As Jon Stewart put it, they really need to give us raises, even if they only justify it as "revolution insurance."

This should be seen by every American, shown in every high school and college.

Um, you do know Rick Wolff is a Marxist, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, outside the expected and tired anti-Capitalism agenda readily peddled by Marxian Economists, but... I mean, look at the guy! He's got crazy eyes! Why do all bat shit insane Marxists have crazy eyes?!?!

Does this guy think people shouldn't be allowed to take risks with their own money?

Capitalism is working as intended. This economic crisis is the result of a lot of people (directly or indirectly) making a lot of risky choices, and in many cases just plain stupid choices because they had no idea what the risk was.

That's not to say we couldn't improve on things. A "Negative Income Tax" system would be nice for example.

Yeah, this is setting off my bullshit alarms.

Um, you do know Rick Wolff is a Marxist, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, outside the expected and tired anti-Capitalism agenda readily peddled by Marxian Economists, but... I mean, look at the guy! He's got crazy eyes! Why do all bat shit insane Marxists have crazy eyes?!?!

Just because he's a Marxist doesn't mean he can't properly interpret data, right? Just because he's a Marxist doesn't mean he can't be right, right? If anything, Marxist economists are specialists in critiquing Capitalism, right? And since Capitalism seems to have shit the bed, isn't a critique of it the proper thing to do now?

^But, look at his fucking crazy eyes! His crazy eyes!

>> ^Biminim:
Just because he's a Marxist doesn't mean he can't properly interpret data, right? Just because he's a Marxist doesn't mean he can't be right, right? If anything, Marxist economists are specialists in critiquing Capitalism, right? And since Capitalism seems to have shit the bed, isn't a critique of it the proper thing to do now?


I'm not sure if Marxian Economists are specialists in critiquing Capitalism any more than Austrian Economists are specialists at critiquing Socialism. That aside, the failed economy isn't reason to make a scapegoat out of Capitalism. Capitalism didn't "shit the bed" - government spending, and endless war, falsely propping up the housing market, etc. shat the bed.

When human greed belies the current economic system, I think we'd be remiss to denounce it eagerly.

^ I dislike Christopher Hitchins' neocon/imperialist side, but his humanist/darwinist ideas are top notch.

I haven't watched this yet, but I already hate what blanky is saying, because he's bad, and then the hating, also.

>> ^blankfist:
That aside, the failed economy isn't reason to make a scapegoat out of Capitalism. Capitalism didn't "shit the bed" - government spending, and endless war, falsely propping up the housing market, etc. shat the bed.
When human greed belies the current economic system, I think we'd be remiss to denounce it eagerly.


Two points: First, you just shat your own bed by claiming that a conservative government forced banks to slit their own throats, financially speaking, and Second critiquing capitalism is fair game, just like it is to question Commisar President Obama. If critique of the dominant way of thought becomes verboten, it leads to tyranny (and more German words).

All the guy is saying is "hey, check out what's been happening with income disparity, doesn't seem fair, does it?"

PS: I bet you look just as wild eyed when talking about corn.

I never said a conservative government forced banks to slit their own throats, NR, so please, my dearest friend, stop putting words in my mouth to try and win your argument. Secondly, never did I say it's wrong to criticize Capitalism. Criticize all you want, but you act as if those criticisms shouldn't be challenged or else we're trying to place a muzzle on you.

You wrote: "All the guy is saying is "hey, check out what's been happening with income disparity, doesn't seem fair, does it?""

Really? That's all he's saying? I don't think he said that at all. I think he wrote what he wrote and it was pretty clear. And, I think my answer was rather clear, as well. And, no, Marxian Economists are NOT experts (or specialists) in critiquing Capitalist economic systems. That statement is no more true than me saying Republicans are experts (or "specialists") in critiquing Democrats. That's like saying if you oppose something, you immediately become the expert of your opposition! I suppose in NetRuner's world those who oppose science should also be called scientists?

