Robot Revolution 2: Human interaction may become a luxury

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inexpensive meal: Jan 29, 2012; _{toot toot}

BrandorKP posted:

There is a problem with automation that gets overlooked.

Automation can make eventually make professional knowledge scarce.

This isn't something that happens immediately. Initially you get a glut of people who are no longer needed because their jobs have been replaced. All these people retire, find something else to do, end up jobless, etc. But people stop going in to the field, because there are fewer jobs. The people who were in the field who didn't lose their jobs get promoted, eventually retiring. New people (most but not all the jobs disappear) start in an environment where the automation already exists. They don't understand the processes behind the automation, mostly because they don't have to.

But then there are problems when companies try to do new things. Things the automation wasn't initially designed to do. And the base of professionals who understood the basic process is mostly gone. So you get old retired guys consulting and younger people they train to do this.

But that whole process takes like two full generations of employees, think 4-5 decades.

Would this happen before an eventual transition into a cusp of self replicating code/AI/machines/whatever? Certainly there would still be incentive, be it social, economic, or otherwise to iterate and improve upon the basic processes before something of the sort proved viable. Even granted such a situation, would the professional knowledge archived be so arcane that persons able to improve upon the automation would be scarce enough to be an issue?

khwarezm posted:

Lotus-eater future seems like a pretty meaningless existence to me honestly.

Such is life, no?

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:07

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# ? May 8, 2024 05:25

egg tats: Apr 3, 2010

BrandorKP posted:

There is a problem with automation that gets overlooked.

Automation can make eventually make professional knowledge scarce.

This isn't something that happens immediately. Initially you get a glut of people who are no longer needed because their jobs have been replaced. All these people retire, find something else to do, end up jobless, etc. But people stop going in to the field, because there are fewer jobs. The people who were in the field who didn't lose their jobs get promoted, eventually retiring. New people (most but not all the jobs disappear) start in an environment where the automation already exists. They don't understand the processes behind the automation, mostly because they don't have to.

But then there are problems when companies try to do new things. Things the automation wasn't initially designed to do. And the base of professionals who understood the basic process is mostly gone. So you get old retired guys consulting and younger people they train to do this.

But that whole process takes like two full generations of employees, think 4-5 decades.

The way to avoid that would likely be near full communism. Make society work in such a way that you don't need to work 40 hours a week or die, and then the automated jobs become art forms. 95% of all carrots might be provided by a robot, but 5% would be luxury artisan carrots hand farmed just like they used to be. That's where the innovation can come in.

Also I would like a golden unicorn pony, while we're discussing things that can't happen.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:07

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

ReV VAdAUL posted:

You might want to look into the paradox of thrift; unless you do something that directly benefits the elite AND they're going to need just as many people doing that job as now you could still lose your job to the effects of automation.

e meant to start this with: If that's the case - I think I'm going to be okay to be quite honest.

tbp fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Aug 18, 2014

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:09

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

BrandorKP posted:

There is a problem with automation that gets overlooked.

Automation can make eventually make professional knowledge scarce.

This isn't something that happens immediately. Initially you get a glut of people who are no longer needed because their jobs have been replaced. All these people retire, find something else to do, end up jobless, etc. But people stop going in to the field, because there are fewer jobs. The people who were in the field who didn't lose their jobs get promoted, eventually retiring. New people (most but not all the jobs disappear) start in an environment where the automation already exists. They don't understand the processes behind the automation, mostly because they don't have to.

But then there are problems when companies try to do new things. Things the automation wasn't initially designed to do. And the base of professionals who understood the basic process is mostly gone. So you get old retired guys consulting and younger people they train to do this.

But that whole process takes like two full generations of employees, think 4-5 decades.

That's not really a thing. There is a lot of management involved in tailoring a complex system to do a particular task. Plus ongoing oversight, maintence, upgrade. There are already processes that have been highly automated for decades and while the number of people who understand the process might go down, it won't go away.

Life isn't like a movie where we're going to find ourselves dependent on machines set up by the ancients. That's not how systems work in real life.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:43

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

inexpensive meal posted:

Would this happen before an eventual transition into a cusp of self replicating code/AI/machines/whatever? Certainly there would still be incentive, be it social, economic, or otherwise to iterate and improve upon the basic processes before something of the sort proved viable. Even granted such a situation, would the professional knowledge archived be so arcane that persons able to improve upon the automation would be scarce enough to be an issue?

