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Human need not apply


Christopher

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I've watched a number of that man's videos and they are quite good across the board. This one, however, was new to me and in keeping with his general level of skill. As to the content, it is quite the sobering thought. If we had a world where in a majority of professions now could be easily taken over by robots, what would happen to those people who used to do those jobs? Moreover, while the process of mechanizing things typically brings down costs, what about the effects of that on the consumers of such goods? Does this lead us to a great have VS have-not conflict?

Anyway, it was a good video and raises some interesting questions. Indeed, it was things like this that made me question the feasibility of the StarTrek Universe. Why is it that everything is free and yet people actively choose to put their lives on the line in the military. If things are truly so free, why is it that a person can't enjoy all the benefits of Star Fleet without ever joining? 

 

La Rose. 

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Horses: Incapable of expressing their thoughts on the matter.

 

Humans: Capable of expressing thoughts and forming into large groups of organized demonstration. 

 

Not to say that there is no validity to this video and the opinions expressed within it. I just think that just because we can replace a class of job doesn't inherently mean that we will. At some point in time, people are going to react to a perceived threat. Other people (namely politicians) will see a way to gain power, prestige and wealth. It is not the unions that will stand in the way of machines taking over, it will be good ol' fashioned power brokering.

 

Mind you, if automation replaces a significant portion of our workforce and our population declines like the horses, I don't think I am going to complain much.

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"Automation has been going on for two million years, counting down from the original replace-two-punches-with-one-stone-smash. It has never worked this way. Real soon now, it will."

 

Pull the other one. The rate of technological progress, as measured by productivity gains, has sensibly slowed over the last two decades. If Esther Boserup is right, it will continue to slow, and, in the not-too-far-distant future, reverse.

 

Now let's move to the particular scary innovation that's going to fire everyone tomorrow, the Google car. How's that going, Google? Somewhere between Google Barge and Google Glass, as it turns out.

 

Google says it has gone as far as it can with the current customised vehicles and that a new platform is needed to take the project and technology to the next step and closer to a product people can actually use.

For instance, the previous generation Lexus vehicle had blind spots right up against the car where the sensors couldn’t see, something that needs to be eliminated in any vehicle open to the public.

The cars will first be used to test the software driving the car and push its capabilities. Google says at some point, when it deems its software safe, it will start putting real people into the cars beyond Google engineers. It will use the cars in a similar manner to the company’s Google Glass explorer programme, analysing how people use them and what works and what doesn’t

 

Translation: "We have a technology that does a little bit of what a human-driven car does, and we have no real idea how to move on from that in an economical fashion, but, oh, isn't this thing cute?" 

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Translation: "We have a technology that does a little bit of what a human-driven car does, and we have no real idea how to move on from that in an economical fashion, but, oh, isn't this thing cute?" 

 

 

I think a more apt translation would be: We have a car that is, under testing criteria, capable of driving but there are both technical and marketing challenges to overcome before doing a full scale market release. ^^

 

La Rose. 

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Horses: Incapable of expressing their thoughts on the matter.

 

Humans: Capable of expressing thoughts and forming into large groups of organized demonstration. 

 

 

Countless human groups have complained about countless devil technologies coming and taking their jobs from them. We have the word Luddite in English for a reason. But we can't convince people that shipping jobs overseas is a bad enough thing as to change their buying habits, why should we expect this to be any different? 

 

La Rose. 

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Countless human groups have complained about countless devil technologies coming and taking their jobs from them. We have the word Luddite in English for a reason. But we can't convince people that shipping jobs overseas is a bad enough thing as to change their buying habits, why should we expect this to be any different? 

 

La Rose. 

