternate universe are old politicians righteous and just while technology leads to enslavement?
The whole premise of your statement is that technological progress is a bad thing, and I think all of human history disproves that point.
Not at all, technological progress is awesome, and if we handle this smart we might be heading for a fantastic world. Worryingly, history tells us we have not always been smart.
My statement about a dystopian future if tech wins was in regards to Tomsangs quote about a race. Tech winning that race is bad. Not because tech itself is bad, but because we now have societies adapted to most working. What our society isn't adapted to is massive amounts of people suddenly not working.
We want the tech advancements, but we want politics to be ahead of it. Not necessarily changing everything, but building a more adaptable society.
Post by: sol on August 08, 2017, 10:35:15 AM
What I write keeps being taken out of context.
Yes, we've sort of latched onto your rather reasonable opinions as points of contention, because many of us are optimistic about the future and you sound like you are not.
I agree that we will always have stop lights, because we will always have some human drivers in the mix and the traffic system will have to accommodate them somehow. Maybe not on all roads, though.
The overall trend of technology, though, has always been to displace old ways of doing things to make room for different and seemingly foreign alternatives. My grandma hated plucking kitchens when she was little, now nobody plucks chickens anymore and we pay people to regulate how much trans fat is in the KFC deep fryer. Every job has been somehow changed by technology, and yet we keep finding new jobs in fields that didn't even exist before the technology came along.
So I'm not too worried about the robots and the super AI. We'll all manage to get along. We've survived multiple global military conflicts and come out just fine, do we really think robots taking our jobs is going to be worse than that?
We want the tech advancements, but we want politics to be ahead of it. Not necessarily changing everything, but building a more adaptable society.
I suspect that our society is already far more adaptable than we generally give it credit for. We dealt with women joining the workforce, and freeing a nation's worth of slaves, and resource shortages and capital freezes and staggering inflation and yes, even the military murder of an entire generation of our young men. Now everyone is freaking out about having too much free time on their hands, like that's what will end America?
Post by: Bakari on August 08, 2017, 10:48:29 AM
This wasn't all made up for with new jobs. People age 8 to 18 no longer work. People retire younger than "physically unable to work anymore". And we only work 8 hour days, instead of "as long as the sun is up" and 5 day weeks. 50% less jobs, and 50% less total work done, its a wash.
50% of jobs have been eliminated before, more than once. Think of agriculture...
The tech allows us to be paid more for the same work, while each person works less over their lifetime.
This was win/win.
Hopefully its what we do this time too.
Actually, I'm sure it is, the only question is how long will it take / will the transition be painful?
Quote
We didn't all become unemployed, we did different things. No-one worked in an HR department in 1850, you know?Sure they did, it just wasn't called that.
The boss, supervisor, or nobleman, or whoever, just had that responsibility, but the equivelant sort of things were done. Someone made the decision of who to hire, who to fire, whether to except an illness as an excuse for missing work. It wasn't neccassary to have an entire "department" since things were rarely organized on such a large scale as is common today.
Technology has little to do with the existence of HR - we just have a lot more people, and politics and corporations organized on a larger scale. Its more a result of capitalism, and how it can make inefficiency sustainable as long as the gross is high enough.
Quote
so we can't imagine what form jobs will take in the future.But what makes you think those future jobs won't also be automated?
Post by: Bakari on August 08, 2017, 10:54:08 AM
What I write keeps being taken out of context.
Yes, we've sort of latched onto your rather reasonable opinions as points of contention, because many of us are optimistic about the future and you sound like you are not.
lol I don't mean to come across that way!
I am very looking forward to AI drivers, because humans are terrible at it. I wish it could go faster and be more complete than it will, but even the milder version that will happen will be better.
I think robots displacing jobs is also very good, just like the industrial revolution permanently displacing jobs, allowing the development of the 8 hour day, weekends, paid vacation, benefits, and retirement, even while increasing profits and investment, was a very good thing.
And I'm even lucky enough to have one of those sort of jobs that will take a lot longer to automate, due to its complexity (not to mention some capital!)
I have some question as to how painless the transition, politically and economically, will be to a new social model where there isn't enough labor for humans to have "job" as the basis for sustenance, but one way or the other we will get through it with a better life for everyone.
All that is totally separate from my instinct to call out and correct factually incorrect information I find on internet forums ;-P
Post by: Roe on August 08, 2017, 01:29:52 PM
We want the tech advancements, but we want politics to be ahead of it. Not necessarily changing everything, but building a more adaptable society.
I suspect that our society is already far more adaptable than we generally give it credit for. We dealt with women joining the workforce, and freeing a nation's worth of slaves, and resource shortages and capital freezes and staggering inflation and yes, even the military murder of an entire generation of our young men. Now everyone is freaking out about having too much free time on their hands, like that's what will end America?
Too much free time isn't what people are freaking out over.
When spinning jenny came, workers sabotaged the machines because they were worried they might be out of a job. Many were, but that's long ago, and in the grand scheme of things we are better of with that invention than without it.
Looking at history doesn't make me less worried tough. A man loosing his cushy job as a weaver maybe went to the docks and got another job there. Heavy labor, and less money. From our viewpoint not that much different. Society now is different. There is WIC, the dole, SS. We live longer. We expect more. If we fall, we have a higher place to fall from than before in history. Many wouldn't know how to handle it, and many would feel resentment at loosing the life they had.
Not saying that is what will happen. Im saying that all the times this happened before happened in another context.
Another reason I worry is that the transition will happen in our time. No matter how awesome the industrial revolution is for us, it was fairly shitty for many that ended up in the middle of it. That weaver turned dock-worker probably wouldnt agree with me about it being "not that much different".
Anyways, I hope you are right. I would enjoy that free time.
Post by: tomsang on August 08, 2017, 06:30:19 PM
"As the sale and use of lifelike sex robots that allow people to simulate rape continues to gain steam, one famed law professor is sounding the alarm."
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35300/
Post by: Bakari on August 08, 2017, 07:53:50 PM
There was a big drop in rape rates when the VCR was invented, and another drop when the internet came along. Except, that is, in places where it was banned.
Bots should, if anything, do an even better job of giving potential rapists a neutral outlet.
As uncomfortable as it is to acknowledge the "animal" side of sexuality, sex drive is pretty much universal, everyone has their own attractions, but not everyone is attractive to the object of their desire.
Repression has never worked particularly well. In fact, it pretty much always backfires - the more repressed a society is, the higher the levels of everything from sexual violence to STD rates, teen pregnancies and gender inequality.
Post by: tomsang on August 14, 2017, 02:54:34 PM
Oil trading 'god' Andy Hall says he's met his match in robots
"Algorithmic trading systems have increasingly come to dominate," Hall wrote. "Investing in oil under current market conditions using an approach based primarily on fundamentals has therefore become increasingly challenging. It seems quite likely this will continue to be the case for some time to come."
Post by: tomsang on August 16, 2017, 07:30:01 PM
"With the acceleration of [artificial intelligence] and other new technology ... the world is changing fast," Branson writes in a post published this week.
"A lot of exciting new innovations are going to be created, which will generate a lot of opportunities and a lot of wealth, but there is a real danger it could also reduce the amount of jobs," he says.
Post by: Optimiser on August 29, 2017, 03:33:21 PM
Quote from: From the article
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Someday, the Domino's pizza you order might show up in a car that drives itself.
Domino's and Ford Motor began testing Tuesday in Ann Arbor, where Domino's is based, to see whether customers like the idea of driverless-car delivery or stumble over what amounts to a self-serve pickup process once the pizza arrives.
The test involves using a Ford Fusion sedan with markings and gear on the roof to indicate it is self-driving.
Ford said the Fusion hybrid is capable of driving itself but is driven by an engineer for the purposes of the testing. The windows will be tinted to prevent the customer from seeing the driver. The main intent of the project is to test customer reaction and the customers will think the vehicle is driving itself.
The customer will receive a text message when the vehicle arrives and then go out to the car.
Post by: maizefolk on August 29, 2017, 05:47:08 PM
Personally I'd imagine an entirely automated pizza delivery experience would be popular. All of the delicious unhealthy food, none of the judgment or need to change out of a bathrobe. ;-)
Post by: Optimiser on August 29, 2017, 06:00:40 PM
Post by: Bakari on August 30, 2017, 01:55:47 PM
The baking can be done en-route as well ensuring a hot fresh pizza every time!True, but that could be done now...
Post by: Kriegsspiel on August 30, 2017, 03:28:24 PM
"According to Meij, the company had been investigating delivery options for a while, saying that it didn't make sense to have a two tonne machine delivering a two kilogram order.
He said the use of drones offered a faster and safer option as well as removing barriers such as traffic and distance, meaning they could deliver further afield and faster in urban areas.
"Domino's is all about providing customers with choice and making customer's lives easier," Meij said. "Adding innovation such as drone deliveries means customers can experience cutting-edge technology and the convenience of having their Supreme pizza delivered via air to their door. This is the future.""
Post by: Optimiser on August 30, 2017, 04:09:42 PM
Post by: Kriegsspiel on August 30, 2017, 04:13:15 PM
Post by: Optimiser on August 30, 2017, 04:14:40 PM
Post by: theadvicist on August 31, 2017, 04:08:49 AM
In Germany they use mopeds, which makes a lot more sense than cars too.
What, in the States, pizzas are delivered by car?! Always a moped here - you can tell it's a pizza one from the shape of the box on the back! Ubereats and Deliveroo use a mix of bicycles and moped near me (I'm in the UK).
I agree drones would be better. Aren't Amazon trialling drone deliveries in Cambridgeshire, or was that a publicity stunt?
Post by: matchewed on August 31, 2017, 06:40:57 AM
In Germany they use mopeds, which makes a lot more sense than cars too.
What, in the States, pizzas are delivered by car?!
Yep. Chalk it up to the car industry developing the infrastructure through the government. Less planes trains more automobiles.
Post by: theadvicist on August 31, 2017, 07:08:06 AM
In Germany they use mopeds, which makes a lot more sense than cars too.
What, in the States, pizzas are delivered by car?!
Yep. Chalk it up to the car industry developing the infrastructure through the government. Less planes trains more automobiles.
Mopeds still use the roads though, so they are dependent on the same automobile infrastructure. It just seems like a lot of petrol to waste, and much slower, since cars can't skip traffic the way a bike can.
Post by: maizefolk on August 31, 2017, 07:40:56 AM
Starship is one example:
https://www.recode.net/2017/1/18/14306674/starship-robot-food-delivery-washington-dc-silicon-valley
Post by: toganet on August 31, 2017, 07:52:04 AM
From the article:
Quote
...in a completely automated production line, the cost of human labor works out to about $0.33 per shirt. For context, to produce something like a denim shirt in Bangladesh, you might pay about $0.22 in labor costs, according to an estimate from the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. That same labor would be $7.47 in the US, putting the labor cost for Tianyuan Garments’ American-made shirt about on par with one of the cheapest labor markets in the world.
Quote
Understandably, the rise of automated sewing has raised concerns that it could displace countless low-wage garment workers in Asia in the coming decades. Last year, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that around 64% of textile, clothing, and footwear workers in Indonesia could eventually be replaced by robots. In Vietnam the number was 86%, and in Cambodia, 88%. The report noted that workers could get better wages if governments and employers start preparing them for new high-tech jobs. If they don’t, the consequences could be dire.
I didn't see a mention of the number of jobs the new factory would create.
Post by: maizefolk on August 31, 2017, 08:07:30 AM
Post by: aspiringnomad on September 03, 2017, 12:46:17 AM
Apparently there are a number of startups developing much smaller robots for food delivery, although to my eye, they look like they'd be feasible in extremely dense urban centers (although that's a bias you see with the business models of a lot of startups coming out of SFO).
Starship is one example:
https://www.recode.net/2017/1/18/14306674/starship-robot-food-delivery-washington-dc-silicon-valley
I just had a delivery bot scoot by me in DC the other day. Fourth or fifth I've seen, all with handlers keeping a close eye on them. This one had the longest "leash" I've seen so far, as the handler was walking at least 30 feet behind it. It navigated around some hedges that were poking out onto the sidewalk quite deftly.
Post by: AlanStache on September 04, 2017, 07:34:20 AM
Post by: theadvicist on September 04, 2017, 07:48:52 AM
Apparently there are a number of startups developing much smaller robots for food delivery, although to my eye, they look like they'd be feasible in extremely dense urban centers (although that's a bias you see with the business models of a lot of startups coming out of SFO).
Starship is one example:
https://www.recode.net/2017/1/18/14306674/starship-robot-food-delivery-washington-dc-silicon-valley
I just had a delivery bot scoot by me in DC the other day. Fourth or fifth I've seen, all with handlers keeping a close eye on them. This one had the longest "leash" I've seen so far, as the handler was walking at least 30 feet behind it. It navigated around some hedges that were poking out onto the sidewalk quite deftly.
Wow! It will be interesting to see how they overcome theft issues (both of the contents and the robot).
Post by: Kriegsspiel on September 04, 2017, 10:50:28 AM
Post by: Bakari on September 04, 2017, 04:34:29 PM
In Germany they use mopeds, which makes a lot more sense than cars too.
What, in the States, pizzas are delivered by car?!
Yep. Chalk it up to the car industry developing the infrastructure through the government. Less planes trains more automobiles.
Mopeds still use the roads though, so they are dependent on the same automobile infrastructure. It just seems like a lot of petrol to waste, and much slower, since cars can't skip traffic the way a bike can.
Americans just really don't do mopeds, at all. Country had lots of space and fairly low density at first, and fell into car culture. Motorcycles are considered a (dangerous) recreational vehicle. Scooters, maybe a few college students in dense cities. Mopeds? Basically non-existent.
I did once get a pizza delivery by skateboard once, in Berkeley
Post by: pdxmonkey on September 04, 2017, 10:54:11 PM
So yeah. Nobody uses mopeds. I only know one person in my life who owned one and if I remember that was in middle school so they couldn't even legally drive it.
Post by: theadvicist on September 05, 2017, 02:56:52 AM
I'm currently reading an historical novel with lots of highwaymen and bandits. Everything old is new again.
Post by: Optimiser on September 05, 2017, 09:13:36 AM
Post by: tomsang on September 15, 2017, 01:30:04 PM
"In the past two years, automation and artificial intelligence tools have become sophisticated enough to influence professionals and white collar work. Administrative assistants, radiologists, financial advisers — and now lawyers — have all become the targets of such software."
"JP Morgan recently marshaled an army of developers to build software that can do in seconds what it took lawyers 360,000 hours to do previously, the company said."
Post by: AlanStache on September 15, 2017, 01:48:41 PM
...
"JP Morgan recently marshaled an army of developers to build software that can do in seconds what it took lawyers 360,000 hours to do previously, the company said."
I assumed that a light bulb changing robot was invented ages ago :-)
Post by: Optimiser on September 15, 2017, 02:24:59 PM
"JP Morgan recently marshaled an army of developers to build software that can do in seconds what it took lawyers 360,000 hours to do previously, the company said."
This is quite impressive assuming that:
A) Lawyers were previously the best at doing whatever this thing is
B) This thing is something worth doing
Post by: tomsang on September 22, 2017, 08:48:11 AM
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4909172/Putin-reveals-fears-robots-one-day-eat-us.html
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 22, 2017, 09:46:02 AM
Putin is scared about Robots eating us... Does he know something? At first I thought it was a translation error. Like technology is going to eat us alive when it comes to jobs.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4909172/Putin-reveals-fears-robots-one-day-eat-us.html
Wow, of all the things I worry about with AI, being eaten is bizarre. I guess the reasoning goes that humans eat things like chickens and cows, but beyond that the logic breaks down. Enslave us, shoot us, imprison us in virtual reality, cause unemployment, drive over us, turn us in to helpless consumers with weaponized advertising - sure, lots of reasonable possibilities, but eat us? If it wasn't Putin, I'd think the guy was completely bonkers.
Post by: OurTown on September 22, 2017, 09:53:24 AM
Post by: Bakari on September 22, 2017, 09:58:41 AM
Remember? Nuclear war or something blots out the sun, so there is no longer any energy input, so the machines create human farms so they can extract energy from us. How do we get the energy to continue to live? Why, they feed us other humans of course! That's not circular at all...
The entire fantasy land of the matrix itself was because humans apparently spontaneously die when in lifelong sensory deprivation. And creating an interconnected detailed fantasy world is obviously a much better solution than just using, say, algae as a perpetual motion style energy source.
Maybe Putin just saw "The Matrix" for the first time.
Post by: Bakari on September 22, 2017, 10:04:59 AM
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0331_060331_robot_flesh.html
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on September 22, 2017, 10:51:30 AM
Granted it made no sense - the very premise violates the most basic law of thermodynamics - but being eaten by robots was the backstory of the incredible popular "Matrix" movie series.
Remember? Nuclear war or something blots out the sun, so there is no longer any energy input, so the machines create human farms so they can extract energy from us. How do we get the energy to continue to live? Why, they feed us other humans of course! That's not circular at all...
The entire fantasy land of the matrix itself was because humans apparently spontaneously die when in lifelong sensory deprivation. And creating an interconnected detailed fantasy world is obviously a much better solution than just using, say, algae as a perpetual motion style energy source.
Maybe Putin just saw "The Matrix" for the first time.
Yeah, using Humans as an energy source was a logical error debunked by Futurama! https://youtu.be/wSVlOAocn8E?t=3m40s Surely Putin has someone on his staff that can inform him of this before he goes off the rails.
Post by: GuitarStv on September 22, 2017, 11:06:25 AM
:P
Post by: Bakari on September 24, 2017, 09:32:26 PM
Yeah, using Humans as an energy source was a logical error debunked by Futurama! https://youtu.be/wSVlOAocn8E?t=3m40s (https://youtu.be/wSVlOAocn8E?t=3m40s) Surely Putin has someone on his staff that can inform him of this before he goes off the rails.
holy crap, that makes so much sense! Now I want to actually see that again, and the rest of them!
Post by: tomsang on October 07, 2017, 07:35:20 PM
"White collar workers see tech as something positive that helps them get ahead and has improved their opportunities for career advancement, giving them agency to do their jobs better, make more money and get promotions. When we asked the same questions of working class folk, you don’t get the same sense that it’s something that is helpful to them or improves access to career opportunities.
He said that “the American public does not buy the notion that it will be good for everyone.” Americans believe that “a small number of people [will] do well and everyone else loses their jobs to the robots.” It turns out, they may be right."
Post by: jordanread on October 07, 2017, 09:15:12 PM
Post by: arebelspy on October 11, 2017, 10:39:29 PM
https://youtu.be/wSVlOAocn8E?t=3m40s
That was really good. Thanks for linking.
Post by: tomsang on October 14, 2017, 04:08:31 PM
Google appears to be providing serious money to address this issue. I need to dig in more to see what it means.
Post by: mozar on October 14, 2017, 07:40:38 PM
Post by: tomsang on October 16, 2017, 09:52:25 AM
I walked into my manager's office last week and on his screen was a powerpoint presentation about how the office is planning on automating 20 to 90 percent of activities. He must have seen my eyes get big because he then clicked out of it.
Wow! That would be a bit unsettling. Would you be on the team to implement said change or are you looking for other outside opportunities?
Post by: mozar on October 16, 2017, 07:32:26 PM
Quote
Wow! That would be a bit unsettling. Would you be on the team to implement said change or are you looking for other outside opportunities?
I'm definitely not looking for a new job. I don't feel like hopping again, especially so close to FIRE.
Even though I wasn't supposed to see that yes I am on the team to implement change. There is a member on my team whose sole job is to automate and we work together (he automates something, I write the new process). The office has tried and failed to automate but has failed miserably so we are the consultants who have come in to "improve" things.
Post by: maizefolk on October 29, 2017, 01:38:27 PM
Quote
Walmart stresses that the robots are there to supplement humans, not replace them...And the chief of Bossa Nova rival Simbe Robotics, Brad Bogolea, added that shelf checks can cost a major retailer hundreds of millions of dollars per year. However expensive the robots may be, they could pay for themselves very quickly.
Can people really read "we're not going to replace humans with these robots, but these robots are going to save us lots of money [presumably because they don't have to pay humans to do that work anymore]" and not see that these two statements contradict each other?
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/26/walmart-tests-shelf-scanning-robots/
Post by: matchewed on October 30, 2017, 05:10:27 AM
Walmart is expanding the use of robots which run the aisles checking for merchandise that needs to be restocked to another 50 store. Pretty basic tech compared to a lot of what is discussed in this thread, but I though it was interesting that these two ideas could be presented in the same paragraph:QuoteWalmart stresses that the robots are there to supplement humans, not replace them...And the chief of Bossa Nova rival Simbe Robotics, Brad Bogolea, added that shelf checks can cost a major retailer hundreds of millions of dollars per year. However expensive the robots may be, they could pay for themselves very quickly.
Can people really read "we're not going to replace humans with these robots, but these robots are going to save us lots of money [presumably because they don't have to pay humans to do that work anymore]" and not see that these two statements contradict each other?
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/26/walmart-tests-shelf-scanning-robots/
Yeah that's been a common refrain. In my job world (mfg) that also has been the message while the apparent reality is that automation has absolutely reduced the number of jobs and grown a divide in the complexity of the jobs. Whereas you needed a fairly even spread of knowledge and skills across your various jobs within a facility now you need a more bimodal spread with peaks at the higher end and lower end of the knowledge/skill spectrum.
Post by: dougules on October 30, 2017, 10:34:50 AM
Walmart is expanding the use of robots which run the aisles checking for merchandise that needs to be restocked to another 50 store. Pretty basic tech compared to a lot of what is discussed in this thread, but I though it was interesting that these two ideas could be presented in the same paragraph:QuoteWalmart stresses that the robots are there to supplement humans, not replace them...And the chief of Bossa Nova rival Simbe Robotics, Brad Bogolea, added that shelf checks can cost a major retailer hundreds of millions of dollars per year. However expensive the robots may be, they could pay for themselves very quickly.