Infallible logic. I'm glad you're standing behind it, NR.

Can we drop the stupid scatalogical analogies and acknowledge the fact that inflation adjusted wages have been stagnant for 30 years while productivity and corporate profits have continued to rise at record-high rates?

The chief reason we're in this deflationary/neutral recession is that there's not enough demand, and there's not enough demand because consumers don't have money to spend, while the wealthy have nothing better to do with billions than put it into government bonds rather than spend it. Making income tax more progressive and criminalizing deceptive lending practices would solve it.

>> ^blankfist:
I never said a conservative government forced banks to slit their own throats, NR, so please, my dearest friend, stop putting words in my mouth to try and win your argument.

No, you just said that government "shat the bed", and not the banks. The banks weren't forced at gunpoint to make bad loans that put their own survival at risk. Low interest rates doesn't mean decreased lending standards must naturally follow, nor do laws requiring that banks not discriminate about where they take their risks require them to increase the total amount of risk they take.

For government to have been at fault, it would've been by forcing the banks to do self-destructive things over the last decade, hence the conservative government forcing banks to slit their own throats. Perhaps to be more accurate I should say that there was an effort by the bank lobby to force both parties in congress to force the banks to slit their throat, but then we're back to the banks being at fault again.

And, no, Marxian Economists are NOT experts (or specialists) in critiquing Capitalist economic systems. That statement is no more true than me saying Republicans are experts (or "specialists") in critiquing Democrats. That's like saying if you oppose something, you immediately become the expert of your opposition!

Talk about putting words in someone's mouth. You made a blatant ad hominem attack on the guy in the video, saying he should be dismissed because of his wild eyes and because he's a Marxist. You didn't challenge his facts, or his reasoning, just whether he's got an acceptable ideological background or not.

Creationists are wrong because the evidence doesn't fit their theory, but that doesn't mean all Creationists are incapable of making valid arguments on related topics.

I call you out on that, and you accuse me of agreeing with everything this guy's ever stood for, and believing he's an authority not to be questioned. Truthfully I'm not even sure there's enough here for you to really call this an economic theory. It's more of a rabble-rousing rant partially fueled by economic data, and since I'm more of a political animal, I'm all for it.

I'm just saying you are making colorful and scatological responses that are fallacious, in my own colorful and scatological way.

Pigfucker.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^blankfist:
Talk about putting words in someone's mouth. You made a blatant ad hominem attack on the guy in the video, saying he should be dismissed because of his wild eyes and because he's a Marxist. You didn't challenge his facts, or his reasoning, just whether he's got an acceptable ideological background or not.

Because I know of Rick Wolff, and I know of his political perspective, therefore his arguments are tiring to me. Forgive me for not challenging his data, but if he was in the room with us, I'd probably take this a bit more serious. Also, that motherfucker has some wild and crazy motherfuckin' eyes. Did you see them shits? He could scare Satan himself! Crazy talk. Crazy eyes. [/ad hominem]

Now, excuse me whilst I take a moment to put my penis in a pig.

>> ^blankfist: Why do all bat shit insane Marxists have crazy eyes?!?!

I think being "bat shit insane" is the more likely requisite for having crazy eyes than being Marxist.

>> ^Flood:
Does this guy think people shouldn't be allowed to take risks with their own money?
Capitalism is working as intended. This economic crisis is the result of a lot of people (directly or indirectly) making a lot of risky choices, and in many cases just plain stupid choices because they had no idea what the risk was.
That's not to say we couldn't improve on things. A "Negative Income Tax" system would be nice for example.


Systemic risk.

The problem is, it's not just yourself you put at risk, but others, depending on your actions. The failure of a single bank because they were too risky with their money hurts the rest of the financial system because of interdependencies, etc. The damage this does to everyone else is not taken into account when calculating your own risk with your own money.