 

I think the current research tends to show that the Luddites weren't upset about losing their jobs to machines so much as they were upset about not being paid to do things that the machines being installed also couldn't do. It's a scarcely uncommon development in the history of technology that really does leave you wanting to scream: "You have no idea what you're doing. Eventually, you're going to come crawling back to us, but by that time we'll have lost our houses." I've been through that myself, with a disastrous attempt to implement automated grocery resupply at my company in the middle of the last decade. Not only did we lost a lot of money, we also lost a great deal of "expert system" order-writing capability which existed in the system before the experiment and which could not be restored, because of money. I did not see failures of the new machinery being written off as due to sabotage, as in the case of the Luddites, but during the experiment, one at least saw frustrations leading in that direction, until the delivery of mass quantities of Christmas dinner and baking supplies in the December 27th resupply finally woke higher management up to the fact that they had been sold a pig in a poke.

 

In the case of Google Car, the news release I quoted pretty explicitly admits that the things can't parallel park, even if the admission is being given a more human-friendly face by characterising it as an inability to "avoid squirrels." Google explicitly admits that a new technology of "close in sensing" is needed so that the things don't burk the curb, each other, or some broken glass in the stalll. Given that automatic parking is about the only coherent selling point I've ever heard made for the Google Car (and other high end cars with expensive automatic driving aids, such as the new Audis), you can see the issue.

 

It's worth pointing out here that people don't parallel park with special powers of "close in sensing," either. They look at the parking area, achieve an experiential three-dimensional model of  the space, and trial-and-error their way to a good fit.  There's nothing there that a computer can't do. It's the trouble of programming it to work, and the number of computing operations required, hence the size, power and cooling requirements of the CPU, that get in the way. Google more-or-less admits the impracticality of the CPU-led solution when it calls for "close in sensing." No need for all of those three-dimensional flops when you can have a tiny, cute little Hello Kitty lidar on each bumper telling you how close you are to the curb! Except, of course, that festooning a car with all of that stuff puts it out of the financial reach of a driver just as certainly as installing a mainframe in the driver's seat.

 

We now have almost ninety years of experience with autonomous cars. You might look back at experiments in the 1920s as hopelessly premature, but this was the period when the railways were making rapid strides towards driverless trains, with incredibly primitive technology even by the standards of the 1920s. (For example, central dispatch offices did not have real time information about where trains were.) The reason for that is pretty simple: rails are, more or less, railroading devices. So developers said to themselves, "Hey, lanes are like that!" and off they went, only to run right into the fuzzy boundaries and off the road. Or, worse, into oncoming traffic. And that's pretty much where we've been ever since. The Wiki article linked to above has a nice picture of the "M-1 Car Detector" marketed in 1959 as a key component of our autopiloted car of 1965. It turned out to be easy to detect oncoming cars, hard to reason out a way to not hit them.

 

Google currently touts 300,000 accident-free miles driven by supervised autonomous cars over 8 years, but the current fatal accident rate in the United States is 1 in 5.2 billion vehicle-kilometers on major roads, which is where the cars are being tested, twice that on "non-motorways," where Google Cars cannot yet operate at all. The "non-motorway" statistic tells us what happens to vehicle safety in chaotic situations, nothing about how a computer, vice a human, would handle these circumstances. Quite well, I would imagine --for a sufficiently capable installation. 

 

To step back for a moment, the human brain is, from one perspective, a very inefficient computer. From another, the point of view of power consumption, and therefore cooling, it's far beyond anything that can be accomplished with our existing machinery. Case by case, most of what the human brain can do can be automated. There are very few instances in which an existing computer installation actually can perform every case that can arise in a situation, especially a complex one such as driving in traffic, but such installations do exist. Above I noticed that parallel parking is something that autonomous cars cannot do; yet parking in stalls is something that Audi expects to implement in its first generation of semi-autonomous cars. The difference, of course, is the number of cases that the computer can handle, vice humans. The objection to using new installations that can parallel park in cahortic situations, and designing new ones, is that they are not cost effective, and not likely to be in the near future. 

 

As for the distant future, even if you do not buy in full Esther Boserup's argument that technology is an epiphenomena of population (think of Adam Smith's "division of labour" here, in which specialisation allows people to get better at more narrowly focussed skills), it strikes me that the weak response to the 2008 recession justifies at least a weak Boseruppian position, in which economic progress is not ineluctable, and that therefore to the extent that the progress of technology is linked to economic progress, we are more likely to see it slow and falter in the current era than accelerate towards some post-human future. 

