Archived Paradigm shift required for humanity’s survival? Target related...

[Not My Name]

What is our species going to do with itself and how will it continue to live when AI and robotics start to become advanced enough that they start wiping out large amounts of jobs?

Think about almost all Target stores jobs being wiped out except maybe a couple tops... I know that sounds far fetched but really, consider the following...

Amazon is currently experiencing huge amounts of sales growth annually, yet, this is the first Christmas season that they actually hired less Christmas workers than the previous Christmas despite continued massive sales increases... which would highly suggest that they personally have already turned the corner in this regard.

Don’t you think Target will get rid of as many human jobs as possible in favor of robots that work around the clock “for free” compared to humans that require health insurance, begging for higher wages, get sick, are slow, unproductive etc? The answer is obvious.

Artificial intelligence is coming at a quicker pace than the majority of us truly appreciate.

Tesla is trying to deliver full autonomy this year and probably will... get in your car and you end up at work while basically doing nothing. Don’t think that ends up having a massive impact on our labor market just by itself within 10 to 20 years? A TON of people drive for a living.

In the 2008 recession, the U.S. unemployment peaked at roughly 10%, and the Great Depression peaked at roughly 25%.

So what do we do when machines permanently take over 50% of the job market, especially considering 50% is probably a largely conservative number?

Our species must determine a new way to exist besides just work = money = eating. Do I know what that is? Of course I do not hence the purpose of this thread.

However, unless we figure out a new systemic approach to life as a species, at the very least, we are looking at extreme levels of population reduction with the very high probability that things are about to get extremely violent on a global scale... and by ‘about to’ I really mean with near 100% certainty within 100 years and even still extremely high probability percentages within 20 or 30 being more likely to be the true onset.


Any thoughts?

 

[NPC]

We could use another plague.

 

[can't touch this]

Neo-Luddite groups that blow up or sabotage automated factories, or perhaps cyber warfare targeting same, if it gets bad enough. Theoretically this should have wider support among normies than your standard terrorist groups because targeting robots doesn’t carry the same ethical issues as does killing other humans. So we might just get the Butlerian Jihad after all.

It all really depends on how much of the hype surrounding AI is true vs. how much is just empty hype. I expect that true artificial intelligence will probably prove to be impossible to create for whatever reason (if we can’t fully understand how a bio-brain works then how can we realistically expect to construct an artificial one that functions identically or better). Silicon-based CPUs are already starting to bump up against the laws of physics.

There’s also the question of affordability and practicality for even crude AI that might end up limiting large-scale deployment. We are now living in “the far future” as it was seen from the perspective of previous generations, but take a moment to consider how much of the high technology commercially available now is actually affordable to you as a private individual or small business owner. Time travel to 1910 and tell the Wright brothers about our modern fighter planes that can travel well beyond the speed of sound and deflect radar....available only to the US government for the low price of $1 billion each. Prohibitive cost and the presumably substantial hardware required to run a full-fledged true AI will likely keep it in its own niche for quite a while.

All that said, political workarounds for the “AI singularity” seem to be mostly focused on Universal Basic Income rather than where it ought to be, which is making AI illegal. UBI always comes up in these threads but I’m just going to say it, it’s a stupid idea that won’t work. Germany trialed it and it worked about as well as you would expect (people just used the money to buy widgets and get high) and they concluded that it was a fail.

 

[Ringwraith917]

Be the robot repair man. Be an artist, craftsman, or other creative. Certain types of jobs will be replaced, true. Others will be created.
By now my car was supposed to by flying, and I should have a robotic maid, xray eyes, a real hoverboard, be making weekend plans on Mars, and a computer in my pocket.
"The world" will be fine. The United States might not. Most of the world will not have these advanced technologies.

 

[can't touch this]

Also keep in mind how capitalism works. Any true AI that's so advanced that it can perfectly simulate a human is going to be stupidly, wildly expensive which will automatically make it a luxury product/service that only governments and a few very wealthy corporations can afford.

