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Comment by gearhart | Hacker News Reader

Whilst the "enslave us" thing is a bit alarmist, regarding it taking our jobs there's a certain analogy here with mechanisation.

You pointed out (below) that historically people have often been terrified that machines would take all of our jobs, and that terror has turned out to be unfounded. But they weren't wrong, they were just wrong in thinking it would be a bad thing.

Over the last 150 years, the proportion of Americans employed in agriculture has dropped from ~70% to ~2% [1]. They've literally been replaced by machines.

A large proportion of those people are now doing menial intellectual jobs that likely will be replaced by "AI". A complete shift in the nature of the work we do isn't unprecedented, and it shouldn't be considered impossible, but it shouldn't be considered disastrous either.

edit: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_Stat...

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The industrial revolution created a ton of jobs. Lots of people were needed in the factories. The industrial revolution wasn't about automating jobs that had existed before, it was about increasing productivity. A single skilled craftsmen could only make 1 chair a day, but 100 children working in a factory could make 1,000 chairs a day.

The only people who lost jobs were skilled craftsmen, who made up a tiny percent of the population anyway. And they weren't really lost, just replaced with lots of unskilled work.

Agriculture automation came years later, and the farmers weren't entirely screwed because they mostly still owned the land. If you own the robot that replaces you, you aren't necessarily worse off.

The coming technological revolution is entirely about automation. And not just automating skilled jobs, but most unskilled ones. A large percent of the population will be affected.

"Over the last 150 years, the proportion of Americans employed in agriculture has dropped from ~70% to ~2% [1]. They've literally been replaced by machines."

In most of the fields I've seen they've been replaced by Mexicans.

Then fine, it's probably 5% if you count them in. It doesn't change the fact that all the machines we now have, combined with the fertilizer revolution of the early XX century that started with the Haber process[0], has increased the food production output per worker by orders of magnitude.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

Most of the industrial revolution has been about replacing mindless physical labor with machines. The unemployed humans (or their children, typically) were given new jobs as "knowledge workers." In other words, jobs which required thought as the principal skill. Now thinking is being done by machines. So where will the new jobs come from?

The difference is that this time we're running out of work we could give to those who will get displaced by machines. Yes, we can keep inventing bullshit jobs, but we've already reached the point when people are starting to ask, if working for the sake of working makes any sense.

Wat. I keep hearing the argument that there "won't be useful work to be done soon." Considering that a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary means that not only do we live in a resource-scarce world but we will continue to for a long time.

Just because you don't "see" the work humans currently do doesn't allow you to be ignorant to it happening. Just because you personally don't want to work (as most people) doesn't mean there isn't plenty out there for people to do.

>Considering that a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary means that not only do we live in a resource-scarce world but we will continue to for a long time.

Are housing prices, at least in the U.S. actually attached to the value of work, or they mostly affected by the banks willingness to hand out money?

Let's go another step and take work out of it completely. If houses were free, there would still be houses that are worth far more than others, simply because of proximity to other things of human interest.

Why, there still will be plenty of work to do - maintenance, for instance. But probably not enough for everyone.

That "a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary" means exactly nothing. The size of median salary is market driven, and the price of housing reflects the games banks and housing developers are playing, and thus can be arbitrarily high.

The house price is set by what buyer's are willing to pay for them. This is taking into account that in median, 4 years of that person's work-output will be required to purchase a house.

In which country is that? Last time I checked, the common way for financing a house purchase in the entire Western world is through a mortgage loan, which makes the house price tied to the size of the loan a bank is willing to give to an average person.

That's not how prices are set. Just because I can borrow $X thousand dollars on my credit doesn't mean I go ahead and purchase all the big screen tvs and computers I want. Just because I can borrow $XX thousand to purchase a car doesn't mean I'm driving around in a new mercedes. Just because I can borrow $X million to purchase a house doesn't mean I will purchase real estate which will turn my net accrued savings to 0.

When people only think short-term (what's can I afford monthly) vs. long-term (what will I pay out over the life of the loan vs. what I'm getting now) they make mistakes. These mistakes are self-inflicted but these people tend to then blame any and all others for why they can't get ahead, why the system doesn't work, why the American dream is dead :).

That's besides the point. Most young people today can't afford a house. So they take a mortgage loan to buy one, and surprisingly, houses tend to be priced just at the level of the loan an average person can get.

The situation is different from the TVs and computers and cars because those are not considered as important as your own house. Most people eventually have to move out, so they have to participate in the game. I believe we call it "inelastic demand".

At that point perhaps our society will have to recognize that we've reached the point where we simply don't need the entire population working. There's nothing inherently wrong with a fraction of the population working to support the rest of it, assuming everyone's on board. It might not be a easy change, but I imagine something like that will happen eventually.

>assuming everyone's on board

I'm on board with surfing all day while you maintain the robots to make my food. Is that cool with you?

Not GP, but yeah, it's cool with me. I can use some break from coding my own projects, but not too much. :).

Sure. And I'll have a bigger house, better food and more luxuries in compensation for volunteering my time to help support humanity.

Hence, IanDrake's point 2) in the comment upthread.

>Yes, we can keep inventing bullshit jobs

What is an example of a non-government bullshit job?

Most of the advertising industry, and resources they draw from other industries, e.g. print (think printing leaflets).

Let's elect dictator TeMPOraL to tell society what he/she deems worthy of human ouptut. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong.

Why thank you, but sadly, I must refuse. I am yet too stupid to hold such position responsibly. :).

You should still accept and then offload your decisions onto someone else you think is responsible enough.

Greeter?

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