 

(Also.)

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First, I think you took issue with the exact and pedantic nature of the Luddites. While I am sure that there is a wealth of minucia that is of note on the issue, it wasn't the tiny little bits that I was trying to invoke by using their name. Being overly concerned with the esoteric bits of any given reference ignores the objective of using a cultural reference point: delivering a broad sense of information with minimal input. 

Second, when you criticized the volume of driving you compared apples with oranges. 300,000 miles without an accident ought not be compared to X miles without a FATAL accident. Indeed, I have been involved in a few accidents in my life (be they my fault or others) and have yet to ever be in a fatal one. And being generous and saying I have actually driven 300,000 miles (Probably haven't), I would only have needed to be involved in 1 accident of any kind to have proven the value of the Google car on this point. So, I think your criticism on this point is a bit unfounded. 

Next, I am not saying the current Google car is good to go. There is still work to do. But your translation which would seem to be implying that the project is impossible. That is far, far too pessimistic and ignores the advancements we have made in technology and specifically with driverless car tech in the last decade. 

 

La Rose. 

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It's obligatory in any discussion of the Luddites to assert that they wanted to stop technological progress because it was stealing their jobs, and that they were wrong because technology doesn't steal jobs in the long run, and that what they were really upset about is that they were starving in the streets, and that's wrong too. So let us segue into a discussion of what really matters, the Reform Acts! Because if only somewhat-less-poor people can vote, all will be well!! That'd be what your Karl Marx would call "ideology," an excuse to avoid talking about what really matters.

 

So instead of having that particular discussion, I just thought I'd throw in another angle, intimately familiar to me from having had "expert systems" fail to replace my skills in the grocery-ordering area. Which is that often "technological change" is an excuse for deskilling. Or, to put it more baldly here (I'm going to get even balder below), it's an excuse to cut wages.

 

Now, as to the future of autonomous cars: I think that it's so bright that they have to wear shades. At the right cost point. Since "the right cost point" is extremely unlikely to be met by the average driver, or, for that matter, society, I think we can rule out the rise of the intelligent car in the near future. It's just not where our economy is going.

 

I then move on to suggest that their rise in the long run future depends very much on the idea that technological progress will continue on its own, as autonomous in its way as a gloriously Googled car. 

 

And I say that this not the case, that we have a serious social problem to deal with, and that this talk of autonomous cars gets the nature of that problem wrong, and that we should address that problem urgently. It's all about demand, which we are cutting away at as a society as vigorously as the harshest stocking frame putter-outer of Regency England,

 

Here's where I get balder: The level of technological praxis in a society depends on its population; population is at best static, at worse falling if you take working population as the metric. Therefore, technological praxis is, or soon will, decline.

 

Death rates will rise. Infant mortality rates will rise. Average life expectancy will decline. Our houses will get dirtier, our vacations less wide-ranging. We will experience epidemics again, then famines, then localised extinctions. We will put down our handaxes and climb back into the trees.

 

Or, more likely, the basal cause of the trend --the lower than replacement birth rate-- will reverse itself, and we will go back to technological progress.  

 

Call me crazy if you will, but I just happen to think that this is a problem that will fix itself if we can move into a "high pressure economy" again, and that it would be nice if this happened before the next famine.

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Countless human groups have complained about countless devil technologies coming and taking their jobs from them. We have the word Luddite in English for a reason. But we can't convince people that shipping jobs overseas is a bad enough thing as to change their buying habits, why should we expect this to be any different? 

 

La Rose. 

 

For some jobs, it won't be different. If there is a plan to let the machines do all the work while common folk benefit from the mechanized labors, it won't. If there is mass movement to deprive people of their incomes, especially one that crosses as many boundaries as quoted in that video, I think there will be problems. People will tolerate a lot of things when it happens to somebody else. When they are affected, they look around for somebody to cast blame on. If they find a bunch of similarly distressed people, well enough people with a common cause can topple governments. Eventually, automation is going to reach a critical mass and people are going to respond.

