
Eliminating the Human - denom
http://davidbyrne.com/journal/eliminating-the-human
======
trjordan
There's another force at work here: in the name of efficiency and
standardization, companies worked to make human interactions less useful.

There's a reason McDonald's is seen as a bottom-of-the-barrel job. There's
nothing about it that fundamentally requires judgement, empathy, or decision-
making. Sure, the pleasantries are nice, but think about the last time you had
something go wrong with a fast food transaction. Did the worker just fix it?
Half the time, they have to drag a manager over, or reboot a machine, or some
other fix that's above their pay grade.

I love interacting with people who own their car repair shops, because they
can help me work things out beyond a simple transaction. But larger companies?
There's nothing to the interaction besides just talking with another human
who's worried that if anything goes wrong, I'll take it out on them and
there's nothing they can do to fix it.

~~~
tcbawo
I can't remember the last time I talked with a fast food employee that I
thought was incompetent. Most of the time, I'm shocked at how capable they are
given how little they are probably making.

~~~
bamboozled
Honest question, do you ever think about not eating there if you know the
staff are getting screwed over financially?

My logic is if they have such little regard for their staff, they probably
don't have much regard for my health. That and I just think it's cruel to work
people like robots.

~~~
Trundle
This seems to me to be the same argument people use for boycotting companies
that use foreign sweatshop labor paid cents on the hour to make clothing and
it doesn't make sense to me. If working like a robot is cruel, why are people
doing it? Because it's better than their alternatives? Ok then, how exactly
does taking that option away from them help?

I'm all for a strong welfare state, universal income, state funded
scholarships, and other "lift people up" sort of activities but I just don't
see how punishing companies for utilising low value labour does that.

~~~
Qwertious
" If working like a robot is cruel, why are people doing it? Because it's
better than their alternatives? Ok then, how exactly does taking that option
away from them help?"

The idea behind boycotting sweatshop labor is that it creates a market for
non-sweatshop clothing, which creates a better-paid alternative for the people
working like a robot.

~~~
Joeboy
Additionally consumer boycotts tend to be directed at specific companies and
serve a specific purpose, eg. trying to institute cross-industry agreements or
get compensation paid to workers or their families after factory fires or
collapses or whatever.

------
aeosnthqj
This bugs me. He laments that using Amazon removes a human interaction. Then
he says:

"Note: I don’t consider chat rooms and product reviews as “human interaction”;
they’re mediated and filtered by a screen."

Well, I don't consider a sales person swooping in to sell me something I
didn't come looking for human interaction. I don't consider someone ringing up
my order to be meaningful human interaction. I guess it's in the eye of the
beholder, but as soon as online shopping became feasible I switched to it for
as many transactions as possible because of the low quality of human
interactions I was getting at physical stores. The amount of wasted time and
energy spent dealing with people who were instructed to up-sell me on the
stupidest things was just such a turn-off. No interest in going back to that.

~~~
dragonsky
I do not disagree with your decision to move to online shopping, however I do
think that worthwhile human interaction is a two way street. If you want your
interaction with the chasheer to be higher value you could try to inject some
value yourself. It will improve their day as well as yours. Maybe then they
will transfer some of that value to the next person they serve.

Interact with people in the way you would like to be interacted with and you
will be surprised by how they respond.

~~~
Bakary
That's a good idea. Sadly in a lot of cases the employees are bound by a
script of some form.

------
scandox
I feel he makes a mistake in introducing the issue of engineering introversion
and (dread the word) the spectrum.

This desire to reduce human interaction is driven by the desires of the
average consumer. In many of the projects I've worked on this is explicit.
People want control, transparency and automation. There are services whose
entire selling point is reducing the unpredictability of human interactions
for consumers. For example, many people would not use taxis historically
because they felt the pricing was not transparent and at the whim of a person
they would have to negotiate with. People find this stressful.

Sometimes the automation makes the rules of interaction much more explicit
too. A lot of people are nervous of picking up the phone to, say, something as
simple as a restaurant and being told, NO you can't have a table for Saturday.
If they book online they can see the availability and not have what they find
the social embarrassment of even such a mild rejection.

Personally, I am all for human interaction. I positively seek it out. But I do
not think this is the trend. A lot of people are almost afraid to pick up the
phone, or ask for something that isn't on a menu, or ask for a discount, or
negotiate a price. And the number of those people is, in my personal
experience, growing.