I'm not hypothesizing. A concrete example: vessel stowage and segregation of hazardous materials on vessels is pretty automated. There are a bunch of programs (often customized to each vessel) to plan out the stow for a vessel. What ends up happening is people blindly trust the program without understanding it's basic assumptions. It goes in two different directions. One is that the program is over conservative and spits out a lot of false positive. Say it flags all low flash point (<23C) class 3s near reefer containers for the requirement to "separate from sources of ignition". Well many of those are actually OK and don't need to be re-stowed, because the reefer motor is only on one end of the container and that end might be far enough away. Maybe the program ignores limited quantities. But the program creates a huge list of false positives that can hide real errors that might need to be fixed. In the other direction some of the programs are too liberal, they might not have been written to check against the rules of the vessels document of compliance for hazardous materials, and unless one is doing the whole thing manually you might never know there was a problem.

What sometimes ends up happening is that a professional consultant is hired to check the hole thing by hand to issue a certificate that it was done right. It's not that the automation can't be improved, it's that the consultant is also physically present. The companies employees don't know how to do that anymore (because they depend on the automation) and the centralized planners are the ones who made the error in the first place. So people who predate the automated programs or people trained by them end up getting called in.

Another example. The calculations for determining if a particular piece of cargo is secured properly can very easily be automated. I've seen people use engineering software to produce a ten page report describing the securing plan of a heavy and dangerous piece of cargo on a flat rack. They put in the cargo particulars and the securing materials it spits out how much they need and the details. They did all this missing a very basic level piece of professional knowledge that is just assumed to be present by the program: Friction loops (over the top lashing) are not permitted for ocean transport. That one caused an incident that shut down a container terminal (I will not and cannot be specific, but it made the news). gently caress a PE even signed off on that one.

So I'm not even talking arcane knowledge here. These types of knowledge are something an illiterate longshoreman might even know!

But in some cases this type of lost industrial knowledge gets scarce to the point of where maybe a couple hundred (hell maybe even less than a hundred) people might consult about a particular thing in the whole US.

Nintendo Kid posted:

And that was preceded by there needing to be fewer people to run the transport modes that were boosted, in ways like a diesel engine needing much less crew than a coal locomotive, by first steam and then oil ships requiring less workers than sail (and oil/diesel ships even less than steam),

Steam ship engines require far less work than diesel vessel engines. Diesels have way more mechanical repairs / preventative maintenance. That particular change is driven by fuel fuel costs. A steam vessel is always losing the enthalpy of condensation of water out the condenser. Steam plants are fundamentally not as efficient as a diesel plant with a waste heat boiler or a co-generation gas turbine plant (gas turbine where the exhaust runs a boiler).

asdf32 posted:

That's not really a thing.

Yes, it's really a thing. And it pays well. Edit: You just don't work in a industry where automation started eliminating jobs well over a century ago.

asdf32 posted:

Life isn't like a movie where we're going to find ourselves dependent on machines set up by the ancients. That's not how systems work in real life.

It definitely happens. It even happens to things like: the US nuclear arsenal. What ends up being necessary is to establish schools to train people in the old stuff.

Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Aug 18, 2014

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:50

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

I understand that in like the utility and banking industries there are a shortage of people who understand the decades old cobalt code that's running. But it's not as bad as your making it out to be. There are people actively working on that stuff on a continuous basis. Maybe not a lot, but some.

No complex system can function with zero oversight, nothing is that reliable.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 16:57

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

asdf32 posted:

No complex system can function with zero oversight, nothing is that reliable.

Absolutely. But you get a dramatic reduction in the number of people who can do the oversight over time.

What happens is that you have good oversight for a while a few decades, where the people who came up in the system before the automation are watching things and going hey "that's some bullshit there" don't do that. But they eventually retire.

I'm not even talking about code. I'm taking about physical heavy industrial and logistics systems over a longer period of time. Think when COBOL turns 100 the people maintaining and updating will be drat scarce. It's more of a issue in physical systems, we keep physical systems around longer (often until they cease to function).