Can people really read "we're not going to replace humans with these robots, but these robots are going to save us lots of money [presumably because they don't have to pay humans to do that work anymore]" and not see that these two statements contradict each other?
https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/26/walmart-tests-shelf-scanning-robots/
This is exactly what I think is happening that automation is going to be incremental like it has been since the industrial revolution, except that it's accelerating.
Post by: Bateaux on October 31, 2017, 06:21:34 AM
Post by: robartsd on October 31, 2017, 09:09:08 AM
We have greater production and more employees than ever.Yes, but how many jobs at other opperators did you eliminate by taking over their production? Being at a company that successfully automates early enough to have a competative advantages in the industry is proabably good for job security. Being at a company that is automating to try to catch up with competition might be not so good for job security.
Post by: pdxmonkey on October 31, 2017, 02:37:00 PM
Post by: TempusFugit on October 31, 2017, 05:54:46 PM
How well that will actually work out in practice is something we are about to find out, I think.
Fact is that humans can do lots of things but low skill things often are done by humans who don't really give a crap and thus do it very poorly. Watching borderline morons bag my groceries is one of my life's little trials. I always want to just push them aside and do it myself. Of course, I also hate the damn machine at the self checkout repeatedly asking me to 'remove the item from the bagging area.' So I guess it's a wash.
Post by: dougules on November 01, 2017, 11:22:17 AM
I think the pure economists' view would be that humans displaced from the job (or simply not hired to do it in the first place) can get a 'better' job doing something that a machine can't do as well as a human.
How well that will actually work out in practice is something we are about to find out, I think.
Fact is that humans can do lots of things but low skill things often are done by humans who don't really give a crap and thus do it very poorly. Watching borderline morons bag my groceries is one of my life's little trials. I always want to just push them aside and do it myself. Of course, I also hate the damn machine at the self checkout repeatedly asking me to 'remove the item from the bagging area.' So I guess it's a wash.
Even when people do move to a better job, it's not an easy transition. Think about your parents, grandparents, or great grandparents moving from farm life to working in a factory, a mine, or an office. We just accept that you might only see your grandparents and cousins once every year or two, but that was a big deal not long ago.
A lot of people have long unemployment periods, and maybe have to spend time and money on school or training. It's good for society in the long run, but in the short run automation causes a lot of turmoil.
Post by: maizefolk on November 17, 2017, 07:19:26 AM
With a big enough training dataset (100,000 images), AI can be trained to diagnosis diseases like pneumonia was well or better than radiologists in two months. ... and of course the AI can interpret xrays all over the world, at any time of day or night.
Popular press article: https://qz.com/1130687/stanford-trained-ai-to-diagnose-pneumonia-better-than-a-radiologist-in-just-two-months/
Scientific preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05225
Post by: jordanread on November 17, 2017, 08:11:19 AM
Training a radiologist takes four years after four years of general medical school training, which comes after four years of college, so 12 years total of specialized training.
With a big enough training dataset (100,000 images), AI can be trained to diagnosis diseases like pneumonia was well or better than radiologists in two months. ... and of course the AI can interpret xrays all over the world, at any time of day or night.
Popular press article: https://qz.com/1130687/stanford-trained-ai-to-diagnose-pneumonia-better-than-a-radiologist-in-just-two-months/
Scientific preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05225
In the same vein, don't forget Brittany Wenger, who did the same thing in 2012 at 17!
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/budding-scientist/google-recognizes-teens-for-tackling-hearing-loss-breast-cancer-and-water-quality/
Post by: Just Joe on November 28, 2017, 07:35:59 AM
There is a 20 seconds blooper reel after the end of the video. Just keep watching.
Post by: Just Joe on November 28, 2017, 07:46:31 AM
Some economists have suggested that the jobs left for humans might be the ones we are actually better than robots at: nursing and 'caring' in general.
There are a number of articles that show/explain why robots are better at nursing and caring than humans. They never get upset, they are there 24/7, they have the ability to monitor health in real time, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-future-of-robot-caregivers.html?_r=0
Imagine this: Since the robot caregiver wouldn’t require sleep, it would always be alert and available in case of crisis. While my patient slept, the robot could do laundry and other household tasks. When she woke, the robot could greet her with a kind, humanlike voice, help her get out of bed safely and make sure she was clean after she used the toilet. It — she? he? — would ensure that my patient took the right medications in the right doses. At breakfast, the robot could chat with her about the weather or news.
And then, because my patient loves to read but her eyesight is failing, the caregiver robot would offer to read to her. Or maybe it would provide her with a large-print electronic display of a book, the lighting just right for her weakened eyes. After a while the robot would say, “I wonder whether we should take a break from reading now and get you dressed. Your daughter’s coming to visit today.”
Are there ethical issues we will need to address? Of course. But I can also imagine my patient’s smile when the robot says these words, and I suspect she doesn’t smile much in her current situation, when she’s home alone, hour after hour and day after day.
The counter-point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOT0GOyw2pY
Not sure who I believe b/c Vox also said that truck driving is one of the more future proof jobs and I think that has been shown to be wrong. Unless I'm missing something.
Post by: Just Joe on November 28, 2017, 08:17:14 AM
The Dominos I saw in Belgium had electric bikes for delivery. I assume it is more difficult to make something on two wheels autonomous though.
Well ebikes do make sense but in the US city (NYC) where it would make the most sense the mayor has banned ebikes and police confiscate them...
Post by: aspiringnomad on November 28, 2017, 08:25:07 PM
The Dominos I saw in Belgium had electric bikes for delivery. I assume it is more difficult to make something on two wheels autonomous though.
Well ebikes do make sense but in the US city (NYC) where it would make the most sense the mayor has banned ebikes and police confiscate them...
Seriously?! I had no idea they were illegal in NYC. They're everywhere in DC and the city has even allowed a dockless ebike system among several other dockless bike systems undergoing a "demonstration period". I get that NYC is crowded but banning ebikes is crazy.
Post by: Zola. on November 29, 2017, 06:07:43 AM
Post by: matchewed on November 29, 2017, 07:10:34 AM
People do business with people. Soft skills are the future. If you don't have them, you will need them...
As people keep ordering stuff online rather than go to a brick and mortar store, as people automate their banking activities, as people automate their bill payments, as people ask a phone for a ride...
I'm not sure your blanket statement is 100% applicable to all scenarios.
Post by: Just Joe on November 29, 2017, 01:26:37 PM
The Dominos I saw in Belgium had electric bikes for delivery. I assume it is more difficult to make something on two wheels autonomous though.
Well ebikes do make sense but in the US city (NYC) where it would make the most sense the mayor has banned ebikes and police confiscate them...
Seriously?! I had no idea they were illegal in NYC. They're everywhere in DC and the city has even allowed a dockless ebike system among several other dockless bike systems undergoing a "demonstration period". I get that NYC is crowded but banning ebikes is crazy.
https://slate.com/business/2017/10/bill-de-blasios-crackdown-on-e-bikes-is-a-truly-bad-idea.html
Post by: robartsd on November 30, 2017, 10:56:00 AM
NY State has not yet enacted any e-bike laws. NY DMV says they do not qualify to be registered as motor vehicles. Appearently they are being treated under NY State law as illegal motor vehicles rather than as bicycles. There is a bill in NY's Assembly Transportation committee (since Jan 10, 2017) (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2017/a1018/amendment/original) that would allow e-bikes (matching the federal definition).Well ebikes do make sense but in the US city (NYC) where it would make the most sense the mayor has banned ebikes and police confiscate them...
Seriously?! I had no idea they were illegal in NYC. They're everywhere in DC and the city has even allowed a dockless ebike system among several other dockless bike systems undergoing a "demonstration period". I get that NYC is crowded but banning ebikes is crazy.
https://slate.com/business/2017/10/bill-de-blasios-crackdown-on-e-bikes-is-a-truly-bad-idea.html
Post by: FIRE Artist on November 30, 2017, 01:59:50 PM
Post by: Yankuba on November 30, 2017, 02:15:13 PM
People do business with people. Soft skills are the future. If you don't have them, you will need them...
As people keep ordering stuff online rather than go to a brick and mortar store, as people automate their banking activities, as people automate their bill payments, as people ask a phone for a ride...
I'm not sure your blanket statement is 100% applicable to all scenarios.
+1
A guy I work with decided on an online graduate degree versus going a couple of subway stops to the local commuter school which has a much better reputation. I said "you will make so many friends going to the actual school - maybe even find a girlfriend or two" and he was like "why do I want to travel to school when I can do everything from my couch." He is in his late 20s.
I'm bearish on people's ability to use charm and soft skills to outrun the robots and software.
Post by: Brother Esau on November 30, 2017, 04:37:15 PM
Post by: dougules on December 01, 2017, 11:28:31 AM
http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-11-27
Nice. Dilbert is so shockingly dead on.
Post by: tomsang on January 04, 2018, 09:55:20 PM
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/04/south-koreas-lg-electronics-to-introduce-new-robots-at-ces-2018.html
LG is rolling out three new prototype service robots. Some of the quotes from the article are interesting. The numbers are staggering and the dates are not that far out. In twelve years, they are projecting 800 million workers globally can be replaced. Even if they are off by a decade, this will still be very disruptive to those that make money through manual and intellectual labor. Our children will be experiencing a new paradigm for earning income. Fill up the Stache so that you are owning the companies that will be causing the disruption.
"Meanwhile, a report released by McKinsey & Company last November suggested that by 2030, as many as 800 million workers globally could be replaced by robots. Even if automation adoption is slower, as many as 400 million people could still be affected, the report said."
"But not everyone is convinced by the argument that automation will create enough new jobs — especially to service and program AI and robots. The former president of Google China told CNBC in November that robots are "clearly replacing people jobs. They're working 24 by 7. They are more efficient. They need some programming. But one programmer can program 10,000 robots."
Post by: toganet on January 05, 2018, 08:48:28 AM
Post by: maizefolk on January 05, 2018, 09:32:55 AM
I don't think there is a better hedge against automation than "hold the whole market." And and to make sure you are working on hitting FI whether or not you value RE because your job may very well disappear in the decades between now and conventional retirement age.
Post by: dougules on January 05, 2018, 10:28:02 AM
A lot of the innovation in machine learning and robotics is coming from either small startups (privately held), or large diversified corporations where robotics are a small fraction of what the organization does (think amazon's warehouse robots, or google's self driving cars). The first group tends to get acquired by the second group if successful rather than going public.
I don't think there is a better hedge against automation than "hold the whole market." And and to make sure you are working on hitting FI whether or not you value RE because your job may very well disappear in the decades between now and conventional retirement age.
At least if automation really kicks into high gear, it should goose the economy while holding inflation down. Lower cost of living in relation to the economy will make FI easier to get to for those that don't get replaced.
Post by: tomsang on January 05, 2018, 10:54:40 AM
A lot of the innovation in machine learning and robotics is coming from either small startups (privately held), or large diversified corporations where robotics are a small fraction of what the organization does (think amazon's warehouse robots, or google's self driving cars). The first group tends to get acquired by the second group if successful rather than going public.
I don't think there is a better hedge against automation than "hold the whole market." And and to make sure you are working on hitting FI whether or not you value RE because your job may very well disappear in the decades between now and conventional retirement age.
At least if automation really kicks into high gear, it should goose the economy while holding inflation down. Lower cost of living in relation to the economy will make FI easier to get to for those that don't get replaced.
I agree. To me the twist to this, which may be anti-mustachian, is do you earn more so that your children can be gifted ownership in the companies making the money/power? If they don't have the same opportunities that we had to make a living, are you morally obligated to help them out by providing some of your stache to them?
Post by: maizefolk on January 05, 2018, 11:06:06 AM
It is certainly possible that society may shift a lot in the future, but if present trends continue, I think it will be significantly harder for future generations to achieve FI by selling their labor for 5-20 years than it is today for those of us fortunate enough to have in demand skill sets.
Post by: sol on January 05, 2018, 12:06:38 PM
I think it will be significantly harder for future generations to achieve FI by selling their labor for 5-20 years than it is today for those of us fortunate enough to have in demand skill sets.
Nah, there will always be work for people willing to work hard. It may be very different kinds of work, or require specialized training or education not offered by our current system, but I can't envision a human economy with no demand for human labor.
I can envision a national economy run by robots in which humans are incidental, but those profits will still flow to humans and those humans will want other humans to do their bidding. We could have an elite ownership class that controls 99% of all capital, but I think that class will always redistribute some portion of their earnings to non class members, and some of those folks will find a way to join the member class.
It could certainly get harder than it is today, I suppose. It seems easy if you make 100k/yr and save/invest half for a decade, but not everyone currently has that opportunity and most people who do don't take it.
Post by: maizefolk on January 05, 2018, 12:22:05 PM
Post by: Yankuba on January 05, 2018, 01:02:46 PM
Might it be time to look at some targeted ETFs like ROBO or BOTZ? Their performance has been impressive over the short term, but I'm not one to recommend a narrow focus.
I talked my friend into investing in BOTZ but I haven’t convinced myself to invest. One of the two has a tiny number of companies in the index and both have high P/E ratios.
Post by: Bakari on January 06, 2018, 09:47:52 AM
I think it will be significantly harder for future generations to achieve FI by selling their labor for 5-20 years than it is today for those of us fortunate enough to have in demand skill sets.
Nah, there will always be work for people willing to work hard. It may be very different kinds of work, or require specialized training or education not offered by our current system, but I can't envision a human economy with no demand for human labor.
I can envision a national economy run by robots in which humans are incidental, but those profits will still flow to humans and those humans will want other humans to do their bidding. We could have an elite ownership class that controls 99% of all capital, but I think that class will always redistribute some portion of their earnings to non class members, and some of those folks will find a way to join the member class.
It could certainly get harder than it is today, I suppose. It seems easy if you make 100k/yr and save/invest half for a decade, but not everyone currently has that opportunity and most people who do don't take it.
I agree entirely with what you are saying, but I don't think it conflicts with what Maizeman said.
He only said it would be harder, not that it would be impossible.
If robots and AI displace, say, 70% of the work force, with our current economic system (where wages are set by supply and demand), then either 70% of people will not be able to achieve FI through earning wages, or, best case scenario it will take everyone at least 70% longer to do so (assuming the cuts are distributed evenly all around, which seems very unlikely, and assuming spending wasn't already at a fixed minimum and could be scaled back proportionately to maintain the same overall savings rate, which seems even more unlikely).
Either way, that would constitute being significantly harder.
Post by: MrThatsDifferent on January 06, 2018, 01:29:23 PM
Post by: Bateaux on January 06, 2018, 02:18:53 PM
Post by: WhiteTrashCash on January 06, 2018, 02:46:46 PM
Post by: maizefolk on January 06, 2018, 03:15:27 PM
Since a lot of the strategies from the forum are already "used up" I imagine it would be significantly harder for a person living an amish lifestyle to accumulate enough assets/capital to become financially independent. Similarly, in a hypothetical future 50 years from now where only 60% of people can find productive work in mainstream society, it doesn't some implausible some people split off to create communities based on only employing tech developed by the year 2000 (for example), but I would imagine people in those communities would face a lot of the same challenges if they wanted to achieve FIRE as an amish person would today.
*Stocks and/or houses for us, farm land and labor intensive small businesses for the amish.
Post by: Just Joe on January 08, 2018, 01:18:30 PM
I'd like to think all sorts of cooperatives would spring up among the unemployed but it seems alot of people turn to their more baser ideas about getting ahead of the other guy (crabs in a bucket mentality) rather than cooperating to get ahead together. Or they expend alot of energy via religious organizations wishing something was different.
I think the Amish model of hard work and planning is something to be learned from. I don't think it is universally perfect (lots of social imperfections) but still worth consideration. Ain't nobody going to tell me to wear a beard or reject our kids b/c they didn't do as an elder said to.
Post by: Bakari on January 23, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-store/amazons-automated-grocery-store-of-the-future-opens-monday-idUSKBN1FA0RL (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-store/amazons-automated-grocery-store-of-the-future-opens-monday-idUSKBN1FA0RL)QuoteAmazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores.
Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, created an automated checkout process, but it has no plans to combine the two. Sure.
No formal, written plans, with a proposed date of test or roll-out, or specific mechanism of implementation.
That's probably entirely true!
Its not a guarantee that they won't even do it.
(Where "ever" could mean any length of time)
Post by: tomsang on January 23, 2018, 05:07:58 PM
"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,
The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.
That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."
"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."
In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!! Crazy stuff. He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated. Pretty crazy times ahead.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on January 23, 2018, 08:08:54 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-ceo-hopes-self-driving-134911610.htmlA few topics including self driving cars discussed here (http://rodneybrooks.com/my-dated-predictions/) along with some predictions on timelines (scroll down if you just want to see the predictions rather than read it all). I don't have a strong opinion but there will be so many problematic edge cases to successful autonomous vehicles that I'm a bit bearish (as is the linked post) on speed of deployment and the Uber roadmap hints at that as well.
"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,
The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.
That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."
"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."
In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!! Crazy stuff. He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated. Pretty crazy times ahead.
Post by: TempusFugit on January 24, 2018, 04:40:03 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-ceo-hopes-self-driving-134911610.htmlA few topics including self driving cars discussed here (http://rodneybrooks.com/my-dated-predictions/) along with some predictions on timelines (scroll down if you just want to see the predictions rather than read it all). I don't have a strong opinion but there will be so many problematic edge cases to successful autonomous vehicles that I'm a bit bearish (as is the linked post) on speed of deployment and the Uber roadmap hints at that as well.
"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,
The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.
That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."
"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."
In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!! Crazy stuff. He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated. Pretty crazy times ahead.
80% of the work will be for 20% of the circumstances - the edge cases. All the talk about how many millions of miles autonomous cars have driven is a bit misleading when a majority of those miles are the same few miles that have been mapped to the centimeter and driven over and over. I think the curve is going to flatten as they handle all the low hanging fruit and have to deal with the unexpected.
It's amazing how well the human brain adapts to do something quite complicated like drive a car. We put teenagers with mobile phones and stereos (and friends) in these things and most manage to survive with only minor incidents. Since we all (most of us anyway) have learned to do it so well that it's mostly subconscious/habit/reflex, it seems kind of simple, when it really isn't. In the farther future, when all vehicles are autonomous, it will be easier with every vehicle communicating and coordinating with the others, but that transition when there is a mix of humans and machines I think will be the hard part.
Post by: boarder42 on January 26, 2018, 02:24:10 PM
it will be much before 16 years that we hit that tipping point this video is pretty good at detailing the why and how with some data.
Post by: boarder42 on January 26, 2018, 02:31:08 PM
Post by: davisgang90 on January 26, 2018, 05:34:15 PM
Reading a fun book: Infinity Born by Douglas E. Richards.
Its a scifi thriller set in the near future and covers a lot of ground, AI, uploading consciousness, gene splicing.
Its been a fun read so far.
Since I lead an industry study on Robotics and Autonomous Systems, I especially enjoy his ideas on how to build an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and what the trip from AGI to ASI (Super Intelligence) could look like. His view is pretty scary.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on January 26, 2018, 09:05:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0The video was rather good, thanks for sharing. If he is half right about his batteries + solar prediction, a lot of annoying problems go away pretty quickly; it's good to hear an optimistic view like this now and then.
it will be much before 16 years that we hit that tipping point this video is pretty good at detailing the why and how with some data.
The problem I have with his description of enabling technology for pooled autonomous EVs is his arm-waving with respect to deep learning neatly solving all the problem of adequately controlling the vehicles, though perhaps the early and very limited tests of autonomous vehicles are showing more promising results than the more mixed results I've happened to hear about. Also not considered is the lead time on the appropriate regulatory and legal framework for operating autonomous vehicles at scale in a city or on major highways.
He is also a bit uncritically accepting of some of Tesla's milestone timelines (Musk time is not ordinary time: how overdue is falcon heavy, and the Model 3?).
Finally, I wonder if Seba has taken any short positions in either oil extraction companies or non EV-focused auto manufacturers.
Post by: boarder42 on January 27, 2018, 07:01:44 AM
The battery and solar thing is a much longer shot than the cars. That tech is here and Tesla doesn't really matter GM already knows how to mass build cars. And if we need 40% less then we won't need them both to succeed.
Even if he's half right by 2040 we no longer own cars.
Post by: Bateaux on January 27, 2018, 11:45:56 AM
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.
I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee. It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home. It took 12 hours of driving to get there. The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge. The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site. It would have been an enery cost free trip for us. I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback. Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice. It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring. I'd love a self driving car. I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also. I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful. Either we perfect it or someone else will.
Post by: boarder42 on January 29, 2018, 11:52:14 AM
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.
I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee. It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home. It took 12 hours of driving to get there. The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge. The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site. It would have been an enery cost free trip for us. I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback. Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice. It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring. I'd love a self driving car. I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also. I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful. Either we perfect it or someone else will.
its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.
Post by: toganet on January 29, 2018, 01:29:24 PM
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.
I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee. It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home. It took 12 hours of driving to get there. The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge. The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site. It would have been an enery cost free trip for us. I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback. Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice. It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring. I'd love a self driving car. I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also. I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful. Either we perfect it or someone else will.
its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.
+1 super excited.
When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life. Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical. I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph). But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.
My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety.
That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.
Post by: boarder42 on January 29, 2018, 01:56:35 PM
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.
I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee. It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home. It took 12 hours of driving to get there. The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge. The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site. It would have been an enery cost free trip for us. I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback. Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice. It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring. I'd love a self driving car. I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also. I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful. Either we perfect it or someone else will.
its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.
+1 super excited.
When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life. Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical. I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph). But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.
My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety.
That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.
i think we're looking at a very small 2-3 year window where this state may exist before all high speed travel is by autonomous car ie you cant get on the interstate under human control.
Post by: toganet on January 30, 2018, 08:12:44 AM
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.
