Great piece, and I always enjoyed colonial history - that call to stake out your claim and build your own prosperity is perhaps one of the few pure expressions of virtue in action.
You are absolutely right in drawing parallels between early slave trade and AI now in terms of productivity leverage that is available to early adopters. I am perhaps biased towards humanity, which is why I see my own path amongst niche businesses and those select products that thrive only with the presence of a living human hand.
The presence of pure middle class as described here is usually a feature of low labohr supply and high supply of other inputs - where each individual man is worth a lot, it mkars sense to work for yourself. This is why niche specialists might continue to thrive, but a different question arises - with the destruction of modern yeomanry of middle class, what becomes of democratic institutions that were sustained by mass citizenship? It might be a mute point sonce the second half of 20th century, but AI and immigration onpy accelerate this.
I think mass democracy as we currently have it is probably slowly on the way out, one way or another. There’s too much disgust with the welfare class, and with the oligarchs who command its votes
Its interesting how well your analysis holds up for 20/21st century yeoman farmers. The pathways you laid out for 17th century Virginian Yeomanry is nearly identical to the stories of the descendants of many but one of my great-grandfather's in particular.
I’m skeptical of the coming automationpocalypse for many/most jobs - I think moderately skilled work in any field that requires actually doing things in the physical world will not be much affected. I could be wrong, but people have been making breathless predictions about “advances in robotics” for going on a century now.
My guess for the next 50 years is that as a general rule, if your job can be entirely done without getting up from a chair of some kind (whether in an office or behind a wheel), be concerned. Otherwise, probably don’t worry too much, although some exceptions may apply.
IMO if you’re a tradesman or similar the threat is less “a robot takes your job” and more “100,000 out of work paralegals retrain as carpenters and drive down your wages”
Interesting. I really thought this was headed towards a description of how we're quickly headed back into a world of slavery, but now the slaves are unconscious AI. You made some brief allusions, but never dove into the connotations of such a system. Right now the slaves can only work in the digital realm, but if optimistic expectations about robotics come true, your historical analogy will really come to fruition. What will the world like when a family can buy a robotic slave for the price of an F-150?
My expectation is more that the AI fills the slave-like role of doing basic production of relatively indistinguishable things well enough, while being far cheaper than human labor, rather than that humanoid robots will be a big deal through the medium term
In my opinion, their real use case is things like in space manufacturing, which we still have a ways to go to get to
But a mostly robots-based EV repair shop overseen by one or two guys and the owner, rather than the present mechanic ecosystem? Tesla could probably do that now, if it wanted
I'm thinking more along the lines of a small farmer that could have his 3 robots milk 15 goats and 3 cows every morning, weed 600' of garden beds, move a couple tons of manure out of the barn into the spreader, and then come into the house to sweep and fold laundry. They could help roof the house and dig out a pond. It's not going to allow someone to compete directly with an autonomous tractor on 15k acres, but it might make a family farm that sells $200k a year in craft goat cheese and heirloom peppers possible.
Oh yeah that sort of thing will probably happen too. The weed/bug-zapping tractor that uses lasers and AI rather than pesticides is probably a good example
But I was trying to make the article broader than that
appreciate the mention my friend
My pleasure! Your tweet really got me thinking
-Will Tanner
Great piece, and I always enjoyed colonial history - that call to stake out your claim and build your own prosperity is perhaps one of the few pure expressions of virtue in action.
You are absolutely right in drawing parallels between early slave trade and AI now in terms of productivity leverage that is available to early adopters. I am perhaps biased towards humanity, which is why I see my own path amongst niche businesses and those select products that thrive only with the presence of a living human hand.
The presence of pure middle class as described here is usually a feature of low labohr supply and high supply of other inputs - where each individual man is worth a lot, it mkars sense to work for yourself. This is why niche specialists might continue to thrive, but a different question arises - with the destruction of modern yeomanry of middle class, what becomes of democratic institutions that were sustained by mass citizenship? It might be a mute point sonce the second half of 20th century, but AI and immigration onpy accelerate this.
Great points and well said!
I think mass democracy as we currently have it is probably slowly on the way out, one way or another. There’s too much disgust with the welfare class, and with the oligarchs who command its votes
But we shall see
Its interesting how well your analysis holds up for 20/21st century yeoman farmers. The pathways you laid out for 17th century Virginian Yeomanry is nearly identical to the stories of the descendants of many but one of my great-grandfather's in particular.
Very interesting
that’s a good point about it remaining true with modern farming. I had not thought of that
I’m skeptical of the coming automationpocalypse for many/most jobs - I think moderately skilled work in any field that requires actually doing things in the physical world will not be much affected. I could be wrong, but people have been making breathless predictions about “advances in robotics” for going on a century now.
My guess for the next 50 years is that as a general rule, if your job can be entirely done without getting up from a chair of some kind (whether in an office or behind a wheel), be concerned. Otherwise, probably don’t worry too much, although some exceptions may apply.
American manufacturing has gotten significantly more robotics intensive in the past decades
What hasn’t happened much yet is applying that out of a factory situation, but that could change if robotics get cheaper. We just don’t know yet.
IMO if you’re a tradesman or similar the threat is less “a robot takes your job” and more “100,000 out of work paralegals retrain as carpenters and drive down your wages”
Interesting. I really thought this was headed towards a description of how we're quickly headed back into a world of slavery, but now the slaves are unconscious AI. You made some brief allusions, but never dove into the connotations of such a system. Right now the slaves can only work in the digital realm, but if optimistic expectations about robotics come true, your historical analogy will really come to fruition. What will the world like when a family can buy a robotic slave for the price of an F-150?
My expectation is more that the AI fills the slave-like role of doing basic production of relatively indistinguishable things well enough, while being far cheaper than human labor, rather than that humanoid robots will be a big deal through the medium term
In my opinion, their real use case is things like in space manufacturing, which we still have a ways to go to get to
But a mostly robots-based EV repair shop overseen by one or two guys and the owner, rather than the present mechanic ecosystem? Tesla could probably do that now, if it wanted
I'm thinking more along the lines of a small farmer that could have his 3 robots milk 15 goats and 3 cows every morning, weed 600' of garden beds, move a couple tons of manure out of the barn into the spreader, and then come into the house to sweep and fold laundry. They could help roof the house and dig out a pond. It's not going to allow someone to compete directly with an autonomous tractor on 15k acres, but it might make a family farm that sells $200k a year in craft goat cheese and heirloom peppers possible.
Oh yeah that sort of thing will probably happen too. The weed/bug-zapping tractor that uses lasers and AI rather than pesticides is probably a good example
But I was trying to make the article broader than that