7 ms·

So I know the article isn't entirely serious, but the "score one for the robots" attitude seems pretty common and it's perplexing to me. Isn't this "score one f

by mwd_ 14y ago

So I know the article isn't entirely serious, but the "score one for the robots" attitude seems pretty common and it's perplexing to me. Isn't this "score one for the humans", since they have created and now control a new kind of machine? When I see robots doing new stuff I don't worry about humans becoming obsolete (whatever that means), I look forward to the day when humans are freed from the grunt work they do now. Some people worry about losing their jobs in the rock-paper-scissors industry, but I think this is a social problem that has nothing to do with robots.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Have you never seen one of those movies where the robots take over? That's basically what people are joking/complaining about. (Sure, it's fiction, but can we say for sure it could never come true?)
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generalization_from/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generaliza...
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    This is not applicable to my comment. I was merely attempting to quickly and easily explain why treating "robots" as a distinct entity, rather than merely human tools, is an extant viewpoint.
jholman 14y ago
It is clearly a social problem, not a technical problem. But it clearly has a LOT to do with robots (and computing in general, and technology in general). I am not a neo-Luddite (nor Luddite, nor primitivist, all of which are different things), principally in that I do not subscribe to normative Luddite beliefs (beliefs about What We Ought To Do). But the Luddite fears are legitimate fears, for those affected; when the work you currently know how to do is replaceable with (sufficiently-cheap) machinery, it makes you personally poorer. (Of course, when MY job is replaced by cheaper machinery, it makes YOU personally marginally richer, because you get better prices on the goods that I used to produce, and over time this appears to be a net win). And socially, we observe that increasing automation has, for the most part, not freed humans from doing grunt work, as they once did. Except for those people that have been "freed" into poverty. Admittedly, the poverty of today seems to me to be quite a bit nicer than the poverty of 200 years ago (esp. urban poverty).
- rmc 14y ago
  socially, we observe that increasing automation has, for the most part, not freed humans from doing grunt work, as they once did. Sure it has. Much less people work on the land now. Much less people shovel dirt, till land and harvest crops. Also I don't need to wash ky hands by hand, wash my dishes, and empty my chamberpot anymore. That's not to say there is no poverty (there is), but its wrong to say there is the same amount of grudge work as there was 200 years ago.
  - Retric 14y ago
    There is far more grudge work now than ever. It's just that people don't do the vast majority of it.
  - jholman 14y ago
    I agree that a shrinking percentage of society is doing agricultural work, and certainly many specific tasks of grunt-work-of-yore are less grunt-y and more automated. But my assertion was not that "automation has not started doing any of the grunt work we once did". My assertion was that the segment of society that WAS doing grunt work is mostly not elevated out of grunt work TODAY. I assert that, rather, those people are mostly either still doing grunt work, or else are unable to find a useful role in society (a leftier turn of phrase would be "they are being abandoned by society"). I can certainly concede that there has been SOME improvement in this, but it's vastly less than starry-eyed optimists seem to suggest. Remember that this followed mwd_1 stating a vision of the future, in which "humans are freed from the grunt work they do now", by which I assume (s)he meant not just today's variant of grunt work, but grunt work in general. Basically, my whole claim is that techno-utopianism is unrealistic, and it is unrealistic for social reasons, not technological reasons. Not that it stops me from wishing for it. Oh, and a minor unimportant correction: the phrase is "grunt work", not "grudge work", at least in most English-speaking communities. Look it up.
    - jff 14y ago
      I think "grudge" might be a combination of "grunt" and "drudge", aided by the fact that "grudge" is a real word with a different meaning. I noticed it too.

by mwd_ 14y ago

sliverstorm 14y ago

Have you never seen one of those movies where the robots take over? That's basically what people are joking/complaining about. (Sure, it's fiction, but can we say for sure it could never come true?)

TeMPOraL 14y ago
http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generalization_from/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generaliza...
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  This is not applicable to my comment. I was merely attempting to quickly and easily explain why treating "robots" as a distinct entity, rather than merely human tools, is an extant viewpoint.

jholman 14y ago

It is clearly a social problem, not a technical problem. But it clearly has a LOT to do with robots (and computing in general, and technology in general). I am not a neo-Luddite (nor Luddite, nor primitivist, all of which are different things), principally in that I do not subscribe to normative Luddite beliefs (beliefs about What We Ought To Do). But the Luddite fears are legitimate fears, for those affected; when the work you currently know how to do is replaceable with (sufficiently-cheap) machinery, it makes you personally poorer. (Of course, when MY job is replaced by cheaper machinery, it makes YOU personally marginally richer, because you get better prices on the goods that I used to produce, and over time this appears to be a net win). And socially, we observe that increasing automation has, for the most part, not freed humans from doing grunt work, as they once did. Except for those people that have been "freed" into poverty. Admittedly, the poverty of today seems to me to be quite a bit nicer than the poverty of 200 years ago (esp. urban poverty).

rmc 14y ago
socially, we observe that increasing automation has, for the most part, not freed humans from doing grunt work, as they once did. Sure it has. Much less people work on the land now. Much less people shovel dirt, till land and harvest crops. Also I don't need to wash ky hands by hand, wash my dishes, and empty my chamberpot anymore. That's not to say there is no poverty (there is), but its wrong to say there is the same amount of grudge work as there was 200 years ago.
- Retric 14y ago
  There is far more grudge work now than ever. It's just that people don't do the vast majority of it.
- jholman 14y ago
  I agree that a shrinking percentage of society is doing agricultural work, and certainly many specific tasks of grunt-work-of-yore are less grunt-y and more automated. But my assertion was not that "automation has not started doing any of the grunt work we once did". My assertion was that the segment of society that WAS doing grunt work is mostly not elevated out of grunt work TODAY. I assert that, rather, those people are mostly either still doing grunt work, or else are unable to find a useful role in society (a leftier turn of phrase would be "they are being abandoned by society"). I can certainly concede that there has been SOME improvement in this, but it's vastly less than starry-eyed optimists seem to suggest. Remember that this followed mwd_1 stating a vision of the future, in which "humans are freed from the grunt work they do now", by which I assume (s)he meant not just today's variant of grunt work, but grunt work in general. Basically, my whole claim is that techno-utopianism is unrealistic, and it is unrealistic for social reasons, not technological reasons. Not that it stops me from wishing for it. Oh, and a minor unimportant correction: the phrase is "grunt work", not "grudge work", at least in most English-speaking communities. Look it up.
  - jff 14y ago
    I think "grudge" might be a combination of "grunt" and "drudge", aided by the fact that "grudge" is a real word with a different meaning. I noticed it too.