I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee. It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home. It took 12 hours of driving to get there. The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge. The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site. It would have been an enery cost free trip for us. I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback. Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice. It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring. I'd love a self driving car. I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also. I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful. Either we perfect it or someone else will.
its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.
+1 super excited.
When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life. Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical. I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph). But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.
My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety.
That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.
i think we're looking at a very small 2-3 year window where this state may exist before all high speed travel is by autonomous car ie you cant get on the interstate under human control.
I also hope this is a short, intermediate window.
I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy. I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up). Population density is very low. It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc. Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more. My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles. At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.
Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough. Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well. Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.
So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.
Post by: robartsd on January 30, 2018, 09:59:25 AM
I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy. I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up). Population density is very low. It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc. Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more. My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles. At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.I also think the transition will be long. I could see various government (access to restricted lanes, tax breaks) and insurance company (reduced premiums) incentives that tip the scales pretty quickly towards all/most new cars having the technology (or even regulations mandating the technology in all new cars); but it will take quite a while to phase out existing human driven cars.
Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough. Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well. Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.
So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.
Post by: edgema on January 30, 2018, 10:00:42 AM
1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined.
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.
On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;
1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.
I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.
Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......
I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.
Post by: dougules on January 30, 2018, 10:31:48 AM
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.
1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined.
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.
On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;
1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.
I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.
Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......
I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.
At least on the question about the present, my guess is that it's economic recovery. Productivity actually goes up in a recession because the least productive people are no longer putting hours into the equation. Now that employment is tightening, all the least productive people are getting pulled back in which makes the line look flatter than it actually is.
I don't know what the future holds in how our economic system will change with automation, but it is interesting how artisanal products have boomed. I don't think that's coincidence.
Post by: toganet on January 30, 2018, 10:38:21 AM
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.
1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined.
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.
On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;
1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.
I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.
Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......
I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.
I will add the tinfoil hat answer for #2. (Disclaimer, I am simply repeating what I've heard/read elsewhere, impossible to know if anyone actually believes this).
"These changes are all part of a plan to build robots/AI that can do everything that we do ("we" here referring to wage-earning folks). Once the Elites have their self-driving cars, robot restaurants, automatic factories, and robotic sex slaves they won't have any need for us, and will use their power to eliminate us -- probably via some worldwide flu pandemic or blah blah blah chemtrails yada yada black helicopters."
I'm mocking this theory, obviously -- but I think it reveals the real fear behind the changes already underway to the way people work (or don't) and how their identity is associated with that. In America in particular we have upheld Work as the primary measure of self-worth, and material achievement as the scorecard of success. If we hope to have any sort of functioning society in a future where work is almost exclusively done by machines, we need to be talking about this.
Post by: sol on January 30, 2018, 10:40:44 AM
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.
Edgema, you might enjoy reading all ~1600 posts in this thread from the beginning. The questions you've posed have been discussed at some length here already.
Quote
1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined.
The short answer here, IMO, is that "productivity" is only loosely correlated with the number of people working, or how much they work. It's an economic term measured in economic output, which means it is controlled by economic forces. We are more "productive" when we "consume" more, not when we "work" more.
So yes, bullshit paper pushing jobs are one way to do that. Those consumer labor. Also blowing shit up works really well, because "consuming" and "destroying" aren't really very different. Consider how rapidly economies boom in places like Japan after a major earthquake. All that cleanup and construction work generates economic producyivity, though I think it's clear that a devastating earthquake is a net loss for the world. Funny, isn't it, how wanton waste suddenly generates apparent prosperity? Why is that?
Quote
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.
This question is why so many participants in this thread support a UBI. Seriously, go read it. Lots of smart people here. Some great links, too.
Post by: boarder42 on January 30, 2018, 12:59:20 PM
I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy. I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up). Population density is very low. It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc. Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more. My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles. At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.I also think the transition will be long. I could see various government (access to restricted lanes, tax breaks) and insurance company (reduced premiums) incentives that tip the scales pretty quickly towards all/most new cars having the technology (or even regulations mandating the technology in all new cars); but it will take quite a while to phase out existing human driven cars.
Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough. Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well. Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.
So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.
not when you need way way less total cars - current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road. make it 80 and you're at 1/20th
rural or not most of those cars are still just sitting most of the time.
there are 263MM cars in the US we utilize these at a rate of 4% so 100% utilization would mean we'd only need 9.44MM cars if we utilze those at 40% we'd need 23.6MM cars the US consumers buy 6.3MM cars a year so it woud take 4 years if companies put the new cars into service at the same rate we currently purchase cars.
Post by: sol on January 30, 2018, 01:33:44 PM
current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road. make it 80 and you're at 1/20th
One minor point of contention: in practice this doesn't scale linearly. It's not like we use only use 4% of every car at all times, we use more like 40% during the commuting rush hours and almost zero at 2am on a random Wednesday. And taxi cabs still spend a lot more time in traffic than they do with a passenger in them, because they have to get from wherever they are to wherever they're needed. They sometimes have to drive empty, and autonomous cars will too.
It's a valid point in theory, and I agree that automated subscription-based chauffeur services, if widely adopted, will be a) cheaper than owning a private vehicle for most people, and b) a huge reduction in the number of total cars sold.
I'm much less convinced that it will also result in such a large reduction in the number of cars on the road at any given moment. That's determined by how many people need to take trips right now, not how many cars are available sitting in garages. I might even argue that the relative ease of cheap-as-free summoning an autonomous electric taxi might even increase the total number of miles driven, as people may be less efficient with their car usage if they're not paying for the gas/maintenance/attention required to actually drive them themselves, aka the Jevons Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
Post by: boarder42 on January 30, 2018, 01:40:05 PM
current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road. make it 80 and you're at 1/20th
One minor point of contention: in practice this doesn't scale linearly. It's not like we use only use 4% of every car at all times, we use more like 40% during the commuting rush hours and almost zero at 2am on a random Wednesday. And taxi cabs still spend a lot more time in traffic than they do with a passenger in them, because they have to get from wherever they are to wherever they're needed. They sometimes have to drive empty, and autonomous cars will too.
It's a valid point in theory, and I agree that automated subscription-based chauffeur services, if widely adopted, will be a) cheaper than owning a private vehicle for most people, and b) a huge reduction in the number of total cars sold.
I'm much less convinced that it will also result in such a large reduction in the number of cars on the road at any given moment. That's determined by how many people need to take trips right now, not how many cars are available sitting in garages. I might even argue that the relative ease of cheap-as-free summoning an autonomous electric taxi might even increase the total number of miles driven, as people may be less efficient with their car usage if they're not paying for the gas/maintenance/attention required to actually drive them themselves, aka the Jevons Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox).
thats why i didnt say 100% utilization and went with 40% utilization - its a figure that Tony Seba calculated as a conservative utilzation of automobilies- he thinks the real number will be closer to 60%. You also have to add in ride sharing that becomes much more economical - i work with 3 guys we live 25 to 30 mins away within a quarter mile radius of each other - most of the time we all work 7-4 but almost always one person is staying later for some reason or another - seen as a barrier to carpool - plus the minor inconvience of picking each other up at houses - this is eliminated in the world where you call a service as the car picks each one up and if one wants to stay late the cost to commute home isnt as high alone as it is now.
and your paradox is what Musk believes will happen as well - traffic overall will increase b/c it will cost less.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on January 30, 2018, 07:50:36 PM
Post by: anisotropy on January 30, 2018, 09:48:35 PM
http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/suncor-phasing-in-150-autonomous-haul-trucks-job-cuts-expected-by-2019
also,
I suspect the new healthcare comp formed by Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan will be quite heavy on the robots side.
Post by: boarder42 on January 31, 2018, 03:43:28 AM
The charts Tony Seba shows in the video also indicate an increase in passenger-miles once autonomous vehicles predominate
And really why wouldn't they. Wanna take a road trip. Just sit back relax play some family board games. Sleep thru the night wake up in your destination. Could greatly reduced air travel. Which would be a plus for the environment. Where I live it's about a 24 hour drive to get just about anywhere. If I can sleep. Why take a plane. 1800 miles at 10c a mile is 180 bucks. Hard to beat that with a family once you lift the burden of driving the car.
Also in the short term with all cars autonomous and communicating commute times will get shorter and more people will move to the burbs and then roads will clog back up with increased traffic.
Post by: Bateaux on January 31, 2018, 05:34:53 AM
Post by: boarder42 on January 31, 2018, 05:37:50 AM
I think that vehicles we never have seen before will emerge with the technology. I foresee big sleeper buses coming. Kinda like the mini sleepers on trains where you can double stack in a small space. Maybe coffin sized pods that are bullet aerodynamic for those without claustrophobia. With electric vehicles and potentially millions of automous charge points the traditional definitiin of transportation is moot.
i agree it will dramatically change transportation and we have yet to see what those vehicles will look like. up to and including inductive charging as you drive down the interstate so no stops are required.
Post by: jordanread on January 31, 2018, 09:46:41 AM
As far as self-driving electronic vehicle adoption, my guess is that will not be as quick as we would like. There are two main reasons I can think of for this. The American culture is a bit too car-centric (like cars = freedom) for people to just give up that ‘freedom’ and be at the whim of software. There are also a lot of older cars on the road that are cheap and/or well-maintained. Shit, until last September, I spent the last 5 years driving a $400 1988 Sentra for a 90 mile round trip commute. And it still runs! There is also a generational thing. People who grew up with that freedom=cars=American marketing campaigns in general seem to be more attached to that concept. On these forums, for the most part, cars are viewed more like shackles.
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow. Not soon, but eventually. Self-driving cars are in a pretty interesting place. I’ve never seen something so widespread, but there are some similar situations I can think of. Namely, new recreational drugs and drones. There is a delay when new drugs come out (or something starts being used as drugs) before they are considered controlled. Salvia and the associated extracts is an example. One used to order it online and have it mailed to you. That has changed in quite a few states so far. Also, when drones became widely available, there weren’t any guidelines or rules for them, so it was pretty much a free for all. Now, legislation and FAA rules have been introduced. I suspect that these rules were implemented primarily due to public outcry based on perception and visibility (and possibly a touch of jealousy). So we’re actually in a similar spot with self-driving cars. People talk about how long it will take legislation to catch up, but what is missed sometimes is that there is (or wasn’t) legislation that even touched on self-driving cars, which is why they were able to start testing them without special permission. Which is why Teslas have autopilot functionality that can update often. The only rules for that software are self-imposed. Nothing was on the books at all originally, and since it’s not as visible as drones, I doubt there will be huge outcry for legislation, and even if legislation does happen, I doubt it will be enforced (think of the anti-texting while driving laws).
Now, one thing that I've seen that addresses some of the first concerns is a project that The Boring Company is working on, with the uninspired and redundant name of 3D Tunnels. From a TED talk (https://youtu.be/zIwLWfaAg-8) that Elon Musk gave, he showed this (https://youtu.be/2tZcVcvXSrI) mockup of what it would be like. The thing I like about this is that it would not necessitate purchasing a new car, and yet it could (and should) be using sustainable energy, without sacrificing that sense of freedom. A cool idea as a stop-gap (not that I think it will happen fast enough, but still a cool idea).
Post by: Bakari on February 01, 2018, 12:49:15 PM
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.
I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.
Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society.
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking. There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.
Post by: boarder42 on February 01, 2018, 12:57:51 PM
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.
I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.
Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society.
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking. There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.
the 55mph speed limit did exist for a while in the 70s
traffic lights and stop signs dont have to exist to assist with what you indicate - you would have wireless signals at intersections for the connected cars to stop for the human/horse powered transportation devices. those are human ways to view things -- when off the cars could simply fly thru the intersection when a cross walk is needed it tells the cars to stop. bikes and pedestrians would have their own signal systems.
Post by: jordanread on February 01, 2018, 01:15:25 PM
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.
I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.
Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society.
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking. There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.
Yeah, I think that's why I said 'eventually'. It's going to require outrage. That seems to be the main thing that gets legislation to happen. The first fatal accident in a 'self driving' car didn't cause outrage, even though it was caused by human error on the part of the truck driver. I suspect it's going to not be legislated until the majority (read that: 51%) of cars on the road are self driving, and someone riding in one is killed by someone not. That sucks, but that's how it goes. What is the old saying? They put in a stoplight after the kid gets hit.
You and I have talked about this before, and I think we are on the same page.
I don't think that we will have a fully connected grid in our natural lifetime (or ever). The beauty and challenge of the current self driving cars is that they operate independent of a centralized grid. Honestly, I can't think of any way that would actually be implemented in the current or recent past political climate.
Post by: Bakari on February 02, 2018, 08:06:27 AM
The first fatal accident in a 'self driving' car didn't cause outrage, even though it was caused by human error on the part of the truck driver.
Are you talking about the Tesla that slid under a semi? That was mostly the fault of the Tesla driver. He was speeding, which meant he had to deliberately override the autopilot default, he was using autopilot on a road with intersections when it is only meant for freeways with ramps, and he ignored multiple audio warnings by the car to pay attention, briefly touching the wheel in order to silence it, while apparently watching a movie.
"Autopilot" was never claimed by Tesla to be a self-driving car anyway, it is an advanced version of cruise control. The driver was fully aware of this, as evidenced by his own posting of a video explicitly mentioning it. “A bigger danger at this stage of the development is getting someone too comfortable. You really do need to be paying attention at this point. This is early in the development and the human should be ready to intervene if [the Autopilot] can’t do something. I talked in one of the other comments about the blind spots of the current hardware. There are some situations it doesn’t do well in which is okay. It’s not an autonomous car"
Granted, an incident being primarily the fault of the victims own deliberate choices doesn't always prevent outrage among the public....
Post by: tomsang on February 04, 2018, 10:16:33 AM
Some big players are making a play for the autonous taxi market in the coming months. With the goal of rolling this out widespread in three years, the future is almost here.
Post by: boarder42 on February 04, 2018, 10:33:13 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mercedes-bosch-test-self-driving-052700426.html
Some big players are making a play for the autonous taxi market in the coming months. With the goal of rolling this out widespread in three years, the future is almost here.
Yes it is.
Post by: Tabaxus on February 04, 2018, 11:36:25 AM
I have a kid on the way in a month. That kid may never have to learn to drive. Huge relief if I never have to teach another human how to drive, that's for sure!;)
Post by: AlanStache on April 03, 2018, 02:17:27 PM
https://www.aerosociety.com/news/first-delivery/ (https://www.aerosociety.com/news/first-delivery/)
What is striking is how modest the system is. 1km travel distances, half dozen fixed delivery points, manual-remote pilot, manually swapped batteries. The system was built by smart knowledgeable professionals (including AirBus) and this is a crawl-walk-run thing, but still very modest. And they are open about not being sure if it will make economic sense or the public will accept it. When you read the article none of the difficulties described are related to making the nominal aircraft fly-that is easy. All the hard parts are the bigger interconnected systems, safety and costs.
Post by: Just Joe on April 04, 2018, 09:59:35 AM
Looked like the wind got ahold of it once it cleared the buildings. Try again folks...
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on April 04, 2018, 06:13:42 PM
http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/03/russian-postal-drone-spectacularly-crashes-on-inaugural-flightRussian drone technology is better than you think (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFcZm7UUYIg) (NSFW?); featuring Garry Kasparov.
Looked like the wind got ahold of it once it cleared the buildings. Try again folks...
Post by: Just Joe on April 05, 2018, 08:40:02 AM
Back to the drawing board folks...
Post by: maizefolk on April 26, 2018, 09:18:08 PM
Quote
Once deployed across the state, the $1.2 million machines, built by Finnish company Vaisala, will save about 8 hours of forecaster time a day—and about $1 million a year at NWS, Buchanan says. That's because the agency tries to staff each remote site with three people, but job vacancies mean overworked employees are shuffled around the vast state to keep up. "We have a difficult time recruiting people to go to these locations," Buchanan says. Recently, some stations have skipped scheduled launches.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/robot-launched-weather-balloons-alaska-hasten-demise-remote-forecast-stations
Post by: maizefolk on May 08, 2018, 08:14:45 PM
Listen to the first couple of audio clips at the linked site (the article itself is way too long and detailed). Knowing the caller is a robot, it's kind of obvious, but if I hadn't been prompted to listen for something weird I think both of those calls could have passed for conversations between two human beings:
https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural-conversation.html
Post by: boarder42 on May 09, 2018, 07:04:08 AM
https://www.wired.com/story/waymo-self-driving-car-service-phoenix/
assuming its cheaper than uber/lyft i would assume it will be a hit.
article says GM wont be far behind with plans for 2019.
Post by: tomsang on May 21, 2018, 02:15:55 PM
https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/robots-can-now-grow-human-organs/
Post by: boarder42 on May 21, 2018, 02:30:34 PM
Now robots are making humans organs!
https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/robots-can-now-grow-human-organs/
sweet - once you can grow a tiny organ in 20 minutes with a robot how long does it take to scale this to full size organs? we went from 1 day for a human to 20 mins for a robot. so to scale it to a full size functioning human organ it takes a robot a week? a month? doesnt really matter how long at this point just have to scale it
Post by: TempusFugit on May 21, 2018, 05:10:34 PM
Now robots are making humans organs!
https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/robots-can-now-grow-human-organs/
sweet - once you can grow a tiny organ in 20 minutes with a robot how long does it take to scale this to full size organs? we went from 1 day for a human to 20 mins for a robot. so to scale it to a full size functioning human organ it takes a robot a week? a month? doesnt really matter how long at this point just have to scale it
Wait.. so does this mean that 9 robots can have a baby on one month?
Post by: sol on May 21, 2018, 05:59:39 PM
Wait.. so does this mean that 9 robots can have a baby on one month?
This year, sure.
Next year, 4.5 robots will be able to have a baby in two weeks.
Post by: Mr Mark on May 24, 2018, 01:18:02 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqcSFgrTJY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqcSFgrTJY)
24/7, sterile, perfect portion control, on demand.
I think it's a good thing - do we really need to waste human talent flipping burgers and serving ice cream confectionary?
Post by: Bateaux on May 24, 2018, 02:37:37 AM
Post by: tomsang on May 24, 2018, 08:34:08 AM
Uber just took a huge step backwards in the race to autonomous service. I'm sure competition will take full advantage.
Yeah, the governor barred them from testing so their decision makes sense. From watching the video, I wonder if it was a human driven car if the accident would have been avoided. The pedestrian was hard to see.
Post by: boarder42 on May 24, 2018, 09:12:35 AM
Uber just took a huge step backwards in the race to autonomous service. I'm sure competition will take full advantage.
Yeah, the governor barred them from testing so their decision makes sense. From watching the video, I wonder if it was a human driven car if the accident would have been avoided. The pedestrian was hard to see.
i thought the same thing but this was discussed at length and a human has better low light vision than that camera did- basically it wasnt as dark as the camera made it look. While i still question it i think the human IF paying attention stops in time.
Post by: AlanStache on May 24, 2018, 10:18:16 AM
Uber just took a huge step backwards in the race to autonomous service. I'm sure competition will take full advantage.
Yeah, the governor barred them from testing so their decision makes sense. From watching the video, I wonder if it was a human driven car if the accident would have been avoided. The pedestrian was hard to see.
i thought the same thing but this was discussed at length and a human has better low light vision than that camera did- basically it wasnt as dark as the camera made it look. While i still question it i think the human IF paying attention stops in time.
But in theory the lidar should have detected the obstacle and the control system stopped the car. Merging and acting upon different sensors each with different noise/error profiles and acting appropriately is hard.
Post by: boarder42 on May 24, 2018, 10:25:21 AM
Uber just took a huge step backwards in the race to autonomous service. I'm sure competition will take full advantage.
Yeah, the governor barred them from testing so their decision makes sense. From watching the video, I wonder if it was a human driven car if the accident would have been avoided. The pedestrian was hard to see.
i thought the same thing but this was discussed at length and a human has better low light vision than that camera did- basically it wasnt as dark as the camera made it look. While i still question it i think the human IF paying attention stops in time.
But in theory the lidar should have detected the obstacle and the control system stopped the car. Merging and acting upon different sensors each with different noise/error profiles and acting appropriately is hard.
no it shouldnt have b/c it wasnt enabled - if enabled the lidar would have stopped the car i believe i dont think its a theory at this point lidar is very effective at its job and google is now rolling out a full fleet of driverless lidar cars in the same state.
Post by: AlanStache on May 24, 2018, 11:36:30 AM
....
no it shouldnt have b/c it wasnt enabled - if enabled the lidar would have stopped the car i believe i dont think its a theory at this point lidar is very effective at its job and google is now rolling out a full fleet of driverless lidar cars in the same state.
Yes exactly. But the point was the difficulty in making a decision based on conflicting information; lidar says there is an object, camera says there is not. The system must work out what to trust, when, while incorporating what is safe (stopping is not always safe) but not being so safe it never drives over 10mph. All in all it would seem Uber has a hacked together amateur system if they thought disabling lidar would be good.
Post by: boarder42 on May 24, 2018, 11:49:00 AM
....
no it shouldnt have b/c it wasnt enabled - if enabled the lidar would have stopped the car i believe i dont think its a theory at this point lidar is very effective at its job and google is now rolling out a full fleet of driverless lidar cars in the same state.
Yes exactly. But the point was the difficulty in making a decision based on conflicting information; lidar says there is an object, camera says there is not. The system must work out what to trust, when, while incorporating what is safe (stopping is not always safe) but not being so safe it never drives over 10mph. All in all it would seem Uber has a hacked together amateur system if they thought disabling lidar would be good.
i dont know that its hacked together or that the low light tech isnt there. Many companies including tesla are trying to move away from LIDAR if they can i belive due to the royalties they would have to pay google. i could be wrong here but i think that new teslas have no LIDAR.
