'As we move toward the cloud and technology gets easier to use, we'll have less need for full-time teams of people to maintain our stuff.'
Gavin Newsom, present. This guy is a political diva. Don't pay attention to him. His book and his overall schtick are pure self-promotion. In California, "lieutenant governor" means "guy who has no duties whatsoever and is there in case the governor dies or something."
Rubbish. That's a very naive straw man. It is very unlikely that such a person would laugh in your face. Books were manually transcribed at high cost, low availability, and uncertain completeness and accuracy back then. Demand for printed books exploded precisely because everyone in academia and business already had a burning need for them. That is most certainly not the case with arbitrarily moving every web or device innovation into the classroom. The distraction alone from this or that messaging or social media service is highly disruptive. In learning you want to engage people's minds. Not much technology is really needed for that. If it buys you convenience then great, do it. Otherwise it's a waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, it will be another 10 years before it becomes clear what was useful and what was cosmetic paraphernalia fetishism.
I agree. It is unsubstantiated horseshit to insist on moving every little gadget, app, or web innovation into the classroom. Like any other tools, they should be leveraged when there is a significant benefit in doing so. Being up to the minute on Web-Whatever-Dot-O just to be cool and futuristic is a fool's errand, not to mention a potentially large waste of resources.
One gets the impression these days that the bulk of Slashdot's current participants are young libertarians who did not pay attention in school while 20th century history was being examined and discussed, and have little or no living memory of any of it. These seem to be libertarians who think regulation of any kind is absolutely bad and that anyone should do whatever they want, as if there were no criminals or abusive citizens anywhere to be found. The mobsters who are in possession of our nation belie this childish and idyllic view of the world. Oddly, they seem to think it is just fine for governments to perform extra-legal executions without any legal consequence.
Your list describes the Soviet Union and Maoist China. It now also describes us. Yes, things do indeed look seriously bad. All the more disturbing are the numerous posts in support of our glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics.
Of course, you could always just keep a pad of paper and a pen attached to your fridge door, and occasionally take the resulting list of needed items to the supermarket with you. No rare earth elements, no lithium batteries and chargers, no USB cables, no authentication schemes, no Rumanian teenagers hacking into your system, no WiFi set up, no cell phone apps, no web configuration tools, etc. Just pen and paper. Fast. Cheap. Easily available. High availability. Leverages synergies. You know, practical.
Ah, yes. The benefits, elusive (and illusive) though they may be. "Controlling" your fridge or your thermostat from far away via your cellphone. Useful? Hardly at all. Cool and shiny? Sure, that's why people buy them. You need almost none of this. You don't even need a "food processor," unless you have to prepare food for more than 4 or 5 people. A set of decent knives and cutting boards will do just fine.
Just be realistic and recognize that if you buy kitchen gizmos it is because you are a gadget freak, not because they serve any compelling useful purpose. They are, by and large, paraphernalia, not tools.
Their only hope is for current Android/iOS devices to age out and become dull and boring, and then come up with something radically new. Google Glasses are a possibility, because they change the paradigm from a phone handset or a tablet to something radically different but with the same functionality of the phones plus a whole lot more. Microsoft would have to at least play catchup with Google, and I would bet a few bucks that Apple already has a few secret prototypes. If they don't, then they too are roadkill.
Microsoft will not win this time. If they continue to waste money on their phones, they will die an ignominious death. They need to move on to bigger and better things, like the massive robotic invasion that's not even ten years away.
"Technically you're not?" Citation needed. You are almost certainly liable for any criminal activity that originates from your home. This is not "guilty until proven innocent." If your neighbor sues you for damage to his fence originating from your side, you are liable but not guilty. The lawsuit will establish guilt or innocence. Same with people committing fraud from your equipment. You will be liable, and will have to respond to any litigation that results. This aside from any contractual obligations you have with your ISP that limit what you can do with your connectivity.
If all production is automated, then the marginal cost of any production is zero and the cost of any commodity will be zero.