>> ^blankfist:
Um, you do know Rick Wolff is a Marxist, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, outside the expected and tired anti-Capitalism agenda readily peddled by Marxian Economists, but... I mean, look at the guy! He's got crazy eyes! Why do all bat shit insane Marxists have crazy eyes?!?!


It's called intelligence dude.

I'm upvoting, but I still see fault with his connection of the 'profits' generated and the loaning back to people. Like it was decided by one organization.

Just because 10-15% of companies were generating obscene profits, does not mean that a small company paying an employee $2.500 could be paying him $10.500.

90% of the workforce does not work for the biggest companys.

I think this guy is looking at evidence and seeing what he wants to see. Austrian Economists would look at the same data and conclude that government manipulation of interest rates, along with forced inflation through printing of massive amounts of money (which itself lowers "real wages"), are the causes of the data he presents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias


He does highlight something very important though: computers are changing things. Every year computers can do more, and so can robotics. They've already replaced a great deal of unskilled jobs (and even many education-oriented jobs), and this will only continue (and accelerate).

I certainly don't think capitalism is a bad thing, but I know that it will not survive much longer. The number of people in the world is still increasing, but the number of jobs that require people is not (at least not in the developed world). The number of jobs that computers/robots can do, however, is increasing monthly (if not faster). How does capitalism survive in that scenario?

I'm nearly finished with my Computer Science degree, and I'm already concerned about my value as a worker. Even my possible jobs will be replaced by AI in the near future... I'm guessing within 20 years.

Computers are not evil, but they are damn effective. I see a period of great social unrest ahead, because I cannot think of a transition to a society where most human workers are no longer needed as a smooth one. Not every job can be replaced, but I guarantee that at least 50% of the current jobs will be replaceable within 40 years (at the latest). We may not choose to replace them, but we will have the ability, and I cannot see anything resembling our current economic models working in that world.

^ Government manipulation of interest rates is the only viable way to prevent inflation and deflation in the context of a free-floating fiat currency. Market fundamentalism is dead.

>> ^Psychologic:
Computers are not evil, but they are damn effective. I see a period of great social unrest ahead, because I cannot think of a transition to a society where most human workers are no longer needed as a smooth one. Not every job can be replaced, but I guarantee that at least 50% of the current jobs will be replaceable within 40 years (at the latest). We may not choose to replace them, but we will have the ability, and I cannot see anything resembling our current economic models working in that world.

Jeremy Rifkin's "The End of Work" is build around this very point. Interestingly enough though, Marx already elaborated on this in "Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy" (1858).

This essence was this: continious increase of productivity through increased mechanisation leads to a scientification of production, which removes the human worker from the process of production, leaving him as a supervisor or regulator. This leads to an increase of wealth, though wealth is not defined as the accumulation of consumer goods, but the amount of "disposable time".

Also known as the 20/80 society as mentioned in Martin/Schumann "The Global Trap: Civilization and the Assault on Democracy and Prosperity". 20% of the working age population will be enough to run the show while the other 80% will have to be entertained.

Most folks will certainly disagree on the assumptions it's based upon and the conclusions it draws, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

>> ^ElJardinero:
90% of the workforce does not work for the biggest companys.



Well, not anymore they don't...

X D

Come on though, can anyone arguing that the guys views should be disgarded say they are honestly happy with a stagnant wage?

In a job rich market, a company would have to invest in it's employees to lower turn over, save money on retraning and keep morale high. In your current environment, the company really doesn't care if you quit, there are dozens, if not hundreds, waiting to take your place.

But as long as the CEO's earn in the hundreds of millions I guess it all works out... Right?

>> ^jwray:
^ Government manipulation of interest rates is the only viable way to prevent inflation and deflation in the context of a free-floating fiat currency. Market fundamentalism is dead.


