Events that changed the world...

[u9y42]

21st century.. AI, robots.. and how it affects the human economy. more and more, we're going to see our jobs taken over by robots. that's going to lead to a decrease in jobs, which means a wider gap between the people who own and operate the robots and the people who don't. inequality is inevitable.

It's only inevitable if we continue to rely on the current system; which itself is not the only option.

I'd personally recommend something more radical, but simple solutions to mitigate the increase in inequality might be possible for now, though they are only short term solutions at best: reduce working hours to account for the lack of jobs; pace automation in a way that allows humans to gradually adapt; test and implement universal income (like mincome); etc.

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[Harley997]

What do you think were the most significant events of the 19th, 20th or 21st century? Wars, Revolutions, Political Ideology, Technological innovations? What events do you think truly changed the world?

The advent of social media will probably be the single "event" that will change the world over the next 100 years. Probably not for the better as it can give a small number of people an outsized vote on issues (like paying to have a one sided video/post go viral).

[bryant.coleman]

21st century.. AI, robots.. and how it affects the human economy. more and more, we're going to see our jobs taken over by robots. that's going to lead to a decrease in jobs, which means a wider gap between the people who own and operate the robots and the people who don't. inequality is inevitable.

Oh.. again. The introduction of robots hasn't resulted in unemployment. Rather, it has resulted in commodities getting cheaper. For example, a car which cost some $20,000 to build earlier, was made available for $2,000. Innovation and new technology does more good than harm to the humans (off course with some exceptions like Nuclear weapons).

[beetcoin]

21st century.. AI, robots.. and how it affects the human economy. more and more, we're going to see our jobs taken over by robots. that's going to lead to a decrease in jobs, which means a wider gap between the people who own and operate the robots and the people who don't. inequality is inevitable.

Oh.. again. The introduction of robots hasn't resulted in unemployment. Rather, it has resulted in commodities getting cheaper. For example, a car which cost some $20,000 to build earlier, was made available for $2,000. Innovation and new technology does more good than harm to the humans (off course with some exceptions like Nuclear weapons).

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

[Harley997]

21st century.. AI, robots.. and how it affects the human economy. more and more, we're going to see our jobs taken over by robots. that's going to lead to a decrease in jobs, which means a wider gap between the people who own and operate the robots and the people who don't. inequality is inevitable.

Oh.. again. The introduction of robots hasn't resulted in unemployment. Rather, it has resulted in commodities getting cheaper. For example, a car which cost some $20,000 to build earlier, was made available for $2,000. Innovation and new technology does more good than harm to the humans (off course with some exceptions like Nuclear weapons).

Technology and automation has resulted in less jobs and lower paying jobs for the masses (it has created a few higher paying jobs for the people who design the automation tools).

Technology does allow everyone to live a better standard of living.

Even Nuclear weapons can be a good thing. They have probably prevented wars from breaking out between countries that have nuclear weapons. The cold war is a good example of this. The US and the former USSR were in an arms race for years and used spies against each-other but never actually attacked each-other with military forces.

[u9y42]

[...]

Even Nuclear weapons can be a good thing. They have probably prevented wars from breaking out between countries that have nuclear weapons. The cold war is a good example of this. The US and the former USSR were in an arms race for years and used spies against each-other but never actually attacked each-other with military forces.

They never attacked each other en-mass, that's true; but there were a number of small scale conflicts that we were lucky didn't escalate. And I use the word "lucky" in this context intentionally; the Cuban missile crisis is a good example of why, though there are several others.

EDIT:

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

Hmm, to professional youtube/facebook like giver, professional forum poster, etc.. 

[Ron~Popeil]

21st century.. AI, robots.. and how it affects the human economy. more and more, we're going to see our jobs taken over by robots. that's going to lead to a decrease in jobs, which means a wider gap between the people who own and operate the robots and the people who don't. inequality is inevitable.

