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OGIS
04-07-2016, 04:41 PM
I am astonished that a writer for the Guardian came up with this analogy, and a little pissed that I did not.


If you put water on the stove and heat it up, it will at first just get hotter and hotter. You may then conclude that heating water results only in hotter water. But at some point everything changes – the water starts to boil, turning from hot liquid into steam. Physicists call this a “phase transition”.

Automation, driven by technological progress, has been increasing inexorably for the past several decades. Two schools of economic thinking have for many years been engaged in a debate about the potential effects of automation on jobs, employment and human activity: will new technology spawn mass unemployment, as the robots take jobs away from humans? Or will the jobs robots take over release or unveil – or even create – demand for new human jobs?

The debate has flared up again recently because of technological achievements such as deep learning, which recently enabled a Google software program called AlphaGo (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/15/alphago-what-does-google-advanced-software-go-next) to beat Go world champion (https://theconversation.com/evolving-our-way-to-artificial-intelligence-54100) Lee Sedol, a task considered even harder than beating the world’s chess champions.

Ultimately, the question boils down to this: are today’s modern technological innovations like those of the past, which made obsolete the job of buggy maker, but created the job of automobile manufacturer? Or is there something about today that is markedly different?

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2006 book The Tipping Point (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OT8GD0/) highlighted what he called “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire”. Can we really be confident that we are not approaching a tipping point, a phase transition – that we are not mistaking the trend of technology both destroying and creating jobs for a law that it will always continue this way?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/robots-replacing-jobs-luddites-economics-labor

OGIS
04-07-2016, 04:43 PM
14485

Chris
04-07-2016, 04:47 PM
Probably not. The boiling point was reached during the Industrial Revolution...

http://i.snag.gy/1SKEX.jpg

del
04-07-2016, 04:49 PM
lol

Bo-4
04-07-2016, 05:07 PM
Don't think so - robots don't do customer service. Robots can't come to your house and repair plumbing, fix your HVAC issues or re-roof.

And i certainly wouldn't want a robot performing triple bypass surgery on me.

Mundane factory tasks are being replaced by robots. A guy who sits on an auto assembly line and applies one bolt 2,000 times a day?

HIS job is in danger - but even he might be safe if he goes to technical school and learns to program the robot ..

So yes, technology will always both create and destroy jobs .. but if we look at the past 50 years?

It's created more jobs than it's destroyed!

OGIS
04-07-2016, 05:24 PM
Don't think so - robots don't do customer service. Robots can't come to your house and repair plumbing, fix your HVAC issues or re-roof.

Robots move beyond warehouses, into retail stores (http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/18/robots-move-beyond-warehouses-into-retail-stores.html)

Pipe leak repair robot (https://cnre.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/VisitingStudentActivitiesReport_DanaAlmatter.pdf)

As for HVAC repair, that is simply a subset of mechanical repair. Ever been in a tech position in the military? All such tasks can be broken down into step-by-step decision tree charts. The joke in the Navy was that they were thinking of replacing twigets (electronic techs) with chimps trained to follow the color-coded manuals for tracking down faults in exceeding complex pieces of electronic gear. Seriously, it was monkey-stupid. Yes, I am confident that a robot could be designed to repair HVAC or any other machine.


And i certainly wouldn't want a robot performing triple bypass surgery on me.

Again, the procedures can be detailed out with decision trees. And the robot won't make mistakes, have a trembling hand from drinking the night before, or not getting enough sleep, or leave forceps or cotton in your chest. Oh yes, they already have robot-assisted surgery.


Mundane factory tasks are being replaced by robots. A guy who sits on an auto assembly line and applies one bolt 2,000 times a day? HIS job is in danger - but even he might be safe if he goes to technical school and learns to program the robot ..

Hmmm.... So let me ask you a math question here. 2,000 guys who tighten bolts are replaced by 20 robots who do the same work. How many guys are needed to write the program that runs the robots?


So yes, technology will always both create and destroy jobs .. but if we look at the past 50 years? It's created more jobs than it's destroyed!

How about the last 5 years?

If this board is around in five more years, it will suck when I have to say: "Told ya!"

OGIS
04-07-2016, 05:28 PM
Probably not. The boiling point was reached during the Industrial Revolution...

http://i.snag.gy/1SKEX.jpg

The Industrial Revolution was when the water started getting some serious and sustained heat applied to it. The boiling point will be reached sometime between 2020 and 2040, probably sooner than later.

The Industrial Revolution made serious inroads to replacing man's muscles with machines. The Thinking Machine Revolution is replacing man's mind.

kilgram
04-07-2016, 05:36 PM
Probably not. The boiling point was reached during the Industrial Revolution...

http://i.snag.gy/1SKEX.jpg

Where has gone that wealth?
Inequality is increasing a lot.

The only thing that kept making some equaliting in the Occidental world and permitted to imrpove the lifes of the workers and "middle class" was the URSS. And the URSS is long dead.

And robots are going to quit jobs. For example, in Spain, now there are going to be like 10-15% less jobs in the banking because banks are going to close many offices. They don't need as offices as before because many things can be done online. And obviously, they want to earn more and more.

So, yes. There are going to be less jobs. We already have like 3-5% of population that is out of the job market. And it is going to increase.