# ? Aug 18, 2014 17:10

inexpensive meal: Jan 29, 2012; _{toot toot}

Thanks for expanding, it seems more salient to me as a complication now.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 17:31

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

BrandorKP posted:

Absolutely. But you get a dramatic reduction in the number of people who can do the oversight over time.

What happens is that you have good oversight for a while a few decades, where the people who came up in the system before the automation are watching things and going hey "that's some bullshit there" don't do that. But they eventually retire.

I'm not even talking about code. I'm taking about physical heavy industrial and logistics systems over a longer period of time. Think when COBOL turns 100 the people maintaining and updating will be drat scarce. It's more of a issue in physical systems, we keep physical systems around longer (often until they cease to function).

No they won't be that scarce because those systems will require constant on-going maintence/modification/upgrades. There isn't a bright dividing line between development and maintence. The skills for both heavily overlap because maintence often requires destroying and rebuilding components.

I also think you're confusing the problems of complexity with the problems of automation. As technological complexity increases across the economy there are necessarily less people skilled at any particular task. This creates some of te problems you're talking about, but isn't the same thing.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 17:32

Sephiroth_IRA: Mar 31, 2010

Sometimes I think that they'll just create bullshit jobs to keep enough people employed to maintain the status quo. Robots don't feel fear or shame and being wealthy isn't as enjoyable when you can't use it to inspire terror in your fellow man.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 17:53

ReV VAdAUL: Oct 3, 2004; I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

tbp posted:

e meant to start this with: If that's the case - I think I'm going to be okay to be quite honest.

Congratulations I guess, is there any chance you feel any compassion for the vast majority of humanity who won't be so lucky?

# ? Aug 18, 2014 17:55

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

asdf32 posted:

No they won't be that scarce because those systems will require constant on-going maintence/modification/upgrades.

You're assuming things, that you shouldn't assume. I've boarded vessels using sliding hatch covers open with opened with steel cables operated by on deck reciprocating steam powered winches. We don't constantly modify and upgrade physical systems. And maintenance is not identical / equivalent with design. One can definitely do one without the other and being qualified to do one does not necessarily qualify one to do the other.

asdf32 posted:

I also think you're confusing the problems of complexity with the problems of automation.

To create complex systems or to increase the complexity of complex systems is to automate. If a hand operated valve is replaced with a pneumatically operated valve that's not just an increase in the complexity of the system, it is automation. To bureaucratize is to automate. They are definitely the same problem. The problem of the automation of systems, that is to say controls and control theory, is very much the problem of complexity.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:10

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

Sephiroth_IRA posted:

Sometimes I think that they'll just create bullshit jobs to keep enough people employed to maintain the status quo. Robots don't feel fear or shame and being wealthy isn't as enjoyable when you can't use it to inspire terror in your fellow man.

I don't think people want to be wealthy to "inspire terror", that sounds insane.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:21

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

tbp posted:

I don't think people want to be wealthy to "inspire terror", that sounds insane.

I realize you may be on your ignore quest but I'll bite a little: Part of the issue, I think, is that people are looking at what would be a sensible profit-maximization strategy - get your slice of the pie, which is huge, and share the rest out so that the system you're feeding from keeps growing ever bigger, and you get a bigger slice of the next pie - and see also that, evidently, the megarich are not doing that any more.

So the question becomes 'why?' And given their vastly disproportionate economic and political impact, they are pretty scared of the mega-rich. And you also get these weird-rear end moments, not even just like "freaky parties" but like the wall street guys complaining that people were daring to criticize them, the perpetual low-grade throb of muttering over going Galt and trying to propose areas with the innovative and shocking new plan of "I do whatever I want in here, and I don't pay taxes."

And it's like, what's the goal here, guys? What's the game plan? Personally I think it's unlikely there would be mass extermination. I could see there being massive die off that could have been prevented because rich guys flog the example of that guy in Atlas Shrugged who sank the foreign aid ships and so on and so forth and that's why we have to let the free market decide who escapes from this disaster.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:48

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

I think all too often these goofball hypotheticals get into the realm of absurd fantasy though due to some incredible wariness (and other emotions, tbh) about the "rich".

