[Politics] Bigger economic problems incoming

[Swansman]

I hate to break it to but it is true. To give a few examples, up to the early 80s many businesses employed typing pools. As PCs become common so this technology to auto produce letters using sophisicated mail merges and action triggers ( like someone has gone into an unauthorised overdraft ). You'll be lucky to find a single typist in most organisations nowadays. Restaurant and bar chains now have automatic ordering systems to restock based on sales so nobody needs to calculate and place orders at the end of the day - this saves on staff heads. Equally in many McDonalds you now order from and pay at a screen - this has allowed McDonalds to cut staff. One branch in Dieppe that I use every time I come back from France used to have at least six staff on - it's now never more than two. Let's take customer service - you know that "Live Chat" option ? Well many are run by AI bots - not humans. This negates the need for so many staff to answer the live chat. Equally live chat means not so many calls need taking and thus a business needs less call agents. Banking - so many of us do our banking online that thousands of branches have closed and thousands of jobs have been lost. Even the branches that have survived have less staff due to self service. IT - self help protals for customers mean less Service Desk staff are required. Self healing networks' while kind of in their infancy, have and will continue to mean less network engineers are required. Car industry - cars on the production line used to be built by humans alone. Now a good percentage of the car is built by computers. And you've guessed it meaning less production line staff.

I could go on but as you see technology has taken jobs. It's created some new ones admittedly but not as many as have been lost. AI will be the next big job killer.

[MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION] - fyi, many planes an actually take off, fly and land themselves without a pilot. For obvious reasons airlines aren't prepared to go down that route and nor are the safety regulators.

Yup. Pilots will probably remain around for a while due to people feeling discomfort about flying if there's no pilot around. Eventually bound to change though - starting with cargo planes being enitrely non-piloted at one point or another, which will in time deliver data proving that they're safer than if you put a human in the cockpit. Which is obviously going to be the case.

Still going to be pilots in ten years though, but trains and cars... different story. Lorry drivers will be pretty much extinct. Self-driving cars doesn't need to be perfect to take over, they only need to be safer than humans - once they are (well, they are already, but once sufficient data shows they are), no union in the world can save those working in the transport sector.

 

[bhafc99]

2031, and Brighton's AI management algorithm announces the signing of new striker Robot Zamora for 178m MetaCoins.

 

[Hugo Rune]

What are the three missing letters in j***s?

esu or erk

 

[schmunk]

become a sovereign being.

WOOP! WOOP! Loon alarm sounded...! *






* / WUM alarm...

 

[Goldstone1976]

This all sounds very worrying. Is there anything we should be doing?

Yes. Have 4 pints for lunch today, and make sure you have a towel with you.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Yes. Have 4 pints for lunch today, and make sure you have a towel with you.

I did that yesterday in Dubrovnik. I can thoroughly recommend it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I hate to break it to but it is true. To give a few examples, up to the early 80s many businesses employed typing pools. As PCs become common so this technology to auto produce letters using sophisicated mail merges and action triggers ( like someone has gone into an unauthorised overdraft ). You'll be lucky to find a single typist in most organisations nowadays. Restaurant and bar chains now have automatic ordering systems to restock based on sales so nobody needs to calculate and place orders at the end of the day - this saves on staff heads. Equally in many McDonalds you now order from and pay at a screen - this has allowed McDonalds to cut staff. One branch in Dieppe that I use every time I come back from France used to have at least six staff on - it's now never more than two. Let's take customer service - you know that "Live Chat" option ? Well many are run by AI bots - not humans. This negates the need for so many staff to answer the live chat. Equally live chat means not so many calls need taking and thus a business needs less call agents. Banking - so many of us do our banking online that thousands of branches have closed and thousands of jobs have been lost. Even the branches that have survived have less staff due to self service. IT - self help protals for customers mean less Service Desk staff are required. Self healing networks' while kind of in their infancy, have and will continue to mean less network engineers are required. Car industry - cars on the production line used to be built by humans alone. Now a good percentage of the car is built by computers. And you've guessed it meaning less production line staff.