Mark III
04-07-2016, 05:48 PM
Don't think so - robots don't do customer service. Robots can't come to your house and repair plumbing, fix your HVAC issues or re-roof.

And i certainly wouldn't want a robot performing triple bypass surgery on me.

Mundane factory tasks are being replaced by robots. A guy who sits on an auto assembly line and applies one bolt 2,000 times a day?

HIS job is in danger - but even he might be safe if he goes to technical school and learns to program the robot ..

So yes, technology will always both create and destroy jobs .. but if we look at the past 50 years?

It's created more jobs than it's destroyed!

I think you have a Pollyanna -ish view of what robots will be able to do. They already can do customer service.

And doing home repair and service is a very small portion of the labor force.

Mark III
04-07-2016, 05:58 PM
There is always a disconnect associated with this topic.

"So robots are going to do all our work for us? Great, we can sit around entertaining ourselves all day"

Usually left out of the calculation is where will an income come from for the 50 or 60% of the population who will become permanently unemployed?

I think this topic is never discussed by politicians because it is a natural downer , and politicians want to be upbeat (Trump notwithstanding). So the catastrophe will sneak up on us in increments, and we will never be ready for it.

Peter1469
04-07-2016, 06:10 PM
People will adapt.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:24 PM
There is always a disconnect associated with this topic.

"So robots are going to do all our work for us? Great, we can sit around entertaining ourselves all day"

Usually left out of the calculation is where will an income come from for the 50 or 60% of the population who will become permanently unemployed?

I think this topic is never discussed by politicians because it is a natural downer , and politicians want to be upbeat (Trump notwithstanding). So the catastrophe will sneak up on us in increments, and we will never be ready for it.

And that means that the solution will become exceeding bloody.

There are a few plausible solutions.

First and foremost, the world needs a megaproject that will put millions of people to work. My suggestion (if the scientists can solve that last little tensile strength issue (highly likely)) is a rosette of six space elevators.
- Cost: for the Edwards variant, $240 billion (with 100% cost overruns).
- Pay for it by: stock; there are 1,826 billionaires with net worth of $7 trillion; the money is available.
- Multiplier: The digging/construction to anchor the Earth ends will spawn a huge support infrastructure.
- Payoff: reduces getting to LEO cost from thousands per pound to under $100 per pound.
- Life: at least a century.
- ROI: potentially hundreds of percentage points.

Second: paying for BGI for the mass unemployed:
- initially, taxes on automation, flow through to consumers, many of which will still have jobs.
- that sucks, but the alternative is to let people literally starve.
- and the mass unemployed will NOT "go quietly into that good night."
- alternative WILL be guillotines. Count on it: there are more of them than you.
- eventually, some form of fiat money payout that exactly balances the deflationary effect of automated mass production (see C. H. Douglas and Social Credit refs in my sig)

Peter1469
04-07-2016, 06:29 PM
Colonize the moon and Mars. Put the people to work.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:38 PM
People will adapt.

Yes, by voting to tax the One Percent. Or just killing them and taking the loot.

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:40 PM
The Industrial Revolution was when the water started getting some serious and sustained heat applied to it. The boiling point will be reached sometime between 2020 and 2040, probably sooner than later.

The Industrial Revolution made serious inroads to replacing man's muscles with machines. The Thinking Machine Revolution is replacing man's mind.

No, the IR is when a paradigm shift took place.

Solve this problem: Create a robot that makes mistakes.

Robots can perhaps replace the brain, not the mind.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:44 PM
Colonize the moon and Mars. Put the people to work.

Impractical. How many spaceships to move millions of people?

And will you be on the B Ark?

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:45 PM
Where has gone that wealth?
Inequality is increasing a lot.

The only thing that kept making some equaliting in the Occidental world and permitted to imrpove the lifes of the workers and "middle class" was the URSS. And the URSS is long dead.

And robots are going to quit jobs. For example, in Spain, now there are going to be like 10-15% less jobs in the banking because banks are going to close many offices. They don't need as offices as before because many things can be done online. And obviously, they want to earn more and more.

So, yes. There are going to be less jobs. We already have like 3-5% of population that is out of the job market. And it is going to increase.


Note the graph plots income average, constantly rising.

Actually the income gap world-wide is narrowing. It's predicted the poverty rate could reach 3% by 2030.


Robotics/automation destroys and creates jobs. Creates more than it destroys because since the Industrial Revolution the population has also increased, compared, both are exponential:

http://i.snag.gy/1SKEX.jpg

http://i.snag.gy/Qebvd.jpg

What you're talking about is the elastic lag in the creative-destruction process.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:50 PM
No, the IR is when a paradigm shift took place.

Solve this problem: Create a robot that makes mistakes.

Robots can perhaps replace the brain, not the mind.

Where is the Holy Writ that declares there can only be one paradigm shift?

There have been many such (not an exhaustive list):
- discovery of fire (biggie)
- hand weapons
- spear
- spear thrower
- farming (biggie)
- the State (biggie)
- counting and writing (necessary for farming and centralized grain storage)
- the printing press
- the steam engine (YUGE biggie)
- the thinking machine (biggest biggie)

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:53 PM
Note the graph plots income average, constantly rising.

