Report Card for Donald Trump

[Mikebert]

(01-03-2017, 04:24 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:That was obvious in the 1990's. Who else had the potential?  But my analysis suggested China would not emerge a hegemon until mid-century.  Typically a new hegemon first reaches economic dominance (US in the 1880's) then financial dominance (US after 1914) and then finally hegemony (US in 1943).  Since China was not scheduled to overtake the US in GDP until the 2020's or so, I wouldn't except this to translate to hegemony until around 2060.  At this time I was operating with a 70 years cycle: 1918-1991 and 1992-2060.  Hence a second round of US hegemony.  I showed you all this already Jordan, so why are you rehashing it?

I seem to remember not accepting your new timeframe vs that actually outlined in the book.  I am kinda noticing a trend here...

How are you determining your dates?  Why are you only going back one cycle?  Are you referring to nominal or PPP GDP?  On a per capita or absolute basis?

Quote:And why come back as an alias?  Why not use your old handle?

Because my old handle was actually my name, and I decided that I didn't necessarily want to nail my colors to the mast, as it were.  In particular, when I was first browsing this new site, I noticed that PBrower had practiced a vile bit of thread necromancy on his "Is Connecticut the best state" where he selectively quoted me from the old thread and then threw in new responses (while leaving out all the bits where I showed that he didn't actually know what things like the Law of Large Numbers meant, that his just-so stories had serious logical inconsistencies, etc.) to make it look like he wasn't a complete idiot grinding an axe.  And, since it had my name attached, it was particularly offensive, as at the time that he did this here I was no longer posting and thus not able to raise a complaint.  So, when I decided that I had the time and desire to discuss certain issues here again, I decided to protect myself from future involuntary association with creeps, cranks, and losers by using an alias.

Those are alternate leadership cycle dates.  After I concluded who were I went back to the old discussion with which you are familiar.  GDP is real GDP US dollars.  Now, where is this strong growth you insist is happened that I cannot see?

[SomeGuy]

Quote:Those are alternate leadership cycle dates.  After I concluded who were I went back to the old discussion with which you are familiar.

I'd be happy to rehash that debate if you like (I just ordered Leading Sectors and World Powers on Amazon today), but I seem to remember that we just agreed to disagree, or at least wait until we were a little further along the process to recap (I don't think we are far enough along yet).

Quote:GDP is real GDP US dollars.

So, if this is PPP on an absolute (rather than per capita) basis, I don't think what you are asserting is actually a rule.  China actually had the world largest GDP well into the 19th century, and has regained that position again in the last few years.  Did Britain have an equivalent lead time the first time around, when it overtook the Netherlands?  How about the Netherlands versus Portugal the time before that?  Britain might have beaten out Louis XIV with its financial innovations and political maneuvering, but was it really a larger economy?

Quote:Now, where is this strong growth you insist is happened that I cannot see?

Now you're just putting words in my mouth.  You responded to 4, go back and look at points 1-3 at the end of the last page.  I already pointed out that the growth rate for the 19th k-wave was under no obligation to be as large as that of the one before it.  I simply pointed out that it is indisputably behaving as a k-wave as defined by Thompson & Modelski.

[David Horn]

(12-30-2016, 05:44 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:A big reason the Rust Belt is hurting so much is that the good-paying jobs are simply no longer there for folks who are on the shorter end of the stick intellectually, and one of the big issues with the Obama Recovery is that most of the new jobs were lower-pay service industry jobs that did not not pay as much as the old jobs. We are already seeing the process I'm talking about beginning to unfold now, this is WHY it's getting talked about in progressive circles. Hell, even some on the Right like the idea of a Universal Basic Income, because they see what's coming.

I am aware that the Rust Belt is hurting (hence the name), indeed, most of the country outside a few metro areas is in a slow-motion state of collapse.  It does not follow from there that automation is the sole cause of this, and that this automation will inevitably eliminate all jobs in the near future, and that therefore there is no reason to rethink past policies or make the least effort to accommodate the concerns raised so prominently in the past election.

I do understand why it is comfortable for shocked yuppies to think so, though.