That is beyond ludicrous. There is a finite cost to all of the resources involved in any kind of agriculture, manufacturing, or services business. Automation does not make them fall to zero, it only reduces the cost of human labor.
Interesting reply to my what-if question. I intuit that the solution must involve some sort of massively distributed and/or decentralized wealth creation on the part of what today are called "workers," but it's still hard for me to visualize any details. That's the only way I can imagine an outcome roughly similar to what occurred after the Industrial Revolution. Even then, though, there will be pain and disruption. I would guess that it will really start hitting the fan between 2020 and 2030 at the latest.
A lot of people don't seem to get that. Most people seem to take it as given that the robot owners will gladly give away all of their wealth to strangers for no particular reason.
I believe somebody already tried that. It didn't work very well. In fact, as soon as any of the experimental subjects got half a chance to escape from it, they did. That's why I said "credible."
At $22K per unit, if the thing has a practical lifespan of 5 years it will be so hugely cheaper than human labor that companies would be hysterically trying to use them to get rid of as many employees as possible. Even at $5-10K per year of operating costs it would come in below minimum wage.
It would be worthwhile for you or somebody to create a relatively detailed and credible narrative describing how such a thing could occur in real life. It is not obvious, and by and large unpalatable to most of the interested parties.
In the Industrial Revolution, people were replaced by better educated and trained people in new and vastly more productive jobs. Today, people will be replaced by machines. This is new and fundamentally different. The Industrial Revolution is not a valid model for this. Replacing people with machines that require ever fewer people to operate or manage them is the opposite of what happened in the 19th century.
Nevertheless, that is the prevailing goofy mantra to try and calm people's fears that we will be hearing again and again as this historic change progresses.
Slashdot Mirror
We can safely assume you are not a marketing drone and therefore are not well-versed in the prevailing MBA cloud-marketing horseshit.
'As we move toward the cloud and technology gets easier to use, we'll have less need for full-time teams of people to maintain our stuff.'
Gavin Newsom, present. This guy is a political diva. Don't pay attention to him. His book and his overall schtick are pure self-promotion. In California, "lieutenant governor" means "guy who has no duties whatsoever and is there in case the governor dies or something."
Rubbish. That's a very naive straw man. It is very unlikely that such a person would laugh in your face. Books were manually transcribed at high cost, low availability, and uncertain completeness and accuracy back then. Demand for printed books exploded precisely because everyone in academia and business already had a burning need for them. That is most certainly not the case with arbitrarily moving every web or device innovation into the classroom. The distraction alone from this or that messaging or social media service is highly disruptive. In learning you want to engage people's minds. Not much technology is really needed for that. If it buys you convenience then great, do it. Otherwise it's a waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, it will be another 10 years before it becomes clear what was useful and what was cosmetic paraphernalia fetishism.
I agree. It is unsubstantiated horseshit to insist on moving every little gadget, app, or web innovation into the classroom. Like any other tools, they should be leveraged when there is a significant benefit in doing so. Being up to the minute on Web-Whatever-Dot-O just to be cool and futuristic is a fool's errand, not to mention a potentially large waste of resources.
He is actually a poster child for TFA
One gets the impression these days that the bulk of Slashdot's current participants are young libertarians who did not pay attention in school while 20th century history was being examined and discussed, and have little or no living memory of any of it. These seem to be libertarians who think regulation of any kind is absolutely bad and that anyone should do whatever they want, as if there were no criminals or abusive citizens anywhere to be found. The mobsters who are in possession of our nation belie this childish and idyllic view of the world. Oddly, they seem to think it is just fine for governments to perform extra-legal executions without any legal consequence.
Your list describes the Soviet Union and Maoist China. It now also describes us. Yes, things do indeed look seriously bad. All the more disturbing are the numerous posts in support of our glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics.
Welcome, Comrades! Welcome to the glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics!