Post by: maizefolk on May 24, 2018, 12:32:48 PM
Post by: Bateaux on May 24, 2018, 12:45:40 PM
Post by: Watchmaker on May 24, 2018, 01:26:35 PM
What is amazing is the butterfly effect of this unfortunate death. This could change the entire ride share future. Uber coukd lose market share to another company with better tech. Self driving systems will most certainly be much better now, thry have no choice but to improve. The death of that individual could cause improvements that will save thousands of lives in the future.
Agreed, but it could also cost tens of thousands of lives if these events delay the large-scale adoption of driverless cars.
Post by: Bateaux on May 24, 2018, 01:29:16 PM
What is amazing is the butterfly effect of this unfortunate death. This could change the entire ride share future. Uber coukd lose market share to another company with better tech. Self driving systems will most certainly be much better now, thry have no choice but to improve. The death of that individual could cause improvements that will save thousands of lives in the future.
Agreed, but it could also cost tens of thousands of lives if these events delay the large-scale adoption of driverless cars.
Yep. Dang butterfly.
Post by: boarder42 on May 25, 2018, 03:53:20 AM
I thought Tesla's didn't have lidar in the first place just because the sensor systems are so much more expensive than basically every other sensor you can put on a self driving car combined (radar/sonar/RGB cameras/infrared cameras etc).
Lidar has dropped significantly in price and there is a startup in Florida using a different cheaper raw material in theirs that has better vision and no silicon for the actual collection sensor.
That video I posted above about them becoming 10 bucks and the size of a postage stamp in the next couple years is very close to happening.
Post by: boarder42 on May 25, 2018, 04:04:12 AM
Can produce them for hundreds of dollars with better vision than the sensors that cost thousands.
It's gonna get real really quick.
Post by: tomsang on June 03, 2018, 07:11:15 AM
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/02/las-vegas-workers-strike-automation-casinos
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on June 03, 2018, 06:29:59 PM
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/05/22/luminar-building-sensors-for-self-driving-cars-near-space-coast.htmlI'm not convinced the limiting probelm is the cost of lidar but is rather the efficacy of the AI. Driving likely requires elements of general AI to cover many of the edge and corner cases; e.g.: this (https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/). Though when I do drive around, I find myself noting how poor the human competition is in the way of driving skills.
Can produce them for hundreds of dollars with better vision than the sensors that cost thousands.
It's gonna get real really quick.
Post by: maizefolk on June 03, 2018, 06:37:28 PM
I'm not convinced the limiting probelm is the cost of lidar but is rather the efficacy of the AI. Driving likely requires elements of general AI to cover many of the edge and corner cases; e.g.: this (https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/). Though when I do drive around, I find myself noting how poor the human competition is in the way of driving skills.
Current AI + LIDAR sensors + RGB cameras may not be up to human safety standards yet (or it may I haven't seen the data), but current AI + LIDAR sensors + RGB cameras is clearly a much better at driving than current AI trying to drive with just RGB images.
Post by: dougules on June 04, 2018, 11:00:53 AM
What is amazing is the butterfly effect of this unfortunate death. This could change the entire ride share future. Uber coukd lose market share to another company with better tech. Self driving systems will most certainly be much better now, thry have no choice but to improve. The death of that individual could cause improvements that will save thousands of lives in the future.
Agreed, but it could also cost tens of thousands of lives if these events delay the large-scale adoption of driverless cars.
The incident with Uber is going to get scrutinized very thoroughly and the lessons are going to get propagated into future development. Think about all the other traffic deaths happening in the world that barely get a one-liner in the news because it was a human driver alone. There's not much happening to fix those problems, and everybody just takes them for granted.
Post by: robartsd on June 04, 2018, 12:32:52 PM
I'm not convinced the limiting probelm is the cost of lidar but is rather the efficacy of the AI. Driving likely requires elements of general AI to cover many of the edge and corner cases; e.g.: this (https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/). Though when I do drive around, I find myself noting how poor the human competition is in the way of driving skills.Thanks for the link to Piekniewski's Blog. I thought the February post on Autonomous Vehicle Safety (https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/02/09/a-v-safety-2018-update/) was very interesting.
Post by: TempusFugit on June 04, 2018, 05:16:01 PM
The incident with Uber is going to get scrutinized very thoroughly and the lessons are going to get propagated into future development. Think about all the other traffic deaths happening in the world that barely get a one-liner in the news because it was a human driver alone. There's not much happening to fix those problems, and everybody just takes them for granted.
I often think about the US traffic fatality numbers when other 'dangers' are in the news and get everyone so agitated. ~37,000 people in the US died in auto accidents in 2016 (almost 3K of those were teenagers - children), representing 12 fatalities per 100,000 people. It's climbing again these past couple of years into the 40's.
Can you imagine any product being sold to the general public that killed 37 thousand people every year? And these are not volunteer soldiers or <insert dangerous occupation here> but regular people going about their lives.
As you say, we don't think about this because everyone just accepts it as a normal factor in modern life. I think most of us also are in denial about our own risk. We all think that we are good drivers, so we will be fine. But what about that guy texting his girlfriend and not paying attention to the traffic light?
Even with those statistics, I think self-driving cars will still be a tough sell to the general public. Most of us like to feel like we are in control and that we are the exception to the norm. Giving up that sense of control to a machine? I dunno how quickly people will be ok with that.
I guess we'll find out in about a decade.
Post by: DreamFIRE on June 04, 2018, 05:37:24 PM
As you say, we don't think about this because everyone just accepts it as a normal factor in modern life. I think most of us also are in denial about our own risk. We all think that we are good drivers, so we will be fine. But what about that guy texting his girlfriend and not paying attention to the traffic light?
Yes, there's a lot of evidence of that in recent threads that discuss bicycling as well. People think they can make eye contact with drivers and be smart to avoid accidents and will throw in a few anecdotes that they haven't been in an accident, but that doesn't help when a 16 year old girl is texting her friend and never sees you as she runs over you. I would rather be in a car when that happens.
Post by: mozar on June 04, 2018, 10:11:25 PM
I do believe trucking and short urban trips will change, which is where the money is.
Chart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
Quote
Can you imagine any product being sold to the general public that killed 37 thousand people every year?
I don't get it either.
Post by: boarder42 on June 05, 2018, 05:34:27 AM
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/05/22/luminar-building-sensors-for-self-driving-cars-near-space-coast.htmlI'm not convinced the limiting probelm is the cost of lidar but is rather the efficacy of the AI. Driving likely requires elements of general AI to cover many of the edge and corner cases; e.g.: this (https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/). Though when I do drive around, I find myself noting how poor the human competition is in the way of driving skills.
Can produce them for hundreds of dollars with better vision than the sensors that cost thousands.
It's gonna get real really quick.
correct edge and corner cases really will exist much more in the interim as we get those terrible humans who suck at driving off the roads. i have a strong feeling there are very few people who actually enjoy the utility of driving compared to those who would rather not have to worry about steering their car daily back and forth to work and on trips. People keep echo'ing that people want control. i think once the driving tech is proven - which i believe will be working very well this year contrary to the link above. Just like in the stock markets there are people who will call a crash and people who say it will keep going up - the difference here is tech really doesnt regress so while the future may take a year or two longer than the optimistists are predicting the pessimists will be wrong in the end. Tech may have been overstated in the short term by an aggressive Musk - but GM has cars with out pedals or steering wheels getting approval from the NHTSB for testing in seattle and Google is moving to full autonomy in Phoenix this year. And like most tech once that is proven its adoption typically starts to follow exponential curves.
Post by: robartsd on June 05, 2018, 08:33:16 AM
correct edge and corner cases really will exist much more in the interim as we get those terrible humans who suck at driving off the roads. i have a strong feeling there are very few people who actually enjoy the utility of driving compared to those who would rather not have to worry about steering their car daily back and forth to work and on trips. People keep echo'ing that people want control. i think once the driving tech is proven - which i believe will be working very well this year contrary to the link above. Just like in the stock markets there are people who will call a crash and people who say it will keep going up - the difference here is tech really doesnt regress so while the future may take a year or two longer than the optimistists are predicting the pessimists will be wrong in the end. Tech may have been overstated in the short term by an aggressive Musk - but GM has cars with out pedals or steering wheels getting approval from the NHTSB for testing in seattle and Google is moving to full autonomy in Phoenix this year. And like most tech once that is proven its adoption typically starts to follow exponential curves.Piekniewski isn't predicting that we'll never get there, just that the tech is harder and further away than many people think. Even if we stop letting humans pilot large, fast, vehicles there will still be erratic humans walking around and riding bikes to create edge cases that humans may still be better at dealing with than AI. The post I linked to used data from Google's testing in California (because that was the best data available) to show that progress had slowed Google's system failed more than ten times as often as human drivers crashed per 1000 in 2017. Not all of those failures would have resulted in a crash, but it does mean the tech isn't there yet, and the progress from 2016 to 2017 was slight. I think expecting autonomous vehicles by 2020 is optimistic.
Post by: dougules on June 05, 2018, 11:39:03 AM
As you say, we don't think about this because everyone just accepts it as a normal factor in modern life. I think most of us also are in denial about our own risk. We all think that we are good drivers, so we will be fine. But what about that guy texting his girlfriend and not paying attention to the traffic light?
Yes, there's a lot of evidence of that in recent threads that discuss bicycling as well. People think they can make eye contact with drivers and be smart to avoid accidents and will throw in a few anecdotes that they haven't been in an accident, but that doesn't help when a 16 year old girl is texting her friend and never sees you as she runs over you. I would rather be in a car when that happens.
This is another one where intuition is overriding math. Don't get me wrong. I don't have any illusions that biking isn't dangerous, but way more people die or get sick from lack of exercise than accidents. When you add the fact that being in a car is not nearly as safe as it seems, the math is on the side of cycling.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on June 05, 2018, 08:40:35 PM
The problem is when it comes to public policy, emotions rule over math. 20 million people who are fat, sick, & nearly dead is likely a much bigger tragedy than 20K road deaths but there are few problems with that argument provided we aren't talking trying to convince homo economicus: 1) people suffer from scope neglect so the numerical difference is not properly assessed; 2) in many car accidents, it's possible to ascribe fault, while people with bad diets who don't exercise "did it to themselves" 3) suspicion of technology and scrutiny of tech companies of increasing power may make them ever larger targets for regulation (e.g. GDPR) that impact speed and scale of deploymentAs you say, we don't think about this because everyone just accepts it as a normal factor in modern life. I think most of us also are in denial about our own risk. We all think that we are good drivers, so we will be fine. But what about that guy texting his girlfriend and not paying attention to the traffic light?
Yes, there's a lot of evidence of that in recent threads that discuss bicycling as well. People think they can make eye contact with drivers and be smart to avoid accidents and will throw in a few anecdotes that they haven't been in an accident, but that doesn't help when a 16 year old girl is texting her friend and never sees you as she runs over you. I would rather be in a car when that happens.
This is another one where intuition is overriding math. Don't get me wrong. I don't have any illusions that biking isn't dangerous, but way more people die or get sick from lack of exercise than accidents. When you add the fact that being in a car is not nearly as safe as it seems, the math is on the side of cycling.
edit: oh and if you were just steel-manning cycling and not trying to tie this back to self-driving cars then I'm probably off track a bit
Post by: tomsang on June 12, 2018, 09:09:58 AM
Some interesting quotes and stats in this article:
"US bank Citi has warned that it could shed half of its 20,000 tech and ops staff in the next five years due to the rise of robotics and automation."
"Meanwhile a 2016 report from the World Economic Forum predicted that advances in automation will lead to the loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies by 2020."
"And Barclays injvestment bank chief Tim Thorsby added that anyone whose job involves "a lot of keyboard-hitting" is "less likely to have a happy future"."
Post by: toganet on June 12, 2018, 09:42:48 AM
https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32240/10000-jobs-could-be-lost-to-robots-says-citi
Some interesting quotes and stats in this article:
"US bank Citi has warned that it could shed half of its 20,000 tech and ops staff in the next five years due to the rise of robotics and automation."
"Meanwhile a 2016 report from the World Economic Forum predicted that advances in automation will lead to the loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies by 2020."
"And Barclays injvestment bank chief Tim Thorsby added that anyone whose job involves "a lot of keyboard-hitting" is "less likely to have a happy future"."
I work for a large regional bank. I recently attended a demonstration of the "Robotic Process Automation" project that is beginning here. I expected actual robots, but instead learned they are using software to automate the keypresses and mouse clicks that employees make when completing rote tasks. This is trivial to do in many cases, and the software they are using makes it simple.
When the Q&A session started, the first question was, "Will this eliminate jobs?" The presenter answered along the lines of, "That is not our intent, but rather to allow humans to focus on the things humans are good at, and let the robots do the boring, rote stuff."
I suspect both will be true. Automation of this type is MUCH easier to implement than rebuilding systems to make the processes automated. This will accelerate the adoption across bank systems (and probably corporate accounting depts, insurance claims processing, etc). At first the folks who are doing less "keyboard-hitting" will get to focus on the interesting, human parts of their jobs -- but there is only so much of that work to go around. (Some of that work is probably a side-effect of mistakes made by humans that will decline in number as robots take their jobs).
So not now, but not never, I expect to see 10's of thousands of layoffs in these white-collar, but medium-skilled jobs.
Post by: GuitarStv on June 12, 2018, 09:43:39 AM
Wait.. so does this mean that 9 robots can have a baby on one month?
This year, sure.
Next year, 4.5 robots will be able to have a baby in two weeks.
4.5 robots creating a baby out of wedlock? That's going to piss off the social conservatives.
Post by: mozar on June 12, 2018, 07:45:18 PM
Quote
(Some of that work is probably a side-effect of mistakes made by humans that will decline in number as robots take their jobs).
When I was a financial auditor that was all I did. There would be no work (in my field) if the accountants did it correctly. Same for IT, a lot of work is fixing bad code or dealing with networks going down. Imagine how many people would lose their jobs if everything worked.
Post by: aceyou on June 14, 2018, 09:53:43 PM
A lot of fatalities/ accidents are due to infrastructure problems, lack of lighting, confusing intersections, lack of bike lane separators. I think all of the new options are really interesting (driverless cars, one or 3 wheeled transport etc.) but it won't matter until this country invests in its infrastructure. Maybe once cars are 100% automated and it is illegal to drive there will be fewer accidents but as long as their are self interested humans driving I doubt fatalities will change much. Fatalities are at the same rate as the 60's, and cars are so much better now.
I do believe trucking and short urban trips will change, which is where the money is.
Chart:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_yearQuoteCan you imagine any product being sold to the general public that killed 37 thousand people every year?
I don't get it either.
Junk food? There's a product that kills far more than 37k/year.
For the record, I'm on your side with the car debate. Self-driving cars can't come fast enough if you ask me. But there are other products sold to the general public that kill more than cars.
Post by: tomsang on June 16, 2018, 01:32:09 PM
Interesting video and story about an automated kitchen being developed by MIT engineers and a top notch chef.
Post by: mozar on June 16, 2018, 05:20:00 PM
Post by: tomsang on June 23, 2018, 07:53:23 AM
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/no-human-could-do-anything-the-man-who-was-sacked-by-a-machine-out-for-blood/news-story/1852bfd331a671a5ac153721bf91eb1f
Post by: John Galt incarnate! on June 23, 2018, 07:55:55 PM
I am not really a futurist, but I have a lot of clients that are involved in automation and technology. This has provided me the opportunity to think about the future and how it will impact the equilibrium of the haves and have nots. As technology and automation replaces all of the "manual" jobs", what is the role in the undereducated class? If they are unable to provide value as their jobs are automated by technology created by engineers and scientists, how as a society do you create jobs and meaning to this class? It seems like technology has the potential to further the divide between the haves and have nots. Anyone else think about this and how it impacts Financial Independence and our children?
I am not a futurist either but like you I do think about the future.
When I was in college I took a futurology course.
I wrote a paper on Future Shock written by futurist Alvin Toffler who predicted increased customization of consumer products in economies that provided more leisure time.
I have no specialized knowledge of the labor market or 21st-century workplace technologies.
Having said that I am firmly in the camp of the experts who predict widespread robotization and attendant job loss for humans.
I've thought about what I call the "creative destruction ratio," work done by machines and technology/work done by humans.
I believe the ratio will increase which of course does not augur well for the employment of humans.
I think the ratio's increase portends more redistributionist policies that will erode the economic and financial liberty of some of today's taxpayers, and increasingly, that of tomorrow's taxpayers.
Post by: OurTown on June 25, 2018, 02:08:08 PM
Post by: AlanStache on June 25, 2018, 03:12:45 PM
Can we get an AI for shareholder proxy voting on behalf of all of us holding S&P 500 index funds? The guiding principle would have to be long-term growth of the index.
Wont happen. No one would profit from it <sarcasm - not sarcasm>. How much more in management fees would you pay for this?
Post by: maizefolk on June 25, 2018, 05:15:30 PM
Can we get an AI for shareholder proxy voting on behalf of all of us holding S&P 500 index funds? The guiding principle would have to be long-term growth of the index.
Wont happen. No one would profit from it <sarcasm - not sarcasm>. How much more in management fees would you pay for this?
I believe that right now Vanguard (or whoever) is already voting your shares if they are held as part of an index fund, and my guess is that they are indeed voting them based on an interest in the overall growth of the index.
That was the logic behind whats-his-name who was claiming* index funds were terrible because they tended to vote against management that pursued cut throat competition between competitors in the same market sector, since the overall profits are the index are served by reduced, rather than increased, competition on pricing.
... Azar was his name: https://paw.princeton.edu/article/are-index-funds-hampering-corporate-competition
*Note: Just to be clear I personally am not claiming index funds are a bad thing, just saying that someone else made such an argument.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on June 26, 2018, 12:33:38 AM
Fortunately I don't need the returns that I received after 2009 to stay retired, especially now. Not that I wanted to retire anyway, but it was a fun challenge, to attain the ability to retire in my 30's. Now that I'm in my 40's, it is fun to watch what others are up to while I continue to enjoy my FI life. And, in a way, it might be interesting to see what happens if the S&P returns to the 600's, how American's behave. But otherwise, I doubt anything will surprise me... Even if robots entirely replace the manual labor workforce.
Post by: AlanStache on June 26, 2018, 05:43:59 AM
On Oct 1 2015 GE was 1.5% and the fifth largest component of iShares IVV etf.
Today it is 0.48% (now there are 509 companies in IVV.)
This does not show that GE's price is not artificially being held up but it does show that things adjust.
Post by: OurTown on June 26, 2018, 07:47:15 AM
Can we get an AI for shareholder proxy voting on behalf of all of us holding S&P 500 index funds? The guiding principle would have to be long-term growth of the index.
Wont happen. No one would profit from it <sarcasm - not sarcasm>. How much more in management fees would you pay for this?
I believe that right now Vanguard (or whoever) is already voting your shares if they are held as part of an index fund, and my guess is that they are indeed voting them based on an interest in the overall growth of the index.
That was the logic behind whats-his-name who was claiming* index funds were terrible because they tended to vote against management that pursued cut throat competition between competitors in the same market sector, since the overall profits are the index are served by reduced, rather than increased, competition on pricing.
... Azar was his name: https://paw.princeton.edu/article/are-index-funds-hampering-corporate-competition
*Note: Just to be clear I personally am not claiming index funds are a bad thing, just saying that someone else made such an argument.
Hmm. Maybe that is where our future almighty oracle will emerge. A Vanguard / Fidelity AI robo-voter S&P 500 algorithm.
Post by: Just Joe on July 08, 2018, 09:42:52 PM
Post by: John Galt incarnate! on July 09, 2018, 10:06:05 AM
I am curious to see how the American political and economic machine will cope with tens of millions of Americans out of work due to automation.
Larry Kudlow thinks that it is Luddite to worry that increasing robotization will negatively affect the labor market.
I disagree.
Post by: dougules on July 09, 2018, 10:39:41 AM
I am curious to see how the American political and economic machine will cope with tens of millions of Americans out of work due to automation.
Larry Kudlow thinks that it is Luddite to worry that increasing robotization will negatively affect the labor market.
I disagree.
I think you're already seeing how the American political and economic machine is coping with people out of work. This thread seems to be about speculating on the future of automation, but a lot of that future is already in the past. US manufacturing output is almost at an all time high. The US manufactures twice as much as it did in 1984 with 2/3 the people. Offshoring gets blamed for taking jobs, but domestic automation and process improvements took more than other countries.
I agree that the economy will probably surprise us with what new jobs will come along to absorb displaced workers, but the problem is the constant churn and upheaval. This is also a continuation of what's already been happening since the 18th century. Just look at farm workers in Nebraska or steel workers in Pittsburgh. There are plenty of new jobs for people like them, but the real problem is the upheaval of shifting to a completely new career. People will likely have to leave family and move to a new place. People have to train or go to school for new skills, and that's after they figure out exactly what it is they're going to do. A lot of people have just been left behind. Look at how that has already been for people then project what that will look like as that process really accelerates.
Post by: toganet on July 10, 2018, 06:52:47 AM
I think you're already seeing how the American political and economic machine is coping with people out of work. This thread seems to be about speculating on the future of automation, but a lot of that future is already in the past. US manufacturing output is almost at an all time high. The US manufactures twice as much as it did in 1984 with 2/3 the people. Offshoring gets blamed for taking jobs, but domestic automation and process improvements took more than other countries.
I agree that the economy will probably surprise us with what new jobs will come along to absorb displaced workers, but the problem is the constant churn and upheaval. This is also a continuation of what's already been happening since the 18th century. Just look at farm workers in Nebraska or steel workers in Pittsburgh. There are plenty of new jobs for people like them, but the real problem is the upheaval of shifting to a completely new career. People will likely have to leave family and move to a new place. People have to train or go to school for new skills, and that's after they figure out exactly what it is they're going to do. A lot of people have just been left behind. Look at how that has already been for people then project what that will look like as that process really accelerates.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/there-are-more-jobs-than-people-out-of-work.html (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/05/there-are-more-jobs-than-people-out-of-work.html)
Quote
Employers have been complaining for years about a skills mismatch, or the inability to find workers with the right training for the positions available. In the meantime, companies are adding other incentives to retain workers and pull new ones in.