~~~
itchyouch
I have definitely observed a similar phenomena of people looking to minimize
social interactions, especially amongst kids growing up today. I can't tell
whether this social anxiety is merely a phase in growing up or becoming wider
spread, but I feel like the convenience of growing up in an environment where
social interaction can be actively avoided (goto a restaurant with online
ordering) may actually be a cycle that reinforces the preference not to
interact with others.

I've noticed that some folks are abhorrent to the idea that rules and policy
can be bended or broken for various circumstances and it isn't until they get
older that that they realize that bending the rules is an actual option that
can be invoked by asking in-person outside of the standard system (usually an
automated site). For example, an individual was having a small melt down as
they needed an accommodation to show up to a minimum-wage job 30 minutes later
than usual for medical appointments. What was actually a simple explanation of
what is going on and shifting the hours appropriately took quite a bit of
encouragement and anxiety to get over prior to making the request.

I have another friend who will wait months to find the absolute best deal on a
gadget, yet will pay more for day-to-day goods on Amazon, than the grocery
store to simply minimizes interacting with folks at the grocery store and
cites interacting with people the primary reason to avoid the store.

Just 30-40+ years ago, by design, everyone had to interact with each other and
became practiced at it, but now a days, it's possible to say nothing but "hi"
"thanks" "bye" and get just about everything necessary done for you.

While I think that productivity and expectations have come so far, I feel like
we have lost a little bit of that human-to-human connection while engaging in
the day-to-day mundane activities through an interface.

~~~
jpetso
I don't like the idea that rules can be bent because it causes unfair
advantages. And it's not sustainable or beneficial for the greater good if
everyone does it.

Dozens of cars stop at a red light, yet someone thinks they can cross because
everybody else is stopping. Hundreds of companies take great pains to follow
mandated regulation, but one CEO thinks those rules are nonsense and fucks up
the marketplace for everyone in the industry, including themselves, only for a
shot at personal wealth. Six roommates each agree to split chores, but one
lazy bastard evades any sense of responsibility. Software project contributors
all follow the same coding style and review process, except the one who really
needs to get a patch in RIGHT NOW because it's so important for whatever
reason.

The thing is that if there are rules, they were made for a reason. In many
cases, the underlying pattern has something to do with us being able to get
along with each other instead of ending up at each others' throats, or having
our economy implode, or losing innocent people to accidents or poverty. Common
standards allow us to work together efficiently. When we can rely on each
other, we can do more with less effort. That's just as important in traffic
management as it is in hiring or relationships.

When groups are small, it's easier to agree on rules and values. With larger
groups, communities, states and whatnot, you'll have someone who doesn't mind
wrecking it for everyone else just so they can get ahead. The solution is not
to nod and say yeah, that's okay. It's not okay to cross red lights. It's not
okay to kill people and take their money. It's not okay to steal someone
else's confidential property and use it to destroy your competitor in the
marketplace. We shouldn't accept any of these just because they're "the human
condition". We should police our standards and improve on those failings so we
can maintain a workable system.

Some rules are not great. That's a fact, and that need to be improved. But the
sustainable solution is not to bend the rule. It's to change the rules so they
work well in more cases, for more people, with better overall outcomes. And
then everyone follows the new rules. Fuck everyone who thinks they're above
the rest of us and use others' "weakness" of caring about the common benefit
to reap rewards just for themselves, without making the system sustainably
better for all parties involved.

I'd rather have a highway like the ones in Germany than the chaos that you see
on a wide street in India. Both systems work, but one works better than the
other because people agree that by not bending the rules to your own personal
advantage, I can get a better outcome for everyone _including_ myself.

And to get back to your actual, much tamer example of bending the rules - in
many cases the outcome is alright, but the principle still stands. I shouldn't
have to call my bank to get a better interest rate. I shouldn't have to be
personable and accommodating just so I can ask for something obvious like
getting half an hour off for a doctor's appointment. Things like that should
be available to everyone, regardless of their social aptitude. So let's make
sure we have rules in place to make that the "rule", not the exception.

~~~
parasubvert
I think a large percentage of the world's population have the opposite stance:
rules are fictions that exist as guides but social interaction is the
fundamental way in which we coexist. Traffic patterns in India are a great
example of this in action, driving itself is almost a social act of continuous
signalling.