I'm retired, so this has a minimal impact on me personally, but it also seems axiomatic that continuous productivity improvements coupled with  Moore's Law technology improvements will translate at some point into a virtually zero cost of production environment.  Why would people be employed in that case, unless there is some heavy-handed mandate from government to do so? 

I'm not claiming we're there yet or even close.  Yet the horizon is not infinite, and trends are not abating.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:I'm retired, so this has a minimal impact on me personally, but it also seems axiomatic that continuous productivity improvements coupled with  Moore's Law technology improvements will translate at some point into a virtually zero cost of production environment.  Why would people be employed in that case, unless there is some heavy-handed mandate from government to do so? 

One should always be careful of linear extrapolation.  Particularly when that leads to claims like "zero cost of production environment", which would imply zero material costs and a negligible price as well (as in a competitive market margins tend to fall towards the production cost).

Quote:I'm not claiming we're there yet or even close.

I'm pretty sure you said within the next 20-30 years, which is pretty close.  I can go back and quote you if you like, but if you are willing to drop the claim why belabor the point.  So, since this is not apparently that close, do you have any further objections to my claim that manufacturing can and should be brought back on shore?

Quote:Yet the horizon is not infinite, and trends are not abating.

I question the extent to which the trend you mention is pointing inexorably in the direction you think it is.  But we'll see.

[David Horn]

(12-30-2016, 06:33 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: And no, Dave does not have a point, because he has been arguing for the inevitable replacement of ALL jobs within 30 years by machines and clever software programs.  This claim has not been proven here, and I have very little faith that it will be, judging on what I've seen thus far.

Is the time horizon your only issue?  If so, I'll move it out into the future to some undefined time. Are you happier with 50 years?  It's academic in any case.  If the end game will be the same regardless, the interstitial issues are still the same. 

• 50 years ago, I was in the Army.  The technology trajectory in that 50 years started pretty flat, even allowing for the space program and all the R&D it funded. 
  
• 35 years ago, I was working in the satcom industry, and 99% of the material being moved around was analog.  
  
• 30 years ago, I was working in the trunked radio/cellular world, and the material was still analog. 
  
• Then the digital revolution hit in earnest.  It hit because the mathematicians worked through the algorithms needed to support reliable digital data transfer in a commercially viable manner. 
  
• Then encryption got a lot better. 
  
• So did voice recognition, and computer vision. 
  

All this in the last 25 years or so.

My first computer had 64kB of working memory and used floppy discs that held 90kB.  Now, memory is almost free and storage is virtually unlimited.  The tools had to come first.  They're here.  Now, it's just getting them to do everything we wish.  They are already capable if properly programmed.  So yes, the horizon may stretch out to some future time because we choose to do that ... or not.

[David Horn]

(12-30-2016, 06:38 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: As for me, I'm taking an over the counter supplement that reduces cancer incidence by 77% at a cost of about $15/year.  That's the kind of efficiency that we would see if it weren't for the economic distortions imposed on the health care system by our tax regulations.  Unfortunately, because of the tax regulations, no one can make money preventing cancer, so solutions like that are reserved for the favored few that spend hours investigating things like that for ourselves.

There is no single item that can have that impact, because cancer is not a singular disease.  Which class of cancers are you warding off with your OTC product?

[SomeGuy]

No, Dave, the time horizon is not my only issue.  Moore's Law is already showing signs of stalling, resource limits/AGW/assorted Limits to Growth stuff WILL begin to impact the economy over the course of the 21st century, global supply chains and capital markets may not survive indefinitely, and improvement in technology alone != THE END OF ALL JOBS FOREVERS <cue appropriate cat emoticon here>.

[Warren Dew]

(01-03-2017, 05:32 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-30-2016, 05:44 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:A big reason the Rust Belt is hurting so much is that the good-paying jobs are simply no longer there for folks who are on the shorter end of the stick intellectually, and one of the big issues with the Obama Recovery is that most of the new jobs were lower-pay service industry jobs that did not not pay as much as the old jobs. We are already seeing the process I'm talking about beginning to unfold now, this is WHY it's getting talked about in progressive circles. Hell, even some on the Right like the idea of a Universal Basic Income, because they see what's coming.

