i can't remember how it works out, something along the lines of increased leisure time & consumption & existential angst, keeping modern economies running on the triple engines of hbo, ten buck lattes and pyschotherapy.
― Dr Frogbius (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 01:00 (twelve years ago) link
who will the american consumers be
unless it means machines
that consume americans
― quick brown fox triangle (schlump), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
'american consumers' will be a hit tv show devised by cowell where awful people by crap in front of a crowd then tv viewers vote for the awful person buying the crap they liked the most.
Because we will all have so much leisure time, this will get 3 billion viewers, 24 hrs a day
― Dr Frogbius (darraghmac), Wednesday, 8 February 2012 01:34 (twelve years ago) link
these arguments have been around since, if not the industrial revolution, then at least the time of the production line, iirc?
yeah but technological change back then is not comparable to the kinda change that's happening now - machines that can replace physical labor vs. machines that can beat people at jeopardy
― iatee, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 01:45 (twelve years ago) link
Inventing a machine that replaces physical labour has a considerably greater impact on humankind than a machine that wins jeopardy
― badg, Thursday, 9 February 2012 19:26 (twelve years ago) link
I wouldn't argue w/ that, but that led to a world where people could do service sector jobs, the machine that wins jeopardy doing your legal paperwork or whatever frees up labor but doesn't necessarily create demand for a new type of labor
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
no, but it'll probably create demand & space for non-necessary labour
― Dr Frogbius (darraghmac), Thursday, 9 February 2012 19:32 (twelve years ago) link
there's no economic principle that suggests that that demand for non-necessary labor will make up for what's lost
― iatee, Thursday, 9 February 2012 19:33 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/can-the-computers-at-narrative-science-replace-paid-writers/255631/
― iatee, Monday, 16 April 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/the-recovery-squeezes-the-middle-class
― iatee, Friday, 4 May 2012 14:22 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/14/why-were-facing-a-mcjob-recovery/
― iatee, Sunday, 14 October 2012 23:59 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-end-of-labor-how-to-protect-workers-from-the-rise-of-robots/267135/
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
thanks for these links, iatee. it's been interesting watching this subject start to come up in Krugman's recent columns -- by chance it's happening as I'm getting around to reading Norbert Wiener's books on Cybernetics, written in the 40's & 50's. a lot of the work of the Macy Conferences has been sidelined as utopian: in the conclusion of his introduction to 'Cybernetics: Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine', he basically states that the rise of productive machines will prompt a societal crisis which will force us to find an enconomy of time that values a human life in other ways than a wage. Easy to dismiss as hopelessly utopian, and yet too many of the sentences in these books utterly nail everything Krugman's been inching towards in his recent columns.
Been thinking of starting a Gregory Bateson thread, but maybe not yet
― Milton Parker, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:13 (eleven years ago) link
yeah the subject has def begin to creep into the mainstream economics dialogue lately
krugman's article from 1996: http://mit.edu/krugman/www/BACKWRD2.html
actually predicted a lot of what's happening tho maybe was too pessimistic about robot plumbers /drivers etc.
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:23 (eleven years ago) link
from the other side of the fence, this hilarious article just posted
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/12/10-reasons-why-2013-will-be-the-year-you-quit-your-job/
― Milton Parker, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:24 (eleven years ago) link
What's the general crisis scenario look like? Because a workforce that is forced to go on half-time and still get the same real wages due to robot efficiencies seems pretty good to me.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:26 (eleven years ago) link
the robot efficiencies don't go to labor, is the crisis
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:32 (eleven years ago) link
blame our workaholic culture; don't blame the robots!
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 January 2013 20:33 (eleven years ago) link
No, & I can prove it mathematically.
I’ll alert Nick Woodhouse.
― Allen (etaeoe), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:36 (eleven years ago) link
lol at the techcrunch article
This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure.
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:18 (eleven years ago) link
always felt like the entrepreneur meme was a nice way to rationalize tearing up the social contract. "ehhh, you guys are on your own now ... start, like, a business or something ... worked out for those three guys over there."
― Spectrum, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:29 (eleven years ago) link
if techcrunch were replaced by a robot you can't tell me all parties involved wouldn't be better off.
