It already is! Recall that work is measured in joules (distance of mass per time). Then look outside the window at a modern European or American nation.
Where are all the joules (work) coming from? Not by human effort! 90% of it is from machines. Look at all the energy that goes into driving North Americans to their Labour Day holidays!
Some might disagree and say that all of the output of these machines isn't "work", as does the article author when claiming that 50% of modern work is in service industries (like McDonalds). That's because he's already accepted an altered definition of work that excludes non-human efforts.
Take the perspective of a 17th century economist and ask what tasks account for most of the "work" done in a nation- the list includes plowing, digging, hammering, sewing, scrubbing, and chopping (amoung similar things). Today all but one of those (scrubbing) are performed by machines. As Roblimo mentioned last week [newsforge.com], agricultural food production is the only really important job. The US makes 5x more food than it did a century ago by employing 10x fewer people.
The time when most work is performed by machine has long since come. A more accurate description of the question facing us in the future (as addressed by the article) is: What happens when unskilled jobs cease to exist?
You're one of those people who doesn't understand why the Beer and Ice Cream Diet isn't working for them, aren't you?
No, there are several fundamental flaws to that diet. Some are too obvious for me to bother mentioning, but the best one centers on the definition of "calorie". For the benefit of those who don't know this factoid:
There are two different definitions of "calorie". A physical calorie is the energy to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree kelvin. A dietary Calorie can heat a kilogram of water 1 d
"There are two different definitions of "calorie"."
And there are a bajillion definitions for the word "work." Just as the word "calorie" means differen things to physicists and nutritionists, the word "work" means very different things to economists than it does in the world of physics. If your ego hadn't gotten in the way, you might have realized that the author wasn't talking about energy (or m-dot, which is a completely different concept altogether) but the process of cr
On modern agriculture. On the the danger of sounding like a Greenpeace hippie. Archeologist found out the per acre food production of the celts on the British Isles about 500 BC was about the same as the per acre production in the same areas in 1960. They obviously had a more human work intense style of agriculture, but calling it less efficient just because of this? They at least had healthy food and a healthy environment where you can imagine growing up children (apart from the tribal battles), and noone u
Let's add to this... what happens when most semi-skilled and even moderately skilled jobs (let's say grunt-level programmer) cease to exist?
However, we won't have to wait for machine vision technology for this to happen, we're getting a sneak preview via outsourcing already. "Cease to exist in America" is close enough for most Americans.
We're going to get automated fast food long before Marshall Brain expects it, the solution he foresees is a much more diff
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
It already is! Recall that work is measured in joules (distance of mass per time). Then look outside the window at a modern European or American nation.
Where are all the joules (work) coming from? Not by human effort! 90% of it is from machines. Look at all the energy that goes into driving North Americans to their Labour Day holidays!
Some might disagree and say that all of the output of these machines isn't "work", as does the article author when claiming that 50% of modern work is in service industries (like McDonalds). That's because he's already accepted an altered definition of work that excludes non-human efforts.
Take the perspective of a 17th century economist and ask what tasks account for most of the "work" done in a nation- the list includes plowing, digging, hammering, sewing, scrubbing, and chopping (amoung similar things). Today all but one of those (scrubbing) are performed by machines. As Roblimo mentioned last week [newsforge.com], agricultural food production is the only really important job. The US makes 5x more food than it did a century ago by employing 10x fewer people.
The time when most work is performed by machine has long since come. A more accurate description of the question facing us in the future (as addressed by the article) is: What happens when unskilled jobs cease to exist?
Re:Too late (Score:3, Informative)
No, there are several fundamental flaws to that diet. Some are too obvious for me to bother mentioning, but the best one centers on the definition of "calorie". For the benefit of those who don't know this factoid:
There are two different definitions of "calorie". A physical calorie is the energy to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree kelvin. A dietary Calorie can heat a kilogram of water 1 d
Re:Too late (Score:2)
"There are two different definitions of "calorie"."
And there are a bajillion definitions for the word "work." Just as the word "calorie" means differen things to physicists and nutritionists, the word "work" means very different things to economists than it does in the world of physics. If your ego hadn't gotten in the way, you might have realized that the author wasn't talking about energy (or m-dot, which is a completely different concept altogether) but the process of cr
Re:Too late (Score:2)
We die.
Re:Too late (Score:1)
Archeologist found out the per acre food production of the celts on the British Isles about 500 BC was about the same as the per acre production in the same areas in 1960. They obviously had a more human work intense style of agriculture, but calling it less efficient just because of this? They at least had healthy food and a healthy environment where you can imagine growing up children (apart from the tribal battles), and noone u
FINALLY,someone asked the right question (Score:2)
Let's add to this... what happens when most semi-skilled and even moderately skilled jobs (let's say grunt-level programmer) cease to exist?
However, we won't have to wait for machine vision technology for this to happen, we're getting a sneak preview via outsourcing already. "Cease to exist in America" is close enough for most Americans.
We're going to get automated fast food long before Marshall Brain expects it, the solution he foresees is a much more diff