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How much could be automated in the future?

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interpolator
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Larry interpolator
Hey guys, I was looking at this
https://shapescale.com/
Its a device you step on and scans you and makes a 3d model of your body. I believe at this moment we are at a modern industrial revolution where machines like that are being developed, and the best of them will stay and get improved over the years.

But I was wondering...
How far do you believe this can go? If we fuse this technology with augmented reality technology, we can create characters or every type of humanoid by scanning one person. Do you think this could expand further into creating everything fast? Like speedtree or something?

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  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    I believe it can and will go quite far but I still think that it will stay as tool for artist and wont replace the artist itself. At least as long as the ai wont have its self awareness and when this happen I dont even want to think what it will bring to us.

    Few days ago I had an awesome idea for neural ai concept art tool. Just imagine if you feed a lot of photos of things to neural ai and it will automatically combine them in such patterns that it will look like photobashed concept art. 
  • Larry
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    Larry interpolator
    ahtiandr said:
    I believe it can and will go quite far but I still think that it will stay as tool for artist and wont replace the artist itself. At least as long as the ai wont have its self awareness and when this happen I dont even want to think what it will bring to us.

    Few days ago I had an awesome idea for neural ai concept art tool. Just imagine if you feed a lot of photos of things to neural ai and it will automatically combine them in such patterns that it will look like photobashed concept art. 
    i will steal your idea now and make millions of it.
  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    its ok =) I wouldnt even try to do it but I hope someone will and I will be able to use it =) . Besides I think I am not the only one who thinks about ideas like that =) 
  • Eric Chadwick
    There's a lot of research being done in automated 3d modeling. Take a look at the latest SIGGRAPH papers. 

    If anything you make has a defineable ruleset, this can start to be automated. 

    For a long time to come though we'll still need talented artists to make customized content.


  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    We'll likely slowly see things replaced by apps, like UVing, and retopology, or tools to help with iteration, but it's not like any jobs are going to be replaced overnight. 

    It's not like game art jobs are highly at risk, stuff like self driving cars are much sooner on the automation timeline, and even that is still 10-15 years away from actually taking people's jobs. 
  • Aabel
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    Aabel polycounter lvl 6
    What do you consider automation? Tools like bevel and extrude could be considered examples automation. After all you aren't building those polygons from the verts on up. From my point of view automation has been at the heart of 3d modeling from the very beginning.
  • Bletzkarn
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    Bletzkarn polycounter lvl 6
    Aabel said:
    What do you consider automation? Tools like bevel and extrude could be considered examples automation. After all you aren't building those polygons from the verts on up. From my point of view automation has been at the heart of 3d modeling from the very beginning.
    I agree with this, we'll just get more sophisticated tools, mainly around procedural generation. Perhaps auto-texturing models and more efficient subdividing (no more edge loops). However AI is a very far way off being able to interpret artistic vision. 

    I think machine learning will be used more, but still requires a fitness parameter. Maybe you could make a model then the AI will make hundreds of variations of the same model.
  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    Look at how much is automated today versus 10-20 years ago. Asset lighting is either baked or dynamic instead of painted. Models can be textured in minutes using procedural rules based on bakes. Few people are making LODs anymore, even LPs can sometimes be decimated out of HP meshes. Subdivision modeling can now be bypassed in various ways for hardsurface stuff. We scan actors in a week instead of sculpting them for months. Animation systems blend between massive clip libraries based on physics context. Automation trends aren't new and won't be stopping. They allow individual artists to leverage their valuable time into a much broader impact on a game. 
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    I was thinking off the top of my head 2 things.

    If we automated the shit out of the pipeline, we would get something low quality.
    But IMHO it would be in the realm of  'good enough'.
    - Scan
    - Zremesh
    - Automatic UVs
    - Bake.

    This would look crappy, but i think it would still be 'acceptable' by mass market standards.

    The main thing about this pipeline, is that it would simply get better in quality once we get more power and better algorithms in place.
    - Higher fidelity scans
    - Better Unwrap algorhythms
    - Better Remeshing algorhythms
    - Reducuing issues with higher poly/texture budgets.

    In 4-5 years we could very likely have games that rival some of the 'average' looking games today.