I could go on but as you see technology has taken jobs. It's created some new ones admittedly but not as many as have been lost. AI will be the next big job killer.

[MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION] - fyi, many planes an actually take off, fly and land themselves without a pilot. For obvious reasons airlines aren't prepared to go down that route and nor are the safety regulators.

So, how many unemployed are there in this country? We've had AI for a good while and near full employment. Lack of staff is a far bigger problem.

I see the same pattern continuing in the coming years. Yes existing jobs will get eaten up, but by the time my primary school age kids get jobs, the jobs they will actually get don't currently exist now and the ones their kids will get we probably can't even imagine.

What our country will need is a culture of lifelong learning, trade unionism to keep wages propped up and willingness to get into new sectors as the demand arises.

 

[Swansman]

So, how many unemployed are there in this country? We've had AI for a good while and near full employment. Lack of staff is a far bigger problem.

I see the same pattern continuing in the coming years. Yes existing jobs will get eaten up, but by the time my primary school age kids get jobs, the jobs they will actually get don't currently exist now and the ones their kids will get we probably can't even imagine.

What our country will need is a culture of lifelong learning, trade unionism to keep wages propped up and willingness to get into new sectors as the demand arises.

Saying that we've had AI for a good while is like going back to 1995 and saying we've had Internet for a good while.

Ok, you see the same pattern, so then I assume you could tell what those jobs will be? In which areas will humans be cheaper, more efficient and less prone to mistakes than computers and robots that can work for 24/7, have access and capacity to use all the information in the world, and that can learn from their own mistakes?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Saying that we've had AI for a good while is like going back to 1995 and saying we've had Internet for a good while.

Ok, you see the same pattern, so then I assume you could tell what those jobs will be? In which areas will humans be cheaper, more efficient and less prone to mistakes than computers and robots that can work for 24/7, have access and capacity to use all the information in the world, and that can learn from their own mistakes?

No I don't know what they will be.

So in the same way that 30 years ago, web designer, SEO analyst etc etc etc would have been pretty inconceivable to most, the jobs 30 years henceforth I can't imagine either.

It would be surprising to me though if this particular advance in human technology had the opposite effect of all the other advances in the history of human technology and put all the humans out of wotk. But hey ho, I don't have a crystal ball.

 

[Swansman]

No I don't know what they will be.

So in the same way that 30 years ago, web designer, SEO analyst etc etc etc would have been pretty inconceivable to most, the jobs 30 years henceforth I can't imagine either.

It would be surprising to me though if this particular advance in human technology had the opposite effect of all the other advances in the history of human technology and put all the humans out of wotk. But hey ho, I don't have a crystal ball.

This particular advance in human technology is able to replace humans in nearly every thinkable area - there is nothing comparable in history.

But ok, you don't know. So should we perhaps start planning for a historical transition towards most people not actually working, or do we keep going and hope for these unimaginable jobs to pop up out of nowhere?

 

[beorhthelm]

This particular advance in human technology is able to replace humans in nearly every thinkable area - there is nothing comparable in history.

But ok, you don't know. So should we perhaps start planning for a historical transition towards most people not actually working, or do we keep going and hope for these unimaginable jobs to pop up out of nowhere?

you're really over selling this. there is a comparable technology, robotics, which changed alot of production lines. most AI is nothing of the sort, its machine learning with marketing, and is a lot is just an evolution of robotics. the construction video posted earlier for example, no real AI there. in real world, where there aren't perfect ground for machines to work on, difficult conditions, humans will continue to be used. just like we still use humans to build small devices, despite robotics advances. old jobs will give way to new job, old industries to new. people will still be employed.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

This particular advance in human technology is able to replace humans in nearly every thinkable area - there is nothing comparable in history.

But ok, you don't know. So should we perhaps start planning for a historical transition towards most people not actually working, or do we keep going and hope for these unimaginable jobs to pop up out of nowhere?