# ? Aug 18, 2014 18:57

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Rich people often (but not always) like to advance ideologies that link being rich with being virtuous.

That doesn't, but should, inspire terror and definitely is not fantasy. But it is absurd.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:02

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

BrandorKP posted:

Rich people often (but not always) like to advance ideologies that link being rich with being virtuous.

That doesn't, but should, inspire terror and definitely is not fantasy.

Well it's certainly not virtuous to advocate killing them and that's espoused a lot (or rather,was, not sure about recently) around these parts so I don't think playing a moral high ground game is particularly helpful.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:05

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Nessus posted:

I realize you may be on your ignore quest but I'll bite a little: Part of the issue, I think, is that people are looking at what would be a sensible profit-maximization strategy - get your slice of the pie, which is huge, and share the rest out so that the system you're feeding from keeps growing ever bigger, and you get a bigger slice of the next pie - and see also that, evidently, the megarich are not doing that any more.

So the question becomes 'why?' And given their vastly disproportionate economic and political impact, they are pretty scared of the mega-rich. And you also get these weird-rear end moments, not even just like "freaky parties" but like the wall street guys complaining that people were daring to criticize them, the perpetual low-grade throb of muttering over going Galt and trying to propose areas with the innovative and shocking new plan of "I do whatever I want in here, and I don't pay taxes."

And it's like, what's the goal here, guys? What's the game plan? Personally I think it's unlikely there would be mass extermination. I could see there being massive die off that could have been prevented because rich guys flog the example of that guy in Atlas Shrugged who sank the foreign aid ships and so on and so forth and that's why we have to let the free market decide who escapes from this disaster.

It sounds like (some) rich people are just stupid and that their resources just allow their stupidity to be propagated.

This isn't a #NotAll[x] defense, just that being rich doesn't prevent you from being ignorant about large parts of the world, just as any other characteristic doesn't.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:08

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tbp posted:

I think all too often these goofball hypotheticals get into the realm of absurd fantasy though due to some incredible wariness (and other emotions, tbh) about the "rich".

They are incredibly powerful and their interests are in many cases mutually exclusive with our own. I don't think negative emotions are wrong.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:13

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

tbp posted:

Well it's certainly not virtuous to advocate killing them and that's espoused a lot (or rather,was, not sure about recently) around these parts so I don't think playing a moral high ground game is particularly helpful.

Not by me. But the othering of the poor as non-virtuous combined with judging them by that they have the social indicators of poverty leads to: the oppression of or in some cases the killing of the poor. I have no issue calling that what it is immoral.

It's also poor solution to another controls/automation problem.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:18

Entropia: Nov 18, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Uh, not to sound overly conservative, but I don't think 'the rich' would actually want to slaughter all poors and eat their babies. Robot workforce or not, I don't think the social issues that arise from advanced automation in the prosperous west (as opposed to the third of the world without electricity) can be summed up on the vein of Alex Jones.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:19

sit on my Facebook: Jun 20, 2007; ASS GAS OR GRASS
No One Rides for FREE
In the Trumplord Holy Land

Mass murder may be a little hysterical but I'm not sure how one could give even a cursory glance at Western history and not come away knowing that the powerful always have and always will go to extreme, oppressive and violent lengths to hold on to their power.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:22

tbp: Mar 1, 2008; DU WIRST NIEMALS ALLEINE MARSCHIEREN

It's a bit lovely if you get automated out of the workforce, that would suck.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:30

Entropia: Nov 18, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

stinkles1112 posted:

Mass murder may be a little hysterical but I'm not sure how one could give even a cursory glance at Western history and not come away knowing that the powerful always have and always will go to extreme, oppressive and violent lengths to hold on to their power.

Yeah, and how has that worked so far? I just don't think the rise of a totalitarian regime capable of oppressing us to a degree where popular opinion ceases to be a meaningful factor in the trajectory of our societies, is a very reasonable prospect. It's just no longer feasible, not in an age of information and the decentralization of power.

