In a 1938 article, MIT’s president argued that technical progress didn’t mean fewer jobs. He’s still right.
Compton drew a sharp distinction between the consequences of technological progress on “industry as a whole” and the effects, often painful, on individuals.
For “industry as a whole,” he concluded, “technological unemployment is a myth.” That’s because, he argued, technology "has created so many new industries” and has expanded the market for many items by “lowering the cost of production to make a price within reach of large masses of purchasers.” In short, technological advances had created more jobs overall. The argument—and the question of whether it is still true—remains pertinent in the age of AI.
Then Compton abruptly switched perspectives, acknowledging that for some workers and communities, “technological unemployment may be a very serious social problem, as in a town whose mill has had to shut down, or in a craft which has been superseded by a new art.”
There’s no new jobs for horses after the combustion engine was invented to do physical labor - why would there be more “intelligence jobs” for humans when intelligence is automated? If it’s a pertinent question then such people have not questioned their wishful thinking.
AI today doesn’t need to affect all jobs to cause mass disruptions. The biggest industry is transport - what jobs does MIT’s president imagine will be created for 60 year old truckers if they’re replaced with autos? Do we get the funny joke where people suggest truckers should learn programming?
what jobs does MIT’s president imagine will be created for 60 year old truckers if they’re replaced with autos? Do we get the funny joke where people suggest truckers should learn programming?
The way it’s developing, programmers will be replaced before drivers.
There’s no new jobs for horses after the combustion engine was invented to do physical labor - why would there be more “intelligence jobs” for humans when intelligence is automated?
Because humans are “general purpose” and horses are “specialized” for example. What other job can a horse do ?
I’ve heard horses have a social hierarchy and good emotional awareness. Hopefully humans can focus on being social with each other when there isn’t enough jobs to go around.
There’s no new jobs for horses after the combustion engine was invented to do physical labor
Bingo. And this time we’re the horses.
Can something unintelligent create something that is?
Did ChatGPT write that? Sounds like something from a theist vs atheist thread.
Nah, it’s just that every new day we’re left wondering if humans are really intelligent, so I don’t know if we can create something that is…
It appears we can be both really intelligence is one area while stupid in others. Speaks to the segmentation of our brains.
Did you even read the paragraphs I pulled out, not even the article itself?
Then Compton abruptly switched perspectives, acknowledging that for some workers and communities, “technological unemployment may be a very serious social problem, as in a town whose mill has had to shut down, or in a craft which has been superseded by a new art.”
His whole point was technology does not reduce the amount of employment as a whole, but it can focus pain on particular communities that get displaced by technology. I just don’t buy into the tech bro singularity cult that AI will grow at an exponential rate and replace everyone, AI will be a tool like any other - extending human capabilities but not replacing them entirely.
Humans were the best chess players until computers brute forced the solution with uninteligent computational power. Humans were the best at Chinese Go for longer as brute forcing would take too long. Humans were no longer the best at Go when machine learning beat pros consistently. This is one-way, hunans don’t win back ground. If we assume AI doesn’t get better than this saying “technology does not reduce unemployment” is still short sighted.
The alignment problem should be taken seriously even if wealthy assholes agree, but AI killing humans is a seperate issue.
Humans were the best at weaving until looms came along, humans were the best at welding components together until industrial robots came along. Humans were the best at doing double entry accounting until digital computers came along.
I just don’t see this current wave of AI of being any different than previous technological advances that became tools better at specific tasks than humans.
This is one-way, hunans don’t win back ground.
No they dont they open up new gound as technology increases the range of the possible, as the article talks about
One critical wild card is how many new jobs will be created by AI even as existing ones disappear. Estimating such job creation is notoriously difficult. But MIT’s David Autor and his collaborators recently calculated that 60% of employment in 2018 was in types of jobs that didn’t exist before 1940.
When you know the goal but do not know how to functionally get there then an artificial neural network can be useful. To get Chinese Go artificial opponent working was done by making the program run many games against many iterations of itself to adjust itself towards the correct moves for any situation. The biggest difference is the scope of problems this type of tool is capable of solving.
Technology creating more jobs in the industrial revolution isn’t a valid argument that automating intelligence will create more jobs. Even if we grant that it does, are you assuming that it will create more jobs that it nullifies forever? If we can agree there’s a point where it stops being positive then we just disagree on the time it will happen.
