Yes, I do expect the singularity as well. I just figure that the generations won't start going faster until we get a smart human computer (the one that eats my job). The stupid human computers will just drive taxis.
The reason I suspect it will be 'brutal' is not people being brutal to each other, it's people suddenly out of work who need a way to find food in their suburban or urban home. There's not enough garden space to let them all coexist, so a lot of people would need to move. You'd have a lot of people doing the whole frontier thing with less knowledge of how to build a house or skin a deer.
I didn't mean to imply that _I_ want to starve people because they're not smart enough to pay their own way. I do think society will have to choose between those options though. I think human welfare is inevitable, but it might take a lot of homeless starving people before we get with it.
The explicit condition I'm looking for is not a computer that can drive a taxi, direct traffic, or look up problems in a database. It's when a computer is invented that is capable of emulating humanOS. At that point the new jobs the unskilled workers can transfer to won't be jobs that don't exist yet, because the workers will immediately become outmoded in those jobs as well.
And the skilled workers won't take much longer to find themselves in the same situation.
I'm very serious. Computer automation is going to suck like the industrial revolution did, but a lot worse.
They're not all stupid. Quote from another reply I posted: "There are four reasons you work in a minimum wage job.
1) You're an immigrant and you don't speak the language. 2) You couldn't afford school and you weren't quite hardcore enough to get loans and scholarships* 3) You have a disability 4) You are stupid.
You are correct. I should not have lumped them all together under the banner of #4."
I don't think I'm smart. I constantly struggle with the thought that people who are idiots always think they're smart, which means one can never be certain about their own intellect or abilities. I just think my job will be harder to automate.
I'm sure my job will vanish too. I don't think I'm going to be in one of the first industries to vanish due to smart computers though. I suspect (I could be wrong) that by the time computers out compete me, the issue will already be resolved.
I tried to use the language that lead the answer. Letting people starve, giving welfare, both sound bad, both pieces of language will be used when this topic comes up (I think).
You do have an interesting point about revolution and them looking for their own food. The revolution is assumed to be part of the decision making process one way or another (I suspect we'd end up going the path of socialism, which I think is just fine). As for looking for their own food, if you suddenly had that many people looking for a new way of making it (without currency), I'm sure it would still be amazingly brutal. I'll have to think about both of these though.
And really? Has the internet reduced us all to the point where we need to make attacks on each other in the first exchange between two individuals?
There are four reasons you work in a minimum wage job.
1) You're an immigrant and you don't speak the language. 2) You couldn't afford school and you weren't quite hardcore enough to get loans and scholarships* 3) You have a disability 4) You are stupid.
You are correct. I should not have lumped them all together under the banner of #4.
*If my family hadn't put me through college, I probably wouldn't have been hardcore enough to stack up scholarships and save my ass off through high school summer jobs. I'd be working minimum wage right now.
Oh, no, I'm well aware that I'll be out of a job within years of a general human intellect computer. I'm not going to starve for it though.
By the time I can't find work there will be enough voters out of work to vote in the social welfare programs. I'm genuinely concerned about the minimum wage workers who are going to be the first to be outmoded.
Society will have two choices. 1) Let them starve, 2) Pay for them anyways.
I vote 2. In the US it's going to be controversial though, even though 2 will win out. A lot of social changes are inevitable, it's just a question of how quickly it happens. This is one of them.
The singularity needs a computer that can design itself, so potentially 3 machine generations is 18 months each. At that point I get laid off and the computers design themselves. Then the successive generation being only 9 months, 4.5 months, 2.25 months bang. I suppose I expect the singularity within 18 months of the time I get outmoded by computers.
I think you have the two ideologies backwards. Communists value you the same no matter how smart and talented you are. Capitalists let you starve if you're not smart enough to be helpful.
Both ideologies taken to the extreme are not something I like, but at least keep how each one is evil straight.
The problem is this: The computer that is as smart as Roger is cheaper to run than Roger. You can't retrain Roger. The computer will out compete him at everything. Roger is just kinda a dumb bloke. He takes more electricity to keep alive than his replacement.
Now, there's a certain amount of time before this computer takes away Jim's job (1-4 generations). When Jim (who is a smart masters graduate) loses his job to a computer we'll be moving into post scarcity.
But between those two dates, does Roger have enough food to survive (at 18 month hardware cycles you could be looking at almost 3 years that high school grads can't get jobs)? I suspect we will starve a few people before we start going socialist. I could be wrong.
Frankly, many people at and near minimum wage would not be useful if they managed to eek out an engineering degree (they'd still be terrible engineers, the kind that everyone realizes was actually harming overall productivity once they're gone).
The programmers will be safe for a few machine generations past the grocery store baggers I suspect. It's quite possible that the accountants, studio musicians, programmers, carpenters, and such finding themselves without jobs will be the catalyst to turn us into socialists.
You sound like a socialist. That's fine, I'm actually a socialist too. It's still going to be a huge debate (at least in my country) if we should let them starve or give them free food, health care, housing, and education.
Certainly for the intelligent people, having a swarm of stupid lackeys would increase productivity. But the stupid people are still going to take more energy to run than a computer after one or two dozen generations (humans baseline energy consumption is around 72w, you can get computers that run on 5 watts http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/100-Linux-wallwart-launches/).
Also from the article "The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world."
An interesting thing to note is this: When a computer exists that is as intelligent as a stupid human, almost every job at and close to minimum wage vanishes. Robots can and will get cheaper than a human worker, no one will need taxi cab drivers, grocery store baggers, first tier phone customer service reps, construction workers, janitors, garbage men, delivery men, mail men, traffic cops, book keepers, data entry people, secretaries, fast food chefs, etc.
At this point we will have two choices as a society. 1) Let them (the stupid people) starve, 2) give them welfare for no other reason than they're economically useless.
Java is also a very nice first language. I know personally that I loved the built in UI stuff (started in C++). Stay the crap away from Flex (no concept of threads, a lot of voodoo beneath the hood, etc).
I think started in a garbage collected space and then moving to manual memory management is a good path as well.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, reading it again, I totally see where you got that impression. LOL
Yes, I do expect the singularity as well. I just figure that the generations won't start going faster until we get a smart human computer (the one that eats my job). The stupid human computers will just drive taxis.
The green stars were some of the most fun...
If your friend was talking about quitting, it was because they are suffering because of their addiction. You did them a disservice.
The reason I suspect it will be 'brutal' is not people being brutal to each other, it's people suddenly out of work who need a way to find food in their suburban or urban home. There's not enough garden space to let them all coexist, so a lot of people would need to move. You'd have a lot of people doing the whole frontier thing with less knowledge of how to build a house or skin a deer.
I didn't mean to imply that _I_ want to starve people because they're not smart enough to pay their own way. I do think society will have to choose between those options though. I think human welfare is inevitable, but it might take a lot of homeless starving people before we get with it.
Because you can take the hardware running the human intellect program and upgrade it...
Interesting. I guess I'm screwed. Taxi drivers, programmers, baggers... I had the order wrong. :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
Yes, but machines can replace a mechanical job. A computer can replace thought.
See above reply to bigtrike.
The explicit condition I'm looking for is not a computer that can drive a taxi, direct traffic, or look up problems in a database. It's when a computer is invented that is capable of emulating humanOS. At that point the new jobs the unskilled workers can transfer to won't be jobs that don't exist yet, because the workers will immediately become outmoded in those jobs as well.
And the skilled workers won't take much longer to find themselves in the same situation.
I'm very serious. Computer automation is going to suck like the industrial revolution did, but a lot worse.
They're not all stupid. Quote from another reply I posted:
"There are four reasons you work in a minimum wage job.
1) You're an immigrant and you don't speak the language.
2) You couldn't afford school and you weren't quite hardcore enough to get loans and scholarships*
3) You have a disability
4) You are stupid.
You are correct. I should not have lumped them all together under the banner of #4."
I don't think I'm smart. I constantly struggle with the thought that people who are idiots always think they're smart, which means one can never be certain about their own intellect or abilities. I just think my job will be harder to automate.
I'm sure my job will vanish too. I don't think I'm going to be in one of the first industries to vanish due to smart computers though. I suspect (I could be wrong) that by the time computers out compete me, the issue will already be resolved.
I tried to use the language that lead the answer. Letting people starve, giving welfare, both sound bad, both pieces of language will be used when this topic comes up (I think).
You do have an interesting point about revolution and them looking for their own food. The revolution is assumed to be part of the decision making process one way or another (I suspect we'd end up going the path of socialism, which I think is just fine). As for looking for their own food, if you suddenly had that many people looking for a new way of making it (without currency), I'm sure it would still be amazingly brutal. I'll have to think about both of these though.
And really? Has the internet reduced us all to the point where we need to make attacks on each other in the first exchange between two individuals?
There are four reasons you work in a minimum wage job.
1) You're an immigrant and you don't speak the language.
2) You couldn't afford school and you weren't quite hardcore enough to get loans and scholarships*
3) You have a disability
4) You are stupid.
You are correct. I should not have lumped them all together under the banner of #4.
*If my family hadn't put me through college, I probably wouldn't have been hardcore enough to stack up scholarships and save my ass off through high school summer jobs. I'd be working minimum wage right now.
Oh, no, I'm well aware that I'll be out of a job within years of a general human intellect computer. I'm not going to starve for it though.
By the time I can't find work there will be enough voters out of work to vote in the social welfare programs. I'm genuinely concerned about the minimum wage workers who are going to be the first to be outmoded.
Society will have two choices. 1) Let them starve, 2) Pay for them anyways.
I vote 2. In the US it's going to be controversial though, even though 2 will win out. A lot of social changes are inevitable, it's just a question of how quickly it happens. This is one of them.
The singularity needs a computer that can design itself, so potentially 3 machine generations is 18 months each. At that point I get laid off and the computers design themselves. Then the successive generation being only 9 months, 4.5 months, 2.25 months bang. I suppose I expect the singularity within 18 months of the time I get outmoded by computers.
Just retrain them. ;-)
Sure, the computers are smarter than them, but if they really wanted to work they'd outsmart a computer...
When enough voters lose their jobs to robots, they will eventually vote for a minimum government provided standard of living.
I think you have the two ideologies backwards. Communists value you the same no matter how smart and talented you are. Capitalists let you starve if you're not smart enough to be helpful.
Both ideologies taken to the extreme are not something I like, but at least keep how each one is evil straight.
(Communism is stupid, capitalism is heartless)
The problem is this: The computer that is as smart as Roger is cheaper to run than Roger. You can't retrain Roger. The computer will out compete him at everything. Roger is just kinda a dumb bloke. He takes more electricity to keep alive than his replacement.
Now, there's a certain amount of time before this computer takes away Jim's job (1-4 generations). When Jim (who is a smart masters graduate) loses his job to a computer we'll be moving into post scarcity.
But between those two dates, does Roger have enough food to survive (at 18 month hardware cycles you could be looking at almost 3 years that high school grads can't get jobs)? I suspect we will starve a few people before we start going socialist. I could be wrong.
Frankly, many people at and near minimum wage would not be useful if they managed to eek out an engineering degree (they'd still be terrible engineers, the kind that everyone realizes was actually harming overall productivity once they're gone).
The programmers will be safe for a few machine generations past the grocery store baggers I suspect. It's quite possible that the accountants, studio musicians, programmers, carpenters, and such finding themselves without jobs will be the catalyst to turn us into socialists.
You sound like a socialist. That's fine, I'm actually a socialist too. It's still going to be a huge debate (at least in my country) if we should let them starve or give them free food, health care, housing, and education.
Certainly for the intelligent people, having a swarm of stupid lackeys would increase productivity. But the stupid people are still going to take more energy to run than a computer after one or two dozen generations (humans baseline energy consumption is around 72w, you can get computers that run on 5 watts http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/100-Linux-wallwart-launches/).
Also from the article "The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world."
An interesting thing to note is this: When a computer exists that is as intelligent as a stupid human, almost every job at and close to minimum wage vanishes. Robots can and will get cheaper than a human worker, no one will need taxi cab drivers, grocery store baggers, first tier phone customer service reps, construction workers, janitors, garbage men, delivery men, mail men, traffic cops, book keepers, data entry people, secretaries, fast food chefs, etc.
At this point we will have two choices as a society. 1) Let them (the stupid people) starve, 2) give them welfare for no other reason than they're economically useless.
Regardless of political orientation, this research WILL get done. If the US doesn't get it done, China will. How does that make you feel?
Java is also a very nice first language. I know personally that I loved the built in UI stuff (started in C++). Stay the crap away from Flex (no concept of threads, a lot of voodoo beneath the hood, etc).
I think started in a garbage collected space and then moving to manual memory management is a good path as well.