I am aware that the Rust Belt is hurting (hence the name), indeed, most of the country outside a few metro areas is in a slow-motion state of collapse.  It does not follow from there that automation is the sole cause of this, and that this automation will inevitably eliminate all jobs in the near future, and that therefore there is no reason to rethink past policies or make the least effort to accommodate the concerns raised so prominently in the past election.

I do understand why it is comfortable for shocked yuppies to think so, though.

I'm retired, so this has a minimal impact on me personally, but it also seems axiomatic that continuous productivity improvements coupled with  Moore's Law technology improvements will translate at some point into a virtually zero cost of production environment.  Why would people be employed in that case, unless there is some heavy-handed mandate from government to do so? 

I'm not claiming we're there yet or even close.  Yet the horizon is not infinite, and trends are not abating.

Once upon a time, food was pretty much the only good that people worried about.  Now, we have near zero cost of production for food, and yet somehow large numbers of people remain employed, producing things that weren't even dreamed of in agrarian times.

Why would we think that's different for whatever we're producing now?

Moore's law does not really help your case.  Exponential growth does not lead to a singularity; in fact, it's self similar at any point in progression.  And word processors are not really any more effective now than they were 30 years go, despite 20 doubling periods of Moore's law.

[Warren Dew]

(01-03-2017, 06:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-30-2016, 06:38 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: As for me, I'm taking an over the counter supplement that reduces cancer incidence by 77% at a cost of about $15/year.  That's the kind of efficiency that we would see if it weren't for the economic distortions imposed on the health care system by our tax regulations.  Unfortunately, because of the tax regulations, no one can make money preventing cancer, so solutions like that are reserved for the favored few that spend hours investigating things like that for ourselves.

There is no single item that can have that impact, because cancer is not a singular disease.  Which class of cancers are you warding off with your OTC product?

The trial looked at all cancer, treating them as a single outcome.  There was a 77% reduction in incidence, even though the compliance of the experimental group was only 85%.

This makes sense because all cancers are fundamentally the same:  unchecked reproduction at the cellular level.

But hey, if we really cared about finding out more, we could redo the trial with a enough subjects to differentiate between different types of cancer as different outcomes.  Unfortunately, for a product that only sells for $15/year, there's no incentive to do a new trial like that.

[David Horn]

(01-03-2017, 06:09 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: No, Dave, the time horizon is not my only issue.  Moore's Law is already showing signs of stalling, resource limits/AGW/assorted Limits to Growth stuff WILL begin to impact the economy over the course of the 21st century, global supply chains and capital markets may not survive indefinitely, and improvement in technology alone != THE END OF ALL JOBS FOREVERS <cue appropriate cat emoticon here>.

Unless we develop quantum computing, which I believe we will at some time in the not-distant future, Moore's Law must have an upper limit ... but so what?  We already have plenty of horsepower in the hardware we currently deploy.  As the HW guys always note: they build it and the SW guys waste it. 

So most of the development work is systems level (voice recognition and vision being the two most important).  We already know how to do expert systems, and AI just needs the systems interface to complete the circle.  Since these systems don't have to be general purpose, much of the complexity can be eliminated along with the cost.  In any case, global supply chains are not really an issue.  The HW just needs some silicon, plastic and a bit of gold and silver.  The rest is simpler than a toaster: circuit board material, aluminum for heat dissipation and whatever material for physical structure.  Only the SW requires a lot high level input, and we're already nearing the point where the SW is "adequate" as-is.  The rest is just a version of what we already have.

What makes you think that average run-of-the-mill humans can compete with machines that are cheap to build, almost certainly self-maintaining and available 24/7?  Add to that, specialty machines will be better at what they do than any human, no matter how talented.

[David Horn]

(01-04-2017, 01:43 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Once upon a time, food was pretty much the only good that people worried about.  Now, we have near zero cost of production for food, and yet somehow large numbers of people remain employed, producing things that weren't even dreamed of in agrarian times.

Why would we think that's different for whatever we're producing now?