They have thus far, is the point i'm making

 

[Swansman]

you're really over selling this. there is a comparable technology, robotics, which changed alot of production lines. most AI is nothing of the sort, its machine learning with marketing, and is a lot is just an evolution of robotics. the construction video posted earlier for example, no real AI there. in real world, where there aren't perfect ground for machines to work on, difficult conditions, humans will continue to be used. just like we still use humans to build small devices, despite robotics advances. old jobs will give way to new job, old industries to new. people will still be employed.

There may be difficult conditions where humans can be useful for a long time, I agree with that. Hence why not all human jobs will be replaced soon. Most people however do not work in conditions that are too difficult for machines.

Again: what are these new jobs and new industries where humans will be able to do a better job than computers and robots? It is very common to hear the argument that there will be, because that's how its been in the past, but very few are capable of giving any examples of those millions and millions and millions of new human jobs that computers/robotics can't do.

 

[FatSuperman]

This point on the advancement of AI, machine learning, robotics and automation is a fascinating one. The thing that many of us don't realise is that we are at the starting point of the revolution we will see due to the invention and adoption of digital technology. We are barely at the end of the beginning of this cycle, and there is a huge, huge amount yet to come. The other thing that people ignore, is the law of accelerating returns that this sort of change brings. Progression in technology is not linear, the improvements and advances will continue to fuel themselves. We absolutely will see a seismic shift in the type of work we do, versus what we rely on digital technology for.

Consider alone the cost of computing hardware. Roughly 20 years ago, $1,000 of kit would get you computational power equivalent to an insects brain. Ten years later that same grand would get you a computer that could calculate as fast as a small rodent. Next year, $1,000 will get you the equivalent power of a human brain. But in a little over 20 years from now, that $1,000 will get you power equal to ALL human brains. That growth curve is staggering, and the change it ushers is impossible to predict. But it will be significant.

GPT-3 language models already allow us to write very competent copy

OpenAI's work on creating visuals from text is in a nascent form, but already incredibly impressive. What happens to design jobs in the next ten years? Designing products, logos, all of it. In my industry (fashion), we are looking at how we can fast track our design process so we stop doing sketches and then graphics work, and instead take social feeds into our AI tools and automatically generate inspiration for next season's products. 'Show me 20 v-neck tshirts in the top trending prints'... 'show me 5 more like this one'... 'show me long-sleeve versions'... all of this is possible TODAY.

Don't make the mistake of looking at the past and saying 'it didn't change much'. Go and look at the introduction of electricity and how the application of it in one field accelerated it's use in others. Technology is like that but on steroids, it's uses are much more varied, it's possibilities far greater.

Driving vehicles, piloting planes, those things are absolutely trivial. They might not be politically, socially or commercially sensible right now, but those barriers will always take longer to initial break than anything. Once done though, it'll be like a dam bursting.

 

[beorhthelm]

There may be difficult conditions where humans can be useful for a long time, I agree with that. Hence why not all human jobs will be replaced soon. Most people however do not work in conditions that are too difficult for machines.

Again: what are these new jobs and new industries where humans will be able to do a better job than computers and robots? It is very common to hear the argument that there will be, because that's how its been in the past, but very few are capable of giving any examples of those millions and millions and millions of new human jobs that computers/robotics can't do.

you're rehashing predictions made in the 70's and 80's, robots and computers will take over. yet here we are, more people employed than ever. John works as a barista, while his father worked a punch machine in a factory. his daughter might make some bespoke earthenware or some such trade in the future. employment evolves.

 

[Swansman]

you're rehashing predictions made in the 70's and 80's, robots and computers will take over. yet here we are, more people employed than ever. John works as a barista, while his father worked a punch machine in a factory. his daughter might make some bespoke earthenware or some such trade in the future. employment evolves.

Predictions are sometimes wrong, sometimes right, sometimes they happen sooner or later than you predict them to.

Predictions based on the past when it comes to new technology is quite pointless - you have to look at the technology itself and what the potential and limitations are. In the 70s and 80s the limitations were clear: these machines can not operate by themselves, they can not maintain themselves, they can not improve themselves - they need human operators. All those limitations are gone - what are the new ones? I'm struggling to see any, but feel free to enlighten me.

