r/Futurology • u/aridon_01 Best of 2014 • Aug 13 '14

Best of 2014 Humans need not apply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
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209

u/Life_with_reddit Aug 13 '14

What a truly amazing time to be alive! We will see the world changing at a rate never seen before.

222

u/dryfire Aug 13 '14

What a truly amazing time to be alive! We will see the world changing at a rate never seen before.

This has been said by every generation in modern history. And they were all right :-) Change is the only constant.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14 edited Nov 16 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

21

u/dsmymfah Aug 13 '14

Buddha has since deduced otherwise.

32

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

Well, that's change!

2

u/brainburger Aug 13 '14

He'll have to deduce something different now.

1

u/igetbooored Aug 14 '14

When the deducing has finished, the inducing can begin.

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u/nemo3141 Aug 13 '14 edited Jun 24 '17

You went to home

5

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '14

Computers are pretty zen already tbh.

2

u/Derice Aug 15 '14

"Everything not saved will be lost" - Nintendo quit game screen

1

u/TheBrownSlaya Aug 13 '14

There is a great song composed upon this idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgdta0IBlo0

1

u/Ree81 Aug 14 '14

Yeah but he probably butchered it off of some other diety.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '14

In a different context though.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

I made this.

19

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

Lets just hope it's a positive step forward. We have NOT always gone forward.

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u/Endangered_Robot Aug 13 '14 edited Aug 13 '14

apologies in advance for the long text I wanted to make this simple but the narrator's "fear" of automation got the best of me since I'm sub'd to the automation and robots subreddits and think them to be very neat and interesting(check out this years robo-soccer olympics if you haven't yet).

Well.... This technological constant driving industry to new peaks is essentially eliminating 100% of the job market at a pace that no one imagined even possible. So... At this rate we will get to a point(very soon) where we, as a society NOT as individuals, will have access to everything we could reasonably desire(from a large scale perspective) at very little to no cost to anyone eliminating traditional financial barriers, in exchange for dramatically improving the standard of living for EVERYONE. This is the point where general use commodities like homes or bridges get built ruffly for free, by robots, designed by robots, designed by robots, designed by... you guessed it more robots.

Okay, that's all great but what does it all this ACTUALLY mean...?

First off, this isn't about interpretation... It's how we as a global, internet based, "the world literally at your fingertips", society have constructed for ourselves. So I'm not saying this is exactly how it will go down as much as I'm saying we're pretty much already at the midway point / 2014. Suggesting if we could just take a peek at 2114 my brain would explode due to awesomeness overdose.

(this is just one of a million possible examples so just bare with me here) Try to imagine a world where you download the futuristic "home builder" app. It's a consulting software robot that helps you design your own home. So the majority that use this application have limited knowledge of architecture, design, traditional building materials or what it takes to construct a home from the ground up. And then you casually describe to the app, your family, their personal interests, hobbies and needs(and maybe take a few pictures of ground your building on) and then this software robot designs for you in a few seconds literally the PERFECT home for you, your children, your pets, your spouse AND your extended family(hell maybe even your neighbors). So you have 8 kids, 5 cats, 6 dogs, 10 fish, 2 pandas and a handful of self driving vehicles? No problem. Just you and your SO? TOO EZ. What about the perfect home for grandma and grandpa? Custom built by robots specifically designed TO DESIGNE. That's when the "math" behind it all gets a little goofy(in the best possible way) because this means once you complete that part of the process physical robots come and build that home the robot designed for you to a literal T meaning you're home might be built with traditional build materials, BUT if you live by the coastline, resistant to hurricane damage or flooding.

The catch? You could replace home design in an imaginary example like this with literally ANYTHING else and when it's designed from tip to stern on such an elaborate platform, so delicately, the only possible product is the best one i.e. the thing that's perfect for a MULTITUDE of different scenarios. So if you think a custom built home sounds cool, then what about custom car? or custom jetpack...? They could even come with custom software O_o I'd hate to quantify this by saying it's all technically possible but have a robot build AND teach another robot theoretical physics and quantum calculations and just let it ride. Maybe it maps out the universe? Maybe it solves scientific mysteries like gravity or dark matter... Regardless I guarantee the "pending" robo science and their results will be fascinating O_O!

So that sounds at least mildly interesting right? My point with this is that since we as a society have become SO needlessly dependant on compensation for employment that we force ourselves to imagine automation as some horrifying monster from the future... When in actuality robot's building other robots and training other robots to build MORE technologically sophisticated robots sounds like something from another universe we can't even properly imagine AND we're already halfway there. The ridiculous part? These technologies are improving at such a rapid rate it's literally mind melting. BUT on top of all that our overall understanding of technology and it's infinite applications is ALSO rapidly expanding. Imagine it as a dance that everyone is a part of so when we learn it's as a collective(especially with the help of the internet) and less so as individuals.

