The Automation of Knowledge Work
Automating knowledge work is my job, and it scares the crap out of me. Moreover, the Democratic Party's professional base is living in a dangerous fantasy world. Some of them get it, and the hysteria around every perceived educational advantage is a symptom of this, but it won't save them.
Automation is coming and the economy is completely unprepared for it. Ironically one of the job areas ripe for automation is financial services. There are already systems in place on Wall Street that do stock analysis by analyzing news reports and I've seen estimates that about 50% of those high paying professional jobs will be gone in the next 10 years.
One of the objections to this prediction that I have seen from professional class apologists is that Deep Learning techniques like those developed for AlphaGo are highly specialized and only suited for a specific task. Guess what? That is what most job descriptions look like! The algorithms don't have to be general purpose (like a human) to be economic winners. All they have to be able to do is be trainable for a valuable task.
And guess who provides the training data? The people currently doing the job! This is what AlphaGo did: The team trained it on 1500 years of human Go playing records and then it beat the world champion. It's like training your outsourcing replacement, but you don't have to be in the room and the replacement doesn't get paid.
This is why the working class movement is so important. Unless we all - professional and not - share in the output of these unpaid machines, we will all suffer.
One solution that has been proposed was by technologist Jaron Lanier in his book Who Owns The Future? In his model, all the bits of data that we provide to the machines actually belong to us. (Think about that the next time you provide free data to FaceBook.). This means that those who are replaced would get paid for the work done by the algorithm in perpetuity. Instead of dystopian displacement or patronizing mincomes, the dignity of past labor is rewarded and shared. I doubt this will happen, but something has to - or the upheavals are going to be truly epic.
Comments
That piece you reference in Politico
"The Pitchforks are Coming" was written in 2014 and is on target. Rebellion is on the way. Two hated candidates; the population catching on to the fact that our political process is a sham because it is an exclusive club for the haves; because wages going lower; because people are debt-slaves - http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/wolf-richter-these-debt-slaves-ar... and because of everything on Bernie's platform.
What will trigger it? The march on the DNC convention? Something during the August-November campaign? The election of one of the most detrimental people to the POTUS office? Something seemingly innocuous? I don't know, but rebellion is coming. We are at a tipping point, indeed.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I keep that article in my email
for distribution for arguments with conservatives and to anyone who shows any interest in why the economy is the way it is. The only problem is that it's such a long article for conservatives to read.
Beat Trump with Bernie!
I keep hearing
that the economy will take another dive, and that may be it. They're still not raising wages, but prices are still going up. People have gotten used to doing without or making do, so middle class retail and restaurants are still not doing well, and most will probably not go back to spending how they used to. Many people who I never knew to grow anything have started gardens, and some keep chickens. Most people I know shop at thrift stores now for clothes (I do try to support Target). People have gotten wiser about debt. Many don't want to invest in the stock market, because it's rigged. The fees on your 401(k) are rigged, so forget saving for retirement. The frackers are going broke, and I hate them, but that's going to be a whole lot more people out of jobs soon. I think if gas prices hadn't gone down so much, we'd probably already be in another recession. I know that's the only relief that has allowed me to keep up with my bills. No raise in 8 years, but I'm still a lot better off than most. And Hillary & her bots are fanning the flames, dumping on the poor. It'll be ironic (and historic) if a revolt happened on the Democrats' watch.
Beat Trump with Bernie!
The Housing Bubble Blog
I read it voraciously in the years before the crash. It's a great canary/coal for the housing market. The feel I'm getting from it right now is the same one as '06. With all the buying that companies like Blackstone are doing we are in big trouble. Again.
"Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement." Senator Tom Fries, 'Podkayne of Mars,' Robert Heinlein
Lucky for me
Robots cannot make arguments to juries (yet). Although, wouldn't it be cheaper to replace analysts with cats (see last Sunday's John Oliver for the reference) than expensive AI? Just saying ...
You must have missed Back to the Future 2...
...where they simply eliminated all lawyers and let computers handle all of the work...
I want my two dollars!
Ironically, your profession is one of the best suited
to be automated. Facts and points of law are perfect for selection and compilation within a binary system. The facts, the arguments, and assigning a judgment based on that data, are all functions much more accurately and dispassionately carried out by computers.
And contracts? What's the difference between the best contract attorney and the worst? Thorough understanding of all the potentially relevant laws rules and regulations, combined with creating the specific wording to make the clause binding. Computers do all of this better and faster than a person ever can. In my field this is simply database reporting.
Facts and points of law?
What do those have to do with litigation? I mean that only half jokingly.
Absolutely nothing, as I learned through hard experience.
Not once, but twice, I've been informed by the local legal authority that, although there is no question that the law was broken and that I was significantly harmed, the people that did the crimes were too big (in NY, a Democrat) and too sneaky (in AZ, a republican), while I am too small, and so they elected to exercise their discretion and let the thieves keep what they stole.
Those lessons cost me almost a million dollars and my family's future. Both attorney's continue in their successful political careers.
A nation of laws, indeed.
Can you bribe an AI Judge?
If financial payoffs are not factored in to the program our entire legal system will collapse. If AI Judges are not conducive to political promotions and offers of post-retirement private sector employment there could be a massive breakout of justice.
The entire system would collapse. First thing we do, replace all the lawyers. And judges.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
You bribe the judges coder
which will be about 2000 rupees.
"He who pays the piper calls the tune"
In higher education
The halfway (or more than halfway) house to automation is online course delivery.
Once you don't need someone physically in the classroom, you can find adjunct faculty anywhere.
Literally anywhere.
As in, from India. Or Malaysia. Or anywhere where English proficiency is common, labour is cheap and there're lots of overeducated people.
Self-exiled from DKos, ahead of the arrival of the Clinton Thought Police.
Markos' transition from gatecrasher to gate-polisher is now complete.
This is already happening in medicine
Radiology is getting outsourced quite a bit these days. Films are already digitised, and at that point the reader can be anywhere.
Training algorithms on a large corpus of radiology results is a logical next step. The data and results are already electronic.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
A big reason why MDs are not replaced by overseas
MDs who want to come to the USA, is the onerous licensing requirements that are in place for the sole purpose of keeping American MDs rich. The AMA has the clout to do this.
American MDs make 2ce what a European MD earns. Why not allow MDs from Germany or France to get a visa and come practice here. My bet is that are as well trained as our over priced home grown ones are.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
A family friend is a German pediatric nurse
You know, Germany, which until WWII was considered the centre of world medical knowledge? And pediatric nursing, a specialty that is in high demand? She was never able to get past the insane relicensing requirements and ended up doing all kinds of less skilled work. What a clusterfsck.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
It's less about
making the docs rich (although many do prosper), than it is about letting them pay back the exorbitant med-school fees.
Self-exiled from DKos, ahead of the arrival of the Clinton Thought Police.
Markos' transition from gatecrasher to gate-polisher is now complete.
The bigger problems is the complacency.
The hordes of complacent, "I've got mine", well-heeled professionals who can't comprehend that there won't be another job around the corner if they lose theirs.
They take great pride in punching downward - big on the "Protestant work ethic" and "slackers" etc. rhetoric. They will only understand when they, too, have been made redundant - but by then, it's too late for them.
Self-exiled from DKos, ahead of the arrival of the Clinton Thought Police.
Markos' transition from gatecrasher to gate-polisher is now complete.
Too many think that they are elite
And think that because they shower before going to work instead of when they get home, they don't work in a factory.
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Off colour story
A few year ago I saw a posting (slashdot?) by a guy who had a friend who worked construction. One day they walked into the mens room, and he washed his hands before heading to the urinal. Guys asks him why, and he replied "I know where my dick has been all day, but I don't know where my hands have been."
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I have seen this in academia, having some academic friends.
They think nothing will happen to them, when surprise! Somehow they lose tenure. And there is nothing new, no one wants to pay them "what they're worth". But now they have no power, only desperation, and are no longer in place to influence the national conversation to, for example, promote a guaranteed basic income for everyone. Suddenly they know I've been correct all along. They just never thought it would happen to them.
