
How hard will the robots make us work? - liroyleshed
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/27/21155254/automation-robots-unemployment-jobs-vs-human-google-amazon
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_bxg1
As an industry we have to start imbuing algorithms that directly impact humans
with intrinsic "cushions" of some sort. Windows of forgiveness - windows in
time, in space, in metrics. Avenues for handling situations that fall outside
of the normal way things are expected to go. Squishy, sympathetic outer
shells.

People are not modules to be perfectly-fitted to a slot. It's the same idea
behind giving a tightly-engineered utility a tolerant, helpful, _not_ -clean
user interface: the I/O barrier between a human and a machine cannot be as
rigid as that between two pieces of code.

I wonder if this idea could be formalized into a set of best-practices.

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yummypaint
Another option would be to create legal precedents for more directly
establishing cause-effect links between how a management system behaves and
harm caused to employees. This allows for the compassion of the system to be
quantified in dollars and weighed against exploitative practices to optimize
profit. No for profit organization will choose to loose possible competitive
advantages for the sake of treating people well. The best way to prevent a
race to the bottom is to make it prohibively expensive.

~~~
_bxg1
In my experience business leaders don't care without an incentive, and
legislators don't care to make said incentives. Unfortunately the engineers on
the ground seem to be the only ones with any compassion left in many cases. If
we can do something, which we can, then we need to.

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pmdulaney
I nominate "How hard will the robots make us work?" as headline of the year --
even though it's just February.