If we assume jobs are created and they too complex to be suitable for the majority of people (who mostly work in transport) then we have the same societal problem: job available, apply within (humans need not apply). If we’re to take the industrial revolution as gospel then most people leave the workforce when the jobs are automated.
If technological develop it’s not intended to reduce labor hours and redistribute wealth, what it’s intended for? For the rich to being more rich?
There’s a difference between what’s intended for, and what is used for.
Previous increases in automation and productivity have brought new goods, services, wealth. To be perfectly honest I’m largely done.
The next wave of progress needs to not bring new things but to bring more time off.
The only things I probably want in terms of future tech is medical advances and VR. Everything else fuck it. I’m okay with all the media we got, the Internet, TV games, food, hobbies. I don’t have smart anything except a phone. I’m done.
Give me a 4 day work week for what I have now. Then 3 then 2 then 1. I’m done. I don’t need more.
Previous results are not sufficient to forecast the future.
The only things I probably want in terms of future tech is
And how would you know? Before cars nobody anticipated them. Same with planes, computers, smartphones… You won’t anticipate close to all new tech by extrapolating what we have.
I don’t want a car. I don’t have one currently. In 1829 Stephenson showed trains were the future and that remains the same today.
I’m not convinced planes and computers have been good for the world. Though I have enjoyed them both tremendously.
But I’m ready to be an old man holding on to old tech. Fuck man. You ever quit your job and travelled the world? Playing poker on a wooden bench with a single light bulb next to the beach, with people you met that day is so much better than the Internet. The shame of it is that most people haven’t.
We gave up community and happiness for isolation and sadness.
Also I’m old enough to have seen personal computers change the world. A lot has been lost in the last 2 decades.
I’m not convinced planes and computers have been good for the world. Though I have enjoyed them both tremendously.
Sounds like something I’ve seen in the Unabombers Manifesto.
I have been meaning to read that.
Technology and happiness aren’t correlated though. That’s nothing new.
Playing poker on a wooden bench with a single light bulb next to the beach
Yep, done that. And I agree it’s great. I need a plane to visit the beach though.
IT guy here, I am not that worried about AI, I kinda see it in a similar situation as 3D movies, a fad, with a cool core technology, but way overhyped.
Right now AI companies are trying to find their place, and some will, but most will fail.
The main issue woth AI as we see it today is that it is too unreliable, while stating incorrect informstion as if it is completely true.
I tried Bings AI a few times last year, and while cool, it would often lie or if I am asking for a powershell script to do X, it would send me incomplete or broken scripts, I’d have to talk to it and explain what was missing, then baby it through completing the task.
AI as it is now, will not work good enough to be usefull data
I’m also a IT guy, I can see many things like data engineering, document verification, data entry etc being automated. Some jobs won’t disappear but the headcount in companies surely will decrease. A lot of these automation stuff don’t even need AI, it’s just smarter and more efficient softwares we are having nowadays. A lot these high paying jobs won’t need experienced high salaried people instead companies will hire freshers or those from developing countries at low wages.
IT guy here, I am not that worried about AI
That’s pretty much because you’re an IT guy. You’re in an industry that AI won’t replace any time soon.
If you were a cashier, or a stock clerk, or a busboy, you should be terrified by AI. The speed at which those jobs are already vanishing is astounding. The other day I was at a restaurant, and I never interacted with a human. The ordering was done by touch panel at my table, the food was delivered to the table by a robot and I paid at an automated terminal. I don’t know how many staff were on duty but it had to be a fraction of what it would have been a decade ago. I bought clothes last week and there was one employee in the store, overseeing the self-checkout lanes (but really just sitting idly by in case anyone had issues). I read an article yesterday about how robots are now being distributed to convenience stores that can clean, stock, and reorder items, so these shops will pretty soon have only one employee in them.
The gimmicky shit that your browser AI and chatbots can do is nothing compared to how this is already revolutionizing the world.
This is a bit dystopian, but not entierly wrong, I doubt that stores will only have one employee in them any time soon, but you are right in that the chats we have seen are just gimmicks.
I doubt that stores will only have one employee
It’s already here, my dude. Not every store, but some are doing this now. It’s just a question of how fast it will spread.