...
"While more people are getting into jobs, folks aren't moving around much once they do," she said. "Unfortunately, the lack of mobility means that employers face little pressure to raise wages. They just aren't competing over jobholders."
Post by: boarder42 on July 10, 2018, 06:59:28 AM
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
Post by: toganet on July 10, 2018, 07:37:41 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
I can see things going this way, too, and I worry about the folks who fall "below the line" as that line continues to rise. Since we value work not just for earning a living, but as part of identity and a measure of value to society, the folks who are shut out are going to have hard time. Maybe defending against this is why so-called "bullshit jobs (https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)" are on the rise?
Post by: toganet on July 10, 2018, 07:39:45 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
I can see things going this way, too, and I worry about the folks who fall "below the line" as that line continues to rise. Since we value work not just for earning a living, but as part of identity and a measure of value to society, the folks who are shut out are going to have hard time. Maybe defending against this is why so-called "bullshit jobs (https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)" are on the rise?
Post by: boarder42 on July 10, 2018, 08:00:51 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
I can see things going this way, too, and I worry about the folks who fall "below the line" as that line continues to rise. Since we value work not just for earning a living, but as part of identity and a measure of value to society, the folks who are shut out are going to have hard time. Maybe defending against this is why so-called "bullshit jobs (https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)" are on the rise?
how old are you - the millenial generation does not identify and measure value based on their profession like the previous generations did. Most of my generation identifies with the activities and things we enjoy doing in life not who gives us the money to allow us to do those things. So while this may be more difficult for previous generations to grasp i believe the way the younger crowd is trending the job is part of my life identity wont be a hurdle. the hurdle will be paying those that fall below that line a UBI.
Post by: toganet on July 10, 2018, 08:06:30 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
I can see things going this way, too, and I worry about the folks who fall "below the line" as that line continues to rise. Since we value work not just for earning a living, but as part of identity and a measure of value to society, the folks who are shut out are going to have hard time. Maybe defending against this is why so-called "bullshit jobs (https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)" are on the rise?
how old are you - the millenial generation does not identify and measure value based on their profession like the previous generations did. Most of my generation identifies with the activities and things we enjoy doing in life not who gives us the money to allow us to do those things. So while this may be more difficult for previous generations to grasp i believe the way the younger crowd is trending the job is part of my life identity wont be a hurdle. the hurdle will be paying those that fall below that line a UBI.
I'm a Gen X'er, so I understand what you're saying -- though I think it's risky to over-generalize. Boomers are going to be around a long time, and they vote. I expect them to continue to see the world through the lens of their own values, and judge those who don't conform to their view of things. That's a significant drag against something like UBI, gov't guaranteed jobs, or even subsidized re-training.
Post by: By the River on July 10, 2018, 08:10:08 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
Agree with what you say but the basic IQ test has been effectively outlawed as a job requirement (Supreme Court case Griggs vs. Duke Power). An unforeseen effect was that companies couldn't test so they took a college degree in lieu of an IQ test which led to many jobs requiring degrees which do not need one, leading to increased student debt, yada, yada, yada. However, specific knowledge tests are still allowed which allows the engineering aptitude or other job specific tests
Post by: boarder42 on July 10, 2018, 08:11:02 AM
yep there are jobs we just dont have the skills to fill the jobs currently and this will continue to increase over time as we drop menial labor jobs in favor of automation - like truck drivers what marketable skill do they have - or fry cooks - they could potentially move to more upscale restaurants and be cooks. but as we automate jobs away and more skills are required to do the new jobs employers may be forced into doing more training and bring in people with better soft skills/EQ that have an apptitude to learn.
So whats the outcome of this- employers may start doing testing of potential employees to understand their apptitude for learning. In the engineering world its not uncommon to test potential hires on the skill set but a basic apptitude or IQ or EQ test could be the new norm to obtain a job since the employer will be forced to commit extra resources to training. It may also come with a pay back clause to keep you around or you forfeit some of the cost to train you. similar to college reimbursement plans.
I can see things going this way, too, and I worry about the folks who fall "below the line" as that line continues to rise. Since we value work not just for earning a living, but as part of identity and a measure of value to society, the folks who are shut out are going to have hard time. Maybe defending against this is why so-called "bullshit jobs (https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom)" are on the rise?
how old are you - the millenial generation does not identify and measure value based on their profession like the previous generations did. Most of my generation identifies with the activities and things we enjoy doing in life not who gives us the money to allow us to do those things. So while this may be more difficult for previous generations to grasp i believe the way the younger crowd is trending the job is part of my life identity wont be a hurdle. the hurdle will be paying those that fall below that line a UBI.
I'm a Gen X'er, so I understand what you're saying -- though I think it's risky to over-generalize. Boomers are going to be around a long time, and they vote. I expect them to continue to see the world through the lens of their own values, and judge those who don't conform to their view of things. That's a significant drag against something like UBI, gov't guaranteed jobs, or even subsidized re-training.
correct thats why i said the biggest hurdle will be UBI you can include other socialist issues as well. but thats where the hurdle will lie
Post by: TempusFugit on July 11, 2018, 04:48:26 PM
Agree with what you say but the basic IQ test has been effectively outlawed as a job requirement (Supreme Court case Griggs vs. Duke Power). An unforeseen effect was that companies couldn't test so they took a college degree in lieu of an IQ test which led to many jobs requiring degrees which do not need one, leading to increased student debt, yada, yada, yada. However, specific knowledge tests are still allowed which allows the engineering aptitude or other job specific tests
That's exactly correct, IMO. This is why a good percentage of 'students' in college really have no business being there. It isn't their fault, it's that companies use a college degree (in almost anything) as a proxy for an IQ test. Now a degree is basically a 'job license'.
There are lots of things that fall into the category of 'unintended consequences' and this would appear to be one.
The elimination of lower wage jobs will be another as the fight for higher a minimum wage prices those humans out of the market. Not only are the employers motivated by cost reduction in terms of automation vs human beings, but as a society we are all becoming more and more comfortable with machine interaction over human interaction anyway, which boosts sales.
I was surprised by the results of putting those ordering terminals on the tables at fast-casual restaurants, which showed an increase in sales. Making the ordering of dessert, etc, an impulse decision eliminates the speed bump of waiting for the server to come by and also the potential social pressure of people who might benefit from skipping a dessert feeling embarrassed to do so.
Post by: TempusFugit on July 11, 2018, 05:10:44 PM
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-or-less-human (https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/more-or-less-human)
In some of their conclusions about why we are so much closer now to being unable to differentiate machine from person, they speculated that our interaction with technology - our phones primarily: think autocomplete, etc - is making us think and communicate more like machines rather than it being purely a matter of the machines being more able to mimic us. Our communication curve is bending downward (or machineward) just as the machines' is bending upward.
I thought that was an interesting possible factor. I also think that part of the issue is that in the modern world, when we are corresponding electronically with an actual real-world human being, there's a really good chance that that person is not a native English speaker, or are from a different cultural background, and therefore we have all had to start adapting to interactions with people who have issues with our natural language and communication. We expect some difficulties and make allowances.
Idiomatic expressions, for example, are problematic in many workplaces due to this kind of barrier. Regional slang or references to erstwhile common cultural touchpoints is also no longer effective. I can't make Seinfeld references in my office and expect everyone to know what I'm talking about. I can't reference something from US culture a decade ago, like a common toy or TV show, or even political events. So my communication style has definitely changed. It is more plain now. It lacks the old 'flavor' that would have made it more 'human' in some ways.
I think that was an obvious point in the context of that discussion, but I'm also (perhaps cynically) pretty sure they didn't want to mention that for obvious reasons.
Post by: tomsang on July 12, 2018, 03:20:22 PM
I see the changes in communication when you communicating to my children through text. They think it is funny that I capitalize and put punctuation.
Younger employees tend to communicate through IM vs. face to face even if I am sitting next to them.
Robots are going to be able to blend in fine as we are mudding up our ways of communication.
Post by: swampwiz on July 12, 2018, 04:00:00 PM
What is amazing is the butterfly effect of this unfortunate death. This could change the entire ride share future. Uber coukd lose market share to another company with better tech. Self driving systems will most certainly be much better now, thry have no choice but to improve. The death of that individual could cause improvements that will save thousands of lives in the future.
The death of a pedestrian has always been expected, so had this not happened, it would have happened someplace, sometime else.
Post by: tomsang on July 13, 2018, 08:25:54 AM
Interesting take on the future.
Post by: maizefolk on July 13, 2018, 09:16:26 AM
Quote
They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern. Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down. This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on July 15, 2018, 08:26:31 PM
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/survival-of-the-richest-the-wealthy-are-plotting-to-leave-us-behind.htmlVery worthwhile read, though suffering (and benefiting) from taking a very particular point of view on the issue.
Interesting take on the future.
One argument against the mantra here (stop amassing wealth once you have enough to glide through retirement) is we don't know what new products and capabilities will be on offer in e.g. 40 years. If brain uploads/potential effective immortality (ignoring the the philosophical questions for now) are available then for $5M, should we save more now just in case?
Post by: Johnez on July 16, 2018, 02:39:08 AM
https://aeon.co/essays/are-humans-really-blind-to-the-gorilla-on-the-basketball-court
Quote
Deciding what is relevant and meaningful, and what is not, are vital to intelligence and rationality. And relevance and meaning continue to be outside the realm of AI (as illustrated by the so-called frame problem). Computers can be programmed to recognise and attend to certain features of the world – which need to be clearly specified and programmed a priori. But they cannot be programmed to make new observations, to ask novel questions or to meaningfully adjust to changing circumstances. The human ability to ask new questions, to generate hypotheses, and to identify and find novelty is unique and not programmable. No statistical procedure allows one to somehow see a mundane, taken-for-granted observation in a radically different and new way. That’s where humans come in.
Post by: toganet on July 16, 2018, 09:09:10 AM
Cool article with some forecasts of how automation will impact work between now and 2030, and some recommendations on what to solve for. For the impatient, the 10 things are:
- Ensuring robust economic and productivity growth.
- Fostering business dynamism.
- Evolving education systems and learning for a changed workplace.
- Investing in human capital.
- Improving labor-market dynamism.
- Redesigning work.
- Rethinking incomes.
- Rethinking transition support and safety nets for workers affected.
- Investing in drivers of demand for work.
- Embracing AI and automation safely.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on July 17, 2018, 07:14:24 PM
Interesting article on AI and the human mind:Thanks for sharing that, the notion of the Suchbild is familiar to me but I never knew there was a word for it! It very much reminds of of Donald Hoffman's discussion on (e.g. the hard problem of consciousness (https://youtu.be/JoZsAsgOSes?t=1h22m57s) [Hoffman is on for about 30 minutes but David Chalmers is also worthwhile; Daniel Dennett is funny since he acts like a total asshat as usual!]). Hoffman argues in favor of an explanation based on conscious-realism (there are only conscious agents) that perhaps can be taken to suggest that there are only Suchbilds of various conscious agents that reflect the fitness function of those agents.
https://aeon.co/essays/are-humans-really-blind-to-the-gorilla-on-the-basketball-courtQuoteDeciding what is relevant and meaningful, and what is not, are vital to intelligence and rationality. And relevance and meaning continue to be outside the realm of AI (as illustrated by the so-called frame problem). Computers can be programmed to recognise and attend to certain features of the world – which need to be clearly specified and programmed a priori. But they cannot be programmed to make new observations, to ask novel questions or to meaningfully adjust to changing circumstances. The human ability to ask new questions, to generate hypotheses, and to identify and find novelty is unique and not programmable. No statistical procedure allows one to somehow see a mundane, taken-for-granted observation in a radically different and new way. That’s where humans come in.
Quote
...in 2008 Chris Anderson, then editor of Wired, boldly proclaimed ‘the end of theory’, as the ‘data deluge makes the scientific method obsoleteThe refutation, mentioned in the article, of this notion by Popper more than 40 years prior to Anderson's assertion is amusing and quite convincing. At work, I had "Lean Six Sigma" training that seemed to hinge a bit too much on the step Collect ALL the Data and pray it magically tells you what is wrong.
Post by: maizefolk on August 16, 2018, 08:34:28 PM
Quote
he technology is supplied by Nuro, a self-driving vehicle startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving car project. ... That vehicle, known as the R1, is significantly smaller and lighter than a conventional passenger car. ... A smaller, lighter vehicle would do less damage if it ever ran into something. The vehicle's maximum speed of 25 miles per hour also makes serious injuries less likely.
Less exciting or dramatic than some of the stories posted to this thread, but happening as we speak.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/kroger-launches-autonomous-grocery-delivery-service-in-arizona/
Post by: boarder42 on August 17, 2018, 05:36:07 AM
A grocery store in Arizona is going to start offering home delivery of groceries using self driving cars rather than having a human do so.Quotehe technology is supplied by Nuro, a self-driving vehicle startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving car project. ... That vehicle, known as the R1, is significantly smaller and lighter than a conventional passenger car. ... A smaller, lighter vehicle would do less damage if it ever ran into something. The vehicle's maximum speed of 25 miles per hour also makes serious injuries less likely.
Less exciting or dramatic than some of the stories posted to this thread, but happening as we speak.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/kroger-launches-autonomous-grocery-delivery-service-in-arizona/
I would say this is super exciting. Grocery stores will essentially turn into mini warehouses and auto fill small robot cars like this in local neighborhoods.
Post by: TempusFugit on August 17, 2018, 07:31:40 AM
A grocery store in Arizona is going to start offering home delivery of groceries using self driving cars rather than having a human do so.Quotehe technology is supplied by Nuro, a self-driving vehicle startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving car project. ... That vehicle, known as the R1, is significantly smaller and lighter than a conventional passenger car. ... A smaller, lighter vehicle would do less damage if it ever ran into something. The vehicle's maximum speed of 25 miles per hour also makes serious injuries less likely.
Less exciting or dramatic than some of the stories posted to this thread, but happening as we speak.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/kroger-launches-autonomous-grocery-delivery-service-in-arizona/
I would say this is super exciting. Grocery stores will essentially turn into mini warehouses and auto fill small robot cars like this in local neighborhoods.
Almost a decade ago, I worked with a few friends and contracted with this particular grocer to develop and prototype some of their technology. Not this particular project, mind you, but stuff that does involve replacing humans by offloading the work to the customer with a technological helper. That project is only now being deployed across the country - and I'm sure it's much changed since my involvement.
The interesting thing that I learned during that experience with this specific company is just how much money they spend on R&D. What most of us would probably think of as a staid, 'old fashioned' industry is actually pushing a lot of technological boundaries.
Post by: maizefolk on August 17, 2018, 07:36:34 AM
Almost a decade ago, I worked with a few friends and contracted with this particular grocer to develop and prototype some of their technology. Not this particular project, mind you, but stuff that does involve replacing humans by offloading the work to the customer with a technological helper.
I'm guessing self-checkout systems?
Quote
The interesting thing that I learned during that experience with this specific company is just how much money they spend on R&D. What most of us would probably think of as a staid, 'old fashioned' industry is actually pushing a lot of technological boundaries.
Yeah I wouldn't have though of grocery stores has a high R&D industry, but it kind of makes sense. When a good profit margin is 3% and the industry average margin in 1%, anything that reduces your cost of doing business or lets you charge a bit more is going to have dramatic effect on your take home profits.
Post by: robartsd on August 17, 2018, 12:08:21 PM
A grocery store in Arizona is going to start offering home delivery of groceries using self driving cars rather than having a human do so.Quotehe technology is supplied by Nuro, a self-driving vehicle startup founded by two veterans of Google's self-driving car project. ... That vehicle, known as the R1, is significantly smaller and lighter than a conventional passenger car. ... A smaller, lighter vehicle would do less damage if it ever ran into something. The vehicle's maximum speed of 25 miles per hour also makes serious injuries less likely.
Less exciting or dramatic than some of the stories posted to this thread, but happening as we speak.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/kroger-launches-autonomous-grocery-delivery-service-in-arizona/
I would say this is super exciting. Grocery stores will essentially turn into mini warehouses and auto fill small robot cars like this in local neighborhoods.
Almost a decade ago, I worked with a few friends and contracted with this particular grocer to develop and prototype some of their technology. Not this particular project, mind you, but stuff that does involve replacing humans by offloading the work to the customer with a technological helper. That project is only now being deployed across the country - and I'm sure it's much changed since my involvement.
The interesting thing that I learned during that experience with this specific company is just how much money they spend on R&D. What most of us would probably think of as a staid, 'old fashioned' industry is actually pushing a lot of technological boundaries.
Once grocery stores are essentially mini-warehouses, they will be consolidated to a city or regional warehouse (most chains already have a distribution center that could become the origin point for autonomous delivery). Amazon Fresh will eventually force the grocery space to either sell the grocery shopping "experience" in neighborhood stores or invest in directly competing with delivery on demand services. I do see the potential for at least two delivery brands (one focused on top quality and high customer service, the other focused on best value) in most markets. I think warehouse stores will remain serving people who are looking for saving by purchasing larger quantities at once. I can't predict what will happen to discount grocery stores - it could be that the quality of produce is low enough that their shoppers won't want to delegate the task of selecting specific items. If discount groceries shut down, "food deserts" may become even more of a problem for low income households if minimum order sizes are too high, or reliable internet access is not available to them.
Post by: boarder42 on August 17, 2018, 01:52:41 PM
Post by: dougules on August 21, 2018, 11:05:24 AM
https://www.wired.com/story/when-bots-teach-themselves-to-cheat/
Post by: dougules on August 21, 2018, 11:17:27 AM
Post by: boarder42 on August 21, 2018, 11:37:46 AM
Grocery stores make a lot of money off of impulse purchases if I remember correctly. How will automated delivery affect that?
us frugal people will pay more b/c there wont be a reason to have loss leaders anymore. I personally think the frugal chains will thrive in this environment b/c they've worked their prices down and pre packaged produce so you buy a bag of 3 green peppers or a group of this or that everything is packaged for unit pricing already and made affordable with little sales.
Post by: BrightFIRE on August 21, 2018, 01:16:37 PM
Aldi's produce is not bad and doesn't have to be picked over. This idea that discount grocers have subpar products is hilarious.
Sometimes it does. But I don't find that to be unique to Aldi. My local major chain grocery often has quite terrible produce (unripe tomatoes in tomato season, rotting herbs, moldy berries), which is why I hardly ever shop there.
I personally have never liked any of the "shop for you" delivery options of fresh produce because they aren't as discerning as I am about quality/ripeness/etc.
Post by: dougules on August 22, 2018, 10:52:26 AM
Aldi's produce is not bad and doesn't have to be picked over. This idea that discount grocers have subpar products is hilarious.
Sometimes it does. But I don't find that to be unique to Aldi. My local major chain grocery often has quite terrible produce (unripe tomatoes in tomato season, rotting herbs, moldy berries), which is why I hardly ever shop there.
I personally have never liked any of the "shop for you" delivery options of fresh produce because they aren't as discerning as I am about quality/ripeness/etc.
I'm not particularly impressed with Aldi's produce. Sometimes they have good stuff, but their fruit is generally very green. They also go for looks over flavor. In their defense that's a very common problem even sometimes with higher end grocery stores. It may also depend on where you are geographically.
The point is, though, that I would not want to buy produce sight unseen. You don't know if you're getting anything good. A green cantaloupe and brown bananas are a bad purchase at any price.
Post by: boarder42 on August 22, 2018, 10:58:46 AM
Aldi's produce is not bad and doesn't have to be picked over. This idea that discount grocers have subpar products is hilarious.
Sometimes it does. But I don't find that to be unique to Aldi. My local major chain grocery often has quite terrible produce (unripe tomatoes in tomato season, rotting herbs, moldy berries), which is why I hardly ever shop there.
I personally have never liked any of the "shop for you" delivery options of fresh produce because they aren't as discerning as I am about quality/ripeness/etc.
I'm not particularly impressed with Aldi's produce. Sometimes they have good stuff, but their fruit is generally very green. They also go for looks over flavor. In their defense that's a very common problem even sometimes with higher end grocery stores. It may also depend on where you are geographically.
The point is, though, that I would not want to buy produce sight unseen. You don't know if you're getting anything good. A green cantaloupe and brown bananas are a bad purchase at any price.
i'd think this problem would remedy itself quickly with better selection to prevent returns b/c that drive up costs to the store alot.
Post by: Goodidea on August 22, 2018, 07:47:28 PM
Grocery stores make a lot of money off of impulse purchases if I remember correctly. How will automated delivery affect that?
Online stores are getting much better at upsells and retargetting.
To mock a checkout counter with a bunch of impulse snacks, chap sticks, magazines, etc...I imagine an online store could have a pre-checkout page with a bunch of random items in a grid that could be added to the cart last minute before purchase. I don't see this on Amazon much, but try registering a domain on GoDaddy or some business cards on Vistaprint. Right before you buy, you're met with a wall of cheap personalized add-on products with 1 click to add. It works.
On retargetting - a lot of grocery shoppers change their mind when it comes to the checkout line and restocking carts of "go-backs" is a regular part of a grocery worker's job. Imagine being able to ask the customer over the course of the following weeks if they want to now buy the things they left behind. Online stores can do this.
I was in a grocery store yesterday, which has been gutted from 30 checkout stands to only 6 cashier's active during busy hours. Self checkout handles 3/4 of the customers now. I feel the grocery store experience will be gone one day, so it made me appreciate my time in there. It was weird.
Post by: boarder42 on August 22, 2018, 07:54:17 PM
Post by: maizefolk on August 22, 2018, 07:58:59 PM
Also, the median grocery store spends about 10% of net revenue on labor* being able to cut even a proportion of that spending from fewer cashiers and less employee time spent facing, cleaning up spills, restocking (as Goodidea pointed out already) etc would do wonders for profits if average margins are only 1% of revenue.
