[vatsachak]

RSI isn't anything new though; computers have been used to make computers better for about 80 years now.

Imagine having a secretary who could read 1 million records and give you back your answer in 100 microseconds, for just 10 cents an hour. That's Postgres.

So I'd imagine that if R&D can be automated, everything becomes better and cheaper but we'd all lose our jobs, as secretaries did to postgres. UBI season

[eru]

> Imagine having a secretary who could read 1 million records and give you back your answer in 100 microseconds, for just 10 cents an hour. That's Postgres.

Well, that secretary can only answer very specific questions in a rather peculiar format.

> [...] but we'd all lose our jobs, as secretaries did to postgres.

I doubt many secretaries were replaced by postgres.

However, you might like reading about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_record_equipment

[inglor_cz]

"I doubt many secretaries were replaced by postgres."

The maximal relative share of typists, secretaries, admin assistants et al. in the US workforce was 4% and this apogee was reached in 1980 after ~ 100 years of sustained growth. In 1980, the curve bent and started declining as systematically as it used to rise. Now it is less than half of that. So are other office roles.

https://forklightning.substack.com/p/the-past-present-and-fu...

(Look at the "The Rise and Fall of Office Work" graph in the middle of the page.)

Given the neat correlation with the tech revolution, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a causal relation. Maybe not exactly with Postgres, but with automation in general. Data collection and management does not involve nearly as many people as it once did.

[eru]

> Data collection and management does not involve nearly as many people as it once did.

Yes, hence my link to the cardboard fueled data processing and storage.

[ben_w]

> So I'd imagine that if R&D can be automated, everything becomes better and cheaper but we'd all lose our jobs, as secretaries did to postgres. UBI season

Perhaps, but there's a thing in economics, the "resource curse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

I don't have any formal training in economics, so I can't argue the for and against arguments listed in the Wikipedia page, but it is at least possible that having full automation means that the underclass gets left behind and ignored, cut out of all progress forever and without any help from UBI as we cease to be important to those who control the AI.

(Even owning shares in successful AI companies may not help: Tesla doesn't pay dividends, NVIDIA's dividends are tiny).

[vatsachak]

The world has been getting richer as everything has gotten automated

[ben_w]

Yes, but unevenly.

One of the examples in the linked Wikipedia page is Dutch disease, in which the Netherlands found a lot of resources causing growth in that sector (because it could be exported) which drove up currency demand, which made other exports from the same economy uncompetitive, which caused a decline in the manufacturing sector.

We could all be Detroit after the car factories left, Merthyr Tydfil when the iron and coal stopped, etc.

But like I said: I don't have any formal training in economics, so I can't argue the for and against arguments with much conviction.

[goatlover]

That would be a failure of imagination when it comes to everything secretaries actually do. Which is a problem with the idea that AI is coming for all our jobs anytime soon. It totally undersells everything humans do on the job.

[ACCount37]

I think humans totally oversell just how special "everything they do on the job" is.

"No, you don't get it, it's me specifically who has a job that's way too special to be automated away!"

[yorwba]

Nobody has a job that can be fully automated away. Instead, they might lose their job to automation when some non-automatable parts can be done by fewer people and the remaining non-automatable parts can be made optional and the resulting cost savings are enough to pay for a machine to do the automatable parts.

Lots of tasks that could be automated with current technology aren't, simply because there's a non-automatable task that requires a baseline labor force (e.g. widget maker gets jammed once in a while, need someone nearby to remove the jammed widget and restart the machine) which then becomes essentially free when used for ancillary tasks (e.g. sealing boxes full of widgets, which also draws attention to drops in widget output volume). And sometimes humans are simply the cheaper option.

No doubt many people will lose their jobs to AI, and others will have to accept wage cuts to compete with the falling cost of automation, but that doesn't necessarily mean the AI is doing the humans' job now, or that none of the original workforce stays.

[Windchaser]

We could have coffee made today by automated coffee vending machines, but many people still prefer to go to a coffee shop. Why is that?

Sometimes we don’t choose the cheaper automated product, and instead opt for the “human experience”. I don’t imagine this will change any time soon. Humans like being around humans.

[hilariously]

Mostly because machine coffee tastes like shit, the incentives are off for it; its usually in a place where you cant get good coffee and they do not give a fuck if you like it or not, enjoy your caffeine that you are addicted to.

[RicoElectrico]

Some ingredients for a good coffee still need to be fresh, like milk - refilled daily. And the machine cleaned. Might as well employ a human at this point.

[ACCount37]

If that is true, then, why is it that the "human experience" has been on decline for decades - since the very moment it became possible to start cutting down on it?

If "humans like being around humans", why does human behavior say otherwise?

[red-iron-pine]

> why does human behavior say otherwise?

because economics and practical realities demand it.

most Gen Z don't drink because they can't afford it, not because they don't like bars.

a movie ticket w/ drinks and popcorn is now $55 for me and the wife. I'd love to see it in the theater w/ people but netflix is half that per month, unlimited viewing.

starbucks championed the 3rd place but is aggressively culling their own stores to chase profits

public transport isn't there in many places so if you don't have a car you can't go anywhere, whomp whomp

lots of people would go out more -- they just can't. so you do the best w/ what you have, and that's usually smartphone, streaming, and staying in

[RandomLensman]

What are your KPIs there? Global concert attendence is pretty high these days, for example.

[ACCount37]

Estimates on the count of close friendships, amount of acquaintances, dating, sexual activity, etc - all falling.

People have fewer and fewer relationships, and even fewer close or intimate relationships. "Third places" are in decline, demand-induced - social activity takes place "in person" less and less, and more and more of it moves "online".

If your idea of "human experience" is "close relationship in person" or "group activities offline", and not something like "a friend chat group with memes and games, most of them never met in person", "social media posting", "parasocial relationship with a streamer" or "public Minecraft and Roblox servers", then "human experience" is on decline by just about any metric available.

Those aren't new trends either. They predate things like companion/roleplay AI chatbots - which seem popular with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in particular.

How that new thing shakes out is still unclear, but modern AIs are probably the closest thing to a "human experience" one can get without involving a human at all. So there's even more room for the metrics to fall now - regardless of whether "hanging out in a streamer's chat" counts as "human experience" to you.

[vatsachak]

Automated coffee vending machines are not at the level of barista.

Plus a coffee shop is about the experience, not the price.

But most jobs that aren't service are not about the experience.