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:30 (eleven years ago) link
St3ve Din3rman
Wow! Just this morning I was sitting here thinking , how in 50 years from now historians will look back on this time and discuss just how wrong we all were by blaming this whole problem of a dwindling middle class on political mistakes by both sides rather then the reality of what really was taking place.The fact is there has never been a better time in the past 100 years to create products and ideas, and get very wealthy doing so..The downside is those that don't realize or are unable to transition to this new world of innovation in technology and thinking are getting left behind, and thus is the reason for the continuing divide between the haves and have nots.Anyone unable to imagine and create will get left behind. Sad but true........
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:34 (eleven years ago) link
what's the end game if we all became entrepreneurs ... would it be a barter system? i can just imagine everyone trying to trade the useless crap they came up with in exchange for more useless crap. "uhhh i'll trade you this vibrating anime woman massage seat cushion for your 'integrated mobile social networking space'. do you have any food or medicine i could have, by the way?"
― Spectrum, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:41 (eleven years ago) link
B0do H0enen
Good article. But what are your thoughts on what will happen to the 90% of the population that will not follow this advice? How can those that do make it through the end of the industrial age support those that are left behind?
J4mes Altuch3r
When the plane starts to run out of air and the oxygen masks come out you put your own mask on first before you put it on the face of your 2 year old baby. The same thing here. The best way to help everyone else is to help yourself. Then it will become a very natural instinct how you can help the rest. Don't worry about it until then.
― Spectrum, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:45 (eleven years ago) link
entrepreneurialism as an apocalyptic cult. interesting times.
― Spectrum, Monday, 14 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
just have your 3d printer build a farm-bot and a medic-bot
― for the relief of unbearable space hugs (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 14 January 2013 21:50 (eleven years ago) link
K3lly McFinn3ly
Thank you for articulating this without economic charts and graphs. I very much need to diversify.
― iatee, Monday, 14 January 2013 22:10 (eleven years ago) link
nothing new under the sun
http://nyrbclassics.tumblr.com/post/41215596961/the-plain-truth-is-that-at-present-many-of-us-are
― caek, Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:24 (eleven years ago) link
http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2013/01/11/apres-le-perturbation/
― iatee, Friday, 25 January 2013 02:58 (eleven years ago) link
I work as an admin assistant in the civil service so yes it fucking could
― paolo, Friday, 25 January 2013 15:34 (eleven years ago) link
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/03/sam-altman-is-not-blithering-idiot.html
― iatee, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 14:46 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/4340.html
― iatee, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 17:04 (eleven years ago) link
Could a powerful computer artificially inseminate goats?
NB: This is not my job at present, but I am merely curious about this in a general sort of way.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 03:46 (eleven years ago) link
it could not naturally inseminate goats
― we're up all night to eat biscuits (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 03:53 (eleven years ago) link
what if they were using nanotechnology?
― Aimless, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 03:58 (eleven years ago) link
or if the computer was really goat hot?
― I have many lovely lacy nightgowns (contenderizer), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 03:59 (eleven years ago) link
na-a-a-a-anotechnology
― we're up all night to eat biscuits (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 04:00 (eleven years ago) link
i'll get me coat
It would have to be a very powerful computer
― Panaïs Pnin (The Yellow Kid), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 04:11 (eleven years ago) link
hahaha i met a bright-eyed young engineer at work who told me he'd come up with a logarithm that "does what you guys do"
― screen scraper (m coleman), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 09:39 (eleven years ago) link
There are a few recurrent aspects of my job that could totally be done by a script or handful of scripts and it is immensely frustrating to me that they are not. Like, that's what computers are for, surely, to do tedious repetitive tasks. It's 2013. What the fuck.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 09:42 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-for-the-luddites.html
― iatee, Friday, 14 June 2013 04:02 (ten years ago) link
i met a project management guru the other week who is flatly, calmly convinced that robots will replace at least 50% of the jobs people currently have and that it would have happened sooner except no one knows how to replace the lost demand
maybe we can find aliens to buy our products and let the preponderance of humanity starve
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 30 December 2014 02:39 (nine years ago) link