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Luckily for me, too
Robots and/or automation won't be repairing aircraft any time soon. However, repair work and aircraft inspections can be outsourced, and - in the case of large aircraft - those tasks are often outsourced. But for me, luck strikes again as I work with helicopters and it is not cost effective to outsource work on these. Helicopters are far too slow, guzzle far too much fuel and have too little range to fly to another (slave wage) continent in order to save a few bucks on labor.
Maybe it wasn't luck. Thirty-some years ago, I was looking at what was taking place in the Rust Belt and studied how to keep this from happening to me and any career I chose. My solution was: federally licensed helicopter mechanic. It's worked out fairly well. The bad news is that these types of machines (when not military) are most often tied to petroleum extraction corporations, and that industry is in a steep depression right now. Air ambulance work is common, but hospitals are fickle with these programs.
A lot of custom physical work may last for a while
Plumbers will be needed for a long time - but only as long as the people they work for are economically viable (or even allowed to take up valuable real estate).
I'd be more worried about work that is done in an enclosed factory, though. That seems risky. On the other hand, I have a friend who builds large ships, and the only reason they don't have automated assembly lines is that the order runs are too small for the configuration overhead. Humans are small, highly adaptable and creative beings, so there may always be work for some of them, but it will be boutique stuff and requires that someone needs the work done.
But specialised knowledge work that the Democratic Professional Class relies on? Most of that is going away.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
We need to start talking about UBI
Universal Basic Income: seems liberal and yet, it passed congress twice during the Nixon administration and was an idea supported by Mikton Friedman. I don't' have the time but I would like to see some of the better writer/thinkers here put up diaries about a UBI. I know there have been trials with limited populations including where I live in Oakland, CA as well as several other locations here in the US as well as abroad. If there are no jobs(or a radically lopsided ratio of humans to life/family-sustaining jobs) how's the economy going to function?
UBI/mincomes could work
I'm just worried about the two-tiered class structure that might result. If you take the (progressive) view - as Lanier and I do -that the data for training all the algorithms was generated by all of us, then this could work. If you take the (conservative) view that this is a way to keep the peasants from being too revolting, then we are headed for Eloi and Morlocks.
(I'm always impressed by how prescient H. G.Wells was.)
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Don't forget, the Morlocks ATE the Eloi
The Eloi (useless "aristos") were just the Morlocks' cattle.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Ob Aerosmith
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
Yes we do! California now outranks France's economy
and almost reaches the UK's economic level..whew, let that sink in for a minute. The State of California = economies of England/Scotland/Wales/North Ireland! It's crazy stupid greed, that our beings remain yoked to this model of frontier capitalism. Btw, hi neighbor, I'm just across Oakland's Fruitvale Bridge in Alameda, its revolution time!
Don't make me laugh.
The notion that mincome, or anything approximating it, will be introduced is farcical. The wealthy will never relinquish their ill-gotten power enough to let it happen.
Self-exiled from DKos, ahead of the arrival of the Clinton Thought Police.
Markos' transition from gatecrasher to gate-polisher is now complete.
If robots do all the work
and people no longer have an income, what are the robots going to manufacture? If all the service jobs are done by robots, who is going to pay for their services once robots have all the knowledge jobs?
A new book about an old idea:
http://www.alternet.org/books/heres-why-everyone-should-get-basic-income
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Can you imagine the explosion in the arts
and artisian products would be like if people were free to pursue their passions?
What amazing new innovations and inventions are just lurking out there undiscovered because the person just doesn't have the time or money to dedicate to exploring an idea?
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
Add in
Health care & paid college ed and the possibilities are exponential. Also, there would be less competition for whatever jobs are left. The people who don't want to work for someone else can pursue their own stuff & the others would be more dedicated because the would want to be there.
"Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement." Senator Tom Fries, 'Podkayne of Mars,' Robert Heinlein
Here's an example.
I had the misfortune to to work injection molding plastics factory for about ten years. It was a running joke between a boss and me, him saying we ought to robot that and me replying he'd robot me out of a job.