There will no doubt be social problems that follow the rise of automation, but saying that the inevitable result of that is 'kill all poors' is blatantly ridiculous. Nobody capable of reaching the commanding heights of politics in the West could be stupid enough to even try it.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:32

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Entropia posted:

Uh, not to sound overly conservative, but I don't think 'the rich' would actually want to slaughter all poors and eat their babies.

No, but they would fund ideologies in the support of systems that lead to the shooting unarmed individuals which then justify the action with: look stole some cigarillos and smoked some pot (indicators of urban poverty).

I don't think they want to "want to slaughter all poors and eat their babies". I think they want the world to be a better place and even in some cases for us to have the ability to have what they have. But they've picked a poor solution to another controls/automation problem. Removing the damping terms of a system, makes you end up with a underdamped system which is usually not good.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:32

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Entropia posted:

Uh, not to sound overly conservative, but I don't think 'the rich' would actually want to slaughter all poors and eat their babies. Robot workforce or not, I don't think the social issues that arise from advanced automation in the prosperous west (as opposed to the third of the world without electricity) can be summed up on the vein of Alex Jones.

When they say "kill off most/all of the poor" I presume it would be more by making their existence extremely marginal for a lengthy period of time, which given the number of poors would probably lead to significant population reductions. I imagine this would take place over generations, of course. I also imagine the whole Alex Jones depopulation anxiety poo poo has its roots (if not its uh, fancy growths) in the perception that the well-being of Joe Citizen is an increasingly irrelevant factor to the leadership of America. This has not yet gone on enough to be accepted as a given fact of nature.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:34

Sephiroth_IRA: Mar 31, 2010

I'm fairly sure that at least one person out there in a position of power has treated someone beneath them unfairly and took some joy in it. When people fear being fired (even temporarily losing healthcare can be detrimental) they'll take a certain amount of abuse.

# ? Aug 18, 2014 19:46

RaySmuckles: Oct 14, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Nessus posted:

And it's like, what's the goal here, guys? What's the game plan? Personally I think it's unlikely there would be mass extermination. I could see there being massive die off that could have been prevented because rich guys flog the example of that guy in Atlas Shrugged who sank the foreign aid ships and so on and so forth and that's why we have to let the free market decide who escapes from this disaster.

I'm with you. That's something I've been thinking about a lot in the past couple years. What is the goal of defunding social programs and encouraging a philosophy that discourages helping the poor? Like, what is the point?

A mass die off doesn't have to be from the barrels of their roboguns. It would be easier, more efficient, and now more justifiable to simply starve out the majority of the population. "If they worked harder and weren't takers they could feed themselves!"

Keep in mind we live in a world where its only slightly not ok to shout "Let him die!" from completely treatable disease at a major, televised political event. This is the dangerous mentality. "And what if, Mr. Bush IV, that family can't find work and can't afford nutrient paste?"

"Personal responsibility! That is what freedom is about!"
"Let them die!"

RaySmuckles fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Aug 19, 2014

# ? Aug 18, 2014 23:57

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

BrandorKP posted:

You're assuming things, that you shouldn't assume. I've boarded vessels using sliding hatch covers open with opened with steel cables operated by on deck reciprocating steam powered winches. We don't constantly modify and upgrade physical systems. And maintenance is not identical / equivalent with design. One can definitely do one without the other and being qualified to do one does not necessarily qualify one to do the other.

This example isn't good though for all the reasons I've outlined. Ships don't last long and if they do it's because they're getting constant maintenance and refits requiring dry-docking and extensive welding/engineering skills - skills which overlap almost entirely with the skills needed to build a ship initially. Ships are pretty custom and it's understood that they have special things like custom engineered winches.

quote:

To create complex systems or to increase the complexity of complex systems is to automate. If a hand operated valve is replaced with a pneumatically operated valve that's not just an increase in the complexity of the system, it is automation. To bureaucratize is to automate. They are definitely the same problem. The problem of the automation of systems, that is to say controls and control theory, is very much the problem of complexity.

General technological complexity has been happening for centuries though. The topic at had is specifically the impact of automation and it's effect on employment in the first world. This is totally distinct. First, automation is primarily going to hit low skill jobs (the ones that are left) which doesn't do a lot to damage institutional knowledge. Second, globally, complex knowledge is actually being replicated and probably increasing as huge developing economies like China, Inda and Brazil take up advanced infrastructure and development projects that replicate knowlege that previously existed in a smaller handfull of countries.

