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by torginus 713 days ago
I like to think of the 'car factory' analogy - it's populated by robots that are in some respects far superior to humans, and are doing 90% of the labor. Some ancient futurist, not having seen one before, could correctly predict that 9 out of 10 jobs will be done by robots, and arrive at the incorrect conclusion that robots have rendered humans obsolete.

In actuality, humans are still needed for the 10% the robots can't do well, or serve to enhance the productivity of humans.

I predict AI is like this and going to be for a while - it can clearly do some stuff well and sometimes better than humans, but humans will have their niches for a while.

1 comments

I call this the "filter changing problem". No matter how complex you make the technology, somebody still has to change the oil filter (or do whatever other maintainence is required to keep the system running). Sort of like ML-SRE, for those who are familiar with the concept.
This is related to Moravec’s Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

“it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility”