
Humanity and Machine Learning [video] - jadk157
https://a16z.com/2019/02/08/better-together-humanity-machine-learning-chen-summit/
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adamdrake
I gave a lecture at the University of Toronto last year with a similar point
to what the speaker was getting at. Namely, we should be focusing on
augmenting human intelligence, not chasing some sort of future robot
overlords. See [https://adamdrake.com/novel-results-considered-
harmful.html](https://adamdrake.com/novel-results-considered-harmful.html)

This was the approach Douglas Englebart took in the lead up to the Mother of
All Demos (MOAD) and it's unfortunate people have forgotten that bit of
history.

There is so much that can be done to improve the lives of people if we simply
focus on how to optimize a variety of things that have to happen every day.
This doesn't mean we should forsake longer-term goals like fully autonomous
vehicles or other things, but it does mean that some of those who are most
capable of making a very real and significant impact in the lives of thousands
of people are forsaking that opportunity.

There is also often the argument that such near-term thinking will lead us to
a local optimum in terms of technology advancement, but I don't see that there
has been significant evidence to support that claim. After all, Englebart's
demo of version control and collaborative editing (among other things) was
over 50 years ago and that didn't seem to stall technological progress.

~~~
mr_toad
> we should be focusing on augmenting human intelligence

Who’s we? I can throw machine learning at practical real world problems right
now.

Augmenting human intelligence? I’m not aware of _any_ work in this area.

~~~
adamdrake
Great! We (technologists) should be using machine learning approaches to
practical real world problems, particularly those problems whose solutions
allow humans to be more productive. That's what I mean by augmenting human
intelligence/capabilities.

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CarelessSmirch
Would someone be willing to provide a brief summary for those who cannot watch
the video at the moment?

~~~
jadk157
The video walks through interesting uses of ML in industry (mostly outside
normal FAANG applications like optimizing your news feed) e.g \- precision
farming \- blood delivery using drones \- monitoring construction sites \-
writing more diversity-friendly job descriptions \- collecting relevant legal
documents

Speaker also argues that we should focus on leveraging ML-human collaboration
to surpass human performance, instead of falling into a "robots will replace
us" narrative

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
> Speaker also argues that we should focus on leveraging ML-human
> collaboration to surpass human performance, instead of falling into a
> "robots will replace us" narrative

I didn't watch the full video, so I am only responding to your summary. These
kinds of sentiments, where technologists profess that technology will always
make everything OK, while not at all addressing how our current economic
system will fail large swaths of our society if automation comes to fruition
(beyond "new jobs will come up!" or "ignore the luddites!") strikes me
entirely as a "Let them eat cake" attitude.

Here's a thought experiment: What would happen if, by the end of 2019, true,
100% self-driving cars became a reality. I know this is not going to happen,
but it no longer seems a far-fetched fantasy. In the US, driving is the number
one job for the majority of states. What are all of these people supposed to
do, become self-driving car programmers?

I am a big believer in technology but I am very worried for the future of
society.

~~~
yorwba
> Here's a thought experiment: What would happen if, by the end of 2019, true,
> 100% self-driving cars became a reality. I know this is not going to happen,
> but it no longer seems a far-fetched fantasy. In the US, driving is the
> number one job for the majority of states. What are all of these people
> supposed to do, become self-driving car programmers?

In the "let them eat cake" scenario, those people will have plenty of free
time to stage a revolution and take their piece of the cake by force. Below
the threshold of civil war, you get a Wild West where armed bandits hold up
trains of self-driving trucks and loot them, creating a thriving job market
for security guards protecting the trucks.

Of course both of those scenarios are highly undesirable, so it's more likely
that some kind of tax will be introduced to take automating jobs from
extremely profitable to barely profitable, with the proceeds used to pay for
unemployment benefits and retraining for the displaced workers. (With the
amount of retraining depending on how many other jobs haven't been automated
yet.)

That said, some people are going to see their standard of living decrease
without any way to escape. Such people have existed since forever, and they
usually end up homeless if not dead. Automation doesn't create any _new_
problems in that regard, it just makes them large enough that they can no
longer be ignored easily.

~~~
ultrasounder
If i were to play the devil's advocate, these "Skilled" jobs have always been
on the line. Look at what Uber and Lyft have done to F.T. cab drivers in all
major U.S. cities. I have been using Scoop(Bay area wide Corporate Car share
app). Its only a matter of time FAANG dumps their "Google bus" in favor of
their employees scooping to work by incentivizing and subsidizing it. So there
goes the cushy "Google bus" driver job. Not by automation but by a variation
of mass transit. In such cases, the employers have to pick up the tab by
offering those "skilled" workers displaced OJT/retraining and funneling them
into more "non-skilled", knowledge-based jobs. It is not going to be easy and
Corporate America finally has to acknowledge its Corporate responsibility. If
not Mayhem will ensue and everyone stands to lose.

