[HN Gopher] Erik Brynjolfsson on automation, productivity, work,... ___________________________________________________________________ Erik Brynjolfsson on automation, productivity, work, and the future Author : feross Score : 24 points Date : 2022-06-17 18:47 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (rootsofprogress.org) (TXT) w3m dump (rootsofprogress.org) | ethbr0 wrote: | Direct video link: | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwIwCK8jpI&t=3m3s | | And context, if you're like me: | | _" Erik Brynjolfsson [...] is an American academic, author and | inventor. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and a | Senior Fellow at Stanford University where he directs the Digital | Economy Lab at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, with | appointments at SIEPR,the Stanford Department of Economics and | the Stanford Graduate School of Business. [...] He is known for | his contributions to the world of IT productivity research and | work on the economics of information and the digital economy more | generally. | | [...] He was among the first researchers to measure productivity | contributions of IT and the complementary role of organizational | capital and other intangibles. Brynjolfsson has done research on | digital commerce, the Long Tail, bundling and pricing models, | intangible assets and the effects of IT on business strategy, | productivity and performance."_ | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Brynjolfsson | ethbr0 wrote: | Summary, for those who don't want to watch (even at the 2x | speed I did): | | - GPT3 and large language models seeming to generate text with | deep understanding is fundamentally difference than the past. | Aka foundation models. | | - Most AGI prediction dates have been pulled closer to the | present. | | - Brynjolfsson et al. assessed ML capability vs current tasks. | In almost every occupation, ML could do some of the tasks | better than humans. In none could they do all of the tasks. | | - Q: Are we going to need to see regulation and law updated | when jobs transition from human to machine, and there's no | human to hold responsible for task failure? A: Law is lagging | practice. Human in the loop is the near future, for both | regulatory and practical purposes. Augment rather than replace. | | - Q: What about humanoid robots? Specifically re: +10-20 years | labor needs vs demographics? A: Controlled settings (e.g. | factories) are the best first environments. General purpose | environments are much more difficult. We live in constructed | environments (e.g. street signs). Likely to see more of this to | specifically support automated task execution. | | - _" Moravec's paradox is the observation by artificial | intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to | traditional assumptions, reasoning requires very little | computation, but sensorimotor and perception skills require | enormous computational resources."_ | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox | | - Q: On productivity paradox, why aren't we seeing measured | productivity increases as a result of ML deployment? A: Part is | a measuring problem (e.g. zero price goods like Wikipedia don't | show up in GDP). | | Potential explanations for the missing productivity that he | rules out: (1) Mismeasurement: We've always mismeasured things | though. See: "consumer surplus." (2) Many technologies are | shifting the pie vs making it bigger (e.g. targeted | advertising). This doesn't calculate up to missing | productivity. | | A good explanation: economic equivalent of Amdahl's law. Speed | up a portion of the process, yet the metaprocess still only | runs at the speed of its slowest step. There is a fair amount | of linkage in the economy, and we're not likely to see huge | productivity boosts until ML is properly digested and problem | tasks are reengineered to leverage the new capabilities. Which | happens on the order of decades (aka as managers die / retire). | | [... in progress...] | | IMHO, meh. At least for most of the crowd here. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-17 23:00 UTC)