It would have been nice if the summary had listed key reasons leading to sanctions. Even the article itself takes it time before finally spelling them out:
Google for a time prohibited those third-party sites [that used Google’s AdSense for Search] from using rival ad services, then required prominent placement of its own ads. (...) “There was no reason for Google to include these restrictive clauses in their contracts except to keep rivals out of the market,” Vestager [(the European Union’s top competition commissioner)] said at her news conference.
the ultra-fast wireless technology Europe's leaders hope will fuel the growth of a data-based economy.
Every time I read this “argument”, I wonder: what’s with the big rush? Frankly, is 5G going to change our lives compared to 4G? I doubt it.
I understand that there are actors who stand to benefit (and may therefore be impatient):
- Governments will harvest a few billions licensing 5G spectrum to wireless operators, and that'll help with budgetary difficulties.
- Wireless operators will deploy 5G in select situations where they can profit: crowded places like airports and stadiums, major urban arteries prone to traffic jams, etc; that will help slightly increase consumption and reduce customer frustration. They might be slightly more competitive against cable and fibre residential ISPs in very-high-density urban areas. And they will probably try to sell their service to corporate customers like automakers in the hope of connecting everything all the time, which could, theoretically at least, turn into a nice cash cow for them (mostly, at our expense, in the form of indirect added costs and lost privacy).
But for the bulk of ordinary consumers? Yes, when visiting very crowded places, they'll get acceptable connectivity in conditions where 4G might be subpar. But that will concern a fraction of people, a fraction of the time in their daily life. Aside from that, nothing terribly new and exciting. If so, 5G won't really be a game changer for consumers or even for the overall economy.
And in that case, why not keep improving the current 4G network until better, cheaper, more trusted 5G options become available, instead of taking risks rushing with the cheapest hardware offering from a problematic supplier?
I might have considered it if was not managed by a Russian foundation running with the blessing (or more) from the Russian government. But to each his own, I guess...
Coming from those three particular companies, that name inspires confidence. They might not know anything about healthcare, but I'm sure they all employ top experts on safe havens.
An easy-to-implement first step would be to require the prominent disclosure of such limitations, on the box and any advertisements, online sales pages, etc..
Something like this (depending on the device): Locked device
Using (and resetting) this device requires service from the manufacturer.
Such service may be discontinued at any time, at the discretion of the manufacturer,
after which you will no longer be able to use or reinitialise this device
(for example to transfer it to another user).
It's only a first step (whose effectiveness would obviously depend on consumers' attitude), but perhaps legislators would be able to agree fairly quickly on something benign like that.
I can trot out my usual question: is this gonna change how anyone votes? Seriously, is it?
It depends what you mean by “changing how people vote”. If you meant “abruptly switching to the other side”, then the answer is likely negative. After all, suppose that you’d just read the opposite news: some questionable company helped manipulate things, hoping to make your side win. Would you automatically change your vote in favour of the opposite side? I wouldn’t.
Sure, such affair would leave a foul taste in my mouth and I’d want things to improve. Yes, if my elected officials were directly implicated, I’d certainly consider possible (and sensible) alternatives with the same general alignment (but alternatives are often scarce or inexistent), while retaining some amount of pragmatism. Setting aside the mindset of radical one-issue voters, there are many concerns to simultaneously consider, and compromises to be made, when casting a vote. So, I don’t find it shocking that the answer to your question is, in all likelihood, “no”.
That being said, as long as it is covered in the media and talked about, this kind of abuse can have some small but lasting and compounding impact. Of course, one can dream that citizens would forcefully communicate their disapprobation to their elected representative, in an attempt to stimulate positive change (such as passing laws instituting penalties for such corrupt practice, and ensuring that those laws are properly enforced). But even in a fairly passive society, after abuses have occurred repeatedly, popular indignation will indeed begin to influence poll results.