(upvoted your comment because I think what you say will come true eventually)


I don't think market fundamentalism is dead (yet), I think it has been covered up by many of the economic "tricks" we've been doing for over 30 years to prevent deep recessions. It has gotten more complex, and we have learned many new things, but the fundamentals of economics are still there. Countries can still debase their own currency with unmitigated deficit spending, for instance.



Anyway, like I said above, unemployment is going to become a huge issue in the not-too-distant future (assuming we don't run out of resources or kill ourselves first). I like Austrian Economics, but I don't think it is designed to work in a world where 30%+ of the populations of developed countries do not have the option of working.

Something like Socialism will have to be adopted in the future (I feel dirty saying that). I do not know what specific form it will take, but it cannot be based on the idea of freely-available work. In a way, capitalism is hitting the fan... I just hope our current and future leadership can adapt to the impending situation instead of sticking to "what has worked in the past".


Edit: if you're wondering where technology is going, try this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

No one really knows where that will lead, but it sure as hell won't be "business as usual".

Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown.

What happened to personal responsibility? Workers weren't "forced" into borrowing. They did it out of greed, and got away with it because interest rates were set artificially low.

The typical educated person can no longer make the proper distinction between cash and credit. We're in a depression because of structural problems involving credit (i.e., debt), which were promoted by the government but abused by all levels of society. Since no one is more dependent on debt than the US government, the turning point will be when other nations decide to stop financing US government debt.

Austrian Economics has been proven wrong so many times that it's laughable to see it even brought up again. The Panic of 1907 was the final nail in the Austrian coffin.

upvote for his batshit insane look

Deficit spending alone doesn't cause inflation of the money supply, although it may boost demand. When the government sells bonds to finance deficit spending, currency of those investors is being taken out of circulation in the same quantity that it is being spent by the government. However, the government and the recipients of its spending generally have a higher marginal propensity to spend than the investors who are buying the bonds, and that is how government spending increases demand to prevent a deflationary recession.

Within the next 50 years, robotics and artificial intelligence will obsolete almost all manual labour, especially manufacturing. Retail and prostitution will be the only jobs available to people without extensive education, and I'm not sure about retail. The choice will be between reducing the work week and massive unemployment.

>> ^jwray:
Within the next 50 years, robotics and artificial intelligence will obsolete almost all manual labour, especially manufacturing. Retail and prostitution will be the only jobs available to people without extensive education, and I'm not sure about retail. The choice will be between reducing the work week and massive unemployment.


I disagree on the jobs that will be available. It will not be limited to manual labor, especially if you are talking about 2060. By that point computers will be orders of magnitude better at even high-education jobs such as physicians or engineers (assuming nothing catastrophic happens before then). I don't think retail is safe either, but that is more of a cost/benefit issue.

Many estimations have artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence between 2020 and 2030. No one really knows how fast technology will progress past that point because computers will be better at designing new computers than we are. Besides that, computers don't get tired or irritated... they operate 24/7 and don't even require a paycheck.

I personally think that a lot of educated work will be replaced before manual labor. Robotics require a lot of resources to build, but AI software does not. Building robots that can construct buildings on their own will be more difficult than developing AI that can diagnose illness based on symptoms.

I'm looking forward to all this, especially as someone in the field of Computer Science. However, I fear for all of the people that will be out of work in the beginning stages of this. How high do you think unemployment will have to go before most will accept a replacement for capitalism. 30%? 50%?

I really do spend a lot of time thinking about how I can best position myself (education/finances) to avoid being one of those that get left behind during that time. Once most things are automated it will be better, but the road to that time is looking a bit rough.

I agree that eventually we'll get to the point where it simply isn't possible for every citizen to work. I don't think that means we'd have to go to socialism though. You can accomplish the same goals that socialism would tackle by using a Negative Income Tax, without the drawback of giving complete control to the government on deciding whose work is most valuable.

>> ^Psychologic:
Many estimations have artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence between 2020 and 2030.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but these estimates are garbage. No one has a clue regarding how to efficiently model knowledge or thought processes in software. I worked with AI with automated theorem proving and knowledge representation during my undergrad years, and abandoned the field to work on more tractable problems.