    2nd thing is:
    I think the worst looking console games today still look pretty good. I sift through the metacritic scores in the 30s for games released THIS year, and the graphics for most of these games aren't bad at all. 

    IMHO The gap between the worst looking game and the best looking game is a lot tighter than it's ever has been. The reason this is important is, I honestly think the proceduralization of a lot of games is going to overtake most "realistic" games sooner rather than later.


  • Mark Dygert
    In theory almost everything can be automated with enough time and effort. If cost of creating automation is less than the cost of employing people, automation wins. Automation tends to be less flexible, less reliable and more expensive.
  • marks
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    marks greentooth
    Automation tends to be ... less reliable and more expensive.
    You're trolling, right? Please tell me you're trolling.

    Also, the cost of automation is pretty much always less than the cost of employing people on a long enough timeline.
  • JordanN
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    JordanN interpolator
    Automation would be godsend for UV unwrapping.

    IMO, it has existed far too long in CG and with the photorealistic pipeline being longer than ever, it's just an unnecessary crutch. Unlike modeling, texturing or even lighting, you never see UV maps being paraded on screen in movies or video games. No one would know or tell the difference had a robot unwrapped a model perfectly versus an artist who had to spend an entire day doing planar or pelt unwraps, getting perfect texel density or laying out a uv island so it looks tidy. 

    That's all I want out of modern R&D. 
  • RN
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    RN sublime tool
    At least for organic meshes there's already an automation solution for UVs, it's Ptex. It's like every quad on the mesh is a tiny island:
    http://ptex.us/overview.html

  • marks
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    marks greentooth
    Unfortunately PTex is a technology which is completely unsuitable for use in games, for many reasons
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    well obviously everything will be automated in time. people keep talking about this like its not inevitable and like there are some things that just cant be automated, spoiler alert, there isnt.

    I dont understand it, but I guess wishful thinking and fear is a powerful driver.

    its only a question of time, and I think there is gonna be a real fun sweet spot pretty soon, when you can automate all the boring things, but still get to do the fun stuff. you know, right before the computers get better at that as well :P
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 6
    The annoying things will be automated, Uvs aren't even that annoying with the tools today.

    as for mesh creation I would say focus on being a good designer, photogrammetry is also going up in demand not only have I ran into companies wanting photogrammetry skills and when it is coming to photorealistic AAA games it is essential.

    the future or even the present in growing AAA circles should have western artists (as tragic as it may seem)  focus on optimizing and deisgn, because more often then not your going to be working in mesh cleanup for outsourced art.

    Unless something radically changes this is largely going to be a continuing trend and the future of jobs in the industry.
  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    lotet said:
    well obviously everything will be automated in time. people keep talking about this like its not inevitable and like there are some things that just cant be automated, spoiler alert, there isnt.

    I dont understand it, but I guess wishful thinking and fear is a powerful driver.
    You say the wishful thinking and fear is on the side of those who are skeptical of the automated luxury future. But isn't there some wishful thinking in saying "everything" will be automated "inevitably?" And when you talk about a computer effectively taking your job, isn't that just - fear?
  • Mark Dygert
    Anything can be automated, but is it cost/time/resources beneficial to make those systems?
    Can they be as robust and flexible as you will ever need them?

    That's a pretty tall order and it will cost a lot of time and resources to pull that off. That's the rub, if the cost of automation is higher than employing people, then not that many people see much business sense in pursuing it, unless your goal is to sell it to other people who in turn won't hire as many people. Still getting over that hurdle and getting people to adopt something new can be a daunting task. 

    Is it fully tested and iterated upon under a lot of different production settings? To the point that you won't need a team of humans to come in and save the day when it can't deliver? Are you willing to stake your game on it?

    It's something most people who write scripts to automate mundane tasks take into account. Will the time I invest in writing this thing, will it pay for itself or will I spend more time writing it than the time it saves.

    You can also waste a lot of time trying to future proof your life only to have something you didn't think of, that wasn't even around way back when you where planning, sink your your ship. It's really smart and plan ahead and think about the future, but don't let it paralyze you and keep you from taking a risk on something that could be really rewarding, even if it only lasts for 5-10-30-40 years. 