Moore's law does not really help your case.  Exponential growth does not lead to a singularity; in fact, it's self similar at any point in progression.  And word processors are not really any more effective now than they were 30 years go, despite 20 doubling periods of Moore's law.

It may be wise to interject Maslow at this point.  There is a hierarchy of needs that cannot be fully met by production.  Emotional needs are hard to satisfy through interaction with a machine, unless you wish to believe that Ex Machina is actually a future history. Other than that, machines are doing things today that are all too human: writing poetry and music for example.  I have no doubt that the end-of-life support systems my grandchildren will employ will be robotic rather than human. 

Find me an area of human endeavor that is not susceptible to replacement by an artificial agent.  Other than emotional needs, I can't find any myself.  We may elect to place the arts in a special category reserved for humans, but that will be a choice.

[David Horn]

(01-04-2017, 01:54 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-03-2017, 06:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-30-2016, 06:38 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: As for me, I'm taking an over the counter supplement that reduces cancer incidence by 77% at a cost of about $15/year.  That's the kind of efficiency that we would see if it weren't for the economic distortions imposed on the health care system by our tax regulations.  Unfortunately, because of the tax regulations, no one can make money preventing cancer, so solutions like that are reserved for the favored few that spend hours investigating things like that for ourselves.

There is no single item that can have that impact, because cancer is not a singular disease.  Which class of cancers are you warding off with your OTC product?

The trial looked at all cancer, treating them as a single outcome.  There was a 77% reduction in incidence, even though the compliance of the experimental group was only 85%.

This makes sense because all cancers are fundamentally the same:  unchecked reproduction at the cellular level.

But hey, if we really cared about finding out more, we could redo the trial with a enough subjects to differentiate between different types of cancer as different outcomes.  Unfortunately, for a product that only sells for $15/year, there's no incentive to do a new trial like that.

I know a bit about oncology, and I'm skeptical.  The only general purpose "cure" in the works involves phages and chlorotoxin.  I might include Tumor Paint too, though its function is more diagnostic.

[SomeGuy]

(01-04-2017, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-03-2017, 06:09 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: No, Dave, the time horizon is not my only issue.  Moore's Law is already showing signs of stalling, resource limits/AGW/assorted Limits to Growth stuff WILL begin to impact the economy over the course of the 21st century, global supply chains and capital markets may not survive indefinitely, and improvement in technology alone != THE END OF ALL JOBS FOREVERS <cue appropriate cat emoticon here>.

Unless we develop quantum computing, which I believe we will at some time in the not-distant future, Moore's Law must have an upper limit ... but so what?  We already have plenty of horsepower in the hardware we currently deploy.  As the HW guys always note: they build it and the SW guys waste it. 

So most of the development work is systems level (voice recognition and vision being the two most important).  We already know how to do expert systems, and AI just needs the systems interface to complete the circle.  Since these systems don't have to be general purpose, much of the complexity can be eliminated along with the cost.  In any case, global supply chains are not really an issue.  The HW just needs some silicon, plastic and a bit of gold and silver.  The rest is simpler than a toaster: circuit board material, aluminum for heat dissipation and whatever material for physical structure.  Only the SW requires a lot high level input, and we're already nearing the point where the SW is "adequate" as-is.  The rest is just a version of what we already have.

What makes you think that average run-of-the-mill humans can compete with machines that are cheap to build, almost certainly self-maintaining and available 24/7?  Add to that, specialty machines will be better at what they do than any human, no matter how talented.

Emphasis mine.  Is the SW adequate as is, or does it require more development work?  What's the power consumption like?  How on earth can something be "self-maintaining" and also "simpler than a toaster"?  Is all this stuff going to be manufactured here?  Will it manufacturer itself?  What about liability concerns?  Consumer uptake?  Is machine-grown food today more or less prestigious than low-tech alternatives?  Are people really going to want interact solely with robots all day, for every task?  Are these only going to be software systems or industrial robots, or are they going to be walking around, grooming dogs, carrying groceries?  How much will these things cost?  Is everything going to be free in the glorious communist paradise of progress?  Materials, energy, land, time, etc?