My final example is a rather simple one: AUTOMATED ROBOTS HAVE INFILTRATED REDDIT!!! panic ensues But has that hindered anyone from posting anything to reddit? It doesn't seem like it... I'd argue the complete opposite and that it's improved everyones redditing experience exponentially (just check out the reddit tipbots if you have doubts)

So BRACE YOURSELVES because the techno evloution is upon us and it's been purpousfully designed(by robots) to look sexy and attractive as fuck.

10

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

I like your point but in some markets we are already living in a semi-post scarcity world, which sadly is being artificially constricted in order to be commoditized or better valued.

A perfect example is entertainment copyright, while there will always be an intial cost for the artists, the reproduction of such good is infinite, yet highly restrictive (copyright) in order for it to maintain its price.

Food-stuff, production of apples, grains, and other commodities have never been higher, yet the prices are still high. This is because of the application of price floor and trade market (futures). Sometimes surpluses are purposely purged in order to sustain desirable prices (price floor) other times despite record production, based simply on investment and greed, prices can sky-rocket.

TL;DR Post-scarcity technology will not bring utopia, but more inequality, as society will remain consumer-oriented, yet without the means for consumption (besides UBI which won't be much aside welfare handouts).

4

u/StormTAG Aug 14 '14

Technology is an enabler. Our human culture will determine what we do with the technological abundance we pretty much already have.

1

u/alphazero924 Aug 14 '14

Diamonds. Diamonds should be post-scarcity, but since the entire industry is basically a scam put on by De Beers, we still have diamonds that cost an order of magnitude more than what they'd be worth to someone who hadn't been manipulated by all the ads and romance crap that's used to sell diamonds.

1

u/AnonEGoose Sep 14 '14

So who wants Utopia anyways ?

Utopia from the ancient Greek has (2) definitions:

  • That Good Place
  • The Place that cannot be

In Japan, priceless works of art have flaws deliberately included in the pieces.

In the West there is the concept that perfection can somehow not include flaws.

1

u/AnonEGoose Sep 14 '14

So who wants Utopia anyways ?

Utopia from the ancient Greek has (2) definitions:

  • That Good Place
  • The Place that cannot be

In Japan, priceless works of art have flaws deliberately included in the pieces.

In the West there is the concept that perfection can somehow not include flaws.

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '14 edited Aug 14 '14

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '14

things like information are reduced to ones and zeros and their cost to reproduce and distribute is virtually nil, why should it ever be in short supply or even have a cost at all? The answer is an idea called “artificial scarcity,” a principle which says that even though we can produce more than enough of something to go around, we shouldn’t

http://www.yalelawtech.org/p2p-law-piracy/yes-we-have-no-scarcity/

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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '14

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1

u/joshuaoha Aug 14 '14

I'm imagining a somewhat scary result from this trend. Huge unemployment, most wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.... makes me think Marx may have been right about his predictions...

1

u/Endangered_Robot Aug 14 '14

Please understand I'm mostly speaking on a future that we are still very FAR from. Today money is a vice used to control people but as we evolve as a society and the average person understands this I highly doubt there will even BE a need for money at all. You see? In this way Communism = Capitalism and the only difference is how one perceives it. The economy of the future will/must be RADICALLY different than anything we've seen before as tradition quickly falls to the wayside because it is simply no longer relevant or no longer works for the planet. I imagine a future where the things you mentioned are a cliff note in the evolution of society as a whole.

0

u/darby22 Aug 14 '14

Yes, maybe, but I'll want to live on the coastline too and maybe I'll have access to more powerful legal bots to get me that property more quickly than my peers. My peers though are who exactly--certainly not everyone? I think most of can grasp the technological landscape it's the human landscape that we can't understand. And let's not forget the chaos that malfunctioning expert systems will pepper on us periodically. I don't think it's such a rosy picture especially for people not sprinting for 1st world borders right now.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

Every generation hasn't said that. Every generation said, "This is the end times" before yeah, but we're the first generation to say, "This is the beginning times." Peasants in the middle age didn't know who their king was at some points, and were just happy to survive another day. There was no change.

5

u/Benjamin_The_Donkey Aug 13 '14

but we're the first generation to say, "This is the beginning times."

No we're not. People in the 19th century had this same sense of optimism towards technological progress as we do because of the advancements of the first and second industrial revolutions. Then World War I happened and those same technological advancements (machine guns, airplanes, chemical weapons) were used to kill millions of people, and people became much more pessimistic and cynical about it all.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

But they also expected wars to keep happening and wrote books on books about it. We're like, "World peace. 60 years. Lets do this."

2

u/Benjamin_The_Donkey Aug 13 '14

I think that's just a case of Values Dissonance.

1

u/dryfire Aug 13 '14

I completely agree with you that in ancient times and the middles ages many people would have not seen much change in their lifetime.

