In case this is "TL;DR" - Basically, I'm saying that as technology becomes more relevant, non-technical people become more irrelevant. And intelligence is a requirement for being relevant in technology. Especially considering the complexity of emerging technologies (quantum/nano)

Have we ever considered that, due to advancing technology, intelligence requirements for successful business and employment opportunities are extending beyond the scope of a larger and larger percentage of the population? Remember, schools don't make people more intelligent, only smarter (there is a difference).

I don't think this perspective is new, but I think there is a very big point that isn't included in mainstream debate about future unemployment. Currently, we keep waiting for the economy to "turn around". We assume that any increase in unemployment will be equally returned by a break in the economy. However, I believe that what likely powers a boost in the economy will send unemployment rates even higher - technology.

The growth of technology, and the required intelligence to navigate the business of it, are leaving a progressively larger population irrelevant. Initially we watched manufacturing cities turn to dust; skills that drove the economy 10-20 years ago, now can hardly put food on the table (if there is any need for them at all). Even today many students consider learned knowledge in their field obsolete by the time they graduate college.

What about when Silicon Valley becomes Quantum Valley? What about when a large number of fields yield to nanotechnology? Every advancement in technology (assuming it's in demand) swallows a sector of the "working class" and excludes a larger population from participating. The examples I refer to in this post, quantum computing and nanotechnology, aren't exactly amateur friendly. You won't find a Steve Jobs building a personal quantum computer in his garage.

You could argue that a sufficient percentage of the general population has caught up with the progression of science and technology in the past, but my point is that I think that is changing.

Now I'm not bashing technology, I absolutely love the implications of a quantum and nanotechnology race. I also know that there are many bright students preparing to hit the ground running in these subjects. But what about the other 90% of the country that will likely lose there jobs or be unable to adapt to these advanced technologies?

Also, how will this manifest itself in democracy? Certainly if high brow technology takes over enough low brow work we will see a backlash politically.

[Edited by - Chris Reynolds on December 19, 2010 11:22:02 PM]

You don't have to be intelligent to be gainfully employed in a technology field. I'm sure we have all worked with enough terrible programmers to know that.

Quote:

Original post by tstrimp You don't have to be intelligent to be gainfully employed in a technology field. I'm sure we have all worked with enough terrible programmers to know that.

I'm mainly talking about people who are outside of the relevance of technology. Programmers are only ever going to become more relevant as technology grows.

Basically, I'm saying that as technology becomes more relevant, non-technical people become more irrelevant. And intelligence is a requirement for being relevant in technology. I should bold that for the "TL;DR"-ers.

Check out The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era by Jeremy Rifkin, 1995.

Quote:

In this compelling, disturbing, and ultimately hopeful book, Jeremy Rifkin argues that we are entering a new phase of history — one characterized by the steady and inevitable decline of jobs. Worldwide unemployment is now at the highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. The number of people underemployed or without work is rising sharply as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves victims of an extraordinary high-technology revolution. Sophisticated computers, robotics, telecommunications, and other cutting-edge technologies are fast replacing human beings in virtually every sector and industry-from manufacturing, retail, and financial services, to transportation, agriculture, and government. ...

@LessBread - yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Written in 1995 and it rings even truer now, 10 years later.

Not only does it replace jobs, but it also excludes those unable to learn highly complex technologies from getting a job in the first place.

In the distant future I imagine there will be two types of people. Programmers and the unemployed.

If AI and robotics continue to grow, then why would anyone hire a human worker in the future?

If we can produce an AI that can run on a computer the size of an average desktop, have all the creativity and imagination of a human mind, and still have the accurate and precise reproduction of tasks that robotics are already so focused on, then what is the point of a human worker?

Humans are horrible workers. We're soft, fleshy, easily damaged/made sick and forced to stay home from work. We grow old and retire or get bored and go looking for another job, thus taking our knowledge with us. We take a decade to develop and train to do a job of any real complexity, and most need nearly two and a half to do jobs that take any real creative thinking.

We whine and complain about working conditions. We often don't like work and would rather spend time at home with our families or off doing something else. We often demand better pay and working conditions, etc, etc, etc.

If we have the choice between a human employee, and a robot who can be assembled and shipped from a factory with a direct copy of a 200 year old skilled employee who knows every last detail of how to do the job quickly and perfectly,... Who in their right mind would pick a human from a business stand point?

This is part of what I found "wrong" in the "Hello, America" thread.

Putting people out of work used to be considered progress in some circles. The increase of leisure. We are able to free more and more people from the need to work until ultimately none of us have to work at all. (Computer, program that robot to go program those computers to program those other robots to build computers and those over there to build robots...)

It is because of people akin to some posters in the Hello America thread that freeing humans from labour is becoming seen as a bad thing. "You're not freeing them from labour, you are taking jobs away from them!"

Uh, wait a sec, fella. It's not as if they want jobs. Its that the robots aren't taking the Three Laws of Robotics seriously enough (*) ... Or as Asimov's purported "last robot story (**)" "the last robots" implies, its that robots programmed that way would be more human than some posters in that other thread...


* Specifically, the first law, second clause. (Nor, by inaction...)

** Or was it ultimate robot story. Written for an anthology of ultimate science fiction stories, picking 12 classic categories of story and choosing the "ultimate" writer of each category. (A male and a female for the sex category, so 13 stories & authors in all.)

[Edited by - markm on December 20, 2010 2:20:48 AM]

If technology did in fact put every human out of work except the programmers and servicers, how would we measure value? Who would have buying power?

I think this robotization will lead to the collapse of the civilization eventually. Unless mankind is brainwashed to be like cows, or Matrix is made. I think the brainwashing is the tendency today, but that only works on a portion of the humans. There will be machine destroyers (or whatever they're called), wars etc I guess.

And the problem is: I don't think the demand for skilled, intelligent personnel will grow, we can see how fucking hard to get a job as a programmer/engineer etc. So no matter how "relevant" people will be to the new civilization, they wont get jobs. And I don't see how can a technologized civilization can evolve to a state, where no one have to work but can live happily, without some horrible events (3rd World and stuff).

Or maybe, I don't know...
I know only one thing: this world is sci-fi enough for me. I for one don't want to see this advancing to happen.

Quote "If technology did in fact put every human out of work except the programmers and servicers, how would we measure value? Who would have buying power?"

Law two clicks in. If one human orders one meal and another orders more than he can eat, which order should be executed first?

Edit: it is often helpful to mentally do s/human/child/ ... humanity is still in it's childhood, maybe even thinking "terrible twos" could help.


[Edited by - markm on December 20, 2010 3:29:25 AM]