These predictions were being made when you were a child, older even.  It was always just 20 years out.  No, seriously, I have a book on the history of cybernetics as an idea sitting on my bookshelf, I can supply quotes from people you'd heard of talking about the imminent (1960s) end of work.  The gains made between the Wright brother's maiden flight and the Apollo Moon landings were equally impressive in their day, and a lot of wild predictions by serious people were made.  Where are the flying cars?  Jet Packs?  Personal helicopters?  Rocket ships to Mars?  FTL travel?

Look, I am sure amazingly clever things will be done within my lifetime, but all I am hearing right now is a lot of overheated rhetoric recycled from the Space Age coming from people spending too much time reading press releases and not enough time actually thinking things through.

[pbrower2a]

(01-04-2017, 12:53 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-04-2017, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-03-2017, 06:09 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: No, Dave, the time horizon is not my only issue.  Moore's Law is already showing signs of stalling, resource limits/AGW/assorted Limits to Growth stuff WILL begin to impact the economy over the course of the 21st century, global supply chains and capital markets may not survive indefinitely, and improvement in technology alone != THE END OF ALL JOBS FOREVERS <cue appropriate cat emoticon here>.

Unless we develop quantum computing, which I believe we will at some time in the not-distant future, Moore's Law must have an upper limit ... but so what?  We already have plenty of horsepower in the hardware we currently deploy.  As the HW guys always note: they build it and the SW guys waste it. 

So most of the development work is systems level (voice recognition and vision being the two most important).  We already know how to do expert systems, and AI just needs the systems interface to complete the circle.  Since these systems don't have to be general purpose, much of the complexity can be eliminated along with the cost.  In any case, global supply chains are not really an issue.  The HW just needs some silicon, plastic and a bit of gold and silver.  The rest is simpler than a toaster: circuit board material, aluminum for heat dissipation and whatever material for physical structure.  Only the SW requires a lot high level input, and we're already nearing the point where the SW is "adequate" as-is.  The rest is just a version of what we already have.

What makes you think that average run-of-the-mill humans can compete with machines that are cheap to build, almost certainly self-maintaining and available 24/7?  Add to that, specialty machines will be better at what they do than any human, no matter how talented.

Emphasis mine.  Is the SW adequate as is, or does it require more development work?  What's the power consumption like?  How on earth can something be "self-maintaining" and also "simpler than a toaster"?  Is all this stuff going to be manufactured here?  Will it manufacturer itself?  What about liability concerns?  Consumer uptake?  Is machine-grown food today more or less prestigious than low-tech alternatives?  Are people really going to want interact solely with robots all day, for every task?  Are these only going to be software systems or industrial robots, or are they going to be walking around, grooming dogs, carrying groceries?  How much will these things cost?  Is everything going to be free in the glorious communist paradise of progress?  Materials, energy, land, time, etc?

These predictions were being made when you were a child, older even.  It was always just 20 years out.  No, seriously, I have a book on the history of cybernetics as an idea sitting on my bookshelf, I can supply quotes from people you'd heard of talking about the imminent (1960s) end of work.  The gains made between the Wright brother's maiden flight and the Apollo Moon landings were equally impressive in their day, and a lot of wild predictions by serious people were made.  Where are the flying cars?  Jet Packs?  Personal helicopters?  Rocket ships to Mars?  FTL travel?

Look, I am sure amazingly clever things will be done within my lifetime, but all I am hearing right now is a lot of overheated rhetoric recycled from the Space Age coming from people spending too much time reading press releases and not enough time actually thinking things through.

We are creating increasingly-complicated devices so complex that no single person could create them. An inventor like Thomas Edison would be unable to work with the technology of our time as he could with the comparatively-primitive technology of his time (even if it is still useful) because he invented objects that were very basic by modern standards.

