Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

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I watched the video, and I have to say it had pretty poor arguments. Too many to name, but I think the core is this:

If any conceivable software was free, required no human labor, and instantaneous: Would the world be a better or a worse place? (although I'd need to find something else to do)

If computers replace doctors, and I get better care for cheaper, aren't I better off?

...If every job was automated, and you can press a button to have robots make software or do medical tasks, that is the ultimate UBI for every person on earth. Everything is free, and then everyone can do whatever they want to fill their days.

P.S. - I want my own clothes-folding coffee-making robot.

P.P.S. - One tiny thing the video said, that is a piece of incorrect common wisdom: Auto insurance companies will not be helped by automated cars, they'll be hurt greatly. If accident rates decrease, premiums decrease, and so the insurance companies margins (and float) decrease, making less revenue and profits.

> If computers replace doctors, and I get better care for cheaper, aren't I better off?

Doctors have a state-guaranteed monopoly that is created via lobbying. That is why, in many countries, doctors are extremely expensive -- even though most of the miracle of healing is done by medicine.

In the future it will probably be a doctor owning and "supervising" the machine. Patients use the machine (paying $XXX). A doctor will take 30 seconds to one minute to look at the results, sign it and your prescription and then charge you exactly the same as before.

The only way the general public will benefit is from more accurate prescriptions. But I sincerely doubt that the cost of a doctor's visit will be reduced significantly. But don't worry, the laws will the there for your own good.

PS: MYCIN was already developed in the 70ies, and showed higher accuracy than doctors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycin

The common wisdom of autonomous transportation being lucrative for auto insurance companies may be correct, albeit for some not-so-common reasons.

As an analog to Wirth's law I'd suggest that in the transportation industry, technological advances in mitigating damage risk are offset by increased risk tolerance in seeking higher throughput / lower latency in the transport of goods and people.

So while the absolute accident rate will go down and the number of meatbag casualties will be reduced by automation removing human error, the _severity_ of catastrophic failure damaging _property_ will increase due to the incentives to push more autos through the pipes in less time: extreme tailgating, hyper-dense cargo, excessive velocity, and bountiful heterogeneity.

Really this is about a transition from (mainly) insuring against loss-of-life to (mainly) insuring against destruction-of-property. Of course, humans will still die even in 'negligible' quantities. But an actuary's loss-of-life liability assessment doesn't need to discriminate between fatal blunt trauma and fatal atomization.

I thought the reaction on hn to a population aging story a few days ago was interesting. No one mentioned AI or robots. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12225518 )

Some aging countries will face a severe loss in standard of living if they fail to automate huge parts of the economy. Presumably the worlds population will not continue to grow infinitely and at some point labor shortages will be a big problem.

One of the most destructive outcomes could come from poor government policy during an economic transition. Socialist or capitalist is one thing, but policies which are in direct opposition to another is another ( e.g. Venezuela, Zimbabwe.)

There are also big AI existential risk issues, but I think that is separate from the labor impact.

There will always be scarcity of some sort or another, and there will always be want of something. There is also a predilection to be the person with the most stuff, and robots only accentuate that those with capital are the ones who are winning.

Maybe at some point people will just throw up their hands and start to embrace higher taxes on capital and UBI, but I'm not holding my breath.

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