Actually the income gap world-wide is narrowing. It's predicted the poverty rate could reach 3% by 2030.


Robotics/automation destroys and creates jobs. Creates more than it destroys because since the Industrial Revolution the population has also increased, compared, both are exponential:

http://i.snag.gy/1SKEX.jpg

http://i.snag.gy/Qebvd.jpg

What you're talking about is the elastic lag in the creative-destruction process.

And my point has consistently been that this lag is much, much, MUCH larger in terms of scope, size, and recovery time (slope of retraining -vs- slope of technology).

If the lag exceeds the patience of the people who are going hungry it will not be pleasant.

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:55 PM
There is always a disconnect associated with this topic.

"So robots are going to do all our work for us? Great, we can sit around entertaining ourselves all day"

Usually left out of the calculation is where will an income come from for the 50 or 60% of the population who will become permanently unemployed?

I think this topic is never discussed by politicians because it is a natural downer , and politicians want to be upbeat (Trump notwithstanding). So the catastrophe will sneak up on us in increments, and we will never be ready for it.


Why of course the Marxist theoretical post-scarcity society will emerge right alongside robots taking all the jobs so no one will have to lift a finger but to reach into the heap of plenty and take what they want!!!

But step away from the Marxist labor theory of value, consider instead those greedy business b****ds who only value profit. Why would they invest in more and more robotics/automations when faced with a diminishing return on profits to the point of none at all in the robot-created post-scarcity world? That's the real problem. No one will build the robots if there's no profit in it.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 06:57 PM
Why of course the Marxist theoretical post-scarcity society will emerge right alongside robots taking all the jobs so no one will have to lift a finger but to reach into the heap of plenty and take what they want!!!

But step away from the Marxist labor theory of value, consider instead those greedy business b****ds who only value profit. Why would they invest in more and more robotics/automations when faced with a diminishing return on profits to the point of none at all in the robot-created post-scarcity world? That's the real problem. No one will build the robots if there's no profit in it.

Marx's Labor Theory of Value is wrong and has nothing to do with the argument.

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:58 PM
Where is the Holy Writ that declares there can only be one paradigm shift?

There have been many such (not an exhaustive list):
- discovery of fire (biggie)
- hand weapons
- spear
- spear thrower
- farming (biggie)
- the State (biggie)
- counting and writing (necessary for farming and centralized grain storage)
- the printing press
- the steam engine (YUGE biggie)
- the thinking machine (biggest biggie)


How many times have I asked you how your predicted shift is going to occur and you have failed to ever explain?

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:59 PM
And my point has consistently been that this lag is much, much, MUCH larger in terms of scope, size, and recovery time (slope of retraining -vs- slope of technology).

If the lag exceeds the patience of the people who are going hungry it will not be pleasant.



this lag is much, much, MUCH larger in terms of scope, size, and recovery time

Data?

Chris
04-07-2016, 06:59 PM
Marx's Labor Theory of Value is wrong and has nothing to do with the argument.

Mark was focused on it.

Amazing, in rebuttal to all I said, you merely address an aside in my post.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 07:07 PM
How many times have I asked you how your predicted shift is going to occur and you have failed to ever explain?

I've said at least a couple of times that I have no freaking clue. No one does. THAT is the problem.

But relying on a Pollyanish attitude of "Well, it all worked out in the past, which proves it will all work out in the future, is not a solution."

OGIS
04-07-2016, 07:09 PM
Data?

You refuse to give the links I've posted any credence.

Dr. Who
04-07-2016, 07:13 PM
Don't think so - robots don't do customer service. Robots can't come to your house and repair plumbing, fix your HVAC issues or re-roof.

And i certainly wouldn't want a robot performing triple bypass surgery on me.

Mundane factory tasks are being replaced by robots. A guy who sits on an auto assembly line and applies one bolt 2,000 times a day?

HIS job is in danger - but even he might be safe if he goes to technical school and learns to program the robot ..

So yes, technology will always both create and destroy jobs .. but if we look at the past 50 years?

It's created more jobs than it's destroyed!
Actually, statistics say otherwise. Those new jobs are not being created at the same rate that the old ones are lost. On top of it all, relative to income, post-secondary education is becoming prohibitively expensive, partly because students increasingly can't get part-time jobs, because those McJobs are now being occupied by former factory workers. Meanwhile, there are graduates with accounting degrees, law degrees, engineering degrees and even medical degrees who can't find work. Some of that is due to the lack of foresight on the parts of student advisors as to what skills would be in demand in the future and gluts in some of those fields and some is as a result of a shrinking workforce who no longer have the money to pay for these services.

However, overall, we are seeing a shrinking job market and it is shrinking because of technology. It is simply a fact that it takes less people now to do what it used to take more people to do. Architecture firms no longer need draftsmen, engineers can now generate schematics directly from the computer - that means that you don't need as many, because they can address more than one project at a time. Businesses don't need clerical workers, because of electronic records management systems, voice recognition programs have put dictatypists out of business and most younger people can type, so they otherwise just do it themselves. The software formats the documents. Businesses use portals that allow their customers to do the data entry, eliminating those former order taking jobs or any comparable data entry role. Even production facilities for music, movies and television need fewer people because of technology.