Unfortunately, mounting exasperation can lead to people haphazardly jumping from one extreme to another (or even abandoning moderation to embrace an extreme), and that has rarely been a good thing. As recent (and no-so-recent) history has all too well illustrated in a number of countries, years of unbridled corruption can drive despairing people to enthusiastically vote for the worst demagogic scumbag who’s promised to “clean house” by any means.
In short, I prefer to hope that this type of news does not directly change the way people vote, but that it helps shape people’s perception and change the way people talk about political issues and about the process by which political decisions are made. And I do hope that we get laws and enforcement that puts perpetrators of such stunt (as well as their complicit beneficiaries) behind bars for a dissuasive length of time.
A clear majority of New Yorkers support this project...
Looking at the signatories of the open letter, I can’t help getting the feeling that what they meant by “New Yorkers” is, rather, “New Yorkers that matter”. You know, the ones who own stuff like real estate and businesses.
I’m no expert but today’s situation reminds me more of pre-feudal civilisations, where a king (sometimes, principally considered as unifying war leader) was elected (sometimes, for a short term) by the elite from the elite (so that’s more like the president today, rather than the state); the elite being composed of rival chieftains who (like today’s billionaire investors manipulating mega-corporations) effectively owned a piece of territory and pretty much everything on it (including all vital resources necessary for the people’s subsistance). The lower classes were divided into two main categories: the corporate employees, whose main job was to fight in wars and loudly acclaim the ruler; and the sheeple consumers, whose only job was to feed the machine with fuel (yesteryear: food and materials; today: money). There was still much fluidity (instability) as every chieftain aspired to the top job and was mostly busy fighting all others. And, exceptionally, a foot soldier (not a peasant, of course) might even rise through the ranks (and by that, I mean usurp power by force, not “receive a well-deserved promotion”) through a mix of stunning military prowess, extreme ruthlessness, cunning ability to manipulate others’ rivalries and greed and, of course, phenomenal luck.
The next logical step, unsurprisingly, was the eventual rise as king of some more-powerful and more-ambitious than average character who had no desire to face opposition, accept limitations of power, or face the prospect of eventually having to give up the job; and who would then seek to obtain unlimited powers and to permanently solidify the semi-fluid political structure through the establishement of a fixed hierarchy, complete with well-defined privileges and duties, with help from the clergy to supply religious justifications and further eliminate any moral opposition. In Western Europe, that was medieval feudalism; but I think that, arguably, this process has repeatedly occurred throughout the ages and around the world.
It does looks like we’re now headed straight into repeating that pattern.
The Bark product is free to schools in the U.S. for perpetuity. The company says it can afford to give the service away to schools, because of the money it makes from a version aimed at parents.
It would be more accurate and honest to say that the Bark product being used by schools is a business-critical marketing device to gain leverage over parents and “convince” them that they’d better pony up the 9 USD per month. Because, you know, it would be too bad if their child’s school found out whatever could be out there in the cloud, and proceeded to initiate some reprisal or even call the police on their beloved little one.
(...) would (...) leave (...) consumers vulnerable to (...) physical harm at the hands of clueless owners and inexperienced or unethical repair professionals.
In reality, it’s much more likely that granting easy access to “the same documentation, parts and tools [...] as [...] licensed or "authorized" repair professionals” would reduce, rather than increase, the odds of injuries and non-compliant modifications (a.k.a. hacked repairs by uninformed tinkerers or desperate owners). And perhaps not only by enabling better repairs, but also by promoting better/cheaper regular maintenance.
Ah, I had missed the paragraph that says that Facebook obtained parental consent for minors. (apologies) However, I find Facebook’s assertion “There are no known risks associated with the project” rather... interesting.
...where the johns are corporations and naïve/desperate teens (and others) are exploited as usual.
I’m especially astounded at the installation of a root certificate. This allows Facebook “researchers” to mount man-in-the-middle attacks on any of their “secure” transactions. It’s hard to believe that their suppliers/victims truly understood the implications when they signed up for it. I’m also wondering about the legality of such paid surveillance with minors (assuming they can legally consent to that).
So this competition “keeps [businesses] from raising prices quite as high as they might otherwise”, yet is somehow “good for business”? Uh, how exactly?
Now we’ve all known (even HBO executives have known, as the article goes on to say in its last part) that piracy provides free advertisement (a tangible business benefit). So, what are the new findings from the paper that show that “piracy seems to have a surprisingly positive impact on the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer”?
I don’t know how successful that operation can be at getting consumers to fix their own setup (still, it’s worth trying), but it may well succeed in publicly shaming manufacturers of shoddy insecure designs (including lame default settings) and pressuring them to make better products. Even if consumers turn out to be too passive (or have too little knowledge) to fix the configuration of their own equipment, at least Japanese public opinion is sure to react to public announcements that XYZ product has caused this many millions of consumers to needlessly be exposed to hackers. So I see it as a smart move, and I applaud the fact that it was initiated through legislation.
The announcement makes it clear that it is a suspected problem with the product itself, regardless of its application. The press release from Electrify America says: “At the recommendation of its supplier, HUBER+SUHNER, (...), Electrify America is shutting down.... The recommendation was issued to all of HUBER+SUHNERS’ customers using the technology worldwide.”
You’re right about the summary, but what the (Vox) article really said is American (along with “cheddar, Swiss and other cheese varieties on record”), which is much worse than just “cheese from the U.S.” Go ahead and check that Wikipedia article, and enjoy the mouth-watering pictures and description: “American cheese cannot be legally sold under the name (authentic) "cheese" in the US. Instead, federal laws mandate that it be labeled as "processed cheese" [...] or "cheese food".” Perhaps we should just stick to its popular earlier names of “factory cheese” or “yellow cheese” (Which, without a doubt, many of our contemporaries will surmise comes from yellow cows.)
So, may be the USDA should instead say that we have a monster surplus of... “cheese food” (sounds like food for the cheese monster, yum).
In all fairness, there are good cheese producers in this country (and also in Canada), who try to fight the Walmarts of the cheese industry and deserve some recognition. However, I suspect that those producers are little concerned by the USDA surplus report.
Reading the comments, I suspect some misunderstanding, because a cursory reading of the summary might give the impression that the issue is about the hackathons themselves (i.e., the fact that organisers get people to produce work for free during those events by getting them excited and feeding them snacks). And commenters disagree that it’s a bad thing (or even that it’s true, since hackathons don’t really produce anything useful).
The study’s abstract makes things quite clear, as does Wired’s article, which says:
“To Zukin, this is a problem, because hackathons are making the “hacker subculture” they promote into the new work norm. That norm, which coincides with the labor market trend of less-secure employment, encourages professional workers to adopt an “entrepreneurial” career and market themselves for continually shifting jobs. The trend also includes motivating workers with Soviet-style slogans venerating the pleasures of work.”
In other words, hackathons are a tool used by corporate suits to give their employees the idea that a crazy work schedule is the new norm, that it’s the cool way to live the smashing coder’s life, and that no less would be expected (by their peers, even) from a successful smart engineer. And that, of course, is merely a way to get them to work 80 hours a week for the price of 40, without complaints.
“Think about flight attendant jobs before there was planes and commercial flights. No one could really predict that this job will appear. So there are jobs which will be appearing of that type that are related to the AI,” he said.
In short, experts proclaim that fears about their upcoming products are plainly unfounded; though, unable to offer any tangible argument to allay those fears, they can only express blind confidence that if past changes have turned out okay before, surely this next one will too.
It reminds me of those people who say: Hey, the climate has changed before, so you see? No big deal!
Here, the speech becomes: We (the experts) have no idea what the future holds (because, you see, nobody can predict it!), but we are nonetheless positively certain that it’s going to be real good (you just wait!), and the doubters are all wrong (what do those guys know anyway?).
The rationale? That a past change which largely replaced human muscle power (the industrial revolution) brought new jobs (all those flight attendants!) is evidence solid enough to give full confidence that an impending change which will largely replace human decision-making (the cybernetic revolution) will do just the same.
Talk about comparing apples with oranges!
Besides, his illustrative example is naïvely simplistic. Airplane technology itself did not bring those flight attendant jobs. After all, flight attendant jobs are just a modern version of litter porter jobs. But where a single wealthy aristocrat would need several porters, many air travellers must share the services of a single flight attendant, resulting in a net reduction of jobs per customer. However, something else amazing happened: the industrial revolution eventually (really, over the course of three centuries) dramatically reduced the cost of basic goods (while increasing their availability), while a social revolution simultaneously kept in relative check the concentration of wealth, to the point that most people can now afford astounding luxuries (like that of air travel), instead of spending all their income on essentials (like food). Ergo, new jobs, including those of flight attendants.
Similarly, if AI ever ends up having a positive impact on employment, it will most likely be indirect only. If it enables us to produce essential goods much more cheaply than today, dramatically reducing the cost of living, then the population at large may be able to redirect its purchasing power toward other activities (for example, education or health care, and possibly new services unknown today), spurring job creation in those sectors.
That’s “if”. Certainly, eliminating human labour will save money, but how much? Can it be on a scale similar to to that achieved by past mechanisation? And will those savings be passed to consumers, though we now seem to live in a state of reduced competition?
And how long will it take before those savings have an actual impact on spending habits and job creation? Will we have to go through some acute crisis first, with millions of people suddenly unemployed as automation gets rapidly deployed, leading to spending being reduced rather than increased, leading to even fewer jobs and to even more concentration of wealth, further leading to increased global poverty and yet fewer jobs?
Of course, if you have your eggs in the AI basket, the answer is easy: Fear not! The future is rosy!
“Don’t worry, be happy”, said the experts. Yes, sure, their jobs are at stake!
Slashdot Mirror
So what are you going to do about it? How are you making a difference?
How about better infrastructure policy, for starters? (Policy that would take into account realistic forecasts of climate evolution, in particular.)
The many levee breaches make me think that we are not focussing on raising the right walls, at this point in time.
Wikipedia's article about the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market has useful information and pointers, such as the procedure file, itself pointing (in section "documentation gateway") to many documents, including:
- Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading (PDF in top right corner of frame)
- Text adopted by Parliament, partial vote at 1st reading/single reading
It would have been nice if the summary had listed key reasons leading to sanctions. Even the article itself takes it time before finally spelling them out:
Google for a time prohibited those third-party sites [that used Google’s AdSense for Search] from using rival ad services, then required prominent placement of its own ads. (...) “There was no reason for Google to include these restrictive clauses in their contracts except to keep rivals out of the market,” Vestager [(the European Union’s top competition commissioner)] said at her news conference.
the ultra-fast wireless technology Europe's leaders hope will fuel the growth of a data-based economy.
Every time I read this “argument”, I wonder: what’s with the big rush? Frankly, is 5G going to change our lives compared to 4G? I doubt it.
I understand that there are actors who stand to benefit (and may therefore be impatient):
But for the bulk of ordinary consumers? Yes, when visiting very crowded places, they'll get acceptable connectivity in conditions where 4G might be subpar. But that will concern a fraction of people, a fraction of the time in their daily life. Aside from that, nothing terribly new and exciting. If so, 5G won't really be a game changer for consumers or even for the overall economy.
And in that case, why not keep improving the current 4G network until better, cheaper, more trusted 5G options become available, instead of taking risks rushing with the cheapest hardware offering from a problematic supplier?
Aw, come on, who needs [Windows-Up] and [Windows-Down] when we already have [Alt-Space][X], [Alt-Space][R] and [Alt-Space][N]?
(just kidding)
I might have considered it if was not managed by a Russian foundation running with the blessing (or more) from the Russian government.
But to each his own, I guess...
Coming from those three particular companies, that name inspires confidence. They might not know anything about healthcare, but I'm sure they all employ top experts on safe havens.
Robot (or more accurately, drone) tanks will always have a human "in the loop"
“the loop” is robot code-word for “crosshairs”.
An easy-to-implement first step would be to require the prominent disclosure of such limitations, on the box and any advertisements, online sales pages, etc..
Something like this (depending on the device):
Locked device
Using (and resetting) this device requires service from the manufacturer.
Such service may be discontinued at any time, at the discretion of the manufacturer,
after which you will no longer be able to use or reinitialise this device
(for example to transfer it to another user).
It's only a first step (whose effectiveness would obviously depend on consumers' attitude), but perhaps legislators would be able to agree fairly quickly on something benign like that.
I know that my disengagement doesn't mean a goddam thing to Facebook, but it means something to me.
I know what you mean but, really, this may be the only way successful social movements can really start.
I can trot out my usual question: is this gonna change how anyone votes? Seriously, is it?
It depends what you mean by “changing how people vote”. If you meant “abruptly switching to the other side”, then the answer is likely negative. After all, suppose that you’d just read the opposite news: some questionable company helped manipulate things, hoping to make your side win. Would you automatically change your vote in favour of the opposite side? I wouldn’t.
Sure, such affair would leave a foul taste in my mouth and I’d want things to improve. Yes, if my elected officials were directly implicated, I’d certainly consider possible (and sensible) alternatives with the same general alignment (but alternatives are often scarce or inexistent), while retaining some amount of pragmatism. Setting aside the mindset of radical one-issue voters, there are many concerns to simultaneously consider, and compromises to be made, when casting a vote. So, I don’t find it shocking that the answer to your question is, in all likelihood, “no”.
That being said, as long as it is covered in the media and talked about, this kind of abuse can have some small but lasting and compounding impact. Of course, one can dream that citizens would forcefully communicate their disapprobation to their elected representative, in an attempt to stimulate positive change (such as passing laws instituting penalties for such corrupt practice, and ensuring that those laws are properly enforced). But even in a fairly passive society, after abuses have occurred repeatedly, popular indignation will indeed begin to influence poll results.
Unfortunately, mounting exasperation can lead to people haphazardly jumping from one extreme to another (or even abandoning moderation to embrace an extreme), and that has rarely been a good thing. As recent (and no-so-recent) history has all too well illustrated in a number of countries, years of unbridled corruption can drive despairing people to enthusiastically vote for the worst demagogic scumbag who’s promised to “clean house” by any means.
In short, I prefer to hope that this type of news does not directly change the way people vote, but that it helps shape people’s perception and change the way people talk about political issues and about the process by which political decisions are made. And I do hope that we get laws and enforcement that puts perpetrators of such stunt (as well as their complicit beneficiaries) behind bars for a dissuasive length of time.
New Yorkers do not want to give up on...
A clear majority of New Yorkers support this project...
Looking at the signatories of the open letter, I can’t help getting the feeling that what they meant by “New Yorkers” is, rather, “New Yorkers that matter”. You know, the ones who own stuff like real estate and businesses.
I’m no expert but today’s situation reminds me more of pre-feudal civilisations, where a king (sometimes, principally considered as unifying war leader) was elected (sometimes, for a short term) by the elite from the elite (so that’s more like the president today, rather than the state); the elite being composed of rival chieftains who (like today’s billionaire investors manipulating mega-corporations) effectively owned a piece of territory and pretty much everything on it (including all vital resources necessary for the people’s subsistance). The lower classes were divided into two main categories: the corporate employees, whose main job was to fight in wars and loudly acclaim the ruler; and the sheeple consumers, whose only job was to feed the machine with fuel (yesteryear: food and materials; today: money). There was still much fluidity (instability) as every chieftain aspired to the top job and was mostly busy fighting all others. And, exceptionally, a foot soldier (not a peasant, of course) might even rise through the ranks (and by that, I mean usurp power by force, not “receive a well-deserved promotion”) through a mix of stunning military prowess, extreme ruthlessness, cunning ability to manipulate others’ rivalries and greed and, of course, phenomenal luck.