Of course, you could always just keep a pad of paper and a pen attached to your fridge door, and occasionally take the resulting list of needed items to the supermarket with you. No rare earth elements, no lithium batteries and chargers, no USB cables, no authentication schemes, no Rumanian teenagers hacking into your system, no WiFi set up, no cell phone apps, no web configuration tools, etc. Just pen and paper. Fast. Cheap. Easily available. High availability. Leverages synergies. You know, practical.
or where the benefits are murky
Ah, yes. The benefits, elusive (and illusive) though they may be. "Controlling" your fridge or your thermostat from far away via your cellphone. Useful? Hardly at all. Cool and shiny? Sure, that's why people buy them. You need almost none of this. You don't even need a "food processor," unless you have to prepare food for more than 4 or 5 people. A set of decent knives and cutting boards will do just fine.
Just be realistic and recognize that if you buy kitchen gizmos it is because you are a gadget freak, not because they serve any compelling useful purpose. They are, by and large, paraphernalia, not tools.
Their only hope is for current Android/iOS devices to age out and become dull and boring, and then come up with something radically new. Google Glasses are a possibility, because they change the paradigm from a phone handset or a tablet to something radically different but with the same functionality of the phones plus a whole lot more. Microsoft would have to at least play catchup with Google, and I would bet a few bucks that Apple already has a few secret prototypes. If they don't, then they too are roadkill.
Microsoft will not win this time. If they continue to waste money on their phones, they will die an ignominious death. They need to move on to bigger and better things, like the massive robotic invasion that's not even ten years away.
I know the answer: No. Unfortunately, I'm still not filthy rich.
OK, fair enough:
Short answer: the law is unclear about it and the law varies wildly by state.
"Technically you're not?" Citation needed. You are almost certainly liable for any criminal activity that originates from your home. This is not "guilty until proven innocent." If your neighbor sues you for damage to his fence originating from your side, you are liable but not guilty. The lawsuit will establish guilt or innocence. Same with people committing fraud from your equipment. You will be liable, and will have to respond to any litigation that results. This aside from any contractual obligations you have with your ISP that limit what you can do with your connectivity.
If all production is automated, then the marginal cost of any production is zero and the cost of any commodity will be zero.
That is beyond ludicrous. There is a finite cost to all of the resources involved in any kind of agriculture, manufacturing, or services business. Automation does not make them fall to zero, it only reduces the cost of human labor.
At the moment that future is at the far end of a very long and dark tunnel.
Interesting reply to my what-if question. I intuit that the solution must involve some sort of massively distributed and/or decentralized wealth creation on the part of what today are called "workers," but it's still hard for me to visualize any details. That's the only way I can imagine an outcome roughly similar to what occurred after the Industrial Revolution. Even then, though, there will be pain and disruption. I would guess that it will really start hitting the fan between 2020 and 2030 at the latest.
A lot of people don't seem to get that. Most people seem to take it as given that the robot owners will gladly give away all of their wealth to strangers for no particular reason.
Zowie! Modded as troll! And this isn't even Turkey!
I believe somebody already tried that. It didn't work very well. In fact, as soon as any of the experimental subjects got half a chance to escape from it, they did. That's why I said "credible."
At $22K per unit, if the thing has a practical lifespan of 5 years it will be so hugely cheaper than human labor that companies would be hysterically trying to use them to get rid of as many employees as possible. Even at $5-10K per year of operating costs it would come in below minimum wage.
It would be worthwhile for you or somebody to create a relatively detailed and credible narrative describing how such a thing could occur in real life. It is not obvious, and by and large unpalatable to most of the interested parties.
In the Industrial Revolution, people were replaced by better educated and trained people in new and vastly more productive jobs. Today, people will be replaced by machines. This is new and fundamentally different. The Industrial Revolution is not a valid model for this. Replacing people with machines that require ever fewer people to operate or manage them is the opposite of what happened in the 19th century.
Why would the robots' owners support you?
Nevertheless, that is the prevailing goofy mantra to try and calm people's fears that we will be hearing again and again as this historic change progresses.