At the end of the day any job previously occupied by people of average or low average intelligence will be forfeit and I don't honestly believe that as these jobs are eliminated there will ever be any comparable employment, because those are the jobs that can easily be replaced by tech. At the moment jobs requiring manual dexterity remain because robotics have not conquered that challenge as yet, but it is only a matter of time. Don't encourage your kid to become a surgeon, because that is a skill that will be replaced. One brilliant surgeon can supervise the activities of many robots. The jobs that will remain for people are those that require the creative intuition that can't be replicated by a computer program - new product development, creative arts and scientific R&D. Depending on the direction of politics, there may also be a place for people in the political world and diplomacy.

With technology replacing people in manufacturing, there will be no more defective products - thus no more lawsuits in that respect. With motor vehicles being managed by computers, there will be no more car accidents, thus no need for auto insurance. Many areas of the law will simply be replaced by computer programs. There may still be a place for criminal lawyers. Many negligence based lawsuits will simply disappear because people will no longer be in a position to create those hazards. The insurance industry will drastically shrink.

The banking industry in terms of employment has been shrinking for a long time as technology has taken over human jobs. Every ATM you see replaced a worker. More workers were displaced when people stopped writing checks. Bank branches have been disappearing by the thousands because people bank online and payroll is direct deposited.

Grocers are rapidly introducing self-checkouts - more lost jobs.

The postal service is shrinking because of email.

It goes on and on. Short of the video game industry, the computer programing industry and affiliated technology dependent jobs and robotics, or website development, what new forms of employment have been created? Certainly none for the unskilled or even semi-skilled other than servicing machines.

Chris
04-07-2016, 07:13 PM
I've said at least a couple of times that I have no freaking clue. No one does. THAT is the problem.

But relying on a Pollyanish attitude of "Well, it all worked out in the past, which proves it will all work out in the future, is not a solution."

The sun will rise tomorrow unless something changes that, like the sun eventually burning out. But you see we know that, we can explain that, it's predictable based on data and laws of nature. That's not pollyannish. But what is saying something will happen but I have no freaking clue how or why, what is that called? Wishful thinking?

Peter1469
04-07-2016, 07:58 PM
Yes, by voting to tax the One Percent. Or just killing them and taking the loot.

To what end. The money of the top 1% would fund the US at its current budget for about 8 months. What next?

Peter1469
04-07-2016, 07:59 PM
Impractical. How many spaceships to move millions of people?

And will you be on the B Ark?

It is the future even if you are a Luddite.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 09:29 PM
To what end. The money of the top 1% would fund the US at its current budget for about 8 months. What next?

Exactly. But humans do not always react rationally.

Do not taunt the dynamite monkey.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS-zS8uMMPkiPio8tNc4YeKIukLM51CGw9ARNyPf4Y4zH1b2TWHQw

OGIS
04-07-2016, 09:39 PM
It is the future even if you are a Luddite.

Moving meat? The future is select elite groups who will colonize new worlds (along with their robots). Unless we develop Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky" 99.9999% of Earth's population is staying right here.

I suppose we could have robots build vast generation ships (if no FTL drive) or colonization ships (with FTL) that could be stocked with millions of people. But it would still be a blip on the radar of total population. UNICEF estimates that an average of 353,000 babies are born each day around the world. That's 128,845,000 per year.

Build lots of ships.

You could probably do the whole John Ringo and Pete Hamilton thing and mine the asteroids and build robot ramscoops to mine hydrogen and helium3 from the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. You could have robots build billions of solar mirrors for the required energy.

But if you already have all that.... you've probably arrived at your post-scarcity society, so why bother? The planet will be fine with its population of twelve or so billion leisurely people and a 100 billion robots.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 09:41 PM
It is the future even if you are a Luddite.

BTW, what exactly does this mean? It's a self-evident tautology. Does it have any actual communicative content, other than emotion? Sounds a little socially autistic to me.

OGIS
04-07-2016, 09:51 PM
Actually, statistics say otherwise. Those new jobs are not being created at the same rate that the old ones are lost. On top of it all, relative to income, post-secondary education is becoming prohibitively expensive, partly because students increasingly can't get part-time jobs, because those McJobs are now being occupied by former factory workers. Meanwhile, there are graduates with accounting degrees, law degrees, engineering degrees and even medical degrees who can't find work. Some of that is due to the lack of foresight on the parts of student advisors as to what skills would be in demand in the future and gluts in some of those fields and some is as a result of a shrinking workforce who no longer have the money to pay for these services.

However, overall, we are seeing a shrinking job market and it is shrinking because of technology. It is simply a fact that it takes less people now to do what it used to take more people to do. Architecture firms no longer need draftsmen, engineers can now generate schematics directly from the computer - that means that you don't need as many, because they can address more than one project at a time. Businesses don't need clerical workers, because of electronic records management systems, voice recognition programs have put dictatypists out of business and most younger people can type, so they otherwise just do it themselves. The software formats the documents. Businesses use portals that allow their customers to do the data entry, eliminating those former order taking jobs or any comparable data entry role. Even production facilities for music, movies and television need fewer people because of technology.