*Or maybe 13.5%? It's not clear to me if spending on benefits is a subset of spending on labor or in addition to it. Here's the source I'm using if you want to decide for yourself. http://www.workforce.com/2004/01/30/labor-and-benefits-expenses-in-supermarkets/
Post by: boarder42 on August 22, 2018, 08:02:59 PM
Post by: TempusFugit on August 31, 2018, 07:41:29 AM
https://medium.com/s/story/how-facebook-has-flattened-human-communication-c1525a15e9aa (https://medium.com/s/story/how-facebook-has-flattened-human-communication-c1525a15e9aa)
It should be no time at all before machines pass the Turing test, because humans are communicating more and more like machines every day.
Post by: maizefolk on September 24, 2018, 07:44:34 PM
Quote
The bosses haven’t yet introduced facial recognition technology at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. But from her perch behind the front desk at the pink neo-Moorish palace overlooking Waikiki Beach, Jean Te’o-Gibney can see it coming. “Marriott just rolled it out in China,” enabling guests to check into their rooms without bothering with front-desk formalities, said Ms. Te’o-Gibney, a 53-year-old grandmother of seven. “It seems they know they will be eliminating our jobs.” Similar fears simmer throughout Marriott’s vast network of hotels, the largest in the United States.
...
Unlike manufacturing workers, whose jobs have been lost to automation since as far back as the 1950s, workers in the low-wage portion of the service sector had remained until now largely shielded from job-killing technologies. Many earned too little to justify large capital costs to replace them. A typical hotel or motel desk clerk earns just over $12 an hour, according to government data; a concierge just over $13.50. And many of the tasks they perform seemed too challenging to automate. Technology is changing this calculus.
Source and full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/business/economy/hotel-workers-ai-technology-alexa.html
Post by: boarder42 on September 24, 2018, 07:48:04 PM
Post by: Just Joe on December 13, 2018, 06:38:29 PM
Will automation bring out the worst in a handful of people?
Post by: Threshkin on December 14, 2018, 12:02:07 PM
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/12/guns-drunks-and-rage-waymo-self-driving-vans-targeted-by-angry-arizonians/
Will automation bring out the worst in a handful of people?
People resist change. Any change. It is human nature. It is likely that in our lifetimes driverless cars will become the norm and then (unfortunately) the rage is likely to be directed at "those crazies who insist on driving manually". I for one am looking forward to driverless, on demand transportation. I would love to get rid of my car, insurance, taxes, maintenance etc.
One thing to keep in mind as we envision this future is how are the roads going to be paid for. This funding has to come from somewhere. The government may start taxing rides (usage based), increase property, sales and/or income taxes, or find some other way to replace the funding lost from declining gas taxes. The pessimist in me says that will do all of these and then still say they need more money for roads.
Post by: OurTown on December 14, 2018, 12:29:05 PM
Thanks,
The Management
Post by: sol on December 14, 2018, 12:35:26 PM
I for one am looking forward to driverless, on demand transportation. I would love to get rid of my car, insurance, taxes, maintenance etc.
Historically speaking, we tend to end up paying for those reduced costs in other ways. People used to complain about the cost of keeping horses healthy and fed and groomed and housed, but we ended up paying far more to upgrade our dirt roads to pavement and spent trillions pumping oil out of the ground, not even mentioning the environmental or health consequences of our transition to the automobile. Cars are not cheaper than horses. They are better and more expensive.
So I expect the same sort of thing could happen with transitioning to shared autonomous cars. Yes you'd lose your personal insurance and maintenance costs, but those same costs would get rolled into the cost of whatever sharing service replaces your personal car, plus whatever additional costs you need to pay for the superior service.
Quote
One thing to keep in mind as we envision this future is how are the roads going to be paid for. This funding has to come from somewhere. The government may start taxing rides (usage based), increase property, sales and/or income taxes, or find some other way to replace the funding lost from declining gas taxes. The pessimist in me says that will do all of these and then still say they need more money for roads.
Gas taxes are a rough proxy for road costs, but unfortunately they don't scale linearly with vehicle weight so in practice individual drivers are currently subsidizing freight transport. A more logical model would charge people by both distance traveled and weight transported over that distance, with the road maintenance portion scaled to the damage-causing weight of the vehicle. I think construction equipment should absolutely pay a higher per-mile charge to drive on residential streets than should Miatas. A few short weeks of regular dump truck usage can totally destroy a city street. Our current model shares these costs with everyone, which means some people who drive big trucks pay less than they should, some people who use the roads for bicycles pay less than they should, and average daily commuters pick up the difference.
Can you envision a world where AI-controlled autonomous vehicles deliver goods and people wherever they need to go in a big-data sharing network that actually tracks fuel consumption, distance covered, and weight delivered, while simultaneously offering a sliding price scale based on what each trip actually costs? Long haul truckers are probably going out of business in a hurry to be largely replaced with trains. People who want giant pickups to take their kids to school are going to pay for the privilege. Carpooling would be not only financially incentivized but automatically scheduled for you. And all you have to do is give up the privacy to drive a dead body out to the swamp at night without anyone knowing about it.
Post by: dougules on December 14, 2018, 12:47:01 PM
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/12/guns-drunks-and-rage-waymo-self-driving-vans-targeted-by-angry-arizonians/
Will automation bring out the worst in a handful of people?
People resist change. Any change. It is human nature. It is likely that in our lifetimes driverless cars will become the norm and then (unfortunately) the rage is likely to be directed at "those crazies who insist on driving manually". I for one am looking forward to driverless, on demand transportation. I would love to get rid of my car, insurance, taxes, maintenance etc.
One thing to keep in mind as we envision this future is how are the roads going to be paid for. This funding has to come from somewhere. The government may start taxing rides (usage based), increase property, sales and/or income taxes, or find some other way to replace the funding lost from declining gas taxes. The pessimist in me says that will do all of these and then still say they need more money for roads.
Gas taxes only pay for a fraction of the cost of roads anyway. Unfortunately any reduction in revenue from those would just mean more drawn out of the general fund with no incentive to use less.
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 15, 2018, 12:40:06 AM
I for one am looking forward to driverless, on demand transportation. I would love to get rid of my car, insurance, taxes, maintenance etc.
Historically speaking, we tend to end up paying for those reduced costs in other ways. People used to complain about the cost of keeping horses healthy and fed and groomed and housed, but we ended up paying far more to upgrade our dirt roads to pavement and spent trillions pumping oil out of the ground, not even mentioning the environmental or health consequences of our transition to the automobile. Cars are not cheaper than horses. They are better and more expensive.
So I expect the same sort of thing could happen with transitioning to shared autonomous cars. Yes you'd lose your personal insurance and maintenance costs, but those same costs would get rolled into the cost of whatever sharing service replaces your personal car, plus whatever additional costs you need to pay for the superior service.QuoteOne thing to keep in mind as we envision this future is how are the roads going to be paid for. This funding has to come from somewhere. The government may start taxing rides (usage based), increase property, sales and/or income taxes, or find some other way to replace the funding lost from declining gas taxes. The pessimist in me says that will do all of these and then still say they need more money for roads.
Gas taxes are a rough proxy for road costs, but unfortunately they don't scale linearly with vehicle weight so in practice individual drivers are currently subsidizing freight transport. A more logical model would charge people by both distance traveled and weight transported over that distance, with the road maintenance portion scaled to the damage-causing weight of the vehicle. I think construction equipment should absolutely pay a higher per-mile charge to drive on residential streets than should Miatas. A few short weeks of regular dump truck usage can totally destroy a city street. Our current model shares these costs with everyone, which means some people who drive big trucks pay less than they should, some people who use the roads for bicycles pay less than they should, and average daily commuters pick up the difference.
Can you envision a world where AI-controlled autonomous vehicles deliver goods and people wherever they need to go in a big-data sharing network that actually tracks fuel consumption, distance covered, and weight delivered, while simultaneously offering a sliding price scale based on what each trip actually costs? Long haul truckers are probably going out of business in a hurry to be largely replaced with trains. People who want giant pickups to take their kids to school are going to pay for the privilege. Carpooling would be not only financially incentivized but automatically scheduled for you. And all you have to do is give up the privacy to drive a dead body out to the swamp at night without anyone knowing about it.
Oregon uses a weight mile tax for large vehicles although a Miata and an f250 ate both considered regular consumer vehicles and pay the same rate, not a weight mile tax. Is this not a common thing?
Post by: pdxmonkey on December 15, 2018, 12:52:15 AM
It's also interesting that at very high weights you get a discount for having more axles. Presumably because it spreads the load better and causes less damage. Vehicles in these categories are exempt from paying tax on diesel.
It looks like only 4 states have taxes similar to this or else the terms are different enough I couldn't locate more than 4
Post by: theSlowTurtle on December 20, 2018, 02:53:49 PM
You don't own a horse do you? HahahaI for one am looking forward to driverless, on demand transportation. I would love to get rid of my car, insurance, taxes, maintenance etc.
Historically speaking, we tend to end up paying for those reduced costs in other ways. People used to complain about the cost of keeping horses healthy and fed and groomed and housed, but we ended up paying far more to upgrade our dirt roads to pavement and spent trillions pumping oil out of the ground, not even mentioning the environmental or health consequences of our transition to the automobile. Cars are not cheaper than horses. They are better and more expensive.
So I expect the same sort of thing could happen with transitioning to shared autonomous cars. Yes you'd lose your personal insurance and maintenance costs, but those same costs would get rolled into the cost of whatever sharing service replaces your personal car, plus whatever additional costs you need to pay for the superior service.QuoteOne thing to keep in mind as we envision this future is how are the roads going to be paid for. This funding has to come from somewhere. The government may start taxing rides (usage based), increase property, sales and/or income taxes, or find some other way to replace the funding lost from declining gas taxes. The pessimist in me says that will do all of these and then still say they need more money for roads.
Gas taxes are a rough proxy for road costs, but unfortunately they don't scale linearly with vehicle weight so in practice individual drivers are currently subsidizing freight transport. A more logical model would charge people by both distance traveled and weight transported over that distance, with the road maintenance portion scaled to the damage-causing weight of the vehicle. I think construction equipment should absolutely pay a higher per-mile charge to drive on residential streets than should Miatas. A few short weeks of regular dump truck usage can totally destroy a city street. Our current model shares these costs with everyone, which means some people who drive big trucks pay less than they should, some people who use the roads for bicycles pay less than they should, and average daily commuters pick up the difference.
Can you envision a world where AI-controlled autonomous vehicles deliver goods and people wherever they need to go in a big-data sharing network that actually tracks fuel consumption, distance covered, and weight delivered, while simultaneously offering a sliding price scale based on what each trip actually costs? Long haul truckers are probably going out of business in a hurry to be largely replaced with trains. People who want giant pickups to take their kids to school are going to pay for the privilege. Carpooling would be not only financially incentivized but automatically scheduled for you. And all you have to do is give up the privacy to drive a dead body out to the swamp at night without anyone knowing about it.
Post by: Just Joe on January 29, 2019, 07:18:42 PM
Some of the wealthy would like to automate nearly their entire workforce. Perhaps we'll all be working service jobs?
Post by: maizefolk on January 29, 2019, 07:32:58 PM
Also the robots and AI are coming for service jobs too. The only long term safety from being displaced by automation is FI.
Post by: sol on January 29, 2019, 08:10:56 PM
The only long term safety from being displaced by automation is FI.
I'm not sure that's the only safety. As long as we have human beings in the economy, some of them will get paid to be human beings.
I think that a thousand years from now people will still get paid to play live music, or dance, or fight, or fuck. These are uniquely human activities that we value more because a human being is doing them, even when a robot can do them better. Similarly, I suspect that there will always be some economic value in low-production handmade goods precisely because they are handmade, even if superior products manufactured by robots are cheaper.
Now that I write it all out, I'm realizing that the unifying theme of all of these potential future human jobs is that they involve some form of art. Woodcarvers and ballet dancers and hookers and football players must certainly be technically proficient, but it is the artistry in their work that causes people to pay money for it. That participation by a human whose skill we admire is what makes it desirable enough that it's profitable to perform. Watching robots do that work is much less interesting.
Post by: Watchmaker on February 01, 2019, 02:09:03 PM
Now that I write it all out, I'm realizing that the unifying theme of all of these potential future human jobs is that they involve some form of art. Woodcarvers and ballet dancers and hookers and football players must certainly be technically proficient, but it is the artistry in their work that causes people to pay money for it. That participation by a human whose skill we admire is what makes it desirable enough that it's profitable to perform. Watching robots do that work is much less interesting.
Nick Cave said something interesting about AI and songwriting recently:
"Of course, we go to songs to make us feel something — happy, sad, sexy, homesick, excited or whatever — but this is not all a song does. What a great song makes us feel is a sense of awe. There is a reason for this. A sense of awe is almost exclusively predicated on our limitations as human beings. It is entirely to do with our audacity as humans to reach beyond our potential."
"We are listening to Beethoven compose the Ninth Symphony while almost totally deaf. We are listening to Prince, that tiny cluster of purple atoms, singing in the pouring rain at the Super Bowl and blowing everyone’s minds. We are listening to Nina Simone stuff all her rage and disappointment into the most tender of love songs. We are listening to Paganini continue to play his Stradivarius as the strings snapped. We are listening to Jimi Hendrix kneel and set fire to his own instrument."
"What we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity. How could it? And this is the essence of transcendence. If we have limitless potential then what is there to transcend? And therefore what is the purpose of the imagination at all. Music has the ability to touch the celestial sphere with the tips of its fingers and the awe and wonder we feel is in the desperate temerity of the reach, not just the outcome."
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/considering-human-imagination-the-last-piece-of-wilderness-do-you-think-ai-will-ever-be-able-to-write-a-good-song/
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2019, 10:28:32 AM
That participation by a human whose skill we admire is what makes it desirable enough that it's profitable to perform. Watching robots do that work is much less interesting.
I think the current popularity of watching other people play video games more or less proves that this is exactly right. The game itself could of course move and aim and jump the avatars with 100% perfect precision everytime, but nobody will sit and watch two teams of all AI fight each other in Fortnite for hours on end. Even when if we can't see the person, know nothing about them, just the knowledge that it is in fact a person makes it more interesting
Post by: maizefolk on February 03, 2019, 10:51:55 AM
To some extent the above trend is offset by increased consumption of entertainment. But there is a limit to how much further that can grow. The average american already spends close to 5 hours a day watching live and DVRed television and another 2-3 hours on smartphones/tablets playing games and consuming social media. Assuming we don't come up with drugs to eliminate sleep, it seems unlikely entertainment consumption could grow much more than 2x beyond what we already consume, even in a world with a UBI and absolutely no need to ever work.
Post by: sol on February 03, 2019, 12:31:05 PM
Assuming we don't come up with drugs to eliminate sleep, it seems unlikely entertainment consumption could grow much more than 2x beyond what we already consume, even in a world with a UBI and absolutely no need to ever work.
Entertainment consumption doesn't need to grow by 2x in order to become 2x as profitable. As long as people are willing to pay more to consume art (which also costs less to produce), then more art and more profit will be made. That's the beauty of art, it's not a like a factory widget where the value is tied up in the raw materials or labor costs.
As long as there are still human beings in the system making decisions about how to allocate resources, there will continue to be competition for those resources. I'm sure it would be baffling to the most computer literate person in 1979 that within the span of 40 years there would be a multi-billion dollar industry selling in-game items for video games. Who's to say what crazy stuff we'll all be paying for in 40 more years?
Post by: maizefolk on February 03, 2019, 12:48:17 PM
I have no doubt that in a future UBI/star trek world where nobody NEEDS to work, the people who are the very absolute best at producing entertainment/art will be able to make large fortunes.
So you're right, I should (and do) amend my previous statement to "Unless you are one of the absolute best people in the world in your chosen field, the only long term safety from being displaced by automation is FI."
Post by: sol on February 03, 2019, 01:21:23 PM
More and more profit yes. But not a need for employing more and more people.
I see now that I was misunderstanding your point. You're thinking about the long term viability of a situation in which workers are threatened because most people have no useful work to do, potentially causing economic collapse. I was more narrowly focused on the long term viability of a situation in which corporate profitability is threatened because most people have no useful work to do, potentially causing economic collapse.
I was only thinking about how capitalism could continue to thrive by generating wealth through ruthless exploitation, blindly accepting that those profits would be concentrated in the hands of the few instead of the many. Is this what financial independence does to a person? Have I unwittingly been transformed from an advocate for the greater good of humanity into a greedy corporate stockholder who promotes the excesses of capitalism because that's how I now make my money? That hurts.
Post by: maizefolk on February 03, 2019, 01:31:43 PM
Yes, I'm not arguing for the doom of our economic/political/financial system. Just that we may be living in the last era where many people's labor is worth much. In a UBI/star trek world, while people will probably have enough to live on and pursue their passions, they probably WON'T have enough to save up and buy a share of the companies/capital which are making money hand over fist from their spending. Of course if we move to a future where most people's labor has little value and we DON'T also make the transition to a UBI/star trek world, then economic/political collapse is definitely back on the table.
Short of a revolution (which certainly could happen, but I don't think it is inevitable), I agree with you that I don't see much risk that companies (capital) will stop being able to produce lots of income and profit from selling people things they want in the future, regardless of whether those things are objects, entertainment or experiences.
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2019, 07:10:49 PM
The average person would complain and insist that the amount wasn't enough to live on, but the sort of person who posts on these forums would be slowly building capital even if they started with none.
Post by: Bakari on February 03, 2019, 07:15:10 PM
Have I unwittingly been transformed from an advocate for the greater good of humanity into a greedy corporate stockholder who promotes the excesses of capitalism because that's how I now make my money? That hurts.
I hadn't read any of your prior posts as advocating for any particular outcome, so much as predicting it. And you are probably right. No moral quandary in that, any more than Rasputin predicting the revolution was the cause of it
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 04, 2019, 05:35:25 AM
Assuming that the majority of people continue more or less their current lifestyles and consumption, than a UBI high enough that no one needs to work will leave enough excess beyond the basic necessities that it would still be possible to save enough to invest.
The average person would complain and insist that the amount wasn't enough to live on, but the sort of person who posts on these forums would be slowly building capital even if they started with none.
But in a UBI world, the average person would not see the motivation to save and invest. Even a Mustachian might have a hard time convincing their kids that deferred gratification provides some ability to ... what, retire early? There is nothing to 'retire early' from! Spend a little more than the average in old age? Meh, better to enjoy it when you are young and healthy....
There is going to have to be a transition from the economic motivations that work in today's society over to what will motivate people in a UBI world. Society will have to look a lot different, or else there will be a violent revolution due to the incredible inequality between a tiny fraction of powerful owners and a giant multitude of powerless folks that want a little more and have lots of time on their hands...
Post by: toganet on February 04, 2019, 07:01:26 AM
Assuming that the majority of people continue more or less their current lifestyles and consumption, than a UBI high enough that no one needs to work will leave enough excess beyond the basic necessities that it would still be possible to save enough to invest.
The average person would complain and insist that the amount wasn't enough to live on, but the sort of person who posts on these forums would be slowly building capital even if they started with none.
But in a UBI world, the average person would not see the motivation to save and invest. Even a Mustachian might have a hard time convincing their kids that deferred gratification provides some ability to ... what, retire early? There is nothing to 'retire early' from! Spend a little more than the average in old age? Meh, better to enjoy it when you are young and healthy....
There is going to have to be a transition from the economic motivations that work in today's society over to what will motivate people in a UBI world. Society will have to look a lot different, or else there will be a violent revolution due to the incredible inequality between a tiny fraction of powerful owners and a giant multitude of powerless folks that want a little more and have lots of time on their hands...
Most descriptions of UBI I have heard emphasize the "Basic" part, so I see a possible motivation in folks' desire to acquire luxury-type things. So if everyone is getting the same $X that is calculated to cover the basics, I can choose to be more frugal than my neighbors and use my surplus to do the things I want to do. This might be travel or entertainment, or just a choice of better restaurants over others.
The part that I can't quite work out is how a Basic income ultimately allows for the type of non-basic economic activity to happen at the scale it does today. How can I run a gourmet restaurant if most of my patrons can't afford to eat there often? I may be creating amazing art now that I don't have to work minimum wage to cover my needs -- but so are tons of other folks so it's a commodity. And if only a tiny fraction of society can afford to buy it, I might as well give it away, right?
The cascading effects of shifted economic incentives seem to lead to too many contradictions. However, if we do it Trekonomics-style (no artificial scarcity, energy is free, robots do all the dirty work) then the incentives to do anything "for money" goes away, and humans can truly focus their energies on the things that make us human: art, learning, relationships, travel ...
Post by: maizefolk on February 04, 2019, 07:20:37 AM
Post by: Bakari on February 04, 2019, 09:21:45 AM
Assuming that the majority of people continue more or less their current lifestyles and consumption, than a UBI high enough that no one needs to work will leave enough excess beyond the basic necessities that it would still be possible to save enough to invest.
The average person would complain and insist that the amount wasn't enough to live on, but the sort of person who posts on these forums would be slowly building capital even if they started with none.
But in a UBI world, the average person would not see the motivation to save and invest. Even a Mustachian might have a hard time convincing their kids that deferred gratification provides some ability to ... what, retire early? There is nothing to 'retire early' from! Spend a little more than the average in old age? Meh, better to enjoy it when you are young and healthy....
There is going to have to be a transition from the economic motivations that work in today's society over to what will motivate people in a UBI world. Society will have to look a lot different, or else there will be a violent revolution due to the incredible inequality between a tiny fraction of powerful owners and a giant multitude of powerless folks that want a little more and have lots of time on their hands...
In the current world the average person doesn't have the motivation to save and invest.
There are plenty of mustachians who don't want to literally "retire" so it still seems similar to me. The motivation to save and invest would be to become one of those "powerful owners", or at least a little more in that direction. Like, I am in no way remotely close to being a real estate mogul, but saving and investing (on an average 20k income) got me to owning 3 rental units, which is a big step up from renting myself.