The next logical step, unsurprisingly, was the eventual rise as king of some more-powerful and more-ambitious than average character who had no desire to face opposition, accept limitations of power, or face the prospect of eventually having to give up the job; and who would then seek to obtain unlimited powers and to permanently solidify the semi-fluid political structure through the establishement of a fixed hierarchy, complete with well-defined privileges and duties, with help from the clergy to supply religious justifications and further eliminate any moral opposition. In Western Europe, that was medieval feudalism; but I think that, arguably, this process has repeatedly occurred throughout the ages and around the world.
It does looks like we’re now headed straight into repeating that pattern.
crypto (...) has its pros and cons
Translation: a number of those pros excel at using crypto to pull cons on the rest of us.
The Bark product is free to schools in the U.S. for perpetuity. The company says it can afford to give the service away to schools, because of the money it makes from a version aimed at parents.
It would be more accurate and honest to say that the Bark product being used by schools is a business-critical marketing device to gain leverage over parents and “convince” them that they’d better pony up the 9 USD per month. Because, you know, it would be too bad if their child’s school found out whatever could be out there in the cloud, and proceeded to initiate some reprisal or even call the police on their beloved little one.
(...) would (...) leave (...) consumers vulnerable to (...) physical harm at the hands of clueless owners and inexperienced or unethical repair professionals.
In reality, it’s much more likely that granting easy access to “the same documentation, parts and tools [...] as [...] licensed or "authorized" repair professionals” would reduce , rather than increase, the odds of injuries and non-compliant modifications (a.k.a. hacked repairs by uninformed tinkerers or desperate owners). And perhaps not only by enabling better repairs, but also by promoting better/cheaper regular maintenance.
Ah, I had missed the paragraph that says that Facebook obtained parental consent for minors. (apologies)
However, I find Facebook’s assertion “There are no known risks associated with the project” rather... interesting.
...where the johns are corporations and naïve/desperate teens (and others) are exploited as usual.
I’m especially astounded at the installation of a root certificate. This allows Facebook “researchers” to mount man-in-the-middle attacks on any of their “secure” transactions. It’s hard to believe that their suppliers/victims truly understood the implications when they signed up for it. I’m also wondering about the legality of such paid surveillance with minors (assuming they can legally consent to that).
So this competition “keeps [businesses] from raising prices quite as high as they might otherwise”, yet is somehow “good for business”? Uh, how exactly?
Now we’ve all known (even HBO executives have known, as the article goes on to say in its last part) that piracy provides free advertisement (a tangible business benefit). So, what are the new findings from the paper that show that “piracy seems to have a surprisingly positive impact on the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer”?
Certainly, that’s not its “competitive” effect.
I don’t know how successful that operation can be at getting consumers to fix their own setup (still, it’s worth trying), but it may well succeed in publicly shaming manufacturers of shoddy insecure designs (including lame default settings) and pressuring them to make better products. Even if consumers turn out to be too passive (or have too little knowledge) to fix the configuration of their own equipment, at least Japanese public opinion is sure to react to public announcements that XYZ product has caused this many millions of consumers to needlessly be exposed to hackers. So I see it as a smart move, and I applaud the fact that it was initiated through legislation.
The announcement makes it clear that it is a suspected problem with the product itself, regardless of its application. The press release from Electrify America says: “At the recommendation of its supplier, HUBER+SUHNER, (...), Electrify America is shutting down .... The recommendation was issued to all of HUBER+SUHNERS’ customers using the technology worldwide.”
You’re right about the summary, but what the (Vox) article really said is American (along with “cheddar, Swiss and other cheese varieties on record”), which is much worse than just “cheese from the U.S.” Go ahead and check that Wikipedia article, and enjoy the mouth-watering pictures and description: “American cheese cannot be legally sold under the name (authentic) "cheese" in the US. Instead, federal laws mandate that it be labeled as "processed cheese" [...] or "cheese food".” Perhaps we should just stick to its popular earlier names of “factory cheese” or “yellow cheese” (Which, without a doubt, many of our contemporaries will surmise comes from yellow cows.)