At the end of the day any job previously occupied by people of average or low average intelligence will be forfeit and I don't honestly believe that as these jobs are eliminated there will ever be any comparable employment, because those are the jobs that can easily be replaced by tech. At the moment jobs requiring manual dexterity remain because robotics have not conquered that challenge as yet, but it is only a matter of time. Don't encourage your kid to become a surgeon, because that is a skill that will be replaced. One brilliant surgeon can supervise the activities of many robots. The jobs that will remain for people are those that require the creative intuition that can't be replicated by a computer program - new product development, creative arts and scientific R&D. Depending on the direction of politics, there may also be a place for people in the political world and diplomacy.

With technology replacing people in manufacturing, there will be no more defective products - thus no more lawsuits in that respect. With motor vehicles being managed by computers, there will be no more car accidents, thus no need for auto insurance. Many areas of the law will simply be replaced by computer programs. There may still be a place for criminal lawyers. Many negligence based lawsuits will simply disappear because people will no longer be in a position to create those hazards. The insurance industry will drastically shrink.

The banking industry in terms of employment has been shrinking for a long time as technology has taken over human jobs. Every ATM you see replaced a worker. More workers were displaced when people stopped writing checks. Bank branches have been disappearing by the thousands because people bank online and payroll is direct deposited.

Grocers are rapidly introducing self-checkouts - more lost jobs.

The postal service is shrinking because of email.

It goes on and on. Short of the video game industry, the computer programing industry and affiliated technology dependent jobs and robotics, or website development, what new forms of employment have been created? Certainly none for the unskilled or even semi-skilled other than servicing machines.

I, for one, am getting tired of talking with these Know-Nothings about this. It's a waste of time. I've got 45+ years in business and I've seen this stuff develop. I know people, in business, who are implementing it. And I am not blinded by pre-conceived theory or ideology, nor wedded to The Way Things Were because of being too existentially timid to face a future that is new and different.

One day, a few of these people, and then more and more of them, will wake up and suddenly find themselves replaced by a program or a robot, and they will freak. They will, of course, blame the godless liebrul, or Obama, or Hillary, or Trump, or possibly the Jews, or the Blacks, whatever. And they will be the first ones in line for the pitchforks and the firebrands to try and tear it down. History always repeats itself in certain ways, and human stupidity is one of the chief among them.

I feel like I'm on the world of Nightfall, trying to explain chit to the mob, and hearing the same stupid circular objections over and over again.

Outa here.

Chris
04-07-2016, 09:53 PM
I, for one, am getting tired of talking with these Know-Nothings about this. It's a waste of time. I've got 45+ years in business and I've seen this stuff develop. I know people, in business, who are implementing it. And I am not blinded by pre-conceived theory or ideology, nor wedded to The Way Things Were because of being too existentially timid to face a future that is new and different.

One day, a few of these people, and then more and more of them, will wake up and suddenly find themselves replaced by a program or a robot, and they will freak. They will, of course, blame the godless liebrul, or Obama, or Hillary, or Trump, or possibly the Jews, or the Blacks, whatever. And they will be the first ones in line for the pitchforks and the firebrands to try and tear it down. History always repeats itself in certain ways, and human stupidity is one of the chief among them.

I feel like I'm on the world of Nightfall, trying to explain chit to the mob, and hearing the same stupid circular objections over and over again.

Outa here.

Inevitably you play your strong suit, ad hom.

Chris
04-07-2016, 09:58 PM
Actually, statistics say otherwise. Those new jobs are not being created at the same rate that the old ones are lost…

Then where are all the people starving in the street?

Historically the number of jobs has increased.

Dr. Who
04-07-2016, 10:16 PM
I, for one, am getting tired of talking with these Know-Nothings about this. It's a waste of time. I've got 45+ years in business and I've seen this stuff develop. I know people, in business, who are implementing it. And I am not blinded by pre-conceived theory or ideology, nor wedded to The Way Things Were because of being too existentially timid to face a future that is new and different.

One day, a few of these people, and then more and more of them, will wake up and suddenly find themselves replaced by a program or a robot, and they will freak. They will, of course, blame the godless liebrul, or Obama, or Hillary, or Trump, or possibly the Jews, or the Blacks, whatever. And they will be the first ones in line for the pitchforks and the firebrands to try and tear it down. History always repeats itself in certain ways, and human stupidity is one of the chief among them.

I feel like I'm on the world of Nightfall, trying to explain chit to the mob, and hearing the same stupid circular objections over and over again.

Outa here.
I understand. I've been watching it happen for 35 years. In fact in many ways, I have encouraged it. I am a technophile. I have worked with brilliant programmers. To me it has never been a matter of if, but when. The only impediment has ever been lack of belief.

The internet has been a Godsend to programming. It's like a communist coding community.

Computer code is created and contributed to by millions of people. It's not the genius of one person or one company that will replace human intelligence, it's the brilliance of millions contributing various pieces of code that are being shared. Computer programmers have collectively become a human supercomputer working 24/7 on the development of increasingly sophisticated code. AI will be the culmination of all of that cooperation.

waltky
04-07-2016, 11:55 PM
Some Hispexican stole Uncle Ferd's job...

... atta dry cleanery...

... wringin' fatrs outta shirt-tails.

michiganFats
04-07-2016, 11:58 PM
I understand. I've been watching it happen for 35 years. In fact in many ways, I have encouraged it. I am a technophile. I have worked with brilliant programmers. To me it has never been a matter of if, but when. The only impediment has ever been lack of belief.

