Automation Thread: Imagine johnny 5 squashing your job, forever

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Automation Thread: Imagine johnny 5 squashing your job, forever

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Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

All that pressure on labor changes the answer to: Does it make sense for business X to automate X? So there would be a balancing loop, a damping term basically.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 17:17

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# ? May 8, 2024 04:37

Tei: Feb 19, 2011

BrandorKP posted:

All that pressure on labor changes the answer to: Does it make sense for business X to automate X? So there would be a balancing loop, a damping term basically.

Automation is good in itself.
- Is easier to take measures when something is done automatically and in the same way. If you use a machine to paint a wall. You can try different paint mix. If you use humans, they will add a random element making this optimization very hard.
- Is easier to forget how it works, to turn into a black box. It free the mind for other stuff.
- Is something is wrong, you run it again. If you ask 4 people to stay we whole weekend because something screwed something. You will have a group of very angry people. Machines feel nothing if they have to repeat a task. If is wrong again, because some mistake you made, you don't have a group of angry people that think you are stupid. Machines don't judge us.
- Machines don't make mistakes, or the ratio they make mistakes is several orders of magnitude smaller.

So even if a automated task cost exactly the same than a manual one, I would still automatize it.

Smart business will probably end automatizing everything, not matter the cost, except public facing roles. Humans have a error ratio of about 1%. That will cost you customers. What is the cost of a lost customer? The cost of 1 lost customer is infinite.

Tei fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 3, 2017

# ? Jul 3, 2017 17:33

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

Cicero posted:

Thanks to higher-level languages and frameworks and IDEs, you need like one programmer-hour to do the work of like a hundred programmer-hour from 50 years ago, and yet instead of demand for programmers going down, it went up, drastically, by at least an order of magnitude. So yeah it's entirely possible that'll happen, because it's happened before.

But yes, in the sufficiently long run, most programmer jobs will definitely go away. It probably just won't be until most white-collar jobs are under the same kind of automation pressure.

Instead of automating it, companies will just shift programming chores to anonymous teams in India and Pakistan with an American front man who will take the fall if they gently caress up. Since programmers produce nothing but code, they are ripe for offshoring.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 17:55

ElCondemn: Aug 7, 2005

Dead Reckoning posted:

Instead of automating it, companies will just shift programming chores to anonymous teams in India and Pakistan with an American front man who will take the fall if they gently caress up. Since programmers produce nothing but code, they are ripe for offshoring.

This is how it works in many companies today.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 18:03

Tei: Feb 19, 2011

Dead Reckoning posted:

Instead of automating it, companies will just shift programming chores to anonymous teams in India and Pakistan with an American front man who will take the fall if they gently caress up. Since programmers produce nothing but code, they are ripe for offshoring.

The secret here few people talk about is that most code have a negative value. You are probably ordering a herd of white elephants that will demand water and food and produce very littel.

Most written code have the value of a graffty in some backstreet. If you want it fixed, it will probably cost you money!

# ? Jul 3, 2017 18:14

Paradoxish: Dec 19, 2003; Will you stop going crazy in there?

Dead Reckoning posted:

Instead of automating it, companies will just shift programming chores to anonymous teams in India and Pakistan with an American front man who will take the fall if they gently caress up. Since programmers produce nothing but code, they are ripe for offshoring.

This has been a boogeyman since at least the late nineties. It's actually fairly common, but it turns out the quality of work you get from extremely cheap offshore teams tends to be absolute poo poo in a lot of real, measurable ways. My last job was like 90% maintenance and cleanup of a codebase that was produced this way and in the end the whole thing was more or less scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.

Basically, what we have now is what the labor market for programmers looks like when the industry is already making heavy use of outsourced labor.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 18:26

Rastor: Jun 2, 2001

Automation isn't going to eliminate computer programming any more than computer generated proofs is going to eliminate math PhDs.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 18:47

Tasmantor: Aug 13, 2007; Horrid abomination

It's a good thing programming is so safe from automation, that means that there will be work for all the people who loose other jobs to it! I know my country will totally spend the money on retraining thousands of people into programmers and not just let them languish on unemployment. Another good thing is that techbros are super special and even if economies tank due to large numbers of unemployed then they are still safe because of ......... Programmer magic?