To actually lose knowledge you'd need some very reliable systems combined with stagnation where no repair or on-going building is happening. There is no reason to attach this to the potential increase in automation.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 00:14

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asdf32 posted:

This example isn't good though for all the reasons I've outlined. Ships don't last long and if they do it's because they're getting constant maintenance and refits requiring dry-docking and extensive welding/engineering skills - skills which overlap almost entirely with the skills needed to build a ship initially. Ships are pretty custom and it's understood that they have special things like custom engineered winches.

General technological complexity has been happening for centuries though. The topic at had is specifically the impact of automation and it's effect on employment in the first world. This is totally distinct. First, automation is primarily going to hit low skill jobs (the ones that are left) which doesn't do a lot to damage institutional knowledge. Second, globally, complex knowledge is actually being replicated and probably increasing as huge developing economies like China, Inda and Brazil take up advanced infrastructure and development projects that replicate knowlege that previously existed in a smaller handfull of countries.

To actually lose knowledge you'd need some very reliable systems combined with stagnation where no repair or on-going building is happening. There is no reason to attach this to the potential increase in automation.

You seem to be appealing pretty hard to theoretical knowledge to contradict practical experience with things like COBOL systems and the like.

How come?

# ? Aug 19, 2014 00:30

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

Nessus posted:

You seem to be appealing pretty hard to theoretical knowledge to contradict practical experience with things like COBOL systems and the like.

How come?

So which point is wrong exactly?

What first hand knowledge? - I brought up COBOL and have also been on a ship.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Aug 19, 2014

# ? Aug 19, 2014 01:16

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Nessus posted:

You seem to be appealing pretty hard to theoretical knowledge to contradict practical experience with things like COBOL systems and the like.

How come?

There's actually plenty of people who understand COBOL, it's language with ongoing usage. The systems that have problems with it are systems that were simply badly/poorly programmed and documented to begin with - and they'd be problems if they were in C or Java or BASIC or anything else given their importance and poor programming.

There's not much a language can do to handle Bob Programmer writing it in a lovely way 50 years ago and not documenting why he did it.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 01:39

Fansy: Feb 26, 2013; I GAVE LOWTAX COOKIE MONEY TO CHANGE YOUR STUPID AVATAR GO FUCK YOURSELF DUDE; Grimey Drawer

This just seems like an elaborate luddite fallacy.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 02:19

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Fansy posted:

This just seems like an elaborate luddite fallacy.

Well the thing is, it's not really a fallacy in this sense. To quote from that same article:

quote:

Ronnie Bray writes:

The 'Luddite Fallacy' referred to here fallaciously misdirects the reader's attention away from the major objection and opposition raised by Luddites to the introduction of machines in textile and related industries. All available Luddite literature, usually in the form of popular songs, protest songs, and broadsheets, shows that unemployment, poverty, and starvation were their major concerns. Thus, it is wrong to label them as anti-technology because they were anti-starvation. The difference is not wasted on those that have endured starvation. It is right to say that for the most part they saw power looms, cropping frames, and mechanical knitting frames, as the direct cause of unemployment, which condition led to cessation of income, which led directly to starvation in short time. It cannot be doubted that had mechanisation either maintained or increased the level of employment in the affected industries, that there would have been no uprising on account of mechanisation.

Perhaps in a hundred years this would lead to a wonderful post-scarcity economy with plenty for all, but that is not much comfort to individual humans who are living now. This does not mean that automation should be banned or stopped or anything, necessarily, but if you plan to starve people, don't complain when they object to the policy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are stupid.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 03:41

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

Fansy posted:

This just seems like an elaborate luddite fallacy.

Yes. It's actually really important for people to remember that this literally is the luddite position. It's been wrong for centuries. Technology, automation and the systematic elimination of old jobs are responsible for everything we take for granted today. Eliminating old jobs has been the primary driver of economic growth and contrary to the "job creation" narrative, job destruction has been far more important.