The internet has been a Godsend to programming. It's like a communist coding community.

Computer code is created and contributed to by millions of people. It's not the genius of one person or one company that will replace human intelligence, it's the brilliance of millions contributing various pieces of code that are being shared. Computer programmers have collectively become a human supercomputer working 24/7 on the development of increasingly sophisticated code. AI will be the culmination of all of that cooperation.

Open source is overrated by true believers.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 12:03 AM
Open source is overrated by true believers.
Open source has advanced code exponentially vs development silos.

michiganFats
04-08-2016, 12:07 AM
Open source has advanced code exponentially vs development silos.

Let's not splooge all over ourselves here. Open source is always behind the proprietary guys when they choose to copy/steal from them. Open source does do some good things but it's usually in areas no one chooses to pursue commercially.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 12:19 AM
Let's not splooge all over ourselves here. Open source is always behind the proprietary guys when they choose to copy/steal from them. Open source does do some good things but it's usually in areas no one chooses to pursue commercially.
Not necessarily - look at Linux.

michiganFats
04-08-2016, 12:40 AM
Not necessarily - look at Linux.

You mean the only game in your town? I use a Linux distro for work. It gets the job done. All distros combined though account for what percentage of the PC market?

kilgram
04-08-2016, 12:43 AM
Let's not splooge all over ourselves here. Open source is always behind the proprietary guys when they choose to copy/steal from them. Open source does do some good things but it's usually in areas no one chooses to pursue commercially.
Yeah, like servers, embedded machines, mobiles, Internet navigators...

Yeah Red Hat is not commercial.

Отправлено с моего Aquaris E5 через Tapatalk

michiganFats
04-08-2016, 12:44 AM
Yeah, like servers, embedded machines, mobiles, Internet navigators...

Yeah Red Hat is not commercial.

Отправлено с моего Aquaris E5 через Tapatalk

Red Hat is commercial, or was when I did that for a living.

kilgram
04-08-2016, 12:44 AM
You mean the only game in your town? I use a Linux distro for work. It gets the job done. All distros combined though account for what percentage of the PC market?
It is the only market that Linux has not controlled.

But you're writing here thank you to free software.

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michiganFats
04-08-2016, 12:45 AM
It is the only market that Linux has not controlled.

But you're writing here thank you to free software.

Отправлено с моего Aquaris E5 через Tapatalk

Are you sure about that?

Free software has nothing to do with my writing here.

Chris
04-08-2016, 08:06 AM
I understand. I've been watching it happen for 35 years. In fact in many ways, I have encouraged it. I am a technophile. I have worked with brilliant programmers. To me it has never been a matter of if, but when. The only impediment has ever been lack of belief.

The internet has been a Godsend to programming. It's like a communist coding community.

Computer code is created and contributed to by millions of people. It's not the genius of one person or one company that will replace human intelligence, it's the brilliance of millions contributing various pieces of code that are being shared. Computer programmers have collectively become a human supercomputer working 24/7 on the development of increasingly sophisticated code. AI will be the culmination of all of that cooperation.


Why is that communism? Marx and Lenin were communists and extremely authoritarian. Here you have millions (?) of people freely, voluntarily contributing code. There's no central planning going on, it's distributed and unplanned.

Bo-4
04-08-2016, 08:11 AM
Actually, statistics say otherwise. Those new jobs are not being created at the same rate that the old ones are lost. On top of it all, relative to income, post-secondary education is becoming prohibitively expensive, partly because students increasingly can't get part-time jobs, because those McJobs are now being occupied by former factory workers. Meanwhile, there are graduates with accounting degrees, law degrees, engineering degrees and even medical degrees who can't find work. Some of that is due to the lack of foresight on the parts of student advisors as to what skills would be in demand in the future and gluts in some of those fields and some is as a result of a shrinking workforce who no longer have the money to pay for these services.

However, overall, we are seeing a shrinking job market and it is shrinking because of technology. It is simply a fact that it takes less people now to do what it used to take more people to do. Architecture firms no longer need draftsmen, engineers can now generate schematics directly from the computer - that means that you don't need as many, because they can address more than one project at a time. Businesses don't need clerical workers, because of electronic records management systems, voice recognition programs have put dictatypists out of business and most younger people can type, so they otherwise just do it themselves. The software formats the documents. Businesses use portals that allow their customers to do the data entry, eliminating those former order taking jobs or any comparable data entry role. Even production facilities for music, movies and television need fewer people because of technology.

At the end of the day any job previously occupied by people of average or low average intelligence will be forfeit and I don't honestly believe that as these jobs are eliminated there will ever be any comparable employment, because those are the jobs that can easily be replaced by tech. At the moment jobs requiring manual dexterity remain because robotics have not conquered that challenge as yet, but it is only a matter of time. Don't encourage your kid to become a surgeon, because that is a skill that will be replaced. One brilliant surgeon can supervise the activities of many robots. The jobs that will remain for people are those that require the creative intuition that can't be replicated by a computer program - new product development, creative arts and scientific R&D. Depending on the direction of politics, there may also be a place for people in the political world and diplomacy.

