Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

I don't view it as benevolence so much as one of the few realistic solutions to the issue of increasing automation resulting in having way more people than we need to produce the needed goods for that same population.

The options are either embracing some form of socialism or violent, society-ending revolt.

I'd much prefer the former to the latter.

View on HN

I agree that a lot of forms of employment will eventually be automated.

I'm more optimistic, however. I think labor will just evolve, just as it's done with every corresponding evolution in technology.

> I think labor will just evolve

Then you're missing the point, there is not an endless amount of low skilled labor to do and machines will take over all of those roles, even the new ones. People aren't going to suddenly all be able to handle high skilled jobs.

I imagine they said something similar about ditch diggers and buggy drivers when the combustion engine came along.

There is a strong relationship between improvements in technology and improvements in human development. All boats rise with the tide.

What happened in the past is not an indication of what will happen in the future, past automation was trivial and small compared to the automation happening today. To continue to bury your head in the sand and proclaim "there will be new jobs" is utterly missing the point being made, no, there will not be a continual supply of new jobs to replace the old ones. Low skill jobs are going away permanently, not just shifted to new fields like in the past. The effect of machines on the economy (industrial revolution) is not going to be the same as the effect of intelligent machines on the economy; the past doesn't predict the future, it only occasionally rhymes with it. Intelligent machines aren't going to create enough new jobs to replace the ones they destroy, by design.

> What happened in the past is not an indication of what will happen in the future,

The definition of change.. but some people seem to believe change does not exist. Is it possible to reach such a person/

Except this time technology is evolving in a general way, to take over all jobs, not just specialized tasks.

It's not the same thing happening this time.

That's pretty much how I see it. It's something that simply must happen, there's not a lot of choice about it. Better to figure it out now than be forced into it later.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com