So given the history, the idea that job destruction is suddenly a problem is a risky one. But the fact is that demand and supply are never necessarily attached. Personally, I tentatively believe that such is the case in the labor market in the first world today, and that this fact explains increasing unemployment, slower growth, increasing inequality and lower workforce participation in many developed economies in the world today.

That said, it's really really hard to predict the outcome of this. Will it correct itself? Perhaps when outsourcing slows as wages rise in places like China. Or will new jobs be created in areas we haven't anticipated yet (the recent historical trend). If there is decline will it be fast or slow. The bottom line is that there is very little certainty here.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 04:25

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

asdf32 posted:

This example isn't good though for all the reasons I've outlined. Ships don't last long and if they do it's because they're getting constant maintenance and refits requiring dry-docking and extensive welding/engineering skills - skills which overlap almost entirely with the skills needed to build a ship initially.

You're just wrong. We can do this two ways. I can explain in detail the difference between shipyard management and naval architecture and exactly where they do and do not overlap with having an unlimited horsepower engineers license. Do you really want me to do that?

And ships vary in lifespan dramatically. Ships on the great lakes some of those make it 100+ years. Oceangoing depends on builder, steel quality, shipyard schedule, cargo carried, etc. I've seen everything from less than a decade to 50+ years.

asdf32 posted:

General technological complexity has been happening for centuries though. The topic at had is specifically the impact of automation and it's effect on employment in the first world. This is totally distinct. First, automation is primarily going to hit low skill jobs (the ones that are left) which doesn't do a lot to damage institutional knowledge. Second, globally, complex knowledge is actually being replicated and probably increasing as huge developing economies like China, Inda and Brazil take up advanced infrastructure and development projects that replicate knowlege that previously existed in a smaller handfull of countries.

Yes this has been happening for centuries and I'm describing not a hypothetical "this may happen situation", but a "this has happened many times" when we innovate and automate and eliminate jobs, we often lose the skills and knowledge of the workers we make obsolete. Sometimes it's a big loving deal sometimes it's not. It's not a big deal that there are only a handful of people left who can find weak spots in a locomotive boiler by sound with a ball peen hammer. It's a big loving deal when someone their skills always laterally transfer and misses basic assumptions about cargo securing and the poison inhalation hazards get dropped.

And when industries start new in developing country they very often do not have this type of institutional knowledge, they have to pay the very consultants I'm talking about. Hell even if you move plants within a first world country, you can lose the institutional knowledge of employees and gently caress yourself hard (see Boeing in SC). In developing countries they often just "gently caress it" and accept the cost and loss of life

asdf32 posted:

To actually lose knowledge you'd need some very reliable systems combined with stagnation where no repair or on-going building is happening. There is no reason to attach this to the potential increase in automation.

It happens all the time. Some time it matters and sometimes it doesn't. When it does matter one gets paid a shitload to be the specialist. I often bill more per hour than lawyers do.

And I'm not a luddite. It's just dumb to sell the advance of automation and progress as always good. To paraphrase something JFK said, If we can innovate and remove need for jobs then we can innovate new jobs to put those we put out of work back to work. Right now our system loves one of those things (innovation that elminates jobs), and says "don't need to loving do it" to the other.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 17:21

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

I'd rather spread work out across more people and reduce the workweek before inventing a host of bullshit makework jobs.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 18:32

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

I'd be cool with that too. I'm ok with anything other than people who lost their jobs end up broke poor and desperate.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 18:40

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

BrandorKP posted:

I'd be cool with that too. I'm ok with anything other than people who lost their jobs end up broke poor and desperate.

Absolutely. If I'm forced to choose between "bullshit jobs" or "more impoverished people", I'll hold my nose and choose the bullshit jobs.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 18:45

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# ? May 8, 2024 05:25

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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I'd rather spread work out across more people and reduce the workweek before inventing a host of bullshit makework jobs.

Large swaths of America feel that working - like, in the sense of "working at a business" not in the sense of "some occupying and attention-keeping activity" - has inherent moral virtue, I think. This is rarely stated outright but I'm sure if we had more of this work-spreading poo poo we'd see lots of complaining about how Kids These Days, etc. (to be fair, we always will, but that would be the reaction of the olds)

# ? Aug 19, 2014 21:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Robot Revolution 2: Human interaction may become a luxury

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