Remember back when they were planning LTE and it was going to be able to deliver 50mbps mobile broadband? Well the specifications support it in theory but we already knew Verizon was going to cap the fuck out of it and charge $$$$$$$ for 4G data plans, and they sure as hell did. Same shit.

 

[seasonaldude]

Germany trialed it and it worked about as well as you would expect (people just used the money to buy widgets and get high) and they concluded that it was a fail.

That sounds like it kind of worked. I'm not overly in favor of UBI. It could be OK if done properly and it gives people enough to live on, not the pittance that is normally proposed. Anyway, the point of it is to give people money to buy widgets. It doesn't really matter what they buy, they just need to buy something as buying shit is the basis of the capitalist economy. I mean from Jeff Bezos' perspective isn't really terrible if he and his fellow billionaires get taxed, that money gets parcelled out to the plebes, and then spent buying crap on Amazon that is fullfilled by his fully automated warehouses and delivery drones? That's certainly better than spending money to fully automate his warehouses and build a fleet of drones that sit around coilecting dust because the plebes have no money to buy anything.

Of course, from the perspective of those on the left that's a failure as they'd rather people spend money on food and housing. So, when they pilot UBI, they often see the results as a failure. Our capitalist overlords will be all over it though should the cost of UBI + automation ever dip below the cost of maintaining a poorly paid labor force.

 

[NPC]

Respect robots for this is the future

 

[Antennae]

Eat the rich is a good idea.

 

[can't touch this]

That sounds like it kind of worked. I'm not overly in favor of UBI. It could be OK if done properly and it gives people enough to live on, not the pittance that is normally proposed. Anyway, the point of it is to give people money to buy widgets. It doesn't really matter what they buy, they just need to buy something as buying shit is the basis of the capitalist economy. I mean from Jeff Bezos' perspective isn't really terrible if he and his fellow billionaires get taxed, that money gets parcelled out to the plebes, and then spent buying crap on Amazon that is fullfilled by his fully automated warehouses and delivery drones? That's certainly better than spending money to fully automate his warehouses and build a fleet of drones that sit around coilecting dust because the plebes have no money to buy anything.

Of course, from the perspective of those on the left that's a failure as they'd rather people spend money on food and housing. So, when they pilot UBI, they often see the results as a failure. Our capitalist overlords will be all over it though should the cost of UBI + automation ever dip below the cost of maintaining a poorly paid labor force.

UBI is so objectionable mainly because it’s gratuitous corporate welfare and a poor solution to a fake problem to boot. The inevitability of the upcoming “techno-singularity” isn’t as cut and dried as the techno-barons like to claim, but it’s being treated as an immutable truth that the human worker is about to be obsolete, like they’re trying to get us to think past the sale. Anything containing the word “paradigm shift” is probably just TED-talk style techno-babble from people who have lots of money but no clue.

The more I think about it, the trickier it is to come up with an example of anyone making a prediction of the future involving technology that didn’t turn out to be wildly wrong. Pretend I posted a drawing sketched by a guy in 1900 showing what NYC would look like in 1999, complete with dirigibles floating around and weird looking skyscrapers with dirigible docks at the top of their spires. Lmao. Yet I’m sure there were many daring capitalists in that day who just KNEW deep in their heart of hearts that hydrogen filled airships were the future of travel.

 

[Backroom81]

While nothing will make the human worker obsolete, the rise in automation will devalue labor even more as it gets better. Automation is just as responsible for killing American manufacturing jobs as outsourcing. When you compare our manufacturing output over time vs the number of workers in those industries, the difference between the boomer days of the 70s and today is staggering:

That chart is from Today is Manufacturing Day, so let's recognize America's world-class manufacturing sector and factory workers - AEI - http://www.aei.org/publication/october-2-is-manufacturing-day-so-lets-recognize-americas-world-class-manufacturing-sector-and-factory-workers/ which is using data from US Gov's Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

edit: The chart is using inflation adjusted figures for 2014 dollars.


That's just in manufacturing though. The current wave of automation is threatening data-entry, analytical, and small-mid level managerial jobs.