I personally cannot stand obsolete rules and use social interactions whenever
I can to bend or break them. Amusingly they call this being a "change agent"
in busines schools...

------
thenomad
I don't feel like this argument holds up as soon as he goes into examples.

AirBnB: this might be a Euro vs US thing, but my Airbnb experiences have
involved a lot _more_ human interaction than I'd expect at a hotel, as my
hosts show me around.

Fiverr, Upwork, et al: if you're expecting to use these with no human
interaction you're going to have a very bad time. Detailed and frequent
communication is a must if you want to get good work out.

Self-driving cars: for me and a lot of other people, the primary interaction
they replace is between my hands and the steering wheel. Yes, they will, if
they work, also eliminate the taxi, but that's very much a side-product.

Video games: OK, this one just feels like him being a Luddite. As a frequent
DOTA2 player, I can assure him that the interactions I have, whilst not always
pleasant, are most definitely human in nature - and often even involve human
voices! Single-player video games obviously don't involve interaction, but
they compete for time with other non-interactive leisure activities like TV or
reading.

It's an interesting thesis - and his points on recommender systems and music
are probably the most interesting part of the article - but I don't think he
proves his case very well.

~~~
sametmax
Although to be fair human interactions in DOTA2 in the 2K tier is definitely
something I would aim to eliminate. Impossible to have a game without at least
one player being rude. It's not as bad as LOL, but still the community is in a
sad state. It's shame given that the game requires you to communicate by
design.

~~~
ryzawy
I think this is a common misbelief. It has been proven again and again that
this is not related to MMR - you will have pricks in every "tier". I can only
vouch for the 3.5k range, but friends of mine in 4k-5k say the same thing.
There are also a lot of threads on reddit which show that it's not exclusive
to "the trenches".

My girlfriend is around 1k and her games are mostly friendly, which is
interesting to say the least.

I think there is a point (after a certain amount of matches/playtime) where
people start to believe they know everything about the game and start telling
people how to behave and how to play, because they just "know it better". This
is where it gets ugly.

~~~
sametmax
I don't know. When I watch games of 4k on youtube, people seems more civil
honestly. But maybe there is just a filter effect.

What's annoying is that I don't think you can pinpoint a factor that triggers
rudeness. Yes, you have the typical insult following a failure to play up to
the standard of some of the players. But you also have people just being
uneducated: playing music with auto mic on, gaming like they are alone,
feeding because they didn't get mid, trashing the enemy team... It's like
being in high school all over again.

It's are

------
ng12
> Is music as a kind of social glue and lubricant also being eliminated?

I definitely grew up in a different decade than David Byrne but for me music
has always been a digital experience. I know very, very few people in real
life who have the same tastes as I do and where tastes do overlap it's often
very surface-level (who doesn't like Radiohead?). However I've consistently
found little communities online which have had a huge influence on the music I
listen to -- from BBSs to Soulseek to 4chan -- which has allowed me to craft
my tastes in a way that wouldn't scale to a local social network. It's not
bad, just different.

~~~
lacampbell
_who doesn 't like Radiohead?_

We exist, and in greater numbers than you might realise.

~~~
ng12
Haha, fair. But the point is digitally you can explore the long tail in a way
that's very hard in real life. Most of my immediate peers would have some
opinion on Radiohead but it's relatively unlikely we could deliver meaningful
recommendations based on eachother's specific tastes.

~~~
anigbrowl
Before there was digital there were specialist record stores. a taste for the
obscure isn't a new thing, although it's easier than ever to indulge.

~~~
lmm
I think there is less need to tolerate the mainstream than ever (which equally
you could frame the other way around). These days if a given internet radio
station is playing too much black metal and not enough death metal it's
trivial to switch to one that only plays blackened death metal.

------
11thEarlOfMar
The purpose of reducing human interaction when providing services is to reduce
the cost of those services. Looks like nearly all of the examples cited
involve one human providing paid services to another. In the name of
productivity, the human providing the service is put in play because they are
expensive.

It would be more telling to look at social behaviors that don't involve
transactions. Family reunions, nights out with the gals, little league games,
religious ceremonies, ... Is there a technological force reducing human
interactions there? Distracted by the smartphone, perhaps?

And one could argue that technology enables in-person human interraction as
well: Flashmobs, Meetups, etc.