    That's my 2 cents, I've been in 3 industries now that have faced the unrelenting march of automation and it's brutally terrifying, until it smacks you in the face and you deal with it, then it's not so scary. You pick up and move on and try to find a way to use the skills you have to do something new.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    lotet said:
    well obviously everything will be automated in time. people keep talking about this like its not inevitable and like there are some things that just cant be automated, spoiler alert, there isnt.

    I dont understand it, but I guess wishful thinking and fear is a powerful driver.
    I disagree. Not everything can be automated. Creative work will always exist. And let's be honest, if everything is parameterized and adjusted with sliders, universally, things will look pretty samey, which won't accomplish what people want it to (no matter how many things can be tweaked). The only way things will look unique and enjoyable still, in an automated world, is with great artists designing the inputs. The banisters, railings, and steps for those automated staircases, as an example. So there would still be a need for artists. Maybe not as many, granted.

    And things like sci-fi mechs, or crazy ancient temples with bizarre wall paintings and statues, I'm not sure how any kind of real automating could be done. Without, of course, really cool inputs.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    I'm guessing most of you have seen this.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

    But yes. The idea is that even creativity can be automated, as they're still governed by quantifiable rules.

    Stories, music, art, world creation will all be automatable (very likely sooner rather than later).
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    JoshuaG said:
    I think a lot of real world assets could be "automated" but anything that's sci-fi still needs to be made from scratch.
    and then you watch videos about google ai spitting out drone designs by the hundreds of thousands in no time, compressing them down for user input and then going on and on until you got what you want. if you can come up the ruleset and teach it to ai, you need an artdirector, maybe a small team. but no grunts designing and execuing...

    its a bit scary
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Once the automation starts automating, that's when we need to worry.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    ZacD said:
    Once the automation starts automating, that's when we need to worry.
    AI inventing its own intermediate language to translate between different languages already happened :dizzy:
  • ProperSquid
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    ProperSquid polycounter lvl 12
    Short answer is everything. (Tiny bit of background: I'm a pipeline technical director in the animation industry, so this kind of stuff is my job, and I'm following artificial intelligence research, because that's cool stuff.)

    Right now we have tools to procedurally create and assemble geometry, textures, and animation (rag doll physics, and the stuff being done in Overgrowth). Basically as long as there are very clear rules that the software can understand, it will be one of the first things to be automated.

    Next, we have artificial intelligence doing some crazy things like delighting textures, creating full 3d models (nothing close to what a human can do, but starting to get there), and animation based on actors in a physical world (picking up boxes, walking and jumping, etc). I think this level of automation in production is coming in the future, but I am not sure if it will be in our lifetime or not.

    Lastly I think eventually the whole process will be automated. Any sort of sameness can be trained away, and I wouldn't be surprised if given time, the computers will produce better art and games than we ever can. But at that point, I don't think there will be any jobs left in the world. I'm betting this will start once we all retire or later.

    So, being afraid does make sense, but I don't think you'll be out of a job because of your robotic coworkers/ overlords any time soon.
  • Mark Dygert
    Joopson said:
    I disagree. Not everything can be automated. Creative work will always exist. And let's be honest, if everything is parameterized and adjusted with sliders, universally, things will look pretty samey, which won't accomplish what people want it to (no matter how many things can be tweaked).
    We are on the verge of quantum computing becoming a reality very soon, Microsoft is already trying to educate people about the changes that are coming.
    https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/26/microsoft-new-coding-language-is-made-for-quantum-computers/

    What the shitty computers did for the analog world in the 40's-50's, we will see a similar leap forward with quantum computing, we are in the stone age of computing.

    Lets take a theoretical leap forward. What if we where able to take a 4k static image and calculate all of the possible pixel color combinations to make an image. Out of the nonsense you would also get every picture ever taken, every movie ever made, a complete history of anything that ever was or could have been. Just like how it's been an impossibility to calculate pi we might have a machine that churns on something similar but is image based.

    Extrapolate that to voxels and let it churn. Imagine giving it a narrower scope to focus on.
    Quaduped Mechs with an 80's theme, add options for shoulder mounted rockets and jump jets.
    Remove superfluous detailing, but add access hatches.
    Here are 2,000 mechs to choose from.

    Give me 300 rounded versions and 300 sharp angular versions of these two.
    Apply mechanics and physics to figure out which 100 would function the best.
    Here are 100 mechs to choose from.