Most descriptions of UBI I have heard emphasize the "Basic" part, so I see a possible motivation in folks' desire to acquire luxury-type things. So if everyone is getting the same $X that is calculated to cover the basics, I can choose to be more frugal than my neighbors and use my surplus to do the things I want to do. This might be travel or entertainment, or just a choice of better restaurants over others.
The part that I can't quite work out is how a Basic income ultimately allows for the type of non-basic economic activity to happen at the scale it does today. How can I run a gourmet restaurant if most of my patrons can't afford to eat there often? I may be creating amazing art now that I don't have to work minimum wage to cover my needs -- but so are tons of other folks so it's a commodity. And if only a tiny fraction of society can afford to buy it, I might as well give it away, right?
The cascading effects of shifted economic incentives seem to lead to too many contradictions. However, if we do it Trekonomics-style (no artificial scarcity, energy is free, robots do all the dirty work) then the incentives to do anything "for money" goes away, and humans can truly focus their energies on the things that make us human: art, learning, relationships, travel ...
If it were truly only enough the basic basics, perhaps enough people would be motivated to do the types of "artistic" human work that Sol listed that there would always remain a (perhaps smaller, but still significant) employed middle class who could afford middle luxuries, like eating out and traveling. In other words, the artists and other chefs will be your patrons.
Post by: toganet on February 04, 2019, 11:52:24 AM
What do you see as the differences in definition between a UBI world and a trekonomics world?
Mainly the amounts (and existence) of money involved.
In a UBI world, my understanding is that individuals would receive some amount of money to cover their basic needs, such as housing, food, education, healthcare. This might be done via universal-access systems like in Scandanavia, plus things like "SNAP for all" and HUD-subsidized rent/mortgage for everyone, without resorting to actual cash payments. (I am not advocating this). So money is still a medium of exchange that is ultimately a proxy for labor, even if that labor has become automated. Anything beyond basics would require additional labor to earn the funds to buy it.
In a Trekonomics (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27040338-trekonomics)scenario, money eventually ceases to exist. When any physical good you might need can be created for next-to-nothing (think free, limitless energy powering advanced 3D printers) there's no need to exchange one thing for another, even time. Time, in many ways, becomes the central question -- now that all needs AND wants are attended to, how does one choose to spend one's time? Kinda like personal finance, you can do anything you want -- but you can't do everything you want.
Post by: maizefolk on February 04, 2019, 11:53:48 AM
Post by: Bakari on February 04, 2019, 03:14:01 PM
In a Trekonomics (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27040338-trekonomics)scenario, money eventually ceases to exist. When any physical good you might need can be created for next-to-nothing (think free, limitless energy powering advanced 3D printers) there's no need to exchange one thing for another, even time.
In addition to some of the things Sol pointed out (you can't 3D print human companionship), land is finite. Population might also outpace our ability to provide raw materials to the robot printers if everyone can have everything they can think of for free, (so everyone has their own fleet of helicopters and yachts of various sizes).
That link claims Star Trek is in a universe where war doesn't exist and leisure and work are indistinguishable, yet the enterprise is armed with photon torpedos and there is a bar and a holodeck for one's off hours.
There may be limits to the degree of utopia that is possible (at least until we can clone minds in a software world)
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on February 06, 2019, 02:57:46 AM
Quote
The building we exited was another one of the terrafoam projects. Terrafoam was a super-low-cost building material, and all of the welfare dorms were made out of it. They took a clay-like mud, aerated it into a thick foam, formed it into large panels and fired it like a brick with a mobile furnace. It was cheap and it allowed them to erect large buildings quickly. The robots had put up the building next to ours in a week.
The government had finally figured out that giving choices to people on welfare was not such a great idea, and it was also expensive. Instead of giving people a welfare check, they started putting welfare recipients directly into government housing and serving them meals in a cafeteria. If the government could drive the cost of that housing and food down, it minimized the amount of money they had to spend per welfare recipient.
As the robots took over in the workplace, the number of welfare recipients grew rapidly. Manna replaced tens of millions of minimum wage workers with robots, and terrafoam housing became the warehouse of choice for them. Terrafoam buildings were not pretty, but they were incredibly inexpensive to build and were designed for maximum occupancy. They clustered the buildings on trash land well away from urban centers so no one had to look at them. It was a lot like an old-style college dorm. Each person got a 5 foot by 10 foot room with a bed and a TV -- the world's best pacifier. During the day the bed was a couch and people sat on the bedspread, which also served as a sheet and the blanket. At night the bed was a bed. When I arrived they had just started putting in bunk beds to double the number of people in each building.
Post by: EscapeVelocity2020 on March 12, 2019, 02:40:36 PM
http://www.econtalk.org/amy-webb-on-artificial-intelligence-humanity-and-the-big-nine/
Quote
Russ Roberts: My guest is futurist and author Amy Webb.... Her latest book is The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity.... Your book is a warning about the challenges we face, that we're going to face dealing with the rise of artificial intelligence.
Quote
So, there's a province in China where a new sort of global system is being rolled out. And it is continually mining and refining the data of the citizens who live in that area. So, as an example, if you cross the street when there's a red light and you are not able to safely cross the street at that point--if you choose to anyway, as to jay-walk--cameras that are embedded with smart recognition technology will automatically not just recognize that there's a person in the intersection when there's not supposed to be, but will actually recognize that person by name. So they'll use facial recognition technology along with technologies that are capable of recognizing posture and gait. It will recognize who that person is. Their image will be displayed on a nearby digital--not bulletin board; what do you call those--digital billboard. Where their name and other personal information will be displayed. And it will also trigger a social media mention on a network called Weibo. Which is one of the predominant social networks in China. And that person, probably, some of their family members, some of their friends, but also their employer, will know that they have--they have infracted--they have caused an infraction. So, they've crossed the street when they weren't supposed to. And, in some cases, that person may be publicly told--publicly shamed--and publicly told to show up at a nearby police precinct.
Post by: Kate Leiton on March 13, 2019, 03:05:58 AM
Very interesting AI discussion on the EconTalk podcast this week -
http://www.econtalk.org/amy-webb-on-artificial-intelligence-humanity-and-the-big-nine/QuoteRuss Roberts: My guest is futurist and author Amy Webb.... Her latest book is The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity.... Your book is a warning about the challenges we face, that we're going to face dealing with the rise of artificial intelligence.QuoteSo, there's a province in China where a new sort of global system is being rolled out. And it is continually mining and refining the data of the citizens who live in that area. So, as an example, if you cross the street when there's a red light and you are not able to safely cross the street at that point--if you choose to anyway, as to jay-walk--cameras that are embedded with smart recognition technology will automatically not just recognize that there's a person in the intersection when there's not supposed to be, but will actually recognize that person by name. So they'll use facial recognition technology along with technologies that are capable of recognizing posture and gait. It will recognize who that person is. Their image will be displayed on a nearby digital--not bulletin board; what do you call those--digital billboard. Where their name and other personal information will be displayed. And it will also trigger a social media mention on a network called Weibo. Which is one of the predominant social networks in China. And that person, probably, some of their family members, some of their friends, but also their employer, will know that they have--they have infracted--they have caused an infraction. So, they've crossed the street when they weren't supposed to. And, in some cases, that person may be publicly told--publicly shamed--and publicly told to show up at a nearby police precinct.
Post by: maizefolk on May 19, 2019, 09:30:31 AM
Quote
In Saskatchewan, the first commercially sold autonomous tractors made by Dot are hitting fields this spring.
The Dot units will not be completely on their own this year -- farmers who bought equipment as part of a limited release are required to watch them at all times. But after this trial run, the producers will be able to let the equipment run on its own starting next year. That will open up a lot of time for the growers who will no longer need to sit behind the steering wheel.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/robots-farming-autonomous-equipment-canada-australia-a8919836.html
Post by: G-dog on May 19, 2019, 10:28:25 AM
Agriculture is already a highly mechanized sector of the economy, but I thought this story was still pretty cool.QuoteIn Saskatchewan, the first commercially sold autonomous tractors made by Dot are hitting fields this spring.
The Dot units will not be completely on their own this year -- farmers who bought equipment as part of a limited release are required to watch them at all times. But after this trial run, the producers will be able to let the equipment run on its own starting next year. That will open up a lot of time for the growers who will no longer need to sit behind the steering wheel.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/robots-farming-autonomous-equipment-canada-australia-a8919836.html
I thought autonomous tractors were already in use in the US - though that people still sat in the cab, though it isn’t needed. I may have assumed too much about that capability of the equipment.
Post by: ender on June 02, 2019, 07:25:32 AM
I thought autonomous tractors were already in use in the US - though that people still sat in the cab, though it isn’t needed. I may have assumed too much about that capability of the equipment.
Most large ag manufacturers are hesitant to allow fully autonomous tractors without a driver, mainly for liability reasons.
I know most require weight in the seat. But I've seen some really hacky approaches to that - putting weights on the seat, etc.
Post by: G-dog on June 02, 2019, 07:54:22 AM
I thought autonomous tractors were already in use in the US - though that people still sat in the cab, though it isn’t needed. I may have assumed too much about that capability of the equipment.
Most large ag manufacturers are hesitant to allow fully autonomous tractors without a driver, mainly for liability reasons.
I know most require weight in the seat. But I've seen some really hacky approaches to that - putting weights on the seat, etc.
I knew about the liability, but not the seat trigger. I guess hardcopy encyclopedias are still of use. The field plan (crop, seed, planting density, etc.) is all programmed in, but I imagine that people are still needed for the transition. Lots of similar technology in construction equipment - but I don’t know how it is being used (and any unions will likely resist it going fully autonomous)
Post by: ctuser1 on June 03, 2019, 08:17:31 AM
AI is just a glorified name for automation, something that has been going on for hundreds of years. It can definitely replace "your" job (generic "you"), but it also creates many new jobs.
This is due to the O-Ring principle of Economic Development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-ring_theory_of_economic_development
This theory has a long history starting with the NASA Challanger Shuttle disaster in 1986.
Here is how it goes:
1. There are 100 tasks in our fictitious value chain producing end client value.
2. AI is able to replace 80 of those 100 tasks, improving reliability, speed and accuracy AND decreasing cost for these tasks.
- Because of the way typical incentive structures work, this is implemented asap so that managers controlling these 80 tasks can take all the credit and point fingers to the people controlling the rest of the 20 tasks.
3. As per the O-Ring Theory, the rest of the 20 tasks, things that can not be done by AI, suddenly become very important. They need to be improved as well, else the entire value chain is denied any improvement. The labor saved in the AI-replaced tasks are now devoted to these 20.
We have seen this O-Ring theory bear out in many industries. Look at all the bank tellers replaced by the ATM machines. You can go to "https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/employment-levels-by-industry.htm" and pull up the chart for "Financial Activities". Or you can go to "https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-by-industry-1910-and-2015.htm" and compare 2015 against 1915 - i.e. a century.
In all data, you do not only NOT see a sudden cliff you'd expect when ATM's invaded the bank tellers job - but there seems to be gradual increase.
What happened?
Well, when the bank tellers no longer had to count money, they were deployed to become personal bankers. The number of people employed did not go down, just that a different part of the job suddenly became important and they were all employed there.
The same thing played out in many other sectors. Spreadsheets invaded accounting and we no longer have the paper-pusher roles in any big corp that existed 50 years ago. But look at the number of professionals doing accounting, and it has not only NOT gone down, but increased dramatically. Automation made a large part of the corporate value chain more reliable and more efficient - the ERP/SCM etc. Accounting HAD To keep up or else no benefits would accrue. Hence came many more accountants who no longer did much arithmatic by handheld calculators - but work on optimizing a new part of the workflow that simply did not exist 50 years ago.
The above assumes, of course, that there will always be the 20 jobs in the value chain of 100 that AI can't do. This has held so far, and I believe will hold for decades into the future unless some earth-shattering development in CS and Math comes along and is not expected anytime soon.
My knowledge in this field is a decade+ dated, since when I dabbled into NN and learning in college. Most of the technological developments of AI happened after 2012 (https://qz.com/1307091/the-inside-story-of-how-ai-got-good-enough-to-dominate-silicon-valley/).
As far as I understand, however, all these developments since 2012 are purely technological. The background math and science has not improved much. If so, the current boom of AI will be limited to "Weak AI": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_AI.
To break the assumption, and have AI replace all 100 tasks in the value chain, you need "Strong AI": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence. We are nowhere near this!
Summary:
Fear of AI is overblown. Rest easy. Yes, "your job" may be automated, but there will always be new opportunities created as long as you stay nimble on your feet.
We are nowhere near the future where humans, as a whole, are outdated.
Post by: sol on June 03, 2019, 08:38:47 AM
the current boom of AI will be limited to "Weak AI": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_AI.
To break the assumption, and have AI replace all 100 tasks in the value chain, you need "Strong AI": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence. We are nowhere near this!
The recurring theme of this thread has been the surprising number of tasks, previously thought to require strong AI, that are turning out to be profitably automated by weak AI systems. The whole notion of "strong AI" is starting to look like human conceit, a lie we have told ourselves to protect our collective ego. Those jobs only required strong AI because they were inefficiently structured to begin with.
As it turns out, we are a whole lot less special than we thought we were and many of the jobs that we thought required our uniquely human abilities can in fact be broken down into parts that can be automated, or at the very least the job itself can be modified in ways that allow it to be automated. See Amazon's warehouse robots for an example of a job that previously was thought to require strong AI until the entire warehouse operations structure was rebuilt around robots. That same process is ongoing in variety of operations.
The real threat doesn't appear to be that AI will replace you in your current job, whatever it is, but that AI will change the way your industry operates in such a way that your job in its current form longer exists at all, for humans OR robots.
Post by: roomtempmayo on June 03, 2019, 09:30:32 AM
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/12/guns-drunks-and-rage-waymo-self-driving-vans-targeted-by-angry-arizonians/
Will automation bring out the worst in a handful of people?
Yes, absolutely. If automation were to put >50% of the workforce out of work, there's no UBI that's going to be an adequate bandaid. I'd give people one election cycle to nationalize industry, either by ballot or force.
The technology isn't the problem with automation, it's the distributive politics. To date, we've automated/outsourced (to a worker the difference is irrelevant) maybe 10% of the workforce, and we've already got Trumpism and its global variants. Multiply that dynamic several times, include former professionals with leadership abilities among the displaced, and we'd be in a very dark, very violent place.
Previous economic transitions worked because they made most people better off. There's no reason to think an unregulated transition to AI is going to make most people better off. I expect just the opposite instead, and there's no way that's going to be stable/sustainable.
Post by: Bakari on June 04, 2019, 04:41:26 PM
compare 2015 against 1915 - i.e. a century.
In all data, you do not only NOT see a sudden cliff ... but there seems to be gradual increase.
While what you are describing is probably a legitimate factor, I think the way the data is being looked at is misleading.
The "Employment levels" chart is looking at number of jobs, and the employment by industry is looking at the distribution of jobs.
Neither is considering hours of labor (or compensation thereof) per capita.
Between 1999 and 2019 there was an increase of 50 million in population. The BLS chart you linked to shows in increase of 23 million jobs over that span.
So the data is misleading - while it looks at first glance like an increase in jobs, it actually represents a very significant decrease in employment.
The so-called "unemployment" data has the same problem. The official definition of unemployment requires a person to be actively seeking a job, which means anyone who permanently leaves the workforce does not count.
If you look at actual person labor-hours, there has in fact been a massive decrease since the time of the industrial revolution. The decrease has just been absorbed by changing societal norms and expectations, and by government redistribution of wealth.
In 1900 about 20% of 10-15 year olds had full time jobs. Prior to 1935 there was no such thing as a "retirement age" for most people, you worked until you were physically incapable, or until you died, which ever came first. Those two things alone represents a significant decrease in labor force participation rate, without the individuals who aren't working being considered "unemployed" SDI and AFDC allows many people who would need to hold whatever menial labor jobs they could get to survive do other things, like attend school, care for children, or just live out their days being insane in peace. (Granted, the increase in women in the work force goes against that trend)
Largest of all, the standard work week was reduced from anywhere from about 60-70 in the 19th and early 20th century to roughly 40 today. That change alone increases the number of people who are employed by 50% to get the same amount of work done.
This is what has allowed jobs to be lost to automation and never replaced, without having any apparent impact on employment. The distribution of the remaining jobs changed.
Todays decrease in average wages relative to GDP is a symptom of the decreased need for labor (without any accompanying updated change in distribution of labor availability, like a shorter workweek or increased minimum wage) - labor in a market economy is like any other resource: if supply outpaces demand, price (wage) falls.
We don't need strong AI for this to become a crises, we are already on that track as long as we continue with out current momentum. AI just promises to get us there faster.
Post by: Spud on September 17, 2019, 01:10:44 AM
This could threaten around 1.8 million jobs...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXivgUGVn8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXivgUGVn8)
Post by: robartsd on September 17, 2019, 09:18:06 AM
The don't need to sleep so you can cross the country in half the time.Plenty of team drivers already operating nearly round the clock. Of course that basically just means each autonomous truck is replacing two or more workers.
Post by: maizefolk on January 17, 2020, 01:36:32 PM
IHeartRadio (nee Clearchannel) announced the layoff of 850 employees from their radio stations, including more than 60 DJs because of investments in automation and AI for programming/podcasting/marketing, etc.
Source. (https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/01/15/iheartradio-replaces-human-workers-ai/)
Post by: joshuagraham_xyz on January 17, 2020, 07:19:46 PM
Once we invent cheap, attractive sex bots (and get over that uncanny valley issue) I fully expect the human race to die out in a single generation . . . maybe two at the most.I could see men that are shut out of the sexual marketplace, as it were, going this route, but I can't see women doing this. The reason for men having sex is to achieve orgasm, and a good enough sex robot could make this happen; actually, all that would need to happen is to have a device that could choke the chicken for him while the man watches porn, especially the live porn that sexy webcams produce. Women, however, need to be validated that a real man of sufficiently good genetic stock, and typically also with a fat wallet, is laying the pipe; a sex robot cannot do this.
What it will do is greatly decrease the number of men that hang out at Tinder, or at the local nightclub, etc., but since most of these men have been getting shunned by women, it won't have much of an effect for younger women, but most definitely could lessen the number of men that are willing to "man up" to marry older women, so we'll probably see even more articles about how difficult it is for (older) women to find a husband. Of course, since the most important thing to a woman is not to have the husband (finances aside), but rather a good genetic donor's sperm, we'll see even more sperm bank business as competition ramps up for the genetically desirable college students to give sperm samples.
Post by: sixwings on January 20, 2020, 10:30:19 PM
Assuming that the majority of people continue more or less their current lifestyles and consumption, than a UBI high enough that no one needs to work will leave enough excess beyond the basic necessities that it would still be possible to save enough to invest.
The average person would complain and insist that the amount wasn't enough to live on, but the sort of person who posts on these forums would be slowly building capital even if they started with none.
But in a UBI world, the average person would not see the motivation to save and invest. Even a Mustachian might have a hard time convincing their kids that deferred gratification provides some ability to ... what, retire early? There is nothing to 'retire early' from! Spend a little more than the average in old age? Meh, better to enjoy it when you are young and healthy....
There is going to have to be a transition from the economic motivations that work in today's society over to what will motivate people in a UBI world. Society will have to look a lot different, or else there will be a violent revolution due to the incredible inequality between a tiny fraction of powerful owners and a giant multitude of powerless folks that want a little more and have lots of time on their hands...
This is basically what will happen, it will probably be the tech titans vs. everyone else, and everyone else will lose.
Post by: TempusFugit on September 18, 2020, 08:28:25 PM
I've ridden in a Telsa Model S once and it was kind of cool, sure. Very powerful and stable feeling. I can't image how much it costs to keep tires on one with all that torque.
Not my thing really for the money, but the people I know (just 3 people) that have them really love them.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on September 18, 2020, 08:53:19 PM
I haven't heard much lately about how self-driving cars are doing out in the world. Tesla seems to make news for lots of stuff lately but not accidents, thankfully, I guess. Not only has another year passed but they've also sold probably 40-50 thousand more cars with 'auto-pilot' mode available. With people being people, I'm sure just as many idiots are ignoring the road and letting the car drive but somehow they must be surviving. Maybe this means the tech is really getting closer to what we might consider fully self driving.I think the analysis of Tesla safety is confounded by the fact early adopters were probably higher income, which would correlate to certain Big 5 personality traits associated with lower accident rates. I guess if we consider Model S cheap enough for the hoi polloi then maybe we are starting to see a real signal of the effectiveness of autopilot. I'm an AI pessimist in that I believe until we solve the general Hard Problem of Consciousness--which I unjustifiably think is a necessary precondition for achieving general intelligence--that automated systems will keep encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail (abusrdly extreme failure mode in current visual processing AI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA4YEAWVpbk)--single pixel attacks indicate neural networks are subject to extreme hallucinations on occasion, though maybe these problems can be smoothed over via GAN machine learning approaches). However, if I'm right, driving well in all circumstances is an AGI problem, not a narrow-AI problem. In controlled conditions (e.g. freeways) narrow-AI can work but I suspect it will have many intriguing failure modes when it encounters conditions one or two standard deviations outside of normal. The alternative is to convert all cars at once to reduce the possibility for failure but of course that is a coordination problem and we will probably have many different brands/flavors of self-driving algorithms instantiated at any given time. I'm going to stick with my '09 Civic for now.
I've ridden in a Telsa Model S once and it was kind of cool, sure. Very powerful and stable feeling. I can't image how much it costs to keep tires on one with all that torque.
Not my thing really for the money, but the people I know (just 3 people) that have them really love them.
