syllogism comments on What jobs are safe in an automated future? - Less Wrong
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Comments (101)
1 Maybe I should clarify: Are the tasks previously done by bank tellers becoming automated? Yes. The fact that the number bank tellers has increased does not invalidate my statement. If there were no internet banking or ATMs then increase would be much larger right? So its trivial to see that the number of bank tellers can increase at the same time as bank teller jobs are lost to automated systems.
2 I'll give you an extreme one. I am a few steps away of earning a degree in theoretical physics specializing in quantum information theory. Theoretical quantum information theory is nothing but symbol manipulation in a framework on existing theorems of linear algebra. With enough resources pretty much all of the research could be done by computers alone. Algorithms could in principle put mathematical statements together, other algorithms testing the meaningfulness of the output and so on.. but that a discussion interesting enough to have its own thread. I just mean that theoretical work is not immune to automation.
Organize all the known mathematics and physics of 1915 in a computer running the right algorithms, the ask it: 'what is gravity?' Would it output General theory of relativity? I think so.
Are you a grad student? Because I don't know much about theoretical physics, but I find it very hard to believe much academic research could be automated.
I'm a post-doc doing research on computational linguistics. I can't imagine automating my work.
Yes I am, and I'll soon start looking for PhD-positions either in physics or some interdisciplinary field of interest. I know I seem a bit over-optimistic, and that such radical changes may take maybe at least 30-50 years, but I'd guess most of us will be alive by then so its still relevant. My main point is that step by step theoretical tasks will move to the space of computation and the job of the theoretician will evolve to something else. If one day our computers in our computer aided research starts to output suggestions for models, or links between sets of data we haven't thought about comparing wouldn't those results actually be a collaboration between us and that system? You maybe cant imagine automating everything you do, but I'm sure you can imagine parts of your research being automated. That would allow you to use more mental resources for the conceptual and creative part of the research and so on..
When do you believe the first human-equivalent GAI will be created?
By human-equivalent i'd guess you mean equivalent in if not all, but in many different aspects of human intelligence. I wouldn't dare to have an opinion at the moment.
Anyone else?
You can't. Most can't, probably.
You have to come with some good reasons WHY that would be impossible.
Well I'm working on a sub-problem of artificial intelligence. So the task of designing a system to do my work is harder than the end-goal my work is trying to achieve!