    What if future creative professionals are just really good at narrowing the scope and getting it to spit out a narrow band of options to choose from?
    Maybe they iterate on those options, until those iterations can be quantified and reproduced.
    Maybe that is what thumb-nailing looks like in the future.

    It might not happen this decade or in the next 50 years but that's the road we're on.


  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    i hope by that time we found something to do for people and a way to carry them.

    capitalism will ultimately fail once everything is automated, maybe we will end up in a unified world, everything is peaceful, everyone is happy

    but i fear this will end in total chaos and everything goes to shit...
  • Mark Dygert
    marks said:
    Automation tends to be ... less reliable and more expensive.
    You're trolling, right? Please tell me you're trolling.

    Also, the cost of automation is pretty much always less than the cost of employing people on a long enough timeline.
    The cost of CREATING automation is usually more expensive than just hiring people to crank out whatever. It's why the garment industry chases poverty around the globe. 2000 workers whittling their fingers down to nubs is cheaper than trying to build a high tech factory that does everything that you will ever need it to.

    "Where else can you wake up 2000 workers at 1am and have them stonewash 50,000 pairs of jeans with only 5min notice?" It's not a mega factory running on automation, its in a country with questionable human rights. "Why are we rubbing rocks on pants? Because it's a fashion thing now. Don't ask questions just take your rock and rub it on the jeans."

    Maybe some day it will be automated and it will handle all of the weird case scenarios they can ever think of. Acid washed, rainbow tie die, no problem. Then along comes tinfoil shirts and that factory is useless. Up pops a new one with 2000 workers and later someone automates that one, but the cost of creating automation is a high hurdle. 

    Is it possible to automate any process, yes of course you can. But is it cost effective to go through the process of automating it? That is a much more complex question, that unpacks a lot more questions that need to be answered.
  • danr
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    danr interpolator
    which is why we rely on third parties with suspicious amounts of investment, or strange back rooms at Google HQ, to spend untold millions working this stuff out ... and then, a few years down the line, sell it to the game devs for a tiny tiny fraction of what it might cos the dev to even start thinking about doing it themselves. In the meantime, we just crack on as we were, with one eye on whats going on elsewhere. Sounds fine to me
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    Joopson said:
    lotet said:
    well obviously everything will be automated in time. people keep talking about this like its not inevitable and like there are some things that just cant be automated, spoiler alert, there isnt.

    I dont understand it, but I guess wishful thinking and fear is a powerful driver.
    I disagree. Not everything can be automated. Creative work will always exist. And let's be honest, if everything is parameterized and adjusted with sliders, universally, things will look pretty samey, which won't accomplish what people want it to (no matter how many things can be tweaked). The only way things will look unique and enjoyable still, in an automated world, is with great artists designing the inputs. The banisters, railings, and steps for those automated staircases, as an example. So there would still be a need for artists. Maybe not as many, granted.

    And things like sci-fi mechs, or crazy ancient temples with bizarre wall paintings and statues, I'm not sure how any kind of real automating could be done. Without, of course, really cool inputs.
    have you seen the crazy things AI has been doing lately?  its writing songs, identifying things in images, even animating things by looking at still images and predicting how it will move.  its copying voices and defeating professional dota players. its beating doctors with over 30 years of experience in diagnosing and treating patients. they even asked googles deep mind to "dream" and create its own art/images, so on a rudimentary level its already doing art and concept design.

    saying the things you say either proves wishful thinking or un-awareness of how much improvement AI has been doing in the last few years.

    I mean, our jobs will probably be among the last once replaced, but replaced we will be never the less. Id really encourage doing some AI research, its really interesting and at the same time scary what its achieving lately. 