My point being that just because you're job is safe doesn't make you safe from the ill effects of automaton in a world that has not prepared for it.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 20:44

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

ElCondemn posted:

This is how it works in many companies today.

I wonder how much of automation has been put off, delayed because of outsourcing.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 21:35

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

BrandorKP posted:

I wonder how much of automation has been put off, delayed because of outsourcing.

Outsourcing quality is generally poo poo, so if you can somehow automate things that's probably better.

# ? Jul 3, 2017 22:02

Think Thin!: Sep 17, 2006

Tasmantor posted:

It's a good thing programming is so safe from automation, that means that there will be work for all the people who loose other jobs to it! I know my country will totally spend the money on retraining thousands of people into programmers and not just let them languish on unemployment. Another good thing is that techbros are super special and even if economies tank due to large numbers of unemployed then they are still safe because of ......... Programmer magic?

My point being that just because you're job is safe doesn't make you safe from the ill effects of automaton in a world that has not prepared for it.

i wish someone would automate murdering every motherfucker in this thread myself included

# ? Jul 4, 2017 05:18

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Think Thin! posted:

i wish someone would automate murdering every motherfucker in this thread myself included

Reality has got that one covered as automatic already. Just mind the relatively short queue. But hey, you can jump the line anytime you want.

# ? Jul 4, 2017 05:24

Decius: Oct 14, 2005; Ramrod XTreme

Paradoxish posted:

It's more that these kiosks are probably just going to end up being a stopgap/fallback option until there's more widespread adoption of ordering through an app on your phone. That solves most of the problems (being unfamiliar with the interface, taking too long, etc.) since you can just sit at your table and browse for as long as you want on a device that you're familiar with.

It's also never going to be the only way to get food. There will always be human staffed restaurants because that's definitely a thing people want, but fast food is primarily about price and convenience.

Not so sure about the App being the end goal, since the kiosk system takes a lot of kinks out of a system that would otherwise only be partly in McDonald's hands. McDonald's had the app solution for several years here (QuickMac). You could order over the App, drive to the restaurant and get your order in a fast lane just for the App orders in seconds. It wasn't widely used or accepted, maybe because the payment required you to be redirected to your bank/CC site where you had to enter your data every time. However it was a working prototype for the kiosk system.
It's now merged with the kiosk system and works a lot better and easier. The kiosks in general are fast and easy especially if you combine them with paying via NFC. The whole ordering process went from "cashier takes your order, puts it together and collect the money" to "you order (at the kiosk or at the one remaining cashier), you pay you get your number and wait until the order is finished by people who just do the order finishing", a completely different and far less hurried and stressful work flow for the people still doing the jobs.
It was not only a new tech for ordering, it was a complete restructuring how the restaurants function according to the people I talked with waiting for my orders. Of course it also means you need 3/5/10 fewer cashiers, meaning with the shift system suddenly you need a lot fewer people or people working fewer hours overall at every single McDonald's. Like 20-30 % fewer people. The long term goal is of course also eliminating the last remaining cashier point, once you get the people not able or willing to use a kiosk or who want to pay cash on board. But even now the cashier point is only used rarely and doesn't seem a fixed position, but one that's filled on the fly only when needed. And that's not even a year after all the McDonald's restaurants here were overhauled with kiosks. I'm pretty amazed how quickly people accepted it, when for example self-checkout in super markets or IKEA is DoA here.

Decius fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Jul 4, 2017

# ? Jul 4, 2017 08:04

Freakazoid_: Jul 5, 2013; Buglord

Mark Zuckerberg came out in favor of UBI:

quote:

In a Facebook post about a trip this week to Alaska with wife Priscilla Chan, the Facebook CEO praised the state's Permanent Fund, which pools the state's oil revenue and pays out cash dividends to eligible Alaskans. In 2016, that dividend was $1,022.

