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Comment by yogthos | Hacker News Reader

It simply blows my mind that automation of work can be seen as a negative. The problem isn't in the fact that the work is being automated it's with the fact that we structure our society around work. The simple answer is that without work we could do things that we enjoy doing.

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Actually it is a far worse problem. Since the dawn of civilization the overall social structure of man has been a master-slave relationship. This social structure still dominates the world. While things have improved from the worst periods such as ancient slavery and the industrial boom, for the most part all that has changed is the means by which it is orchestrated. On the positive side many of our advances have allowed for greater gradations in this structure, creating many "relative masters", aka the middle class. But still most people are more slave than master. We have managed to trick people into thinking there are no slaves anymore because they get wages and can, if they wish, leave and find a new job. But the truth is much more limited than you probably understand. That reality is only applicable to the middle class of, so called, first world nations. But even the middle class is in a partial slave relationship. And the master side of that equation, whether in slave-wage countries or middle class countries, is entrenched. The powers that be will not give it up willing. So there is also this pressure to prevent automation from displacing workers in any positive way, i.e. a way which would erode the master class. Of course, it is ultimately inevitable, but the result make be uglier than anyone would ever imagine --the masters may just eliminate the slaves when they are no longer needed. They may not even do it consciously. They will sell you (and themselves) on the idea, to be sure. And we won't know it is even happening. Those "other" people will be a problem, for whatever reason (related to the simple fact the they no longer have a stable economic role in society) and they will have to be "dealt with". Eventually of course, you could become one of those "other" people. Interestingly some of those "other" people will slip through the nets and I believe we may see the birth of a new sort-of "wild man" in small pockets of the world, who no longer live as part of modern society, and which modern society just ignores.

There's a gradient from a "work for food" world to "hunger-free" world. Until that transition is complete, people whose work is lost to automation lose their food.

That has not been the case historically. So far, when automation has removed jobs, better jobs have been added to the economy in the process. Among the poor in automation heavy economies obesity is a more common problem than starvation.

I don't think people see automation per se as a negative. Rather, they are skeptical of our ability to restructure our society, and fear the social impact of automation in that context.

I mean, what happens when AI replaces programmers? When a designer can "write a program" just by telling a computer in natural language what he wants to do? Not only will most of HN be out of work, but many of our hobbies will be irrelevant. Who will read a blog post about Rust making it easier to write correct concurrent software when some AI is going to handle that much better than a human ever could?

Sure, but the focus should be on how to restructure society as opposed to bemoan automation. It's worth noting that automation of jobs has been going on for a long time now, and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.

> and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.

there are what, 7 billion people on earth. there is probably somebody who would want to go back to society of manual labor.

I think there is a real difference between an automated loom replacing humans for one particular task, and a highly dexterous robot that can replace humans for any task requiring manual manipulation.

> and nobody would want to go back to doing any of them.

I'm sure at some point in the recent past you could have found some formerly employed factory workers who would disagree. It's true, jobs replaced by automation tend to be jobs that people would rather not do, but the loss of employment itself is a different matter. A crappy job is better than no job at all.

Again, my point is that it's the fault of the society for not providing a good transition path as opposed to the automation itself.

Major restructurings of society tend to evoke violent resistance in some sectors.

I'll be making a prediction here. Coders will be mostly replaced by AIs before automated cars will have become a mainstream.

I make the opposite prediction. I think there will be more coding jobs in 20 years than there are today.

Yes. And these jobs will be taken by AIs.

A lot can happen in 20 years and I expect AI to be involved in programming as robots are involved in automotive manufacturing. I think programming is one of the harder jobs to completely replace with machines.

Star Trek society. That's what can happen, but only if we progress into a mindset that those who don't work for money are not slackers nor taking away from the success of the wealthy.

We wouldn't need to progress into that society, there are many people who already feel that way. Those people could just branch off. My point isn't to nitpick but to point out that it's closer than you might think.

Well, there are some people who think this way. Likely there are many of them on HN. However, watch any presidential race in the US and see the rant about people who mooch off society by not "working hard enough." I come from a red state and that's what I hear around here all the time--terms like "welfare state," "freeloaders," etc. and beyond.

I do appreciate the hope that more and more people are coming around! That's all we can hope for.

Until we reach a post scarcity economy, the only way those who don't work can survive is by taking away from those who do work.

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