~~~
mc32
It also eliminates variability. Most services strive to offer predictable
services, and, as consumers, most of us also want predictable services.
Starbucks is notorious for their mediocrity, but it's predictable. There's
little worse in commercial experiences than going to my favorite coffee shop
and one day getting a great drink and the next day having a flat drink.
Getting fleeced of course is worse.

~~~
losteric
I have found that good local shops start with higher variance but quickly hone
in on excellence. It just takes time for the baristas to learn their regulars.
However, that presumes the customer has developed their own tastes... when
someone's definition of "good coffee" is "sugar, fat, caffeine", the barista
doesn't have a lot of information to hone in the taste.

------
rixrax
I admit. I am an introvert and I have by and large welcomed with open arms
every advance in technology that has allowed me to deal less with other
people.

Maybe subconsciously I have reflected this to some of the work and innovation
I've been involved with over the years. With so many other introverts in the
field, I am sure others have as well. But I want to thank the author for I've
never consciously thought this aspect of technology with such a clarity.

~~~
marchenko
>I admit. I am an introvert and I have by and large welcomed with open arms
every advance in technology that has allowed me to deal less with other
people.<

I used to feel the same way, until I realized that as an introvert, I am
especially reliant upon the regular stream of casual, serendipitous encounters
that punctuate everyday life for social and emotional well-being. Because I do
not seek out contact, these small bursts of socialization are important to
balance my mood and keep me grounded. I first noticed this during long periods
in a non-native-language environment, where I realized that landing a good
joke with a cashier was better for my equilibrium than any social media
success metric.

~~~
andyjohnson0
That's my experience too. Introversion doesn't mean I don't need interactions
with people. I've met unhappy introverts who didn't seem to have ever realised
this.

------
paulsutter
Oddly, I found this graphic more informative than the a16z "AI Playbook"
currently ranked first on HN:

[http://davidbyrne.com/images/made/images/uploads/todomundo/m...](http://davidbyrne.com/images/made/images/uploads/todomundo/mgi-
industry-digitization-index_650_927_60.jpeg)

------
astrofinch
>The counterargument to the dangers of social media has been “look at Arab
Spring”.

My impression of the Arab Spring is that most countries emerged in worse shape
than they started in.

~~~
XorNot
Yeah those Twitter powered civil wars are definitely much worse then regular
civil wars...

~~~
Neliquat
One could argue success is a better metric in a revolotion than the body count
to those who care about their freedom to decide their nations fate.

------
pdonis
The article conflates eliminating human interaction that is a side effect of
something else, with eliminating _all_ human interaction. But there's no
reason why that must be the case. Eliminating human interactions as side
effects ought to leave _more_ room for human interactions that aren't
constrained by being side effects and so can go wherever the humans in
question want them to. It's a lot easier to have an interesting conversation
with someone if you don't have to finish your transaction quickly to make way
for the next person in line.

~~~
chandler
Yeah, but where are you going to get the skills of interacting with strangers?

Eliminating baseball practice doesn't seem like a way to encourage more games
:/

~~~
jpetso
You're going to get practice where you search out for it, when you're open to
and ready for interacting with other people.

I can go to baseball practice, work on my game, and go home when it's over. Or
I can ask if someone wants to stay and go for drinks after. Everyone's got the
choice of what they want to do. If I love the game but not the people then
I'll maybe hang out with a different group instead, or with my partner.

The point behind eliminating these side-effect interactions is that now you
can decide when and with whom to interact, rather than being forced into it
when you just wanted to get something else done.

------
CriticalSection
There is an idea that the dominant form of production in our age is done in a
manner that causes alienation on a number of fronts for those who do the
producing.

Part of this is commodity fetishism, where people can see commodities, but not
the social relations surrounding the production of commodities.

This sounds like the taking of this to the next level - where the social
aspect of exchanging currencies for commodities becomes more and more hidden.
You press some buttons on a website, and two days later a box shows up in an
Amazon locker or on your front porch. Not only is the social aspect of the
production of the commodity hidden, the social aspect of the exchange of
currency for that commodity is now hidden as well.

------
boardwaalk

      There are lots of reasons one might want to avoid human interaction:
      1. Human interaction is perceived as complicated, inefficient, noisy and slow.
    

I can't recall the source of where I heard it, an article or podcast perhaps,
but there's the idea the current situation of increasing populism (anti-
globalism, anti-immigration, xenophobia) is partly a result of ever mounting
complexity in our societies. I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-human
interaction thing (as well as hikikomori in Japan f.e.) was another effect. Of
course, I'm sure this being HN, people will think it's the obviously just
technology marching on -- but I'm not so sure. Businesses go where the money
is.

Personally, I tried to get away from it as much as possible and it still feels
like too much and I have every plan of simplifying down the road.

edit: I found the podcast I think was referenced, but disclaimer I haven't
listened to it specifically: [http://omegataupodcast.net/184-societal-
complexity-and-colla...](http://omegataupodcast.net/184-societal-complexity-
and-collapse/)