"This is a novel approach to basic income in a few ways. First, it's funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes. Second, it comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net. This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea," Zuckerberg wrote.

UBI based on resources exploitation, that is! :smug:

But he's also implying seizing the means of production? :thunk:

At the least, he recognizes his own industry's push for automation creating unemployment.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 20:10

call to action: Jun 10, 2016; by FactsAreUseless

It's funded without raising taxes and relies on the principle of small government, therefore it's a bipartisan idea? What?

# ? Jul 6, 2017 20:24

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

call to action posted:

It's funded without raising taxes and relies on the principle of small government, therefore it's a bipartisan idea? What?

Usually UBI gets hyped up by lefties. That it can be done in a more conservative fashion ostensibly means it's a bipartisan idea or something.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 20:26

Raldikuk: Apr 7, 2006; I'm bad with money and I want that meatball!

Of course the idea that $1,000 per year is a universal basic income is pretty laughable. And funding it purely on natural resources can't scale to provide an actual UBI for the population.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 21:56

Volkerball: Oct 15, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Raldikuk posted:

Of course the idea that $1,000 per year is a universal basic income is pretty laughable. And funding it purely on natural resources can't scale to provide an actual UBI for the population.

The PFD is pretty much the first example of a lump sum payment given to people just on the basis of existing, so as a case study it's certainly smart to bring it up. It's essentially the same concept as what a universal income would be.

# ? Jul 6, 2017 22:00

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Dumping some stuff on automation I read back in grad school:

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/where-machines-could-replace-humans-and-where-they-cant-yet

Not going to copy / paste it, images have a lot of the info.

# ? Jul 7, 2017 04:12

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

This one is older, but the program head still thought it was relevant:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...9KcqIvjB0UB82tA

Sorry about the formatting

article posted:

Four Questions Every CEO Should Ask
About IT
For starters: Are we thinking big enough?
April 25, 2011