On one particular job order I complained on TOS about the fourteen hours (all straight time) of grueling effort to perform the job. Stand on a one foot cylinder to pull a sixteen pound, three foot diameter rubber disk off the mold, making sure it didn't hang up on ejectors damaging the part. Drop it five feet to a conveyor before rushing down the stairs to retrieve it before it hit the floor. Place it on a table while inspecting then trimming all excess (flash). After cooling a number of cycles it was packed, taped and stacked. All this while fiddling with the material to keep the flow going.
Someone at TOS suggested that'd be a robot job. So I thought about it. At minimum it would require three robots with visual acuity and dexterity of a human, more likely four or more. And that's only if nothing goes wrong where the additional robot needs to come in for minor adjustment causing work stoppage.
There were more than 25 machines in the plant I worked. You'd need the couple or few robots on each machine. They make about 300 parts of various materials requiring different working techniques so many of the robots would need sofisticated feedback programming. I've frequently worked six or more completely dissimilar parts in a day. How fast can you deprogram/reprogram the bots? And how much cheaper is the robot handler than the minimum wage worker with the skills already programmed in and near zero down time?
I've said before, there is a reason aircraft and auto industries have human workers. If robots made sense they have the capital to completely automate. I can see their use in the financial industry as that is merely data manipulation of a non-existant product to give people with no real life skills power over those who have skills to live comfortably.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
Robots != algorithms
This is the part that the Professional Class doesn't get. You are correct that various kinds of physical labour are hard to automate, but knowledge work has no moving parts and a rapidly growing corpus of training data thanks to the internet. That is why it will go first.
Now that I think about it, this must be part of why they are in such deep denial. The primacy of knowledge work over physical work is central to their world-view and sense of self-worth. The cognitive dissonance must be overpowering.
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I would add that
the sequence of physical motions which would be required for robots to perform the tasks described above are ... algorithms. A general purpose robot with strength, flexibility, and appropriate sensors could perform exceedingly complex and tricky tasks. And such a robot could probably be trained by recording the performance of such tasks being done by humans, over and over until the human was no longer needed.
There's an
old story about Henry Ford and Walter Reuther touring one of the Ford facilities in Cleveland in the late 40s. When they came upon a couple of robots Ford had installed on the assembly line Ford said “Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay union dues?" Without missing a beat, Walter replied, “Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?”
I worked almost 40 years in the Big Three. We had robots on the assembly line and in the maching areas. They ranged from an automated screw driver to, what most people imagine, complicated articulating arms doing multiple tasks. In my early days, when a robot was installed at a job station, the workers would sabotage the damn things so much the company would give up on them. One did this at the risk of losing one's job but the way it was looked at was the damn thing would take your job anyhow. And back in those days everyone stuck together. Things changed over the years for sure...
People fail to realize
Metal and plastic, like wood, has a grain. A part extruded from the same machine at 8 am is different than at noon or 4 pm. Temperature and humidity affect how the material should be worked. Tools dull. It's a constant varying of technique and reading the material to get a good part. Look ata chair or table built 100 years ago compared to the assembly models of today. Robots give you gappy joints and tool chatter everywhere.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
A large portion of the "Professional Class"
rely on professional associations and state licensing boards to maintain their employment or business environment and restrict the number of potential employees to maintain a higher income. I have always viewed them as an extension of guilds in the middle ages, some of the guilds morphed into unions. others into trade associations and professional associations based on the services and skills necessary.
I have met very few professionals who realize the precariousness of their economic success. How the destruction and weakening of unions and other professions relate to their profession.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Shhh!
Don't tell anyone! We lawyers set up a sweet system where nobody can do our job unless we given them a license. Don't ruin the fun.
it wasn't all that exclusive.
the US is awash in surplus lawyers, and across the country, law schools are closing.
one reason is that online databases have made legal research much more efficient, reducing the need for junior staff.
computers have also made the creation of legal documents more efficient.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
What I Don't Understand
Why do these geniuses who run the world not understand that hungry people don't like watching their kids starve to death and will have nothing to lose when it comes time for payback?
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
we will automate almost everything
but plumbers, etc. will indeed be needed
tptb will try to automate education but will fail
guaranteed minimum wage is just the beginning of necessary changes
May the dolphins, whales and furry things inherit the world. Humans, unless we do an about face, have just about proven we don't deserve this beautiful planet.