Oh.. again. The introduction of robots hasn't resulted in unemployment. Rather, it has resulted in commodities getting cheaper. For example, a car which cost some $20,000 to build earlier, was made available for $2,000. Innovation and new technology does more good than harm to the humans (off course with some exceptions like Nuclear weapons).

Technology and automation has resulted in less jobs and lower paying jobs for the masses (it has created a few higher paying jobs for the people who design the automation tools).

Technology does allow everyone to live a better standard of living.

Even Nuclear weapons can be a good thing. They have probably prevented wars from breaking out between countries that have nuclear weapons. The cold war is a good example of this. The US and the former USSR were in an arms race for years and used spies against each-other but never actually attacked each-other with military forces.

I have to agree. There was a very strong deterrent for even getting into a direct shooting war due to the possibility of an escalation to a nuclear exchange. Our arsenal is part of the reason no nation state has attacked the homeland since 1812.

[bryant.coleman]

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

This is from my limited understanding of the situation:

Three decades ago, most of the American population was employed in jobs which required a lot of manual labor, such as coal mining and construction. But with the advancement of technology, the scope for such jobs have declined. Now most of the the population is employed in supermarkets (the biggest single provider of jobs in the US, if I am correct) and other service sector jobs. Requires less manual labor, is safer, and at the same time the average salaries are much higher.

[beetcoin]

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

This is from my limited understanding of the situation:

Three decades ago, most of the American population was employed in jobs which required a lot of manual labor, such as coal mining and construction. But with the advancement of technology, the scope for such jobs have declined. Now most of the the population is employed in supermarkets (the biggest single provider of jobs in the US, if I am correct) and other service sector jobs. Requires less manual labor, is safer, and at the same time the average salaries are much higher.

yes, and that's why i said ai + technology would undo the middle class. the thing is, you said most of the labor pool was in the manufacturing/coal mining.. and that's true. what it did was shift from manufacture jobs to the service industry.

what i'm saying is that ai technology will remove the jobs required from the service industry, as it previously did with manufacturing. well then, where do people concentrate on jobs when the services field is overrun by robots?

[Ron~Popeil]

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

This is from my limited understanding of the situation:

Three decades ago, most of the American population was employed in jobs which required a lot of manual labor, such as coal mining and construction. But with the advancement of technology, the scope for such jobs have declined. Now most of the the population is employed in supermarkets (the biggest single provider of jobs in the US, if I am correct) and other service sector jobs. Requires less manual labor, is safer, and at the same time the average salaries are much higher.

Everyone wants a desk job now. There are skilled trade jobs that companies simply can't fill because people don't want to do manual labor. You can still make a nice living in the US as a welder, electrician, or an hvac technician among other things.

[bryant.coleman]

what i'm saying is that ai technology will remove the jobs required from the service industry, as it previously did with manufacturing. well then, where do people concentrate on jobs when the services field is overrun by robots?

This is where I disagree with you. As long as robots are not enabled with Artificial intelligence, they won't be able to do the tasks which are done by store assistants. And artificial intelligence is never going to happen for real. 

[beetcoin]

what i'm saying is that ai technology will remove the jobs required from the service industry, as it previously did with manufacturing. well then, where do people concentrate on jobs when the services field is overrun by robots?

This is where I disagree with you. As long as robots are not enabled with Artificial intelligence, they won't be able to do the tasks which are done by store assistants. And artificial intelligence is never going to happen for real.  

they will likely be.. especially with technological singularity possibly being around the corner. that watson AI is now at least very close to matching human intelligence.

also, google has now made safe self-driving cars.. AI/robots are gaining some steam in the development department. btw, do you know how many taxi cab driver jobs would be eliminated if google drive offered a taxi service?

anyways, i'm not even talking about self-consciousness (in response to the for real part). i'm just talking about having AI actually connect 2 ideas together, and be able to perform tasks that humans could.

[u9y42]

they will likely be.. especially with technological singularity possibly being around the corner. that watson AI is now at least very close to matching human intelligence.

also, google has now made safe self-driving cars.. AI/robots are gaining some steam in the development department. btw, do you know how many taxi cab driver jobs would be eliminated if google drive offered a taxi service?

anyways, i'm not even talking about self-consciousness (in response to the for real part). i'm just talking about having AI actually connect 2 ideas together, and be able to perform tasks that humans could.