Innovations too complicated for manufacturing or use will not reach, let alone remain on, the market. Technologies that devour huge amounts of resources or leave behind dangerous consequences (like highly-toxic effluents) will not make it either. Is there reality beyond the understanding of more than a handful of people? The much-lauded devices of our time are simply miniaturized versions of what we used to have, miniaturization possible due to more intricate, tiny components capable of doing things with more sophistication and leser material. The reader device on which one can download a whole edition of The Brothers Karamazov free of charge has only one constraint on its size -- the willingness and ability of people to read fine print. (I have no idea of how long one will be able to get recorded music free of charge, unless advertiser-supported, on YouTube, but it is remarkable that one can get this on a reader





with an internet connection, and on an object that weighs less than a pack of cigarettes and costs less than a carton of smokes.

Of course it is not that simple: I needed a search engine which someone had developed at considerable effort... and someone had to have means of downloading a cinematic film of the opera Prince Igor. The reader is easy to use, but that reflects some complexity in design to make it work.

Will we demand something more complex? I doubt it. Screen size and keyboard size have the obvious limits of our vision and the size of our fingers -- indelible characteristics of biological reality. Maybe we could add a voice command (as in "Get me the opera Prince Igor") to process the search, which would be good for people whose fingers are either non-existent or unworkable (quadriplegia, Parkinsonism, amputation, recently-broken arm) by attaching a microphone to the processing unit.

The one constraint on computing is that it can't quite imitate human creativity. Can a Mozart piano concerto or a Hokusai painting be reduced to algorithms that suggest how to create something similar in quality yet different enough to be a unique work?  Now that may overpower the ability of people to program the orders to do such.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:The one constraint on computing is that it can't quite imitate human creativity. Can a Mozart piano concerto or a Hokusai painting be reduced to algorithms that suggest how to create something similar in quality yet different enough to be a unique work?  Now that may overpower the ability of people to program the orders to do such.

I don't agree with that as the only constraint, you already mentioned some others above.  But even an algorithm that can mimic certain styles of music (much as they have written an algorithm for morphing images into certain styles of art) doesn't decide which one to use on what image on its own.  There's still scope for a human there to make choices, to cause a thousand permutations of a particular style or piece to be generated and select the most pleasing one, to curate the songs generated, to use the classification algorithms to find new aspects of musical theory.

And there will continue to be a demand for human-generated material, in much the same way that the rise of factory farms and tv dinners has transformed organic, artisan-crafted, locally-sourced, <insert hipster buzz phrase here> food into a positional good for which people will pay a premium.

And of course, the transformation of former luxuries into staples (sugar, tea, spices, ready-made clothes, cars, airplanes, computers, etc.) has been at the core of human economic development, and was the process identified by people like Thompson and Modelski, whom we have already referenced above.  Who knows, one day there may be more farmers in America than assembly-line workers.

[SomeGuy]

Yup, I mentioned that above.  There are a whole host of things that cost lots of (time, money, energy, etc.) that go on underneath all of the "free" stuff, that people end up paying for one way or another.  The mention of apps is one thing I didn't get around to, which people pay money for.

[David Horn]

(01-04-2017, 12:53 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-04-2017, 12:31 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-03-2017, 06:09 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: No, Dave, the time horizon is not my only issue.  Moore's Law is already showing signs of stalling, resource limits/AGW/assorted Limits to Growth stuff WILL begin to impact the economy over the course of the 21st century, global supply chains and capital markets may not survive indefinitely, and improvement in technology alone != THE END OF ALL JOBS FOREVERS <cue appropriate cat emoticon here>.

Unless we develop quantum computing, which I believe we will at some time in the not-distant future, Moore's Law must have an upper limit ... but so what?  We already have plenty of horsepower in the hardware we currently deploy.  As the HW guys always note: they build it and the SW guys waste it. 

So most of the development work is systems level (voice recognition and vision being the two most important).  We already know how to do expert systems, and AI just needs the systems interface to complete the circle.  Since these systems don't have to be general purpose, much of the complexity can be eliminated along with the cost.  In any case, global supply chains are not really an issue.  The HW just needs some silicon, plastic and a bit of gold and silver.  The rest is simpler than a toaster: circuit board material, aluminum for heat dissipation and whatever material for physical structure.  Only the SW requires a lot high level input, and we're already nearing the point where the SW is "adequate" as-is.  The rest is just a version of what we already have.

What makes you think that average run-of-the-mill humans can compete with machines that are cheap to build, almost certainly self-maintaining and available 24/7?  Add to that, specialty machines will be better at what they do than any human, no matter how talented.

Emphasis mine.  Is the SW adequate as is, or does it require more development work?  What's the power consumption like?  How on earth can something be "self-maintaining" and also "simpler than a toaster"?  Is all this stuff going to be manufactured here?  Will it manufacturer itself?  What about liability concerns?  Consumer uptake?  Is machine-grown food today more or less prestigious than low-tech alternatives?  Are people really going to want interact solely with robots all day, for every task?  Are these only going to be software systems or industrial robots, or are they going to be walking around, grooming dogs, carrying groceries?  How much will these things cost?  Is everything going to be free in the glorious communist paradise of progress?  Materials, energy, land, time, etc?

These predictions were being made when you were a child, older even.  It was always just 20 years out.  No, seriously, I have a book on the history of cybernetics as an idea sitting on my bookshelf, I can supply quotes from people you'd heard of talking about the imminent (1960s) end of work.  The gains made between the Wright brother's maiden flight and the Apollo Moon landings were equally impressive in their day, and a lot of wild predictions by serious people were made.  Where are the flying cars?  Jet Packs?  Personal helicopters?  Rocket ships to Mars?  FTL travel?

Look, I am sure amazingly clever things will be done within my lifetime, but all I am hearing right now is a lot of overheated rhetoric recycled from the Space Age coming from people spending too much time reading press releases and not enough time actually thinking things through.

I'm not going to break this into a mass of stripes, so my answers are aggregated here.  Some SW is adequate; some, not.  Typically, you can see that happening as the release level rises.  For example, MS may never release another Windows version -- just patches.  Specialized SW is more likely to need serious tweaking, but some of it is already very close.  Alexa takes voice commands from children and adults of both sexes, and tolerates wide variance in accent too.  How much more is needed?  Vison is less complete, but close.  Self maintaining only requires on-board diagnostics and the internet of things.  Both are well underway, with diagnostics fully mature in most products needing them.  Simpler than a toaster refers to the outboard HW unrelated to the processing: power supplies, cases and appurtenances of various sorts.   Self manufacture already exists.  A Smartphone is a circuit board assembled by a parts shooter, soldered in an automatic flow solder machine, tested automatically and assembled in like manner.  Some tasks can be human-based if labor is cheap.  Otherwise, no ... which covers the technical issues.

Once you get to the implications of the end-of-work, I'm just as baffled as you.  How do we adjust?  I don't know.  History indicates that progress is never abandoned if it provides value, so we humans will think of something.

[David Horn]

(01-05-2017, 11:12 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Who knows, one day there may be more farmers in America than assembly-line workers.

True.  The term "artisanal" is more than an elitist label.  It's the tag that identifies a human-made entity of some sort.  I suspect this will be common in the future, but less for income than entertainment and emotional satisfaction.

[Mikebert]

(01-03-2017, 03:01 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Just because we don't have quite the same growth we did during the Industrial Revolution (when populations and energy use was soaring) doesn't mean this (IT) isn't an innovation complex driving growth.

This is what I have been saying.

Quote:You keep staring at US growth numbers and completely ignore the burgeoning electronics sector in East Asia built to service US demand.  Had those factories been built here, you would have seen it in the US growth and inflation numbers.

Demand is for the whole world, not just US. Have you run any numbers or is this speculation?

[SomeGuy]

Quote:This is what I have been saying.

Oh, then what were we arguing about?  Did you think I was arguing that the IT wave was just as big or bigger in terms of its impact than the latter stages of the Industrial Revolution (the 2nd or 3rd, depending on how you slice it)?  My apologies if I gave that impression.

Quote:Demand is for the whole world, not just US. Have you run any numbers or is this speculation?

I have not, I wanted to see what you had, preferably without buying a book (although, on reflection, I've really been embracing this Amazon thing over the last few months and I might be willing to splurge for some of your stuff).  When you ran numbers, what were you including in there?