[threatofrain]

Does that mean that marathon runners will no longer be in regular use in industry, and be relegated to special events justified in part by aesthetics, and also by audience spectacle?

Likewise, if machines can do quality accounting, does that mean that accounts will be relegated to special accounting events, just like there are marathon events, where people come for aesthetic enjoyment or audience spectacle?

[nothis]

IMO the analogy is correct for Go players as that's mostly a "sport".

There's real cases of similar technology putting people out of jobs, for example I recently read that more and more finance firms more or less completely automate a lot of processes, even those where you'd traditionally would have counted on people's "gut feelings". Deep learning is eerily good at simulating "gut feelings".

[afarrell]

Yea, the technology to make marathon-distance couriers obsolete has existed since...before the Scythians?

[geofft]

There are certainly mathematics competitions, where humans (usually high-school or college-age students) participate and cheer on other humans who are artificially restricted from the use of a calculator. And these competitions are considered useful because the skills required to do well on them are very valuable in certain industries, even if the artificial restriction on calculators is removed. In fact, some of the companies that most aggressively hire people who perform well at these competitions are also well-known for automating accounting tasks that were done by humans until recently, such as determining the expected price of a stock.