 

Off topic: Was there an intended gaming aspect to this video? This seems more like NGD territory.

 

Creating a roleplaying topic: Of course everything I just mentioned makes for a great backdrop to a near dystopian future campaign.  Another campaign idea would be to shrink the Hero Universe macrocosm down to Earth size. The USA could play the role of the Malvans with all this advanced tech that they might just forget how to service. US citizens live in the robot-created lap of luxury, becoming so jaded as to rely on blood sports for entertainment. Wait. That doesn't sound too far-fetched as it is. :)

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Anyway, it was a good video and raises some interesting questions. Indeed, it was things like this that made me question the feasibility of the StarTrek Universe. Why is it that everything is free and yet people actively choose to put their lives on the line in the military. If things are truly so free, why is it that a person can't enjoy all the benefits of Star Fleet without ever joining? 

 

La Rose. 

I don't think this direction of development would be feasible with our current economic model. The less people work, the less people can buy stuff. And we talk about larger groups that are in danger then ever before.

 

This could quite literally become a "automation crisis" and could feasibly lead to a colapse of civilsiation due to human mis-reaction (we don't need AI is a Crapshoot to desroy the world).

 

Horses: Incapable of expressing their thoughts on the matter.

 

Humans: Capable of expressing thoughts and forming into large groups of organized demonstration. 

Examples where it did not work:

Typesetters (job) and Typewriters (machine)

Everyone in the Food Production vs. Machines that are now used in food production

Any case where computers allowed less people do more work in a office

Any case where a job was outsourced to a place with cheaper human work-cost

Internet vs Newspapers

Everyone who was ever fired after the merging of two companies.

Human operators of the Telephone exchange.

 

An economist could give you a much better listing.

 

And the IT area is by no means save so far:

One Computer Management Software can easily replace several adminsitrators, with only physical labor (switching hardware) needing people.

A decent Compiler or IDE Multiplies productivity of a single programmer. Wirting something like Windows 7 in Basic (or some other archaic language) could have easily needed 100 times the programmers that it needs with modern tools (it goes to the point where even trying something like this would be infeasible).

 

If I can multiply one persons work effectiveness by two, that is one person I can fire or don't have to hire (in both cases one person unemployed).

If I am the only one doing it, I will drive my competition into the ruin until I am the only one still making that work (a lot more people unemployed)

If everyone does it, that is a lot of jobs.

 

There is one difference this time, however:

Social media. Maybe this time a proper opposition can form.

 

Off topic: Was there an intended gaming aspect to this video? This seems more like NGD territory.

 

Creating a roleplaying topic: Of course everything I just mentioned makes for a great backdrop to a near dystopian future campaign.  Another campaign idea would be to shrink the Hero Universe macrocosm down to Earth size. The USA could play the role of the Malvans with all this advanced tech that they might just forget how to service. US citizens live in the robot-created lap of luxury, becoming so jaded as to rely on blood sports for entertainment. Wait. That doesn't sound too far-fetched as it is. :)

We have been using Star Hero for "intersting developments in technology" before. Just see the space news thread.

 

But there is certainly some material worth considering to any star hero setting.

 

 

Regarding the Self drivign automobile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP0MWeoKmbg (automatic car on public roads)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQjntXvMVTE (self parking car)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU90XeCKIYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNq6FdrkWE

 

The goal is a fully automonous car by the end of the decade.

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I don't think humans will ever be obsolete. Even George Jetson had to push a few buttons now and then. :D

Obsolete in wich area?

Doing work? The chances are not that bad we will be made obsolete or at least barely employable.

If we can replace 1000 workers by 1000 robots and 1 worker while still saving money, that means 999 unemployed people.

 

I realised something recently:

It is not that so much work needs to be done that keeps most peopel in employment. But that we are doing it so inefficiently.

If two companies combine they can loose some personal as a result. Simply because they became redudant (where no redundancy is needed).

All those small companies that are in competition together employ a lot more people then one big company owning the market would ever do.

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Obsolete in wich area?