 

[Not My Name]

UBI is so objectionable mainly because it’s gratuitous corporate welfare and a poor solution to a fake problem to boot. The inevitability of the upcoming “techno-singularity” isn’t as cut and dried as the techno-barons like to claim, but it’s being treated as an immutable truth that the human worker is about to be obsolete, like they’re trying to get us to think past the sale. Anything containing the word “paradigm shift” is probably just TED-talk style techno-babble from people who have lots of money but no clue.

The more I think about it, the trickier it is to come up with an example of anyone making a prediction of the future involving technology that didn’t turn out to be wildly wrong. Pretend I posted a drawing sketched by a guy in 1900 showing what NYC would look like in 1999, complete with dirigibles floating around and weird looking skyscrapers with dirigible docks at the top of their spires. Lmao. Yet I’m sure there were many daring capitalists in that day who just KNEW deep in their heart of hearts that hydrogen filled airships were the future of travel.

There’s a huge difference between this and predictions of the past.

This technology? This technology is already here. It’s only a mere matter of refinement and time. There’s nothing overly speculative about it. It’s a disingenuous if not ignorant comparison to make.

 

[Not My Name]

 

[garbage]

We could use another plague.

With all those anti-vaxers out there, this is actually a real possibility lol

 

[SitSpotSit]

I've seen the videos about Amazon using automation in their warehouse to fulfill orders and it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't call what I've seen robots, but I guess you could call them that. They haven't replaced a human packer as the inventory is brought to them, but it is likely a matter of time.

Target obviously has a 10 year plan and it probably includes automation of some sort. If one knows what to look for it's noticeable somewhere.

Here's an article from 2015...I think you'll appreciate the parts that I found humorous!!
Target Shares Roadmap to Transform Business - https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2015/03/target-shares-roadmap-to-transform-business

 

[can't touch this]

There’s a huge difference between this and predictions of the past.

This technology? This technology is already here. It’s only a mere matter of refinement and time. There’s nothing overly speculative about it. It’s a disingenuous if not ignorant comparison to make.

No, there’s literally zero difference. Your only frame of reference is the present and very short term future, yet you make these self-assured claims as though you know for certain how factors like market conditions, political climate, demographics and the world order will be essentially unchanged 20+ years from now. Because the tech exists now in the early release stage absolutely means it will still be implemented the same way in 2040, right? Who’s going to be president in 2040 and what’s their economic plan? Which of the Big Tech companies around now have survived and which ones have been pushed aside by newer startups? How has economic stability of the last 20 years (or lack thereof) affected consumers’ habits?



So in a way, the artist was correct that airships were still used in 1999, he just had no fucking clue how much EVERYTHING ELSE was going to change. That’s the problem with trying to predict the future, there’s just too many variables.

 

[Not My Name]

You’re reaching.

 

[phibot]

Ask someone in the agricultural sector or a coal miner

 

[Backroom81]

Ask someone in the agricultural sector or a coal miner

Oh come on. We all know coal mining was killed off by Obama regulations and not by changes in technology and the prices of competing fuels!

Oh wait...

 

[Times Up]

Target obviously has a 10 year plan and it probably includes automation of some sort. If one knows what to look for it's noticeable somewhere

Heck, Walmart is testing robots to scan their shelves so that associates can be notified of outs and where product has been incorrectly placed.

 

[phibot]

Oh come on. We all know coal mining was killed off by Obama regulations and not by changes in technology and the prices of competing fuels!

Oh wait...

The point being that automation and modernization (ha) is killing obsolete industries?

 

[Backroom81]

I forgot my sarcasm font. The first two graphs are to show how coal production kept on rising despite the huge drops in employment starting in the 1980s. Production dropping in 2008-2010 correlates with the price of natural gas going down by 50% at the same time.

 

[can't touch this]

Remember the PEAK OIL meme? Right around now is about when people in the 80s were claiming law and order would break down and WWIII would be fought over the last productive oil well. Turns out that when you lack complete information, including details that nobody at your point in the timeline could possibly know, because it hasn’t happened yet, then your big theory might not pan out after all.



WELP!