~~~
losteric
That vaguely reminds me of Calhoun's "mouse utopia":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experime...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experiments)

I feel like lessons from software often have parallels in society. There are a
lot of parallels between a project developed from scratch by a team that
deeply understands their business domain, and a product+team combination
that's missing any of those aspects.

When the system is worked on by people that don't comprehend the problem or
how the system solves it, the project slowly accrues hacks that eventually
become an operational death march towards deprecation.

It's worth considering the longevity of religions. Those systems were born to
explain the supernatural, but the ideas that created social stability were the
ones that survived. Religions outlive nations because they have built-in
error-correction that prevents process degradation, even when spread by
adherents that do not comprehend the context of the rules they preach.

------
murbard2
> Gig Jobs- TaskRabbit and other services—there are people who perform these
> tasks in the gig economy, but as a client one does not necessarily have to
> interact with them in a meaningful way.

The alternative for these gig jobs is often to them yourself. House cleaning,
furniture assembly, truck loading, tidying, repainting... Hiring help for
these services clearly increases human interaction.

~~~
aerodeck
ordering someone around != meaningful interaction.

~~~
Qwertious
Getting a person at a till to scan stuff you buy != meaningful interaction.

We _could_ redefine "meaningful interaction" in a way that reinforces the
"technology is destroying meaningful interpersonal interaction" narrative, if
you'd like?

------
wordupmaking
> Is music as a kind of social glue and lubricant also being eliminated?

That's also up to those who compose who compose the music and write the
lyrics, isn't it? For me, listening to some music has always been a deeply
social experience, and I'd rank the depth of it as such:

1\. with good friends 2\. alone with headphones on 3\. with random strangers
or people I know but don't click with or can't open up to

On the other hand, there's (a whole lot of) what to me is soulless, brainless
trash, and listening to that alone just feels like staring in the abyss of
humanity, while in a social situation (or when doing chores) and small doses
it might be some jolly good fun.

------
bitL
Yes, everything points to automation of higher cognitive functions, rendering
everyone but a very few geniuses and owners unemployable. The question is if
the underlying economic model changes for everyone to benefit from it, or we
go through a complete slumization of the whole world with a vast majority
fighting for the scraps. It's also questionable if amending economic model
would be beneficial to humanity, removing all challenges, as it might lead to
complete hedonism and destruction of civilization in a few generations.

~~~
Scea91
No everything does not point to that. What I see is an endless sea of
opportunities that we can't even dream of today. There will always be work for
humans. Just on a higher level of abstraction than we are today.

~~~
pdimitar
Don't look forward to the business owners wanting to spend money on humans
"brainstorming in a coffee", though.

I fear that my favourite genre -- cyberpunk -- is getting closer to reality
with each passing month.

------
iamcurious
Was my experience reading that article a human interaction? Is my comment one?
Byrne shared something personal and I respond in turn. I mean, it is certainly
less of a human interaction than being at a party with Byrne. But isn't this
more of a human interaction than going to a bank and asking a cashier to give
me money?

~~~
Neliquat
A filtered one, perhaps. But you sure as hell did not achieve a dialouge, just
a statement, and a statement to other people about his statement. At no point
did you actually interact.

~~~
iamcurious
And now we have dialogue. This is fun!

------
acjohnson55
To be honest, most of the human interaction I see being eliminated aren't what
I'd call "quality time" to begin with. For the most part, the brick-and-mortar
commercial world is full of rote interactions with people who are under the
gun meet metrics for middle managers and capitalists, in hopes that some of
the excess will trickle down. Slightly better are maybe the brokers, who are
now obviated by search and decision engines.

And if we rewind a bit further to a time when human capital was literally
disposable, well, maybe the trend isn't so bad.

