site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3236 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

automation of manual labour tasks is certainly feasible (and has been achieved in many cases) and more such jobs in these domains will eventually become obsolete once technological advances make the cost of doing so lower than employing human labour

Way back when, before I joined this place but was already keeping an eye on the rat-sphere, one of the AI Apocalypse scenarios thrown around was "technological unemployment", and one of the counter-arguments to it, other than "it's just a hype-fad" was "comparative advantage". Already at that time the Rats have discredited themselves as careful thinkers in my eyes, because they waved it away with the magic of recursive improvement. A careful thinker would look at where the logic of comparative advantage leads, and it's the scenario I outlined. You see it's not enough that we eventually figure out robotic/AI alternatives to manual labor, and it's not even enough that they are strictly superior to human labor in every way, they have to be superior to devoting the same AI resources to something else while having humans dig the fucking hole.

But back to your point, yeah the progress in AI is pretty wild, and people predicting that nothing will come out of it were clearly wrong. At the same time I'm having trouble saying anything meaningful about it, or where it will end up going, which is why I kind of went off topic relative to your original post.

You see it's not enough that we eventually figure out robotic/AI alternatives to manual labor, and it's not even enough that they are strictly superior to human labor in every way, they have to be superior to devoting the same AI resources to something else while having humans dig the fucking hole.

And yet that's not how mining works in any country but the shittiest on earth, so it's not clear to me why the practice would suddenly spread.

Yes it does. People who have talents in more lucrative fields than mining, tend to go those fields, even if they are better than the average miner.

Almost all mining is already "automated" to a certain extent by either gigantic machines that can do the work of 100,000 kids with pickaxes or other force multiplying tech. He was asking why we would ever go back to that when we have better cheaper ways?

In developed countries, yes., in others not necessarily.

Secondly, the reason we would go back to that is that if we come up with a technology to automate away valuable intellectual labor, you'll get more bang for the buck by investing in that, than investing automating manual labor. Trying to refute the idea with the current economics of mining makes no sense.

There is money/utility in automating all labor, they can't do it in the middle of the congo because they don't have the capacity, infrastructure, expertise, and the situation is too volatile for western mining companies to set up in the worst parts. It isn't a value prop. A single mining wheel can mine more in 240,000 tons of material a day, with the largest mines extracting about a million tons a day. The "big hole" the largest hand dug open pit mine took some 30k miners and 30k support townspeople 43 years to excavate 22 million tons of rock by whatever semi manual means were available to them at the time.

So an almost fully automated mine can do in 22 days what it took 30-60 thousand people 43 years to do in the past. I bet no one even died in those 22 days, or even in 2 years, most open pit mines are pretty safe these days!

"Between 1897 and 1899, a total of 7,853 patients were admitted into Kimberley Hospital. 5,368 of these patients were black and admitted into special designated wards, i.e. a "Native surgical ward" for black miners and a special ward for black women and children. Of these black patients, 1,144 died."

Everything will mechanised and automated. It just makes too much sense, which is why everyone who can manage to do so, does it. Humans aren't the new cogs, they are going to be completely irrelevant.

So an almost fully automated mine can do in 22 days what it took 30-60 thousand people 43 years to do in the past. I bet no one even died in those 22 days, or even in 2 years, most open pit mines are pretty safe these days!

Everything will mechanised and automated. It just makes too much sense, which is why everyone who can manage to do so, does it.

What you're missing is that the question isn't just what a fully automated mine can do compared to 30-60 thousand people, it's also what those resources could have done if they didn't go to automating that mine. There's a reason why rich, automated, countries are buying resources mined by manual labor.

This is all pretty basic economics

lol you can't just drop a wiki to comparative advantage. Robots and computers can do everything better, and cheaper. More so by the hour, I'm sorry.

99% of mined resources are coming from almost fully automated mines, why are you so focused on the few that have a terrible human cost?

lol you can't just drop a wiki to comparative advantage. Robots and computers can do everything better, and cheaper. More so by the hour, I'm sorry.

Yes I can, because even in your response you're not addressing the point of comparative advantage. It usually is still more profitable for a person, and even country, that does everything better, to trade with a country that does everything worse. There's a reason why the west is actually buying manually mined cobalt.

99% of mined resources are coming from almost fully automated mines, why are you so focused on the few that have a terrible human cost?

Like I said in the other comment, my comment had nothing to do with the relative amount of resources produced through manual labor, I was just responding to the various AI scenarios put forward by rationalists.

More comments

"not how it works" applies to your claims that mining will consist of "handing someone a pickaxe, and feeding them insects".

You haven't heard of "artisenal mining"? Or are you objecting to the "feeding the bugs" part?

I'm saying that there's a reason artisanal mining is limited to the worst places in the world, and it's not because the Congolese have a comparative advantage in digging holes.

and it's not because the Congolese have a comparative advantage in digging holes.

The hell it's not! If they didn't have a comparative advantage there, they wouldn't be able to sell their cobalt.

Nevertheless, there's comparatively few resources produced by artisanal mining. Your argument would suggest that all resources should be mined artisanally, since apparently a guy with a shovel is comparatively better at mining than highly industrialized mining operations.

I'm not sure how that's implied. My point was addressing the idea of AI causing technological unemployment, or the more optimistic scenario of AI freeing us to do commit to higher intellectual pursuits. I've made no claim about the ratios of resources mined with manual human labor vs automated AI labor.

I took it as a metaphor.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats