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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Uber is another example of "machines should think, people should work". The previous example I used was Amazon's fulfillment operation, where the planning and deciding is done by computers, which run the robots and give orders to the serfs to take things out of one bin and put them in another.

Uber is similar. All the planning and deciding is done by computers. Failure to serve on demand three times costs them their jobs. The computer gives the orders and the serfs must obey.

It's not even a market system. Serfs can't bid on requests for rides. Uber sets the price.

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It reminds me of Dune, or more specifically, the allusions to the backstory of Dune, in which a religious jihad destroyed all computers and forbade their construction. Some relevant bits, from Dune and God Emperor of Dune:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

"There's a lesson in that, too. What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking-there's the real danger."

"I point out to you...a lesson from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned. The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."

"The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."

Yay! Job creators!

I'm not as worked up about this as you are ("serfs" c'mon). The "machines" are mostly doing mind numbing clerical work which they are relatively better at performing after considering costs. And they are doing it at the direction of non-driver company employees.

These drivers will likely eventually be replaced by driverless cars when their cost declines below the cost of employing drivers. Will that that be better or worse?

Unlike real serfs Uber drivers can set themselves free at anytime (i.e. quit). Instead 40,000 more signed up last month alone[1].

[1] http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/22/inside-ubers-staggering-u-...

> "Unlike real serfs Uber drivers can set themselves free at anytime (i.e. quit)."

I'm certainly not on the Uber-hating bandwagon that's been doing laps around HN lately, but this isn't always true. Some people drive an Uber car because they need a paycheck and a flexible schedule, not because they want to. There may not be many (or any) other opportunities ready available.

A serf could quit too, as long as he was willing to abandon everything he knew and set out on the road going far away from his old master. But he knew he'd probably end up destitute and serving a new master in a strange place, so he stayed.

People are risk averse. Some people do jobs that pay bills because they need them, not because they want them. Freedom to walk away from something doesn't imply a desire for that something.

The question to ask is, if Uber disappeared off the face of the earth one day, would these drivers be better off, or worse off? I claim they'd be worse off -- if there was a better job available, they'd already be doing that instead of driving for Uber.

In other words, Uber is a positive force in their lives, an employer who made them a better offer than any other, and they've getting shit for not making the drivers an even better offer?

They'd be better off. The existence of Uber is what causes these other "better jobs" to disappear.

and the evidence for that is?

Is that the question to ask? Isn't the question to ask where is this headed, on a grander scale?

This.

And the answer, frankly, is that they'll all be out of jobs when Uber moves over to a fully autonomous fleet.

That's what people say about sweatshops too.

> if there was a better job available, they'd already be doing that instead of driving for Uber.

So none of these people can currently do better than driving for Uber?

No one is doing better than they are doing. If they can do better then they should do better weather or not Uber exists.

Ah, no, serfs didn't have the right to leave their manor. They could (and did), but they were breaking the law to do that. Serfdom is slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

> Unlike real serfs Uber drivers can set themselves free at anytime (i.e. quit).

You've never needed to work, have you? And I don't mean "have a job to afford the lifestyle you prefer" I mean been poor, unskilled, and needed to work to put food on the table.

For anybody that still didn't read, that's "Manna"[1]

1 - http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Yes, it is.

And just like Marshall Brain's story, we are also without laws protecting people of the right to live.

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