There's much less haggling and forced pleasantry in the world of online
commerce. It's up to us to replace that with more meaningful interactions.
Make art, play sports, learn to dance, volunteer.

------
stillsut
"...we were not the popular kids that drank, had sex, and partied." \- From
the current discussion on UploadVR scandal [0]

These are literally the most enjoyable things people do together, which has
held for all history, for all people from all cultures. It has been
criminalized in modern life in an attempt to sterilize all human interaction.

I have no problem with an app saving me from the frustration of trying to
place a food order over a noisy telephone. But what are we going to do to
replace the joy and the messiness and heartache of love? Is VR the only place
left where a human can be a human?

[0]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14345715](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14345715)

------
maerF0x0
IMO reducing administrative human friction is fantastic. I want to spend the
10 minutes I save with my friends, family and their respective circles.

I reduce low value (pleasantries etc) human interaction so i can go deeper
with my people.

~~~
fineline
You are reinforcing David's point about the creation of echo chambers and its
magnifying effect on social divisions. You want to cut out seemingly
superficial (but sometimes serendipitous) communication with people that you
don't know or who are not like you in order to go deeper with "your" people.

------
paulryanrogers
Reducing otherwise involuntary interactions can be a good thing.

~~~
Chaebixi
> Reducing otherwise involuntary interactions can be a good thing.

You feel the need to breathe not because your body senses it lacks oxygen, but
because it senses an excess of CO2, so it'll happily let you suffocate with no
warning in an atmosphere with too much nitrogen gas. I think humanity has many
more systems like that, which break down in unhealthy ways when removed from
some natural constraint or conflict. I think, for many people, one of those is
the conflict between the need for social interaction and the desire fulfill
basic wants as easily as possible. An easy way to get the latter is by
"cutting out the human," (e.g. working and shopping online) but that can leave
the former need neglected if someone lacks the urge to seek out social
connection on their own.

I admit there are people who can be happy with a completely solitary life, but
I believe they're very rare. Also, modern industrial society has succeeded in
depersonalizing many human business interactions so they're already pretty
barren of value (e.g. you can't form a friendship with a store clerk* if it's
it's too often a different one), but I think my point still stands.

* I have done this several times.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Giving people more choice in how they satisfy their social needs is good. If
they're unaware of how to fulfill them then I wouldn't argue for forcing them
to do so through chores.

------
FrozenVoid
David can still use old-fashioned services, dial the landline phone and even
order a horse carriage for that organic and natural feel. Perhaps he should
even hire a driver. Maybe a cook, a personal assistant and some live musicians
to perform in his house. Maybe even a personal library with real books and
librarian to help sort them out. Such sustainable, organic human-centric
lifestyle should be available to everyone at minimal cost and save on resource
wasted on that newfangled "digital technology" or whatever its called.

------
fourthark
This is an explicit theme of advertising for Seamless, among others.

------
lacampbell
Tiresome article. This has been happening since the industrial revolution.
It's nothing new.

------
codazoda
Correlation is not causation. That's what comes to mind. I doubt that it's
intentional, it's probably just cost effective.

~~~
aerodeck
> not intentional > cost effective

optimizing for cost is an intention.

~~~
zardo
Optimization can happen without intentionality.

Less cost effective businesses are more likely to stop being businesses.

------
look_lookatme
> Engineers and coders as people are often less than comfortable with human
> interaction, so naturally they are making a world that is more accommodating
> to themselves.

Man, you know things are bad for the fedoralords when even David Byrne turns
on you.

------
draw_down
In my opinion this kind of thought is what happens when you refuse to consider
things structurally. The reason for the elimination of humans in these models
is to drive down labor costs. Humans are expensive to pay, they get sick, they
steal things sometimes, they don't always come to work, they need silly things
like buildings to work in, close to where they live. Perhaps a mundane point
to Mr. Byrne, but with all due respect it's much more salient than "coders are
nerds who hate social interaction".

~~~
aerodeck
If humans are just inefficient then we should just get rid of all of them no?
Or perhaps just keep the smart, efficient ones with good credit scores.

~~~
narag
For jobs in which we are very inefficient (compared to machines) we _are_
being replaced, it's not a question of should or shouldn't.

Maybe we _should_ reconsider some regulations so we can keep the jobs for
which we are still competitive. I mean that, while some requirements are
unavoidable, others are a product of regulation, specifically of regulation
that was created in an age with very different circumstances.