    I for one embrace our robot overlords.
  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    Neox said:
    capitalism will ultimately fail once everything is automated
    does this really sound realistic? "once everything is automated" - just a given? and what is "everything" - the jobs that we happen to do today, in 2017? one point in eternity?

    two hundred years ago 90% of the population was in farming on a capitalist basis. did mechanized agriculture cause capitalism to fail? no. those who owned the capital were able to leverage it into greater output. those who sold their labor found more profitable industries in which to do so. many of those industries were not even fathomable before this. (we make 3d art for video games on computers. explain that to an ancient)

    technology does two things: lower production cost, extend production chain. make more things, make new types of things. books used to cost a fortune, now they cost a fraction of the value of one hour of work. cars used to not exist, today you can be a professional driver, tomorrow a robot will drive you around. none of this does damage to capitalism.

    the key thing to remember in these technophobic times is that scarcity is not going to disappear because of some project google puts out next friday. nothing about automation will obviate labor-as-labor, or capital-as-capital. people will have different kinds of occupations, the standard of living will continue to improve, but the idea of fully automated luxury communism is just a fantasy. resources are scarce and human wants are unlimited 
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    @Amsterdam Hilton Hotel - you should really watch this video.
    its a really interesting video on AI and how its gonna change everything in the future.

    actually, everyone should watch it, its a good video, but especially if you dont believe that AI will take over everything.

    and to clarify, personally, I still think us humans will "work" and you know, DO things.
    but we will do things for fun rather then the need to.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU


  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    lol, just relized @JacqueChoi already posted the video, I still think it applies to the job discussion though.
  • Equanim
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    Equanim polycounter lvl 11
    edit:  Watched the video.

    I think Amsterdam's post sums up my opinion pretty well.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    Neox said:
    capitalism will ultimately fail once everything is automated
    does this really sound realistic? "once everything is automated" - just a given? and what is "everything" - the jobs that we happen to do today, in 2017? one point in eternity?

    two hundred years ago 90% of the population was in farming on a capitalist basis. did mechanized agriculture cause capitalism to fail? no. those who owned the capital were able to leverage it into greater output. those who sold their labor found more profitable industries in which to do so. many of those industries were not even fathomable before this. (we make 3d art for video games on computers. explain that to an ancient)

    technology does two things: lower production cost, extend production chain. make more things, make new types of things. books used to cost a fortune, now they cost a fraction of the value of one hour of work. cars used to not exist, today you can be a professional driver, tomorrow a robot will drive you around. none of this does damage to capitalism.

    the key thing to remember in these technophobic times is that scarcity is not going to dirisappear because of some project google puts out next friday. nothing about automation will obviate labor-as-labor, or capital-as-capital. people will have different kinds of occupations, the standard of living will continue to improve, but the idea of fully automated luxury communism is just a fantasy. resources are scarce and human wants are unlimited 

    200 years ago, there wasnt even 1 billion people on this planet, food was so hard to make it needed far more people to feed far less people than 100 years ago than now. I get your point, people are fine now, despite wars and revolutions also caused by some of those changes, there is plenty of work now. But now we have more than 7times the population than 200 years ago and 50% of jobs in the west are at stake. Not ours in the entertainmentfield for a bit, but still a lot.
    And it doesnt only hit us here, Foxconn (the guys producing our iphones and other gadgets) replaced 60k until now needed workers by an automated factory. 
    Capitalism is based on people working, to earn money to buy stuff other people made or offer. And great that you brought it up, its also based on growth which is, as you said, limited. This stuff will cause some backlash.
    Now if you get your hair cut by robots, your books written by ai, your taxes dkne by ai, your cabs driven by ai etc etc, this chain breaks. companies make money by supplying these robot/ai services, but how do people pay if they dont have jobs? Not everyone can work in the entertainment industry and model for games.
    Given that a lot of our work will get automated as well. Heck right now you can watch how things that used to be jobs in our field, as those things took time, crumble away. Given that there might only be need for artdirectors to feed our ai replacements, how do the grunts replaced by ai earn the money to spend in the system? Right now the exploding need for more content saves us for a bit, but it also drives tech artists to replace many of us with tools ;)

    of course its a fantasy, a pretty grim one, despite the shiny look, but one of the possible outcomes the cool and crazy and scary ai research could lead to.
  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    while many jobs can be and will be automated, there might be new job possibilities as well. For example our games dev is quite young industry (less than 50 years ?)and it is growing all the time. Back then we probably got one artist who was responsible for modeling, texturing, lighting, coding and all the staff. Now we have specialist for all these parts. I remember my first talk with my parents about my career choice. They didnt even know that such thing as games art career exists. They told me not to be fool and choose something "real"

    And I believe same thing will happen in other industries. With self driving cars we will need specialists who can program these cars and maintain them and so on.
  • xvampire
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    xvampire polycounter lvl 14
    I think people over estimated resourceful individual would take all the profit, 
    while the more automation we have , the more indie and small studios popping out.   
     sure some job will disappear in near future,  but also automation will bring new job, giving people chance on creating great thing in low cost. 

    nobody  want to go  back to the time where they have to create  their  own programming language in order to make simple IOS games.

    some of the stuff that I like : 
    this program will color your sketch 

    https://github.com/lllyasviel/style2paints




    this much more advanced, where art direction can be created by sentence of words, and let A.I  . process the photorealistic result. 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAbhypxs1qQ


  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    xvampire said:
    I think people over estimated resourceful individual would take all the profit, 
    while the more automation we have , the more indie and small studios popping out.   
     sure some job will disappear in near future,  but also automation will bring new job, giving people chance on creating great thing in low cost. 

    nobody  want to go  back to the time where they have to create  their  own programming language in order to make simple IOS games.

    some of the stuff that I like : 
    this program will color your sketch 

    https://github.com/lllyasviel/style2paints




    this much more advanced, where art direction can be created by sentence of words, and let A.I  . process the photorealistic result. 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAbhypxs1qQ


    WOW wow wow!!!! This is something pretty cool and scary at the same time !
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    ahtiandr said:
    while many jobs can be and will be automated, there might be new job possibilities as well. For example our games dev is quite young industry (less than 50 years ?)and it is growing all the time. Back then we probably got one artist who was responsible for modeling, texturing, lighting, coding and all the staff. Now we have specialist for all these parts. I remember my first talk with my parents about my career choice. They didnt even know that such thing as games art career exists. They told me not to be fool and choose something "real"

    And I believe same thing will happen in other industries. With self driving cars we will need specialists who can program these cars and maintain them and so on.
    watch the "humans need not apply"video and read @Neox latest post. especially pay attention to the 3:34 mark of the video.
    your arguing in the old way of thinking, and its simply not working any longer. there is a difference between changing an existing system and completely breaking it.

    right now we have a stable echo system that is 100% dependent on the part that work = money. robots dont need money, and thus the entire system falls apart.
  • Larry
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    Larry interpolator
    Neox said: 
    capitalism will ultimately fail once everything is automated
    does this really sound realistic? "once everything is automated" - just a given? and what is "everything" - the jobs that we happen to do today, in 2017? one point in eternity?

    two hundred years ago 90% of the population was in farming on a capitalist basis. did mechanized agriculture cause capitalism to fail? no. those who owned the capital were able to leverage it into greater output. those who sold their labor found more profitable industries in which to do so. many of those industries were not even fathomable before this. (we make 3d art for video games on computers. explain that to an ancient)

    technology does two things: lower production cost, extend production chain. make more things, make new types of things. books used to cost a fortune, now they cost a fraction of the value of one hour of work. cars used to not exist, today you can be a professional driver, tomorrow a robot will drive you around. none of this does damage to capitalism.

    the key thing to remember in these technophobic times is that scarcity is not going to disappear because of some project google puts out next friday. nothing about automation will obviate labor-as-labor, or capital-as-capital. people will have different kinds of occupations, the standard of living will continue to improve, but the idea of fully automated luxury communism is just a fantasy. resources are scarce and human wants are unlimited 
    Whereas your points are valid, the only reason the system has not broken yet is because it is dollar dependent and america keeps cutting money and gives loans without having the equivalent in gold. All of this is bound to fall apart in the near future and I dont want to be pessimisic but withI Trump this might happen in the next decade. Also with automation in the future standards may rise, comforts may rise, but the demand for humans will fall. That is when the human population will decrease dramatically
  • Justo
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    Justo polycounter
    The Humans Need not Apply was a fascinating watch. Where are we heading guys? I don't want my children struggling to even find creative-related work because bots already do that. 

    I see where you're coming from @Amsterdam Hilton Hotel , but like others have answered, machines seem to break the chain by not even needing maintenance. I guess only time will tell.