have the information they need to do their jobs; and whether employees
throughout the company see technology as a tool to move forward, or an anchor
that keeps them running in place.
This doesn't mean that top executives should review every IT investment
proposal and decision. But it does mean that senior management must define
how the company as a whole will do business in a digital economy. It means they
must lead the IT initiatives that cut across all business lines. And it means they
must resolve issues that local interests cannot resolve�like what data and
processes will be standardized companywide.
Unfortunately, too many CEOs and other top executives often don't even know
where to begin when it comes to managing IT. To that end, we offer the four IT
questions that every CEO needs to think about�and answer.
Question No. 1
Are we using technology to transform our business, or are we just
adding bells and whistles to existing processes?
There are all sorts of possibilities for, say, inserting new technologies into
existing processes. But most of these improvements are incremental. They are
worth doing; in fact, they may be necessary for survival. No self-respecting
airline, for instance, could do without an application that lets you download
your boarding pass to your mobile telephone. It saves paper, can't get lost and
customers want it.
But while it's essential to offer applications like the electronic boarding pass,
those will not distinguish a company. Electronic boarding passes have already
been replicated by nearly every airline. In fact, we've already forgotten who was
first.
What is far more lasting�and much more difficult�is for companies to rethink
how they deliver core customer services. The starting point for such a rethinking
isn't asking, "How do I use technology strategically?" It's, "What would be the
ideal way to interact with and serve my customers?"
When you ask what you can do with technology, you get the electronic boarding
pass or the email notice about a change in a flight. Nice, but not differentiating.
When you rethink your business, you get a new kind of airline. You make even
those customers traveling economy class feel important; you optimize schedules
to effectively use equipment and help the most customers get to where they want to go with the least amount of hassle; you develop pricing mechanisms that take the stress out of buying a ticket; you help your customers know when to leave their house to get to the airport in time; you tell them the fastest and the
cheapest ways to get to the airport; you tell them before they get
on a plane exactly what kind of food is available; you make flying a pleasant experience. Doing this means
you'll have to change existing systems, processes, roles and technology. In other words, you'll have to change everything�and you'll have to do it in stages over several years. But companies get better each step of the way. And over time they can build a huge advantage over companies that are simply inserting technology into the way
they've been doing business for years.
USAA has been through this kind of transformation. Like most financial-services
companies, the San Antonio, Texas-based USAA traditionally served customers
through distinct businesses that specialized in a particular set of services. USAA
customers had to decide whether they needed banking, insurance or financial
advice. The choice was not always obvious to a customer. For example, the bank
and the advisory-services group were both happy to sell a customer an IRA.
Rethinking its business for the digital economy, management decided to provide
services according to customers' life events (a new baby, say, or a job transfer)
rather than according to USAA's internal structure. This meant redesigning
processes, integrating old systems, building new ones and sharing data across
business units. As a result, customers don't have to figure out how USAA works
before they ask for service.
Nearly everyone at USAA has been affected by this digital transformation.
Recently, 12,000 call-center employees were centralized in a new organization
so they could look across the business units to meet customer needs. This was
just the most recent change in a transformation that started nearly 10 years ago.
Question No. 2
Are you ignoring important business differences as you
standardize processes
across the company?
One tenet of the digital economy is that standardizing business processes is a
no-brainer: It allows a company to operate the same way, everywhere, and
creates a reliable, consistent experience for the customer.
For example, an insurance company could standardize how its life-insurance
products are sold, processed, managed for returns, accounted for and so on.
Every time a new product is introduced, the company doesn't have to reinvent
the wheel�it simply reuses the process and the underlying system. It saves the
company time and money, and makes interactions easier for customers who
have other policies with the company.
The problem, though, is that at some companies, senior management believes
that if some standardization is good, more is always better. And it isn't.
So, for instance, say a manufacturing company comes up with sales processes
that require reliable communications and transportation systems. That's fine
when the manufacturing company is operating in developed countries. But in a
developing country, those standardized processes could wreak havoc.
Or consider a consumer-product company that has created a digital system for
its biggest customer�Wal-Mart. What happens when those processes are forced
on the company's distribution centers that service local convenience stores?
Here global standardization is a naive impediment to local business
effectiveness.

In other words, senior management can't just evangelize about the desirability
of standardized processes. They need to first define what should and shouldn't
be standardized.
Campbell Soup Co. offers a telling example. From 2006 to 2008, the company
implemented three standardized processes that redesigned customer service,
accounting, reporting and supply-chain processes across 25 North American
facilities. But then management found that one of its businesses, Pepperidge
Farm, had unique requirements because baked goods are more perishable than
canned soups.
So some standards were relaxed and some systems were changed for Pepperidge
Farm. Similarly, when Campbell started to implement these processes in
Australia and New Zealand, unique business conditions in those countries
demanded changes in the standards. Selective standardization allowed
Campbell to reap significant cost savings without tying the hands of local
managers.
Question No. 3
Who is making sure the company's digital strategy is being
implemented?
If a telecommunications company wanted to become more competitive by
improving customer service, top managers might bring together the heads of the
company's regions, product lines and functions and ask them to identify how
their individual units could work together to improve service for global business
customers.
These leaders might identify new companywide technology systems that could
make the company more efficient and better serve key customers. Good idea.
But senior management might then be inclined to rely on that committee to
implement those enterprise processes. Bad idea.
Many managers assume that a good technology can ensure effective execution.
It can't. That's because most managers work within a business unit, function,
region or product line. Companywide systems, by definition, are executed across
organizational units. Local managers can't take responsibility for the design or
improvement of such enterprise processes.
Somebody needs to own this responsibility. Thus, top executives must name an
executive who will be accountable for every enterprise process, and who has the
political clout to overcome resistance. A committee is not capable of such
oversight.
Say that managers from a telecommunications company agreed that they could
better serve large business customers if they could track the customers' orders
from the salespeople or website through fulfillment, delivery, invoicing and
payment. The company then needs to assign one person�call him or her the
process owner�who would interact with people all along the line to design the
process and underlying systems.
The process owner will also design initial training on the system. After
implementation, the process owner would monitor performance and work with
people executing the process to identify opportunities to improve it.
Tetra Pak International SA, a Swiss-based packaging and processing company,
has a business-transformation department, which consists of executives
responsible for each of its seven core processes, including customer
management, product creation and supplier management. These process
owners at Tetra Pak take responsibility for developing process and data
standards, establishing metrics and ensuring continuous improvement. They
then work with local business managers to execute the standardized processes
and maintain data integrity. The head of the business-transformation
department reports to the chief financial officer.