 

[beorhthelm]

Predictions are sometimes wrong, sometimes right, sometimes they happen sooner or later than you predict them to.

Predictions based on the past when it comes to new technology is quite pointless - you have to look at the technology itself and what the potential and limitations are. In the 70s and 80s the limitations were clear: these machines can not operate by themselves, they can not maintain themselves, they can not improve themselves - they need human operators. All those limitations are gone - what are the new ones? I'm struggling to see any, but feel free to enlighten me.

those limitations are still present. where is the self operating robot that can determine the 2mm nut has changed to a 3mm nut without programming? how does it repair itself, adjust to new specs? you're imagining capabilities or going by examples in very narrow scopes. look at the construction video, notice how the bricklaying robot doesnt cement the bricks. thats obviously too hard for the robot so they just show the stacking. the printing is great but no machine will make itself larger or smaller to deal with different sizes, or judge when the design is too weak, overusing materials, clean up errors. no AI in sight, plenty of human operation involved, all programmed, there's a industry of machine learning programmers training algos, retraining, refining, etc.

 

[Husty]

Absolute nonsense.

Brown was one of the worst chancellors ever………and a key cog in the CAUSE of the 2008 crash in the U.K.

The proof………how about Fred Goodwin, so close to Brown he made him a knight of the realm and interfered with fateful RBS purchase of ABN AMRO.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...on-former-friend-sir-fred-goodwin-3b66gs87g29

Here’s Brown in 2007, in the Mansion House speech no less, lauding his city chums about his “risk based regulatory approach”.

https://www.ukpol.co.uk/gordon-brown-2007-mansion-house-speech/

In hindsight Ed Balls apologised in Parliament for Labour’s failures to control U.K. financial services.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/sep/26/ed-balls-sorry-labour-failures

Oh, and how about PFI……

https://inews.co.uk/news/legacy-pfi-contracts-wasteful-shocking-exclusive-investigation-350832

And not forgetting his shameful raid on pension funds.

https://www.ftadviser.com/2014/05/0...ions-raid-WTQAjLW5DSRp9HUxwNZN7K/article.html

Brown rightly disappeared after his electoral defeat………..he should never be seen again, the stupid I’ve abolished boom and bust one eyed shit.

And what, you honestly think the tories would’ve regulates the banks better?

 

[Swansman]

those limitations are still present. where is the self operating robot that can determine the 2mm nut has changed to a 3mm nut without programming? how does it repair itself, adjust to new specs? you're imagining capabilities or going by examples in very narrow scopes. look at the construction video, notice how the bricklaying robot doesnt cement the bricks. thats obviously too hard for the robot so they just show the stacking. the printing is great but no machine will make itself larger or smaller to deal with different sizes, or judge when the design is too weak, overusing materials, clean up errors. plenty of human operation involved, there's a industry of machine learning programmers training algos, retraining, refining, etc.

Obviously we're not quite there yet, similar to how a computer in 1995 couldn't do what it can today. As for construction specifically, it will be one of the last industries to go. I also agree that plenty of programmers will be needed - but I seriously doubt the increasing job market for programmers is going to compensate for the millions and millions of jobs where humans will be redundant. Similar to how horses struggled to get a role in society once there was technology that could do their job... not enough circuses and horse races to prevent their decline.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

The only question I have to add on AI conversation is, say there were two online articles .... "AI will lead to evolution in the employment market" and "AI will lead to dystopian future with replacement of nearly all human jobs", which one of those would get more clicks and be read more and thus become more entrenched in the minds of sci fi fans and tech subcultures?

I could be wrong and this advance could turn out to be an advance of a different of kind to those which have come before and I get computer intelligence is accelerating, but I still can't knock the thought out of my head that the interactions I've had so far with AI don't exactly fill me with dread about the obscelence of the human race in the short or medium term.

On the Swiss Bank thing. Well nothing in the news about collapsing market confidence or unusual volatility yet.

Maybe we'll all be ok?