Doing work? The chances are not that bad we will be made obsolete or at least barely employable.

If we can replace 1000 workers by 1000 robots and 1 worker while still saving money, that means 999 unemployed people.

 

I realised something recently:

It is not that so much work needs to be done that keeps most peopel in employment. But that we are doing it so inefficiently.

If two companies combine they can loose some personal as a result. Simply because they became redudant (where no redundancy is needed).

All those small companies that are in competition together employ a lot more people then one big company owning the market would ever do.

Spacely's Sprockets merge with Cogswell's Cogs? Never!

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I think the current research tends to show that the Luddites weren't upset about losing their jobs to machines so much as they were upset about not being paid to do things that the machines being installed also couldn't do. 

I find that very unlikely, not least because the Luddites weren't being replaced by machines.  There was no new technology coming in.  They were just being replaced by women and children who could be paid less.  They got angry and smashed stuff until the factory owners agreed to give them money again in exchange for work that wasn't worth what was being paid for it.  

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Obsolete in wich area?

Doing work? The chances are not that bad we will be made obsolete or at least barely employable.

If we can replace 1000 workers by 1000 robots and 1 worker while still saving money, that means 999 unemployed people.

 

I realised something recently:

It is not that so much work needs to be done that keeps most peopel in employment. But that we are doing it so inefficiently.

If two companies combine they can loose some personal as a result. Simply because they became redudant (where no redundancy is needed).

All those small companies that are in competition together employ a lot more people then one big company owning the market would ever do.

 

So yet again monopolies are bad for the economy.

 

My father-in-law is the head of IT for Century Link (and was the head of IT for Sprint back before Century Link broke away). When I pointed out the trend of Sprint was to develop new technology and throw people at it until they can automate it and then lay those people off, he laughed and said that was exactly how it was, and Sprint wasn't the only company to use that model.

 

So in one respect, automating things isn't bad as long as there is constant development of new goods and services, so as to have a continuous turnover in employment. Which isn't in and of itself a bad thing so long as those laid off can find new jobs immediately (which makes me think the best way to handle this would be for companies to tell their employees up front they only have a job for X Months, and will need to look for new employment opportunities after Y Date.

 

But the problem is there isn't a constant stream of new goods and services.

 

And some more food for thought: In a society where everything is automated, everyone would need be on the dole to survive (except the fascist CEOs of the mega-corps). Even then I see food rationing and super-plagues.

 

So absent replicator tech from Star Trek to put an and to famine and poverty (and thusly putting farmers out of business), I don't see a way for mankind not to implode if this trend goes that far.

 

As always, these comments are IMHO.

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So absent replicator tech from Star Trek to put an and to famine and poverty (and thusly putting farmers out of business), I don't see a way for mankind not to implode if this trend goes that far.

 

As always, these comments are IMHO.

We have the capacity to feed the world. We have had it for decades. Just the logistics and the local economy are the issues.

It is in fact cheaper for goverments to buy excess food and destroy it, then just letting it go.

People are starving and we are literally burning/throwing away food here.

 

As I said: Our current economic system would not be able to handle automation in such a huge employment sector as Transportation.

But then again it is not such a good system to begin with if we have to destroy goods here that are needed on the other side of a border/the next continent over.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hmmmn. I'm imagining a world where technology has replaced human employment, leaving a whole bunch of morons with a whole lot of time on their hands. There is grim humor in those thoughts. Maybe there is a coming apocalypse. Maybe it won't be caused by aliens, or "the bomb," but by bored (or desperately hungry) humans who have been replaced and rendered obsolete by robots. I mean, what else would you do for kicks after a couple of decades of purposelessness? And after that time, we have no job skills left so society collapses and we revert to cannibalism in order to survive.

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In theory, a 'fully automated' society would be able to provide enough food for its citizens.

 

Though I think those without jobs would be eating Soylent Patties and eating cornbread for most of their meals.

 

And as to boredom, we already see what happens with the unemployed when they get 'bored.' They form gangs, kill people and take their stuff so they can buy drugs.

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