Post by: GuitarStv on September 20, 2020, 09:07:58 AM
Once we invent cheap, attractive sex bots (and get over that uncanny valley issue) I fully expect the human race to die out in a single generation . . . maybe two at the most.I could see men that are shut out of the sexual marketplace, as it were, going this route, but I can't see women doing this. The reason for men having sex is to achieve orgasm, and a good enough sex robot could make this happen; actually, all that would need to happen is to have a device that could choke the chicken for him while the man watches porn, especially the live porn that sexy webcams produce. Women, however, need to be validated that a real man of sufficiently good genetic stock, and typically also with a fat wallet, is laying the pipe; a sex robot cannot do this.
What it will do is greatly decrease the number of men that hang out at Tinder, or at the local nightclub, etc., but since most of these men have been getting shunned by women, it won't have much of an effect for younger women, but most definitely could lessen the number of men that are willing to "man up" to marry older women, so we'll probably see even more articles about how difficult it is for (older) women to find a husband. Of course, since the most important thing to a woman is not to have the husband (finances aside), but rather a good genetic donor's sperm, we'll see even more sperm bank business as competition ramps up for the genetically desirable college students to give sperm samples.
I'll preface this by saying that I'm certainly not an expert on the minds of all human women as they pertain to sex . . . but in my short stay here on planet Earth I've found multiple women who enjoyed the act of sex just as much as men. :P
Post by: dougules on September 20, 2020, 07:19:40 PM
I think the analysis of Tesla safety is confounded by the fact early adopters were probably higher income, which would correlate to certain Big 5 personality traits associated with lower accident rates. I guess if we consider Model S cheap enough for the hoi polloi then maybe we are starting to see a real signal of the effectiveness of autopilot. I'm an AI pessimist in that I believe until we solve the general Hard Problem of Consciousness--which I unjustifiably think is a necessary precondition for achieving general intelligence--that automated systems will keep encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail (abusrdly extreme failure mode in current visual processing AI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA4YEAWVpbk)--single pixel attacks indicate neural networks are subject to extreme hallucinations on occasion, though maybe these problems can be smoothed over via GAN machine learning approaches). However, if I'm right, driving well in all circumstances is an AGI problem, not a narrow-AI problem. In controlled conditions (e.g. freeways) narrow-AI can work but I suspect it will have many intriguing failure modes when it encounters conditions one or two standard deviations outside of normal. The alternative is to convert all cars at once to reduce the possibility for failure but of course that is a coordination problem and we will probably have many different brands/flavors of self-driving algorithms instantiated at any given time. I'm going to stick with my '09 Civic for now.
Just to note, humans are still constantly encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail. It only has to be better than a human, and that's a really low bar.
Post by: scottish on September 21, 2020, 03:52:47 PM
Second, we can fail on edge cases, but we can also slow down, think about it, figure out what's going on and make a good decision.
Your self driving Tesla can't do that. If you're lucky it will slow down before doing anything irrevocable. Thinking about a situation is completely off the table. "AI" doesn't think.
Another problem nobody talks about - software bugs. All the Teslas running the same software load will have the same software bugs. Isn't that great? They'll all be susceptible to the same problems...
Post by: robartsd on September 21, 2020, 05:49:32 PM
First, since when is it acceptable for automobiles to be just a bit better than a human?AI driven cars being safer than human drivers in 99%+ cases seems like a reasonable threshold for mass implementation to me. Not sure at what point it would be reasonable to ban human drivers though.
Another problem nobody talks about - software bugs. All the Teslas running the same software load will have the same software bugs. Isn't that great? They'll all be susceptible to the same problems...Yes there would be much more uniformity in performance of AI drivers than human drivers. And when a probem is found and corrected, the correction will be rolled out to the AI drivers making them all better.
Post by: dougules on September 22, 2020, 09:06:11 AM
Humans are very much susceptible to software bugs. Mental health is a big problem. I'm sure therapists could tell you that it's pretty hard to push updates to humans.
I'm sceptical of the limits of AI, too, but any flaws in the ability of software to drive should be compared to the alternative which is human drivers. We feel better thinking we have control of the car, but the math shows that that is just an illusion. Even then, statistics on traffic accidents implicitly take into account the fact that the designs of our roads have been tweaked for years to work with or mitigate the quirks of human cognition. Painted lines, signs, speed limits, stop lights, etc. are not actually needed for a car to move down the road. They’re solely there to help out a system that is not well designed to control a ton of metal rolling at 30m/sec. Any discussion on the shortcomings of automated driving needs to be in comparison to the many equivalent shortcomings of humans.
Post by: SauronHimself on September 22, 2020, 10:02:56 AM
Humans can slow down and think, but generally don't. That kid texting is not going to slow down before doing something irrevocable. Human reaction time is very slow, too. AI may not be able to think about novel situations, but that ability isn't always much benefit for human drivers given that there's not always much time to think moving at 60mph.
Humans are very much susceptible to software bugs. Mental health is a big problem. I'm sure therapists could tell you that it's pretty hard to push updates to humans.
I'm sceptical of the limits of AI, too, but any flaws in the ability of software to drive should be compared to the alternative which is human drivers. We feel better thinking we have control of the car, but the math shows that that is just an illusion. Even then, statistics on traffic accidents implicitly take into account the fact that the designs of our roads have been tweaked for years to work with or mitigate the quirks of human cognition. Painted lines, signs, speed limits, stop lights, etc. are not actually needed for a car to move down the road. They’re solely there to help out a system that is not well designed to control a ton of metal rolling at 30m/sec. Any discussion on the shortcomings of automated driving needs to be in comparison to the many equivalent shortcomings of humans.
The NHTSA found that 94% of all crashes are due to human error.
Post by: maizefolk on September 22, 2020, 10:11:47 AM
The average driver is not very good and a significant number of people are worse than average. We (as a population) text while driving. We eat while driving. We get behind the wheel after anywhere from 1-20 beers. We get in arguments with passengers in the car. We get lost and are too busy looking for the sign for the next turn to focus on the stoplight that just changed color. We can be turn our heads to look at a deer that just ran across the road and so do not see the second deer following it across the road and in front of our car. We get lost daydreaming about the girl/boy we dated in high school on I-80 in Wyoming where nothing changes for hours.
Post by: robartsd on September 22, 2020, 10:37:57 AM
A big part of the problem is that we tend to over-estimate how good of drivers we, personally are. This statistic is a bit dated and based on an small sample size, but 93% of americans reported assess their driving skills as above average.I think part of this may be that we notice most of the bad drivers that we come across, but fail to notice how many good drivers are around as well.
Post by: dougules on September 23, 2020, 10:07:27 AM
A big part of the problem is that we tend to over-estimate how good of drivers we, personally are. This statistic is a bit dated and based on an small sample size, but 93% of americans reported assess their driving skills as above average.I think part of this may be that we notice most of the bad drivers that we come across, but fail to notice how many good drivers are around as well.
Even the best drivers have significant limitations just from being human. Reaction time is very slow for even the quickest person.
Post by: dougules on September 23, 2020, 10:09:28 AM
The NHTSA found that 94% of all crashes are due to human error.
Honestly I'm a little surprised that it's that low.
Post by: scottish on September 23, 2020, 03:44:48 PM
The NHTSA found that 94% of all crashes are due to human error.
Honestly I'm a little surprised that it's that low.
Yeah, what are the other crashes? It's hard to think how a collision could not be due to human error at some level.
Could one of you school me in how you go about measuring the safety of autonomous cars as compared to people?
Post by: TempusFugit on September 23, 2020, 05:53:50 PM
A big part of the problem is that we tend to over-estimate how good of drivers we, personally are. This statistic is a bit dated and based on an small sample size, but 93% of americans reported assess their driving skills as above average.
The average driver is not very good and a significant number of people are worse than average. We (as a population) text while driving. We eat while driving. We get behind the wheel after anywhere from 1-20 beers. We get in arguments with passengers in the car. We get lost and are too busy looking for the sign for the next turn to focus on the stoplight that just changed color. We can be turn our heads to look at a deer that just ran across the road and so do not see the second deer following it across the road and in front of our car. We get lost daydreaming about the girl/boy we dated in high school on I-80 in Wyoming where nothing changes for hours.
I think that driving is something that most of us learned to do at an early age and we’ve become so accustomed to it that we fail to realize just how complex it really is. Not so much the mechanics of turning the wheel and using the pedals but the shear amount of information that we need to process in order to drive (mostly) safely in different environments and circumstances. That leads us to underestimate just how hard it will be to make a machine that can do it. Its relatively simple most of the time, but we have to deal with all the time.
I think they'll eventually crack it but not so quickly as some think. But its exponential, so who knows. I wouldn't have thought they could land the first stage rockets on a barge reliably, but they seem to have worked that one out.
Post by: maizefolk on September 23, 2020, 06:08:41 PM
It's hard to think how a collision could not be due to human error at some level.
I'm assuming by human error they really mean driver error. A crash cased by brakes failing or a tire exploding is still an human error on some level in terms of maintaining the machine, but the driver could do everything right and still end up in a collision.
Or a cow walk into the road too close for a perfectly maintained car to stop. Still reflects a human error somewhere along the chain of events (how did the cow get loose?) but the driver may not be able to do anything to avoid it.
Maybe if we make the cow a moose no human error would be involved?
Post by: TheAnonOne on September 23, 2020, 06:26:24 PM
It's hard to think how a collision could not be due to human error at some level.
I'm assuming by human error they really mean driver error. A crash cased by brakes failing or a tire exploding is still an human error on some level in terms of maintaining the machine, but the driver could do everything right and still end up in a collision.
Or a cow walk into the road too close for a perfectly maintained car to stop. Still reflects a human error somewhere along the chain of events (how did the cow get loose?) but the driver may not be able to do anything to avoid it.
Maybe if we make the cow a moose no human error would be involved?
Deer crashes are a norm in forested areas. These are not human caused. Unless you think it is reasonable to go 20MPH near trees.
Post by: maizefolk on September 23, 2020, 06:51:03 PM
Post by: dougules on September 25, 2020, 11:42:51 AM
Deer crashes are a norm in forested areas. These are not human caused. Unless you think it is reasonable to go 20MPH near trees.
I didn't think about animals. I've had a very near miss with a deer driving myself and been in another near miss as a passenger.
Predicting what animals are going to do is going to be hard for automation to account for, but I don't think people are that good at it either. With automation, you might actually be able to bring animal behavioral experts into the design process.
Post by: scottish on September 26, 2020, 05:43:27 PM
Deer crashes are a norm in forested areas. These are not human caused. Unless you think it is reasonable to go 20MPH near trees.
I didn't think about animals. I've had a very near miss with a deer driving myself and been in another near miss as a passenger.
Predicting what animals are going to do is going to be hard for automation to account for, but I don't think people are that good at it either. With automation, you might actually be able to bring animal behavioral experts into the design process.
Autonomous vehicles can drive at safer speeds (20 mph?) at twilight when wildlife is active. People are too impatient to do this.
Post by: Leisured on September 27, 2020, 06:17:58 AM
+1
Just to note, humans are still constantly encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail. It only has to be better than a human, and that's a really low bar.
Post by: Leisured on September 27, 2020, 06:25:13 AM
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on September 27, 2020, 09:27:08 AM
In a more rational world, I would agree this would be the hurdle to clear. In our actual world, automated systems will have to be 10-1,000x safer than humans. The two alternatives will not be measured on equal footing for several reasons:I think the analysis of Tesla safety is confounded by the fact early adopters were probably higher income, which would correlate to certain Big 5 personality traits associated with lower accident rates. I guess if we consider Model S cheap enough for the hoi polloi then maybe we are starting to see a real signal of the effectiveness of autopilot. I'm an AI pessimist in that I believe until we solve the general Hard Problem of Consciousness--which I unjustifiably think is a necessary precondition for achieving general intelligence--that automated systems will keep encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail (abusrdly extreme failure mode in current visual processing AI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA4YEAWVpbk)--single pixel attacks indicate neural networks are subject to extreme hallucinations on occasion, though maybe these problems can be smoothed over via GAN machine learning approaches). However, if I'm right, driving well in all circumstances is an AGI problem, not a narrow-AI problem. In controlled conditions (e.g. freeways) narrow-AI can work but I suspect it will have many intriguing failure modes when it encounters conditions one or two standard deviations outside of normal. The alternative is to convert all cars at once to reduce the possibility for failure but of course that is a coordination problem and we will probably have many different brands/flavors of self-driving algorithms instantiated at any given time. I'm going to stick with my '09 Civic for now.
Just to note, humans are still constantly encountering endless edge-cases where they catastrophically fail. It only has to be better than a human, and that's a really low bar.
1) liability issues for the companies that produce autonomous vehicles
2) media amplification of relatively rare accidents that are novel in that they involve automated driving systems and resulting public misconception of relative risk
3) problems with security and hacking (speculative, though it seems you can hack smart coffeemakers with ransomware (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/how-a-hacker-turned-a-250-coffee-maker-into-ransom-machine/))
I'm long-term optimistic about technology but short-term pessimistic on how rationally people will judge the tradeoffs when automated systems are only modestly better than humans.
Post by: ender on September 27, 2020, 10:40:09 AM
1) liability issues for the companies that produce autonomous vehicles
2) media amplification of relatively rare accidents that are novel in that they involve automated driving systems and resulting public misconception of relative risk
3) problems with security and hacking (speculative, though it seems you can hack smart coffeemakers with ransomware (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/how-a-hacker-turned-a-250-coffee-maker-into-ransom-machine/))
I'm long-term optimistic about technology but short-term pessimistic on how rationally people will judge the tradeoffs when automated systems are only modestly better than humans.
This is actually why I think automated cars are going to die.
Not because the tech is better/safer than humans, but because the liability aspects amplified by the media are going to make it practically impossible to have the tech widely accepted by people who can't do basic statistics.
Nevermind all the stupid drivers that cause deaths now, if there's a few with automated cars it's going to be all over the media. People eat that type of news up. And the media is turning into clickbait anyways which "Automated car kills innocent pedestrian" will turn into a frenzy.
Post by: maizefolk on September 27, 2020, 10:56:16 AM
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on September 27, 2020, 12:21:38 PM
You think so? I agree the unequal standard applied to reporting the tens of thousands of people killed in regular car accidents vs those where the car might have been self driving could doom adoption. But at the same time I'm starting to wonder if the various fatal collisions with Teslas are starting to produce "automated car accident" story fatigue (just like regular car accidents rarely make the news anymore), even though at the moment Telsa usually states the driver was in control of the vehicle.Well in my case I am uncertain at what the level of bias against automated tech failures will be, hence my massive 10-1000x range. I definitely do not think it is 1:1 but if at the lower end, maybe that is reachable on a short time horizon. However, consider that airplanes still have 2 pilots when there are probably reasonable arguments for 1 or 0 given current technology*. Of course, air travel is strange since people demand that it be 100,000x safer per passenger mile than ground transit. If having just 1 pilot brings that down to 10,000x safer I see that being a hard sell. The irrationality of people extends over many dimensions and its not clear how the specific case of automated driving will manifest.
*I have skimmed arguments for this a long time ago but am no expert and could be completely wrong
Post by: maizefolk on September 27, 2020, 02:40:49 PM
The other big difference is that whether or not a plane is self flying doesn't change anything for me as a passenger. Maybe the price of a ticket goes down $5-10? Self driving cars, on the other hand, would make life appreciably better for a lot of people. Commuters get hours of their lives back every week to do other things. The elderly and children become far more mobile and independent. Alcoholics will be less likely to put their own lives and those of others at risk, without having to spring for the price of an uber.
So once safety is at or beyond parity, my guess would be that we'll see actual advocacy from people in those groups to legalize self driving, while self flying planes don't have the same built in constituencies.
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on September 27, 2020, 05:14:08 PM
Air travel is an interesting analogy. I think one difference is that I haven't heard anyone argue that having pilots in the cockpit makes flying less safe.The argument that self-flying would be less dangerous would require a more detailed analysis of historical air accidents and incidents. It seems 50% of all accidents (http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm) are caused by pilot error so there is plausibly a case to be made. Making flying meaningfully safer, however, is not easy since the fatality rate is already so low.
The other big difference is that whether or not a plane is self flying doesn't change anything for me as a passenger. Maybe the price of a ticket goes down $5-10? Self driving cars, on the other hand, would make life appreciably better for a lot of people. Commuters get hours of their lives back every week to do other things. The elderly and children become far more mobile and independent. Alcoholics will be less likely to put their own lives and those of others at risk, without having to spring for the price of an uber.
So once safety is at or beyond parity, my guess would be that we'll see actual advocacy from people in those groups to legalize self driving, while self flying planes don't have the same built in constituencies.
The higher scrutiny on air travel safety is probably a function of the fewer, larger accidents that do occur when something does go wrong. Just looking at US ground transportation accidents, 20 died in this one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoharie_limousine_crash) and 23 in this bus accident (https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NTSB%20Determines%20Cause%20of%20Bus%20Fire%20in%20Texas%20that%20Killed%2023%20during%20Hurricane%20Rita%20Evacuation.aspx). Outside of these rare cases, almost every other ground transportation death involves one or several people at a time, which barely gets mentioned on the news or in a newspaper. If the mainstream media wasn't largely innumerate, I would be more confident that self-driving would be put into the proper context once the technology begins to be deployed at scale. On the other hand, Americans have become used to covid deaths so maybe the learning curve will be easier.
Post by: robartsd on September 28, 2020, 04:03:57 PM
Air travel is an interesting analogy. I think one difference is that I haven't heard anyone argue that having pilots in the cockpit makes flying less safe.I think that within a decade we will see widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles using the public roadways. By the time they are widely adopted they will likely be objectively enough safer and more capable than human drivers to justify a full transition to autonomous vehicles; however, I think the autonomous vehicles will need to share the road with human drivers for multiple decades. The transtion to autonomous vehicles only would likely start with express lanes where human driving is prohibited - this could start 5-10 years after autonomous vehicles become widely available. I think we won't see a ban on human driven cars until the majority of people under age 40 have never traveled in a human driven car.
Post by: AlanStache on September 29, 2020, 06:56:28 AM
Post by: Herbert Derp on March 11, 2021, 04:03:07 PM
Shit man, it's happening:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-02-17/gig-economy-coming-for-millions-of-u-s-jobs-after-california-s-uber-lyft-vote
Post by: maizefolk on March 11, 2021, 04:55:04 PM
I just wish the utopian parts at the end seemed even 1/10th as realistic as the dystopian beginning and middle.
Post by: Bloop Bloop Reloaded on March 11, 2021, 06:37:23 PM
I now do briefs from home working remotely and contacting clients remotely and as a member of the 'gig economy' I think automation has made my practice more, not less, efficient.
Post by: Luke Warm on March 20, 2021, 09:26:39 AM
Post by: lost_in_the_endless_aisle on March 22, 2021, 06:49:22 PM
Tesla sells car insurance. I have not read the policy but I assume the insurgence covers you when 'autopilot' is active. It would seem bad PR to sell a self driving capability but to exclude it from the insurance you sell.Hope Tesla also sells health insurance. This is not good! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClWlVCwHsI) Some people suggest maybe the car has effectively bad eyesight and needs to add LIDAR.
Post by: maizefolk on March 22, 2021, 07:26:43 PM
Similarly robotic cats and seals (like paro) seem to be enough to help elders with dementia reduce negative emotions and behavioral symptoms.
And then there is the AI (or humans pretending to be AI) specifically designed to help people who are lonely and indigent as part of government programs. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/sunday-review/human-contact-luxury-screens.html)
Quote
Bill Langlois has a new best friend. She is a cat named Sox. She lives on a tablet, and she makes him so happy that when he talks about her arrival in his life, he begins to cry. All day long, Sox and Mr. Langlois, who is 68 and lives in a low-income senior housing complex in Lowell, Mass., chat. Mr. Langlois worked in machine operations, but now he is retired. With his wife out of the house most of the time, he has grown lonely. Sox talks to him about his favorite team, the Red Sox, after which she is named. She plays his favorite songs and shows him pictures from his wedding. And because she has a video feed of him in his recliner, she chastises him when she catches him drinking soda instead of water.
Mr. Langlois knows that Sox is artifice, that she comes from a start-up called Care.Coach. He knows she is operated by workers around the world who are watching, listening and typing out her responses, which sound slow and robotic. But her consistent voice in his life has returned him to his faith. “I found something so reliable and someone so caring, and it’s allowed me to go into my deep soul and remember how caring the Lord was,” Mr. Langlois said. “She’s brought my life back to life.”
Sox has been listening. “We make a great team,” she says.
Sox is a simple animation; she barely moves or emotes, and her voice is as harsh as a dial tone. But little animated hearts come up around her sometimes, and Mr. Langlois loves when that happens. Mr. Langlois is on a fixed income. To qualify for Element Care, a nonprofit health care program for older adults that brought him Sox, a patient’s countable assets must not be greater than $2,000.
Post by: Luke Warm on March 23, 2021, 06:29:49 AM
It’s the birthday of the writer Josef Čapek (books by this author), born in Hronov in what is now the Czech Republic in 1887. His brother, Karel, was the famous writer, but Josef will go down in history as the man who invented the word robot. Karel Čapek wrote a play called R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots (1921), a dystopian work about mass-produced human substitutes who are employed as cheap labor. But Karel Čapek couldn’t think of a good word for his artificial laborers — he was going to go with laboři but decided that was too obvious. Josef suggested roboti, and the name stuck. Josef was arrested and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from which he wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp (1946). He died there in 1945.
Post by: maizefolk on March 23, 2021, 07:44:26 AM
Post by: AlanStache on March 23, 2021, 08:27:24 AM
Post by: Herbert Derp on May 14, 2021, 02:30:42 AM
https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/may/04/miso-robotics-releases-cooking-software-restaurant/
Post by: robartsd on May 14, 2021, 01:49:07 PM
Wow! Manna is here!Well, not yet the general manager for the restaurant, but certainly sounds like it is getting close to Manna for the cooks.
https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2021/may/04/miso-robotics-releases-cooking-software-restaurant/