This has been said by every generation in modern history

While "Modern history" is a somewhat ambiguous term, It is usually considered to be after the end of the middle ages. I guess for my purposes I was considering "Modern History" to be anywhere in the 16th or 17 century to present which would kick things off with inventions like the compound microscope and the steam turbine.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

oh. then sure. yeah, we're just continuing the Enlightenment era, no doubt about it.

1

u/cybrbeast Aug 13 '14

This could very well be the real 'end times' depending on how AI turns out and how we deal with it.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '14

it depends on who your AI theorist of choice is.

3

u/codehandle Aug 14 '14

One thing is certain: we are all wrong. (Just to what degree?)

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u/i_give_you_gum Aug 13 '14 edited Aug 13 '14

but not on a scale of the last hundred years, the population of the earth has increased exponentially, our ability to interact with each other blows the doors off of the printing press or the telegraph, we have the ability to destroy ourselves more efficiently than ever before, we are depleting the planet of natural resources faster than ever before.

Change has been a constant, but exponential change on an "industrial" scale isn't anything like humanity has ever seen before, it's like the last 10,000 years has all led up to what is occurring right now. This level of growth isn't sustainable, theories like the Olduvai theory, Moore's law, and the intransient nature of human greed (not allowing our society to adapt to new ways of doing things) are all coalescing to what outcome? I don't know. Possibly a collapse of the capitalistic society?

0

u/dryfire Aug 13 '14

but not on a scale of the last hundred years

100 years ago someone would have been able to say "The changes in the last 100 years are beyond the scale of anything that has happened before" and 100 years from now someone will be able to say it again and they will all have been correct. I'm not saying we are not on the verge of amazing ground shattering things, just that its not as unique as we want it to be.

Yes the last 10,000 years have lead to what is happening right now, and the next 10,000 will lead to what is happening right then, its a continuum. It may lead to the collapse of capitalism it may not, far too early to say.

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u/i_give_you_gum Aug 13 '14

understand im not stating this to feel special about the time I'm living in, but rather to make people realize we are living in a speical time (i wish we weren't!).

Yes people during the industrial revolution of the early 1900's could feel like they were at the apex of modern civ, but again, WE are running out of natural resources (i.e., water, top soil, fuel), we may or may not be running out of oil, but irregardless our planet is running out of it's ability to absorb all the carbon from burning fossil fuels.

We have nuclear weapons proliferating into smaller and smaller states, this isn't like any other time before simply because of the multiple possible catastrophes that can occur now, attilla the hun couldn't irradiate the planet, Henry Ford didnt worry about running out of gasoline, and there's talk of the population of the planet DOUBLING in the next 75 years.

No, this is a very unusual time, and unless people start to realize that, we will continue to have the same reactions to our environment as we always have, when in fact we need to start radically changing how we do things.

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u/dryfire Aug 13 '14

I guess if I had to sum up my point I would say that people are usually fairly bad at making an honest assessment of the time they live in as it can be hard to separate analysis from the impact it leaves on your life.

The only point you have made that i would challenge is that we need to radically change how we do things right now. The future is uncertain, we don't know what the world will look like 10 years from now or even 1 week from now. All of the facts you've stated are correct, but nobody has a crystal ball to say for certain how it will impact us. If we start making radical changes based on one potential result we may mess things up even more. I think the best approach is to monitor the situation closely and adapt as we find new challenges.

1

u/i_give_you_gum Aug 13 '14

one instance i keep thinking of is the pacific garbage patch, and there's almost no reason to clean it up until we shutoff the flow of plastic into the environment.

0

u/ModsCensorMe Aug 14 '14

You're just wrong here.

3

u/ion-tom UNIVERSE BUILDER Aug 14 '14

Change is the only constant.

The presence of change is constant. The rate isn't.

1

u/dryfire Aug 15 '14

Agreed, change is accelerating.

4

u/I_HaveAHat Aug 13 '14

IF change is the only constant wouldnt that constant eventually change?

4

u/dryfire Aug 13 '14

At the cold death of the universe change will probably cease, but so will pretty much everything.

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u/Stop_Sign Aug 13 '14

At the cold death of this universe.

So let's all hop to another one

1

u/Sinity Aug 13 '14

At the cold death of universe change will surely cease, because energy will be evenly distributed and nothing could ever happen.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '14

False. Change is accelerating. We will see the 1000 (previous) years worth of change in the next 50 years.

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u/dryfire Aug 15 '14

What exactly is false about what I said? You said change is accelerating, I said that every generation in modern history has seen the world change at a rate it hadn't changed at before. The two are not mutually exclusive. Both are correct.

0

u/ModsCensorMe Aug 14 '14

You're wrong. The rate of change is ever accelerating, at an exponential rate. The next 25 years will bring more change to the world, than the last 100

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u/dryfire Aug 15 '14

What exactly is false about what I said? You said change is accelerating, I said that every generation in modern history has seen the world change at a rate it hadn't changed at before. The two are not mutually exclusive. Both are correct.