The Software Revolution

An anonymous reader writes: Y Combinator president Sam Altman writes about how the third great technological revolution — which he calls the software revolution — is affecting the world economy. He says, "It appears that the software revolution will do what technology usually does—create wealth but destroy jobs. Of course, we will probably find new things to do to satisfy limitless human demand. But we should stop pretending that the software revolution, by itself, is going to be good for median wages.

Trying to hold on to worthless jobs is a terrible but popular idea. Trying to find new jobs for billions of people is a good idea but obviously very hard because whatever the new jobs are, they will probably be so fundamentally different from anything that exists today that meaningful planning is almost impossible. ... The second major challenge of the software revolution is the concentration of power in small groups. ... I think the best strategy is to try to legislate sensible safeguards but work very hard to make sure the edge we get from technology on the good side is stronger than the edge that bad actors get."

Comments

Re:Service Sector

[Anne Thwacks]

Capitalism is a system where [snip] having wealth makes it easier to keep and obtain wealth, and lacking it makes it harder to keep or obtain it,

In other words, reality!

The fact is, a man with a spade can dig holes faster than one using his bare hands. Hell, a man who went and found a stick to help him can dig better than a man with his bare hands.

The real problem is that the education system has taught people it is someone else's job to find them work!

Before the agricultural revolution, and in most 3rd world countries, most employment is self employment. Employment in the sense of working for others is only one step above slavery. However, the left, with its "fight for the right to be exploited" campaign has made people think that working for a big company is the natural state of things. Union bosses are still bosses.

Capitalism is indeed a system where the only control on who buys what is the price. The alternatives are systems where ownership is restricted, like communism, where no one can buy anything, and apartheid, where the colour of your skin determines what you can buy.

The problem with the present system is that people place too much value on products only achievable with vast amounts of capital (or in some cases, skill). What needs to be changed is people's perception of value. This will probably be helped by things like Ebay allowing small individuals to trade with customers who are thinkly distributed around the world. It will also be helped by the internet and 3D printers, on-line education will help but look closely you need to have internet access (hell, seven year olds in Africa have mobile phones today) and use it for educational purposes. Hint: Playing "slightly miffed penguins" is not educational. Doing on-line degree courses is.

It will take time to replace the current generation of teachers, who are all wage-slaves, and want to promote their life-style to make themselves look good.

We will always have the problem of people who can't earn a living for various reasons, and I support the idea of supporting them. I do not support the idea that most people are too stupid to work for themselves. Go to Africa or Asia: everyone you see is working for themselves (not necessarily very successfully). Ten year olds understand the idea that you have to buy equipment and stock to improve your turnover and make more money. They are poor because the market is saturated with people delivering the same goods and services they deliver. The internet will give them the ideas, and access to more tools, raw materials and markets. Trailer trash in America already has that, but prefers to watch the X factor to making money. Perhaps they are already rich enough? I don't know.