With technology replacing people in manufacturing, there will be no more defective products - thus no more lawsuits in that respect. With motor vehicles being managed by computers, there will be no more car accidents, thus no need for auto insurance. Many areas of the law will simply be replaced by computer programs. There may still be a place for criminal lawyers. Many negligence based lawsuits will simply disappear because people will no longer be in a position to create those hazards. The insurance industry will drastically shrink.

The banking industry in terms of employment has been shrinking for a long time as technology has taken over human jobs. Every ATM you see replaced a worker. More workers were displaced when people stopped writing checks. Bank branches have been disappearing by the thousands because people bank online and payroll is direct deposited.

Grocers are rapidly introducing self-checkouts - more lost jobs.

The postal service is shrinking because of email.

It goes on and on. Short of the video game industry, the computer programing industry and affiliated technology dependent jobs and robotics, or website development, what new forms of employment have been created? Certainly none for the unskilled or even semi-skilled other than servicing machines.

Albertsons - one of the largest grocery chains in the country - just took out their self service stations. They were problematic and required someone to stand over them and help people anyway. Too many produce codes to look up, too many complaints. So most stores added several 10 items or less stations.

Small community banks have taken a hit. The big ones sucked them up and are getting bigger. ATM machines have been around for decades.

Email hit USPS hard initially but their added services have more than made it up. They'd be CRAZY profitable were it not for the umpteen years of being forced by congress to sock away pension money.

http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

Not suggesting that all the ideas you presented are wrong - but do you have any idea how many decades it will be before everyone has a self-driving car? Auto insurance isn't going anywhere.

Peter1469
04-08-2016, 02:51 PM
Robot waiters fired (http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/robot-waiters-fired-after-spilling-7715093)

These robots got fire for doing a piss-poor job.


Waiter robots were meant to be the latest technological advance to revolutionise the service industry.

But the dining experience of the future might be missing serving bots after all, as a restaurant (http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/restaurants) has fired theirs - because they're not up to the job.


Spilling soup and drinks, and generally not coming up to the level of quality any of us would expect from staff when we go out to eat, means the little workers' plan for domination has short circuited.


Despite a huge fanfare at the unveiling of the robotic waiters in restaurants, two of the forerunners have closed down, according to Workers' Daily.


And a third has fired all of its robots but one.

Mac-7
04-08-2016, 04:34 PM
14485

Wages for US factory workers are declining because of open trade with china, mexico and other job stealing countries.

not because of robots.

Chris
04-08-2016, 05:14 PM
Wages for US factory workers are declining because of open trade with china, mexico and other job stealing countries.

not because of robots.


You keep repeating that patently false assertion, mac.

http://i.snag.gy/JV8B9.jpg

Sex doesn't matter either...

http://i.snag.gy/og2kO.jpg

Education seems to matter...

http://i.snag.gy/68avW.jpg

Despite increases in wages, purchasing power has remained flat...

http://i.snag.gy/8C6Ug.jpg

Inflation.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 05:27 PM
Why is that communism? Marx and Lenin were communists and extremely authoritarian. Here you have millions (?) of people freely, voluntarily contributing code. There's no central planning going on, it's distributed and unplanned.
I'm using the word in a non-political sense. A voluntary internet community of programmers freely exchanging bits and pieces of code on thousands of web sites without charge.

Chris
04-08-2016, 05:31 PM
I'm using the word in a non-political sense. A voluntary internet community of programmers freely exchanging bits and pieces of code on thousands of web sites without charge.

Sounds more like the word society would do.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 05:32 PM
Sounds more like the word society would do.
You just hate that word. :grin:

Chris
04-08-2016, 05:36 PM
You just hate that word. :grin:

Because of its political connotations.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 05:40 PM
Robot waiters fired (http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/robot-waiters-fired-after-spilling-7715093)

These robots got fire for doing a piss-poor job.
The technology isn't really there yet. Give it a few more years. Robotics while impressive, are still pretty awkward and slow when put to multifunctional tasks. I don't think that we yet have adequate processing speed nor the ability to transfer commands to arm and leg movements without noticeable time lags.

Peter1469
04-08-2016, 05:43 PM
The technology isn't really there yet. Give it a few more years. Robotics while impressive, are still pretty awkward and slow when put to multifunctional tasks. I don't think that we yet have adequate processing speed nor the ability to transfer commands to arm and leg movements without noticeable time lags.

I thought it was funny that they got "fired."

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 06:12 PM
Albertsons - one of the largest grocery chains in the country - just took out their self service stations. They were problematic and required someone to stand over them and help people anyway. Too many produce codes to look up, too many complaints. So most stores added several 10 items or less stations.

Small community banks have taken a hit. The big ones sucked them up and are getting bigger. ATM machines have been around for decades.

Email hit USPS hard initially but their added services have more than made it up. They'd be CRAZY profitable were it not for the umpteen years of being forced by congress to sock away pension money.

http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

Not suggesting that all the ideas you presented are wrong - but do you have any idea how many decades it will be before everyone has a self-driving car? Auto insurance isn't going anywhere.
I give it another 10-15 years, at the current pace of technology. Autonomous cars are in real traffic trials in many places. If you think about that in terms of industries like pharmaceuticals, when they get to the human trial stage, they are just about ready for market. Tesla's cars are already semi-autonomous. The industry is shooting for 2020 as the real beginning of mass marketing. Given that most people who buy new cars don't keep them more than five years, by 2025 most cars will be autonomous. There may even be after-market installations of autonomous techware. That might be useful for large trucks and buses that have a longer useful life.

