Comment by fizixer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fizixer | Hacker News Reader

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- You're citing a document from 2010, when IBM Watson hadn't beaten humans on Jeopardy, Google driverless car wasn't demonstrated, Boston Dynamics big-dog, atlas hadn't happened, DARPA robotics competition hadn't happened, quadrocopters weren't doing crazy things, Amazon kiva systems, Baxter, etc, etc. Things are picking up pace. (EDIT: hadn't happened or not widely known).

- Since then, Paul Krugman himself has covered tech-unemployment in at least one of his blog posts, in which he has expressed surprise at how things are changing but has concluded the post in humor and essentially dismissing the idea (not very wise!).

- Politicians lag behind economists in staying up to date, who themselves lag behind technologists. "This time" it would really help if economists try to wake up.

- CGPGrey's youtube video 'Humans need not apply' is a must watch for anyone serious about staying aware of upcoming technology.

- The accusation of lump-of-labor fallacy is itself a strawman fallacy. Tech-unemployment doesn't require labor to be fixed. It can happen even if labor lump is increasing but not as fast as humans are becoming obsolete, i.e., "this time".

- Side-comment: Adaptation almost always happens because of new-entrants (youth learning new trades) so it's a generational thing. Those thrown out of the job market are more likely to retire early or something like that. And "this time", even youth are not going to adapt.

- Side-comment 2: Recessions cause quite a bit of damage to social structures which intentionally or unintentionally doesn't get media coverage, or at least doesn't register in public's minds. Just the recent European recession caused suicide in the millions (I came across this article recently but can't find it ATM).

- I've put "this time" multiple times. I have to admit it's a claim without scientific evidence, but circumstantial evidence combined with conversation with technologists who agree what is possible in principle, really is a strong indication. Brain emulation has nowhere to go but in the direction of "a solved problem". The estimated time frame is 10 to 15 years.

>You're citing a document from 2010... Things are picking up pace

That's only 4 years ago. Thing's haven't changed much, it's a human perception problem.

Its a misconception that we believe that the time they are living in, right now, is the most important time of all time. Why? Because it's the present and we cannot see the future, and we do not care about the past.

The thing to remember is that we have always thought this! In the 1970's they thought that we were living in the most important time ever, and that things were picking up pace. In 1980s we thought the same, in the 1990's we said the exact same thing. pick any year and humans would say the same, "we are living in special times".

>In the 1970's they thought that we were living in the most important time ever, and that things were picking up pace. In 1980s we thought the same, in the 1990's we said the exact same thing. pick any year and humans would say the same, "we are living in special times".

Actually no. Most of the millenia of human history have been repeatitive and slow moving. Most people in history lived in exactly the same material conditions, and general culture, as their parents and grandparents.

This is something quantifiable, in productivity, in number of inventions, in being able to do extremely important things for the first time in human history (electricity and artificial light, urbanization, nuclear power, flying, space exploration, tele-communications, computing, medicine and biology, etc). All those things are totally unlike the 16th or the 9th century, and they have been picking up pace since the industrial revolution.

And the 70's to today (50 years) is not that much in the course of human history. Not even the whole 20th century is. So it's not like those were district periods that "got it wrong", all those decades belong to the same historical period, and were indeed "special times".

you are comparing the past with the present. Which is exactly my point. If you were in the past, you would think that you were in the most exciting times. You wouldn't know about the future. You would never say "oh, in 30 years time will be the most important time". It's a human failing, we always think that right now is the most important.

We can compare now with the past. But whenever you are in a now, you will always think it's the most important time.

So. We have to remember that everyone always thinks that their now is the most important, and we have to remember this when we think about what the future will be like.

Basically what I am saying is that we need perspective, but that humans are naturally biased to whatever moment they are living in.

I found 'Humans need not apply' utterly unconvincing. For instance, the example cited regarding computer-generated music that was supposed to prove that computers could write great music. But the computer-generated music that was featured in the video sounded obviously like computer-generated music, and not something that I would ever listen to.

