On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 12:51:19AM +0200, David Orban wrote: > Your examples are also very good. Should we then assume, that since it > is already the case that major industry segments and corporations are > run by software, and nobody seems to mind, that it will stay like > that?
Good question. Its not clear that "nobody seems to mind" ... again, look at the airlines. There were major upheavals: layoffs, strikes, and bankruptcy filings, just a few years ago. The proximate reason was loss of profitability due to passenger declines coupled to price wars. I don't remember anyone explicitly blaming the automated pricing algorithms ... but that doesn't mean that these didn't contribute to the problem (or even lie at the heart of the problem). There are psychological reasons not to blame the algos: -- Unlike a brake failure that leads to a car crash, the failure of an algo in this way is fairly invisible, and just not obvious to outsiders. An exception might be the Long Term Capital Managemet partners, whose hedge fund ran up a 6 billion dollar debt in a week. But even then, you didn't blame the algo, you blamed the stupid nobel prize winners who created and ran it. -- What else are you going to do: suggest that the airlines stop using computerized scheduling algos, and go back to doing it with pencil and paper? There's an air of inveitibility and finality to it all. Its kind-of like the outsourcing of jobs: no one in the US likes it, almost everyone feels threatened, but what can you do? Become Amish? Decry capitalism? Once you start using optimization algos, you pretty much cannot stop, without causing even more economic damage, and nobody wants that. > I think that we should still think through, together with the answer > to your question, what should our position be if there were major > protests against systems becoming progressively, but not yet > radically, more autonomous. Stock market crash of 1987 was caused by automated trading systems. There were protests, there was outrage. The answer was to mandate certain protections and safety mechanisms. Few will complain/demonstrate/protest against system automation, at least not until there's a disaster. After the disaster, solutions will be debated and implemented. As long as the systems are perceived as non-sentient, then they will also be perceived as being under human control, and so controllable (even if the controlability is an illusion). And even when there are protests: e.g. outsourcing, or trade with mexico ... what can you do? You can demagogue, but you can't actually change the system -- because changing the system will cause more harm than good. > There are now Department of Labor predictions of 50%-80% unemployment > rates due to automation of white collar jobs. Ohh, where? URL? Yeah, I think low-skill white-collar jobs will be wiped out first: who needs product support in Bangalore if an AGI chatterbot expert system can do it for less? --linas ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=54800217-87a1b0