Question No. 4
Is electronic data empowering your people or controlling them?
For most companies, the great advantage of the digital revolution is the data
they can now collect. They know the minute-by-minute electricity usage and the
names and buying patterns of shoppers who buy diapers; they know how much
more soup gets sold if they drop the price by 10 cents, or what arguments work
best when a life-insurance agent cold-calls a prospective customer.
All that data can lead companies down two very different paths. First, it can help
push decision making down to front-line employees. Alternatively, it can be used
to centralize decision making and monitor employee performance.
Evidence indicates that the former approach offers benefits for both companies
and employees.

When companies use data to control people, the assumption is that all the good
thinking happens at the top of the organization. By contrast, relying more on
operating-level people to make fact-based decisions creates smarter, more
innovative organizations. Seven-Eleven Japan Co., which runs 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan and the U.S., centralizes the purchasing and logistics to gain efficiencies. But it pushes buying decisions down to the salesclerks at its 13,000 Japanese stores. That's more than 200,000 salesclerks. They all receive data on what's been selling in their store for the categories they manage, along with information on weather conditions and new products. Each salesclerk then makes "hypotheses" about what kinds of products will sell on a given day. Salesclerks place orders each morning according to their hypotheses, and starting that evening receive feedback on their business results. Counselors visit each store twice a week to help salesclerks interpret the results
and improve their hypotheses going forward. By placing ordering decisions in the hands of individual store clerks, Seven-Eleven Japan ensures that the inventory in each store will be customized to the demands of that store's clientele. The result is constant innovation in local customer offerings and, more important, extraordinarily rapid inventory turnover, the single most important metric at the company. It also results inhighly motivated employees.
Dr. Ross is the director of the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research
in Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Weill is the chairman of the center. They can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.

# ? Jul 7, 2017 04:20

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

I've been looking for this one to post here for a while:

# ? Jul 7, 2017 04:28

ColoradoCleric: Dec 26, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

Decius posted:

Not so sure about the App being the end goal, since the kiosk system takes a lot of kinks out of a system that would otherwise only be partly in McDonald's hands. McDonald's had the app solution for several years here (QuickMac). You could order over the App, drive to the restaurant and get your order in a fast lane just for the App orders in seconds. It wasn't widely used or accepted, maybe because the payment required you to be redirected to your bank/CC site where you had to enter your data every time. However it was a working prototype for the kiosk system.
It's now merged with the kiosk system and works a lot better and easier. The kiosks in general are fast and easy especially if you combine them with paying via NFC. The whole ordering process went from "cashier takes your order, puts it together and collect the money" to "you order (at the kiosk or at the one remaining cashier), you pay you get your number and wait until the order is finished by people who just do the order finishing", a completely different and far less hurried and stressful work flow for the people still doing the jobs.
It was not only a new tech for ordering, it was a complete restructuring how the restaurants function according to the people I talked with waiting for my orders. Of course it also means you need 3/5/10 fewer cashiers, meaning with the shift system suddenly you need a lot fewer people or people working fewer hours overall at every single McDonald's. Like 20-30 % fewer people. The long term goal is of course also eliminating the last remaining cashier point, once you get the people not able or willing to use a kiosk or who want to pay cash on board. But even now the cashier point is only used rarely and doesn't seem a fixed position, but one that's filled on the fly only when needed. And that's not even a year after all the McDonald's restaurants here were overhauled with kiosks. I'm pretty amazed how quickly people accepted it, when for example self-checkout in super markets or IKEA is DoA here.

As someone in the fast food industry I'll tell you you're right on the part about needing fewer cashiers, however this has instead lead to better paying jobs for the remaining employees as they now have to handle more responsibilities. In our stores we now tend to have about as many hourly managers as we do employees who have to handle everything from meal prep during rushes to handling customer complaints.

# ? Jul 7, 2017 20:39

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Paradoxish posted:

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying here, except maybe on how long it'll take to get there.

What I have been saying, however, is that this is pretty much the end game for most white collar "cognitive" work. Most programmers still spend a huge amount of time solving very trivial problems. Being able to have a single programmer or extremely small team build and maintain an application that solves a highly complex business problem is a game changer on par with the introduction of computer spreadsheets.

Sure, but "when will it happen" isn't really a useful question. It will happen, sooner or later. The more difficult - and more important - question is "what will we do when it happens"?

Cicero posted:

Thanks to higher-level languages and frameworks and IDEs, you need like one programmer-hour to do the work of like a hundred programmer-hour from 50 years ago, and yet instead of demand for programmers going down, it went up, drastically, by at least an order of magnitude. So yeah it's entirely possible that'll happen, because it's happened before.

But yes, in the sufficiently long run, most programmer jobs will definitely go away. It probably just won't be until most white-collar jobs are under the same kind of automation pressure.

It's no surprise that there's higher demand for programmers today compared to 50 years ago. After all, 50 years ago, a computer was the size of a room. Today, not only do we have personal computers, but we have computers in our phones, our cars, our TVs, and everything else. On top of that, heavy platform standardization has opened up the software market in a massive way compared to the pre-x86 era. Let's not even mention the existence and evolution of the internet. That doesn't mean that the demand will continue to increase forever, though - we've already shoved computers into pretty much everything we could think of to shove a computer in, whether it's useful or not. Although demand rose fast enough to outpace the losses from automation in the past, there's no guarantee that it will continue - that's up to the specific industry and market conditions.

# ? Jul 7, 2017 21:55

ElCondemn: Aug 7, 2005

ColoradoCleric posted:

As someone in the fast food industry I'll tell you you're right on the part about needing fewer cashiers, however this has instead lead to better paying jobs for the remaining employees as they now have to handle more responsibilities. In our stores we now tend to have about as many hourly managers as we do employees who have to handle everything from meal prep during rushes to handling customer complaints.

Protip: call your employees managers and they'll gladly do lots of extra work for just a few cents more per hour.

# ? Jul 7, 2017 21:59

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Main Paineframe posted:

Sure, but "when will it happen" isn't really a useful question. It will happen, sooner or later. The more difficult - and more important - question is "what will we do when it happens"?

It's no surprise that there's higher demand for programmers today compared to 50 years ago. After all, 50 years ago, a computer was the size of a room. Today, not only do we have personal computers, but we have computers in our phones, our cars, our TVs, and everything else. On top of that, heavy platform standardization has opened up the software market in a massive way compared to the pre-x86 era. Let's not even mention the existence and evolution of the internet. That doesn't mean that the demand will continue to increase forever, though - we've already shoved computers into pretty much everything we could think of to shove a computer in, whether it's useful or not. Although demand rose fast enough to outpace the losses from automation in the past, there's no guarantee that it will continue - that's up to the specific industry and market conditions.

I just had to wait 30 minutes for my TV OS to update tonight. Most TV's have probably had micrcontrollers and small processors for decades but that's not the end of progress - now they have full blown processors and OS's with a sustaining engineering team somewhere continuing to push out updates and there isn't an indication this trend of more computers with more processing in more things is going to end anytime soon.

# ? Jul 8, 2017 04:39

Tei: Feb 19, 2011

Hardware makers are awful.

You don't want people like Sony or lesser companies making anything with a OS in it. You want somebody like Apple or Microsoft or Google, a software company.

Waiting 30 minutes for a TV to update is stupid. Theres no reason to do that, except programmed by people that consider software a unimportant thing and that only hardware is important.

Thats why Apple make phones now. Because you can't expect hardware companies to make a good phone with a OS in it. Thats why Google make phones now.

Is not that hardware companies can't make good software. But they dont think software is central to the experience, so they make some token effort and ship the product. They don't think about things like these 30 minutes, so they produce things that work, but have UI and defects like these old VHS players that had a permanent "12:00" blinking because they would lost the date every time they had not energy.

IBM quickly found a solution to that when they invented the PC, a small battery.

If only the people making VHS machines had access to this incredible technology from the future.

Oh, I forgot to mention that companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google also suck and that software also suck. But suck less.

Tei fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Jul 8, 2017

# ? Jul 8, 2017 06:10

Kekekela: Oct 28, 2004

Tei posted:

Hardware makers are awful.

You don't want people like Sony or lesser companies making anything with a OS in it. You want somebody like Apple or Microsoft or Google, a software company.

Apple's a hardware company. (this actually supports your point if you're familiar with their software)

# ? Jul 8, 2017 12:51

Vesi: Jan 12, 2005; pikachu looking at?

mobby_6kl posted:

But for restaurants, I have no idea how app ordering isn't a bigger thing yet. Having your table reserved and food almost ready as you arrive would be a huge qualitative improvement in experience vs the usual bullshit.

Apple is holding this back at least with their insistence that they get 30% cut on anything bought through app store apps, I had a customer wanting this back in 2011 but when I noted it'd be android only they weren't interested

# ? Jul 8, 2017 14:23

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

asdf32 posted:

I just had to wait 30 minutes for my TV OS to update tonight. Most TV's have probably had micrcontrollers and small processors for decades but that's not the end of progress - now they have full blown processors and OS's with a sustaining engineering team somewhere continuing to push out updates and there isn't an indication this trend of more computers with more processing in more things is going to end anytime soon.

Well, yeah. Most TVs these days are just purpose-built computers with a collection of TV-related "apps", just like how smartphones are tiny computers with a cell radio and a phone app. Hell, even soda dispensers run on Windows these days. The trend of more computers in more things is already slowing down, because somebody's already put computers in just about everything it makes sense to put computers in - as well as a bunch of things it doesn't really make sense to put a computer in. We're in a bit of an IoT bubble, and eventually it will pop and return to sanity. The world isn't ready for app-powered smart nightlights that change color if you have any unread emails, let alone smart toilets that analyze your poop.

# ? Jul 8, 2017 15:31

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Vesi posted:

Apple is holding this back at least with their insistence that they get 30% cut on anything bought through app store apps, I had a customer wanting this back in 2011 but when I noted it'd be android only they weren't interested

Wait really? How does Uber get around that? Or do they just give apple their cut?

Main Paineframe posted:

Well, yeah. Most TVs these days are just purpose-built computers with a collection of TV-related "apps", just like how smartphones are tiny computers with a cell radio and a phone app. Hell, even soda dispensers run on Windows these days. The trend of more computers in more things is already slowing down, because somebody's already put computers in just about everything it makes sense to put computers in - as well as a bunch of things it doesn't really make sense to put a computer in. We're in a bit of an IoT bubble, and eventually it will pop and return to sanity. The world isn't ready for app-powered smart nightlights that change color if you have any unread emails, let alone smart toilets that analyze your poop.

Oh you have no idea dude, we're just getting started with IoT!

# ? Jul 8, 2017 15:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

mobby_6kl posted:

Oh you have no idea dude, we're just getting started with IoT!

Yeah seriously, I acknowledge that it mostly sucks right now, but you're crazy if you think we're going backwards on how many things have computers in them.