Dr. Who
04-08-2016, 06:30 PM
I thought it was funny that they got "fired."
I wonder if they are now showing up at the Unemployment office looking for benefits? LOL.

Mac-7
04-08-2016, 07:02 PM
You keep repeating that patently false assertion, mac.http://i.snag.gy/JV8B9.jpgSex doesn't matter either...http://i.snag.gy/og2kO.jpgEducation seems to matter...http://i.snag.gy/68avW.jpgDespite increases in wages, purchasing power has remained flat...http://i.snag.gy/8C6Ug.jpgInflation.
let me know when everyone has a college degree.

Except at Lake Woebegone not everyone can be above average

Chris
04-08-2016, 08:29 PM
let me know when everyone has a college degree.

Except at Lake Woebegone not everyone can be above average


Your claim is still patently false. And from someone who has none, your rebuttal against statistical data is pretentious.

Mac-7
04-08-2016, 08:32 PM
Your claim is still patently false. And from someone who has none, your rebuttal against statistical data is pretentious.

Again, some people are doing better.

But average Americans are not.

Chris
04-08-2016, 10:28 PM
Again, some people are doing better.

But average Americans are not.

You're funny. You just dismissed averages, now you use averages. --And you're still wrong since the data shows the average doing better.

Mac-7
04-09-2016, 12:11 AM
You're funny. You just dismissed averages, now you use averages. --And you're still wrong since the data shows the average doing better.

I dont need a pie chart to tell me what has happened to average workers under free trade.

the factories closed and their decent factory jobs moved to china.

thats why we have a $300 billion trade decifit with the chinese

most people cannot be brain surgeons and get the big bucks.

they need those jobs that free traders sent overseas

Dr. Who
04-09-2016, 12:37 AM
You're funny. You just dismissed averages, now you use averages. --And you're still wrong since the data shows the average doing better.
The graphs indicate that wages for some have increased, but that purchasing power has not. That means that the cost of goods have increased as much as wages, but that wages for those without university degrees have effectively dropped, especially for males without post-secondary education and by the looks of it have been declining since the 1970's. So according to Wiki only 40% of the population have any post-secondary education. That would mean that for 60% of the population, wages have been steadily declining or remaining stagnant since the 90's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

Chris
04-09-2016, 08:39 AM
The graphs indicate that wages for some have increased, but that purchasing power has not. That means that the cost of goods have increased as much as wages, but that wages for those without university degrees have effectively dropped, especially for males without post-secondary education and by the looks of it have been declining since the 1970's. So according to Wiki only 40% of the population have any post-secondary education. That would mean that for 60% of the population, wages have been steadily declining or remaining stagnant since the 90's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States


Or it means the value of the dollar has been devalued...

http://i.snag.gy/OSIE3.jpg

Whose fault is that but the damned government's.

Chris
04-09-2016, 08:43 AM
I dont need a pie chart to tell me what has happened to average workers under free trade.

the factories closed and their decent factory jobs moved to china.

thats why we have a $300 billion trade decifit with the chinese

most people cannot be brain surgeons and get the big bucks.

they need those jobs that free traders sent overseas


No, you need data, which you haven't got.

Manufacturing is down around the world...

http://i.snag.gy/SOckR.jpg

So again, data undermines your, Trump's and Bernie's populist protectionist views.

Mac-7
04-09-2016, 08:48 AM
No, you need data, which you haven't got.

Manufacturing is down around the world...

http://i.snag.gy/SOckR.jpg

So again, data undermines your, Trump's and Bernie's populist protectionist views.

You need data because you are floating along on a cloud somewhere detached from what is going on

Chris
04-09-2016, 08:52 AM
You need data because you are floating along on a cloud somewhere detached from what is going on

And your opinions are attached to what, mac? Certainly not the reality of real world data.

Bo-4
04-09-2016, 08:54 AM
I give it another 10-15 years, at the current pace of technology. Autonomous cars are in real traffic trials in many places. If you think about that in terms of industries like pharmaceuticals, when they get to the human trial stage, they are just about ready for market. Tesla's cars are already semi-autonomous. The industry is shooting for 2020 as the real beginning of mass marketing. Given that most people who buy new cars don't keep them more than five years, by 2025 most cars will be autonomous. There may even be after-market installations of autonomous techware. That might be useful for large trucks and buses that have a longer useful life.

Nah, i think a lot of people LIKE to drive - If i could afford a Tesla i might buy one, but wouldn't use that feature.

Dr. Who
04-09-2016, 12:37 PM
Or it means the value of the dollar has been devalued...

http://i.snag.gy/OSIE3.jpg

Whose fault is that but the damned government's.
So, not only have wages declined, but those wages also purchase less than they did before.

Chris
04-09-2016, 01:07 PM
So, not only have wages declined, but those wages also purchase less than they did before.

Wages have not declined. They haven't gone up at the rate people desire, which somehow gets misconstrued as decline.

Yes, purchasing power has declined dramatically, because the Fed (read the government) keeps printing money, fiat money at that.