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

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

What's really going on is all the top talent in small niche fields is being horded by a handful of companies. There's a strong demand and high wages for certain kinds of work like machine learning specialists, and companies like google will hire these people and make them sign a no-compete just to deny them to a competitor.

edit: the wages for general sysadmin and gruntwork sort of stuff is perposely being driven down though

# ¿ Dec 8, 2016 16:04

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 11:26

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

I develop machine learning tools professionally. Something thats starting to get some traction is 'meta learning' that is, using machine learning to develop new machine learning models. It's starting to get some industry use, especially in data mining.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10462-013-9406-y

So the research into how to automate the process of automating things and then automatically implementing them is well underway.

What can possibly go wrong?

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 08:04

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Freakazoid_ posted:

Health care in general is safe for now as they consist of a lot of human interaction and activities that aren't rote.

Pharmacists are technically the exception, but have fairly strong unions, which is why they haven't been replaced already. I cannot accurately guess how long the pharmacy unions will hold out, but I can tell you that a few robot pharmacists have been around for a few years and have proven to be less error prone than humans.

They also don't steal drugs and make casual HIPAA violations a lot less. I worked at a place that had an automatic presciption system where the pharmacists only role seemed to be taking the output bottle out of the system and handing it to the customer.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 03:40

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

throw to first drat IT posted:

I assume that nobody produces vending machines that are easy to crowbar open. They aren't really meant to be moved so having all vulnerable parts safeguarded by good inch of steel probably is safe enough. Or maybe the guy is an idiot and his machines are made of tin, who knows.

What I find more probably scenario is that someone will walk in and take a giant poo poo right at the doorway. And at that point, the business will die until the owner checks his cameras and sees the turd and drives there to clean it.

A dedicated rear end in a top hat can easily keep the place effectively shut down every night.

Or someone could run in with a spray can and paint all the machines black. Nobody can see items, nobody will buy anything.

Most likely, is the place will become a hangout for "those people", and well to do Australians will simply avoid the place.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 22:04

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

I've run into a lot of people lately that are of the opinion that it's actually immoral to work for companies leading automation, or to 'automate' work in anyway and a lot of these people are very "left leaning". I tried explaining how insane that view is, if we knew we could build a machine that could replace coal miners, which would be safer and put less hardship on someone, it would be immoral to send someone to work in the mines and possibly die for no reason other than we have this archaic idea that humans must suffer in the form of having a job to deserve to live, even if theres no real gains to be had from that suffering.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 05:35

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Ok then, let's make men the homemakers this round. We'll fire you the instant you get married, or as soon as you hit the age where it seems like you might want to. And we'll make sure to pay you less, because you should really have a woman at home taking care of expenses, so this is probably just pocket money for you right sweetie?

Sounds good to me, how do I find a woman okay with this arrangement?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 15:27

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Mozi posted:

Hard to tell if that comment is you getting the point or being incredibly obtuse.

In any case, the ideal seems to be that a family can be fully supported by one working parent, regardless of the genders involved. Having both parents participate in the labor force is fine if that is what they want to do but seems to me to just have been a temporary mask over the lack of rise in wages over the past few decades.

Well, I wouldn't settle down with someone who doesnt bring in any income unless I was fairly wealthy and was very secure in that wealth. I imagine most women look at it the same way. I don't see single income families occurring again unless purchasing power goes way up.

Sorry if that was sexist Mr Brontosaurus.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 15:48

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

No, they will not. People already can't afford to buy housing. We're already in that scenario. Developers are selling what they can to foreign investors and letting the rest of the housing stock rot.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why large scale landlords don't drop the price. Even if you were losing money, it seems like it would be a better investment to let people live in your houses on the cheap to mitigate some of the loss and keep the value of the neighborhood up.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 16:57

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

I say that we go full speed ahead on automation, setup a communistic society, but to be treated as a citizen and get rights to food and shelter you have to expose yourself to at least 8 hours of electric shocks a day.

That way we can have our automation, increase safety and productivity, and fulfill that cross-platform unshakable belief that others must suffer to deserve to live.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 17:41

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Guavanaut posted:

Going on from this, how is automation affecting the counter-economy?

We've heard a lot about 'dark web markets' and such over the past couple years, and there's a stereotype that the underground markets are early adopters of tech in the attempt to get an edge, but do they really have the level of infrastructure to implement employment replacing automation without it becoming visible to the state?

We've also heard a lot about how technology will eliminate black markets by closing the supply chain to the individual, with 3D printing replacing gun running and microfluidics labs replacing clandestine chemistry, but those usually turn out to be duds or moral panics.

"Legitimate" corporations will do a cost-benefit analysis of doing business illegally, if the expected gains from entering the black market are greater than the losses caused by government penalties (the current US administration is working hard to get rid of these), then they'll just ignore the law.

See: South America.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2017 19:00

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

I think he's right in a way. We could have tons of okay paying jobs, jobs for everyone with 'New Deal' mega projects. Maybe we can get low-skill people planting trees, demolishing old abandoned infrastructure, materials cleanup, etc.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2017 03:39

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

Assuming we do nothing and the rich succeed in driving all the poors to starvation or living off government crumbs or whatever. What's the endgame for them? Will there eventually be one pinnacle owner of all capital or will they write something like the Book of Gold, and become nobles that live in a isolated socialist society? Of course its the second, but how rich will you have to be to be one of the 'chosen ones'?

# ¿ Apr 13, 2017 05:03

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

As a professional defender against the bad computer touchers, malware affecting IoT isnt a big deal to the consumer. Its a problem in hospitals, transport, the military, and other groups that have lots of mission critical equipment made by small time vendors.

What are big deals to the average person is obsolescence and privacy.

Obsolescence: Increasing complexity where the added complexity's debt outweighs its benefit is a bad idea. Who cares if my fridge can text me the exact temperature its running at? However depending on the manufacturer that component running into a software problem means my fridge is trashed. Also, companies (including big ones like Google) have been known to intentionally brick all their IoT devices through updates if they no longer want to support them.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/googles-nest-closing-smart-home-company-revolv-bricking-devices-2016-4?op=1

Privacy: Varies country to country, China being the worst offender, but I'd rather not have every conversation I have monitored by the manufacturer and sold to whoever wants to purchase it. If I make a joke about buying cigarettes I don't want my health insurance to go up or have my Good Citizen � score go down because I expressed wrong think too close to the microphone. http://www.computerworld.com/articl...-americans.html

# ¿ Jul 19, 2017 04:36

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 11:26

Blockade: Oct 22, 2008

There will still be jobs in the future, I haven't seen anyone automate being a blood boy yet.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 03:23

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