# ? Jul 8, 2017 15:55

Call Me Charlie: Dec 3, 2005; by Smythe

We're still at the beginning stages of consumer IoT and the main thing holding it back is cost. Once there isn't such a large premium on things such as smart bulbs, we should see it enter the mainstream.

Alexa and Hue bulbs are one of those things that sounds stupid at first but, once you integrate them into your life, you can't imagine going back. People that adapt that technology will be much more open to other smart devices throughout their house.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 03:38

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Main Paineframe posted:

Well, yeah. Most TVs these days are just purpose-built computers with a collection of TV-related "apps", just like how smartphones are tiny computers with a cell radio and a phone app. Hell, even soda dispensers run on Windows these days. The trend of more computers in more things is already slowing down, because somebody's already put computers in just about everything it makes sense to put computers in - as well as a bunch of things it doesn't really make sense to put a computer in. We're in a bit of an IoT bubble, and eventually it will pop and return to sanity. The world isn't ready for app-powered smart nightlights that change color if you have any unread emails, let alone smart toilets that analyze your poop.

It's not slowing down and you don't know what you're talking about.

I design hardware for specialized industrial equipment and am currently refreshing a 20 year old product design. It always had a processor and FPGA's but, as I pointed out, now those things are growing comparatively more powerful and absorbing functionality that had to be pure hardware in the past (real-time feedback loops). This example isn't some lovely IOT it's something you've never heard of that's buried deep in the economy and it's more software dependent than ever because software is the best way to do more and more things.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 04:57

Tei: Feb 19, 2011

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad

One of the tales in this book is about a automated bard. A automatic artist, everyone hate it when its bad, but it gets progressive better, on the point it become better than humans, everyone hate it. And love it, and hate it.

Is a interesting take. What if machines become better artist than any human?

# ? Jul 9, 2017 10:27

Owlofcreamcheese: May 22, 2005; Can't post for 9 years!; Buglord

Main Paineframe posted:

as well as a bunch of things it doesn't really make sense to put a computer in. We're in a bit of an IoT bubble, and eventually it will pop and return to sanity. The world isn't ready for app-powered smart nightlights that change color if you have any unread emails, let alone smart toilets that analyze your poop.

The idea that we are at the end of the age of putting computers in things and pretty soon it will 'return to sanity" is hilarious. There isn't going to be an electrical device that exists that won't have computer chips in.

We are going to get to a point where devices stop having on/off switches because it costs more to build a hole in device casing and set up a bunch of reinforced spring buttons than it does to include a low power 65 cent wifi chip and run an app on a phone to turn it on and off.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 16:59

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Call Me Charlie posted:

Alexa and Hue bulbs are one of those things that sounds stupid at first but, once you integrate them into your life, you can't imagine going back. People that adapt that technology will be much more open to other smart devices throughout their house.

I'm very excited for all of the lights in my house to flash purple and green at 4am because of an unintended side effect of some future political grandstanding between Israel and Iran.

# ? Jul 9, 2017 17:18

Rastor: Jun 2, 2001

Putting processors in things is only increasing and increasing and soon there will be 802.11ah wireless and it will get really crazy

# ? Jul 9, 2017 18:27

Owlofcreamcheese: May 22, 2005; Can't post for 9 years!; Buglord

Guavanaut posted:

I'm very excited for all of the lights in my house to flash purple and green at 4am because of an unintended side effect of some future political grandstanding between Israel and Iran.

I don't use light bulbs because I control my candles, not some man that owns a dam 200 miles away! That drat dam guy could turn them off lightbulbs whenever he wanted!

# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:23

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Fortunately it's pretty easy to spin an induction motor at the right speed regardless of what state malware programs are doing.

# ? Jul 10, 2017 02:18

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# ? May 8, 2024 04:37

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Guavanaut posted:

Fortunately it's pretty easy to spin an induction motor at the right speed regardless of what state malware programs are doing.

Gas centerfuges...

# ? Jul 10, 2017 05:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Automation Thread: Imagine johnny 5 squashing your job, forever

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