  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    @justo - It might get rough for a while, but there are a lot of potential models being worked on that might be implemented in one way or another to solve this.
    Citizen pay/basic income might be one solution. when you have say 80-90% of the population not working, socialism in some form might be the only solution.

    the real question should not be: how will we get work in the future? its what do we do when nobody is working in the future?
  • Larry
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    Larry interpolator
    lotet said:
    @justo - It might get rough for a while, but there are a lot of potential models being worked on that might be implemented in one way or another to solve this.
    Citizen pay/basic income might be one solution. when you have say 80-90% of the population not working, socialism in some form might be the only solution.

    the real question should not be: how will we get work in the future? its what do we do when nobody is working in the future?
    Human population will decrease dramatically. Not because we start killing each other, but in a society where it is extremely difficult to get a job, more suicides will occur, and less births will happen, resulting to the decrease of the global population. Quoting the video posted "Humans need not apply" just like with the horse population, it reached its peak in 1915 and for the last 100 years it has decreased to a minimal amount. Not because horses were lazy, there was just no need for them. Humans can control the horse population, and humans can control the human population.
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    @Larry
    yep, that will definitely help as well. Im not sure if it will decrease dramatically, but it will definitely be smaller.
    here is an interesting video about it btw :)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348
  • Larry
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    Larry interpolator
    lotet said:
    @Larry
    yep, that will definitely help as well. Im not sure if it will decrease dramatically, but it will definitely be smaller.
    here is an interesting video about it btw :)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348
    this video might have logic, but they do not take into consideration "automation".
    With the way things are,  currently, people are able to have children and live a normal life, because they do a job. Even if it is not paying them well enough, it is still manageable to survive.
    In a future where automation takes over those jobs, it can easily reach numbers like 70% of the worldwide jobs being done by robots. Robots do not require salary, they do not get tired, and even if their cost is HUGE, it might be more benefitial than humans in the long run. If you put this variable into the futuristic "stabilised" population growth, it will have a huge impact on the decline of human species, because if people barely have money or no money at all to survive, how are they going to make it while having children?
  • CreativeSheep
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    CreativeSheep polycounter lvl 8
    Automation will occur not in the sense the media is tell you; more to eliminate jobs because morons want higher minimum wage which will destroy jobs and that will bring in some, once again, some automation.  

    Terminator style machines, an't happening for a long, long, long, long time if at all.  Whether you believe in the Bible or not; Jesus hasn't even come back yet, yes he is suppose too.

    Anyhow Automation like Terminators or what you saw in the video is well; hogwash. 
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Terminator style machines, an't happening for a long, long, long, long time if at all.  Whether you believe in the Bible or not; Jesus hasn't even come back yet, yes he is suppose too.

     When Jesus comes, he'll be bringing automation while taking a piggy back ride on a T-800.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    morons want higher minimum wage
    how dare they
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    wow guys, this really got out of hand quickly....
    I mean no one actually believe half life 3 will ever be released right?
  • Aabel
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    Aabel polycounter lvl 6
    Automation is not to be feared. You can see it coming and the information to take advantage of it is more widely available than any other phase of automation/mechanization that has come before. It doesn't require a massive capital investment, it just requires that you be willing to learn something new.

    https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ml-agents
    https://developer.nvidia.com/deep-learning
    http://pyml.sourceforge.net/






  • Amsterdam Hilton Hotel
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    Amsterdam Hilton Hotel insane polycounter
    @Neox

    You talk of "50% jobs in the west" being at stake. But jobs aren't static at all. The jobs we have are only a secondary dynamic, arising from the material conditions that happen to exist at the moment. The resources of the present constrain the jobs that people do in the present. Nobody made game art in 782 AD, nobody fishes in Nevada.

    Conditions are always changing. I say it again: 200 years ago, 90% of us laborers were involved in farming. Well, that changed. Turns out 90% of the jobs in the west were at stake! Surely capitalism should have collapsed - by your own reckoning, if those people couldn't work those jobs anymore, they would have had no money to buy goods and capitalism should have ended.

    But capitalism didn't end. It responded how it always does. Capitalists invested their capital differently. Laborers remained employed - in different occupations, whose production cycle was more appropriate to the ends and means that existed at the time.

    Cheer up, friends. Technological improvement can be scary, but it's inevitable. The economy isn't frozen in equilibrium, and it never has been. Embrace change. Position yourself to profit from it.
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