Watson is nowhere near reaching human intelligence; current AI methods are very far from that. So much so in fact, that only fairly recently has the search for a strong AI (real, human level AI) resumed after the initial hype. For the last few decades the field has mostly shifted to machine learning; that is, searching for solutions for the "simpler" problems like computer vision and so on. Now, it's true that a computer can currently store and organize a lot of information into categories and derive some meaningful information from it; but that is still very far from what a human can do.

As for the second part I emphasized, a lot of human tasks require far more than this. But you're right, a lot of jobs would be rendered obsolete if we decided to automate what we could tomorrow, even without a strong AI.

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

This is from my limited understanding of the situation:

Three decades ago, most of the American population was employed in jobs which required a lot of manual labor, such as coal mining and construction. But with the advancement of technology, the scope for such jobs have declined. Now most of the the population is employed in supermarkets (the biggest single provider of jobs in the US, if I am correct) and other service sector jobs. Requires less manual labor, is safer, and at the same time the average salaries are much higher.

You're right, most jobs nowadays are in the service sector, and depending on what metrics you use, they do provide better working conditions. But I believe you're wrong in assuming automation won't be disruptive to most people's livelihood.

I mean, let's take your example of the supermarket: I don't know where you live, but near me I have several supermarkets that have a few "self-service" check out counters; there is no reason why this can't eliminate everyone working at that station. Information areas? A couple of computers can do the trick for most things, and they can contact someone as a last resort (and probably remotely). A lot of the shelves can be redesigned to be filled in automatically; I believe I saw an article with an example some months ago (actually it might have been in a restaurant, I'm not sure). Supplying the goods to the supermarket itself could potentially be done with self-driving vehicles, with only a few people at the supermarket to offload stuff. What did I miss? Cleaning duties? I'd say close to half of the workers could be laid off in a very short amount of time if we really pressed this.

Now, considering the amount of people that are currently employed in the service sector, and considering that many of the jobs could be automated tomorrow, how do you expect to easily retrain large amounts of people into new jobs? And even then, what do you expect them to do? Post in a forum for a living? Humans can adapt only so quickly. And not everyone is going to be able to start a new company; in fact, most of the jobs that could be easily replaced don't pay a lot to begin with, so we're talking about people that probably already live day to day with less than comfortable disposable income.

[dadugan]

The day I am born and the day I vanish into nothingness.

As everything that exists before me and after me serve no purpose.

[u9y42]

The day I am born and the day I vanish into nothingness.

As everything that exists before me and after me serve no purpose.

Solipsism at its best. 

[boumalo]

Oil and free market changed the world for the best

[beetcoin]

they will likely be.. especially with technological singularity possibly being around the corner. that watson AI is now at least very close to matching human intelligence.

also, google has now made safe self-driving cars.. AI/robots are gaining some steam in the development department. btw, do you know how many taxi cab driver jobs would be eliminated if google drive offered a taxi service?

anyways, i'm not even talking about self-consciousness (in response to the for real part). i'm just talking about having AI actually connect 2 ideas together, and be able to perform tasks that humans could.

Watson is nowhere near reaching human intelligence; current AI methods are very far from that. So much so in fact, that only fairly recently has the search for a strong AI (real, human level AI) resumed after the initial hype. For the last few decades the field has mostly shifted to machine learning; that is, searching for solutions for the "simpler" problems like computer vision and so on. Now, it's true that a computer can currently store and organize a lot of information into categories and derive some meaningful information from it; but that is still very far from what a human can do.