So, may be the USDA should instead say that we have a monster surplus of... “cheese food” (sounds like food for the cheese monster, yum).
In all fairness, there are good cheese producers in this country (and also in Canada), who try to fight the Walmarts of the cheese industry and deserve some recognition. However, I suspect that those producers are little concerned by the USDA surplus report.
Isn’t it more or less the case already?
Reading the comments, I suspect some misunderstanding, because a cursory reading of the summary might give the impression that the issue is about the hackathons themselves (i.e., the fact that organisers get people to produce work for free during those events by getting them excited and feeding them snacks). And commenters disagree that it’s a bad thing (or even that it’s true, since hackathons don’t really produce anything useful).
The study’s abstract makes things quite clear, as does Wired’s article, which says:
“To Zukin, this is a problem, because hackathons are making the “hacker subculture” they promote into the new work norm. That norm, which coincides with the labor market trend of less-secure employment, encourages professional workers to adopt an “entrepreneurial” career and market themselves for continually shifting jobs. The trend also includes motivating workers with Soviet-style slogans venerating the pleasures of work.”
In other words, hackathons are a tool used by corporate suits to give their employees the idea that a crazy work schedule is the new norm, that it’s the cool way to live the smashing coder’s life, and that no less would be expected (by their peers, even) from a successful smart engineer. And that, of course, is merely a way to get them to work 80 hours a week for the price of 40, without complaints.
“Think about flight attendant jobs before there was planes and commercial flights. No one could really predict that this job will appear. So there are jobs which will be appearing of that type that are related to the AI,” he said.
In short, experts proclaim that fears about their upcoming products are plainly unfounded; though, unable to offer any tangible argument to allay those fears, they can only express blind confidence that if past changes have turned out okay before, surely this next one will too.
It reminds me of those people who say: Hey, the climate has changed before, so you see? No big deal!
Here, the speech becomes: We (the experts) have no idea what the future holds (because, you see, nobody can predict it!), but we are nonetheless positively certain that it’s going to be real good (you just wait!), and the doubters are all wrong (what do those guys know anyway?).
The rationale? That a past change which largely replaced human muscle power (the industrial revolution) brought new jobs (all those flight attendants!) is evidence solid enough to give full confidence that an impending change which will largely replace human decision-making (the cybernetic revolution) will do just the same.
Talk about comparing apples with oranges!
Besides, his illustrative example is naïvely simplistic. Airplane technology itself did not bring those flight attendant jobs. After all, flight attendant jobs are just a modern version of litter porter jobs. But where a single wealthy aristocrat would need several porters, many air travellers must share the services of a single flight attendant, resulting in a net reduction of jobs per customer. However, something else amazing happened: the industrial revolution eventually (really, over the course of three centuries) dramatically reduced the cost of basic goods (while increasing their availability), while a social revolution simultaneously kept in relative check the concentration of wealth, to the point that most people can now afford astounding luxuries (like that of air travel), instead of spending all their income on essentials (like food). Ergo, new jobs, including those of flight attendants.
Similarly, if AI ever ends up having a positive impact on employment, it will most likely be indirect only. If it enables us to produce essential goods much more cheaply than today, dramatically reducing the cost of living, then the population at large may be able to redirect its purchasing power toward other activities (for example, education or health care, and possibly new services unknown today), spurring job creation in those sectors.
That’s “if”. Certainly, eliminating human labour will save money, but how much? Can it be on a scale similar to to that achieved by past mechanisation? And will those savings be passed to consumers, though we now seem to live in a state of reduced competition?
And how long will it take before those savings have an actual impact on spending habits and job creation? Will we have to go through some acute crisis first, with millions of people suddenly unemployed as automation gets rapidly deployed, leading to spending being reduced rather than increased, leading to even fewer jobs and to even more concentration of wealth, further leading to increased global poverty and yet fewer jobs?
Of course, if you have your eggs in the AI basket, the answer is easy: Fear not! The future is rosy!
“Don’t worry, be happy”, said the experts. Yes, sure, their jobs are at stake!