The irony there is that music is going downhill anyways, without needing to be automatized, because now you buy songs instead of albums/discs or just listen to them using youtube or some free streaming service.

Plus there may be a finite number of songs -distinguishable by the human hear- than can be created.

Plus, single examples are low-hanging fruit, you need to attack the main reasoning or just assert plausibility.

It's more great music produced now than ever in history, and it is cheap and accessible for everyone.

We are many orders of magnitude before we are even starting to approach the limitations of what humans can distinguish.

Really, "more great than ever in history"? Tell me one single group that is better than Queen, one single singer better than Syd Barrett, one single song better than Stairway to Heaven.

I believe there is good music out there, but saying "more great than ever in history" is just plain false.

And most people are stuck in the same music they listened to during their formative years and will always consider everything done after that garbage.

Consequently, for you there will never be anything better than those groups, and if I suggested anything made today you would find it incomprehensible that anyone could think that music better than your icons.

Not sure about you but my experience is that my life is full of more amazing music than it ever has been before.

You don't have to buy each point in the video (I agree about the computer music) to agree with the larger trend: human brain labor is being phased out. Some already has (aspects of car manufacturing), other large swaths are coming soon (car driving), and the laws of economics will ensure that nothing will stop it. A job is something wealthy people begrudgingly pay you to do until they can figure out how to replace you with a machine.

When I watched "Humans need not apply" the first time, it was a near-religious experience for me. It framed some of the observations and frustrations I see and feel every day and helped clarify the core trend: capitalism has worked really, really well during the labor-based phase of human civilization. Will it work well when human labor is no longer required? What happens then?

The obvious extension of 'Humans need not apply' is that the financial rewards of the march of technology have been concentrated in the hands of the few. The 100+ workers it used to take to work a farm aren't now chilling on a beach somewhere. The founders and stockholders of John Deere are (or their grandkids are). The workers are struggling to find work driving cabs or what-have-you, only to be crossed-out by Google in a few years. There's nowhere to hide. I applaud the entrepreneurs at John Deere and Google and they deserve every penny they made, but the concentration of liquid wealth (excluding homes and cars) into the hands of just a few is fostering profound opportunity inequality. While some folks are becoming wealthy on a scale that's hard to even wrap your brain around, what chance does an Appalachian or inner-city kid have to make it in today's world? Almost none, especially when computers can do things like drive cars.

As the video states, the trend is everywhere. Take Canva, for instance. For some portion of small companies and startups, guess what? They don't need a full time graphic designer anymore. Web frameworks and cloud services have lead to the rise of the "full stack" engineer when there used to be a dedicated database person, app tier person, frontend person, etc. Everywhere

A major, major inflection point of human history is coming in the next couple of decades, and there is no clear solution yet. European-style socialism doesn't work very well and obviously Russian-style oligarchy sucks. So what will we do?

> European-style socialism doesn't work very well

Citation? Because even though Americans are working themselves to death with no vacation, healthcare, or retirement guarantee, the French are more productive and enjoy (what I would argue) is a much higher quality of life:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=french+productivity+2011

We should not judge quality of life by how many SUVs are in the driveway, and how many big screen TVs are in the 3K sq ft home.

We should not judge quality of life by how many SUVs are in the driveway, and how many big screen TVs are in the 3K sq ft home.

But what about my own goals in life? Would you look down at me for wanting huge TVs and a large home? Those are things that I actually would like to have someday. When I earn enough money to get that stuff, would you advocate taking it away from me?

No, he won't. He will advocate making you pay taxes on the relevant income, but nobody cares if you want to sink post-tax money into pleasures we all consider vain and stupid. We have lives to be getting on with too, you know.

>Would you look down at me for wanting huge TVs and a large home?

Yes. Especially if there are huge sacrifices in your overall quality of life for such meagre rewards.

The idea behind culture and civilization is that not all ways of life and aspirations are equally valid and good.

It might be debatable who is right and who is wrong, but people can and should "look down" on other people for wanting certain stuff.

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