As for the second part I emphasized, a lot of human tasks require far more than this. But you're right, a lot of jobs would be rendered obsolete if we decided to automate what we could tomorrow, even without a strong AI.

not to sound like a luddite, but it seems like we're starting to see a shift in the service industry, which is america's biggest labor pool. once things like that get automated, where will the jobs go? especially in the low skilled industries.

prior to that, jobs in factories and skilled labor were overtaken by improved technology. technology is not the same thing as AI. there's a difference in creating a car are much more cost-effective rates vs. firing all of your mcdonalds employees.

This is from my limited understanding of the situation:

Three decades ago, most of the American population was employed in jobs which required a lot of manual labor, such as coal mining and construction. But with the advancement of technology, the scope for such jobs have declined. Now most of the the population is employed in supermarkets (the biggest single provider of jobs in the US, if I am correct) and other service sector jobs. Requires less manual labor, is safer, and at the same time the average salaries are much higher.

You're right, most jobs nowadays are in the service sector, and depending on what metrics you use, they do provide better working conditions. But I believe you're wrong in assuming automation won't be disruptive to most people's livelihood.

I mean, let's take your example of the supermarket: I don't know where you live, but near me I have several supermarkets that have a few "self-service" check out counters; there is no reason why this can't eliminate everyone working at that station. Information areas? A couple of computers can do the trick for most things, and they can contact someone as a last resort (and probably remotely). A lot of the shelves can be redesigned to be filled in automatically; I believe I saw an article with an example some months ago (actually it might have been in a restaurant, I'm not sure). Supplying the goods to the supermarket itself could potentially be done with self-driving vehicles, with only a few people at the supermarket to offload stuff. What did I miss? Cleaning duties? I'd say close to half of the workers could be laid off in a very short amount of time if we really pressed this.

Now, considering the amount of people that are currently employed in the service sector, and considering that many of the jobs could be automated tomorrow, how do you expect to easily retrain large amounts of people into new jobs? And even then, what do you expect them to do? Post in a forum for a living? Humans can adapt only so quickly. And not everyone is going to be able to start a new company; in fact, most of the jobs that could be easily replaced don't pay a lot to begin with, so we're talking about people that probably already live day to day with less than comfortable disposable income.

well, maybe human intelligence is far ahead of watson, but it's predicted that watson or computers will catch up to humans fairly soon (within the next 2 decades). i do believe in the technological singularity too... the point where we just set it to cruise control and computers do all the innovation for us.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/By-2029-computers-will-match-human-intelligence-Ray-Kurzweil/articleshow/21793726.cms

[u9y42]

well, maybe human intelligence is far ahead of watson, but it's predicted that watson or computers will catch up to humans fairly soon (within the next 2 decades). i do believe in the technological singularity too... the point where we just set it to cruise control and computers do all the innovation for us.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/By-2029-computers-will-match-human-intelligence-Ray-Kurzweil/articleshow/21793726.cms

Personally, I really hope it's both possible with current/not-far-off technology and going to happen within that time frame; but you have to understand that people have been saying that computers are on the verge of becoming as intelligent as humans since the 60's.

As for the singularity and letting computers do everything for us, be careful with what you wish for. I think Ray Kurzweil's view is too anthropocentric; an artificial intelligence doesn't necessarily have to solve a problem the same way a human would, any more than an alien would have to. You can try to inculcate human values/ways/emotions into it, but in the end there might not be a way to ensure that an AI shares those values. And it doesn't even have to be hostile, as often depicted in movies, to potentially pose a problem: for example http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer. Of course there is always the route of humans further enhancing themselves as Ray Kurzweil mentions (which reminds me of Ghost in the Shell ), but that doesn't really avoid the issue; if it is possible, someone will do it sooner or later, and it might go wrong. Still, I hope someone does it.

[SomeoneInNeed]

Invention of LSD.

[sana8410]

1929: The day the Stock Market Crashed
It was devastating economic event that shattered millions of life and created tidal wave of effects around the world. Remember October 29, 1929.

I don't think crash in stock market can be treated as a natural event... It is something man-made, something which is indirectly related to our actions.. And moreover, these things happen very frequently these days.. Few days back, there was excessive movement in the commodity market.. and the reason behind it was NSEL failed to clear a payment..