You're saying that, but only today I learned that pharma companies have been using neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds to be tried in the development of new medication for the last 30 years.
Saying that automation is like giving up is clearly the wrong view. As we've learned from history, and get to observe even on a daily basis, is that automation gets more and more abundant, and more and more people will lose their jobs. Given that this trend will continue, we, as humanity, have two options: either we will not do anything about this, and will at some point wake up to impoverished masses with no work, or we can actively strive for a maximum of automation with the declared goal of commonwealth for all mankind. The third option of antimodernism to keep up the amount of available non-automated work is so ridiculous that it requires no discussion.
What people nowadays may not grasp and may deny is that the end goal of full automation will mean the end to our economy as we know it. We're talking post-capitalism, post-scarcity. That sounds scary to people, because the mindset of capitalism is still ingrained too much. People can't imagine a world where they may own less, individually, and don't realize that it may not matter if everything is available in abundance due to full automation.
> pharma companies have been using neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds
You are describing what someone did at work.
We're nowhere near the state of full automation. We've merely automated some production facilities. Maybe one day, there will be an all-powerful AI solving all our problems without any human help from health to governance to clean energy. Realistically, this isn't even on the horizon though.
Until then, I'd rather that people continue to work on neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds that may one day save a life of a person I care about.
How does your notion of post-scarcity square up with the laws of thermodynamics? Even if you have vast amounts of capital deployed the amount is still finite and thus en masse has a finite capacity to transform a finite amount of energy.
While I can imagine having such great amounts of capital deployed and resources available that maintaining an unbelievably high standard of living for the average person could become vanishingly small, I find myself also believing that, with such material available, even grander plans requiring still even more resources would be concocted, plans that could only be achievable at the limits of what would then be available. Plans of that magnitude would be operating under conditions of what we might call scarcity, that is, they would require in those undertaking them the ability to economize.
Saying that automation is like giving up is clearly the wrong view. As we've learned from history, and get to observe even on a daily basis, is that automation gets more and more abundant, and more and more people will lose their jobs. Given that this trend will continue, we, as humanity, have two options: either we will not do anything about this, and will at some point wake up to impoverished masses with no work, or we can actively strive for a maximum of automation with the declared goal of commonwealth for all mankind. The third option of antimodernism to keep up the amount of available non-automated work is so ridiculous that it requires no discussion.
What people nowadays may not grasp and may deny is that the end goal of full automation will mean the end to our economy as we know it. We're talking post-capitalism, post-scarcity. That sounds scary to people, because the mindset of capitalism is still ingrained too much. People can't imagine a world where they may own less, individually, and don't realize that it may not matter if everything is available in abundance due to full automation.