Looking at it from an engineer's (and not a computer scientist's) perspective, I'd say we're no closer to human level AI than we were 10 years ago, despite massive advances in raw computational capacity.

No one really knows how fast technology will progress past that point because computers will be better at designing new computers than we are.

I'm looking forward to all this, especially as someone in the field of Computer Science. However, I fear for all of the people that will be out of work in the beginning stages of this.

I'm guessing you're still an undergraduate student. CS is aggressively outsourced to the lowest bidder, and this includes research. The intellectual pursuit of knowledge is always exciting, but salaries in engineering and computer science don't look very promising. Believe me, it sucks to study your whole life and realise you're making less money than a corporate executive that got barely passing grades in college.

How high do you think unemployment will have to go before most will accept a replacement for capitalism.

There is no replacement for capitalism because there's no such thing as a free lunch.

^ You may be right, but there are also a lot of highly qualified people who disagree with you (Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy, etc). Most of the disagreements out there are on specific dates. I can't think of any credible expert in the field who thinks it will happen beyond our expected lifetime.

As far as capitalism not being replaceable, what happens when machines can do anything that people can do (only better)? Yes, that is talking about even further in the future, but do you think capitalism will still work there?


Try this one for technological growth modeling.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html

Processor core frequencies have been nearly stagnant for 3 years. They're building more and more parallelism instead. The capacity to directly simulate a human brain is still far beyond the most powerful supercomputer. Storing only an abstract representation of all of the connections between neurons in a human brain would require 5 petabytes (10^11 neurons * 10^4 connections per neuron * 5 bytes per connection)

Supercomputers have accomplished increased computing power though increasing parallelism for years. Personal computers currently have no need for increased speed in most cases, so there hasn't been a big push for faster PCs. For most people, computers are already fast enough.

Most of the recent trends, other than parallelism, have been reducing the size of computing while maintaining processing power. The latest cell phones are much more powerful than three years ago, for instance. We already have working prototypes of computerized clothing, and the progress in driverless vehicles over the past few years has been amazing.

Yes, we are nearing the end of advances in transistor-based computing, but quantum computing is also nearing functionality. There are still a few issues to work out, but that is only a matter of time as (limited) working QCs have already been demonstrated.

Of course, a lot of this is demand-based. We've had very functional voice-interface computing for years, but no one has really found a viable market for it. Right now I'm much happier typing than speaking when I'm writing a paper or programming, but that may change as computers gain the ability to do more on their own. Who knows how the current economic problems with affect demand-driven innovation though.

Like I said, most of this is a question about timing, not about ability. Biology is effective, but very inefficient. It is only a matter of time before we create computing that is both more effective and more efficient than what has been created through evolutionary processes. It may happen by 2030, or it maybe be 2060, but with the constant advances in medicine it is very likely that we will all be around to see it happen (again, assuming nothing catastrophic happens along the way).

"there's not enough demand because consumers don't have money to spend, while the wealthy have nothing better to do with billions than put it into government bonds rather than spend it."


Billionaires like Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim have almost doubled their wealth in single years. That's a much greater contribution to the economy than having people spend it on consumption.

They did that by being aggressive, rational capitalists, rather than irrationally storing more than a limited portion of their money in ultra-safe, negligible-payoff investments like bonds that barely keep ahead of inflation.

Creating human-level AI isn't an issue of processing power.

We've had for some time supercomputers that already possess greater processing power than the human brain, and that doesn't mean that they do anything more than crunch lots of numbers.

Human-level AI will be about organizing that processing power in a way that's similar to the human brain's functionality.

Regenerative medicine and reprogenetics are much closer on the horizon, and have just as much potential to transform society.

>> ^chilaxe:
Creating human-level AI isn't an issue of processing power.
We've had for some time supercomputers that already possess greater processing power than the human brain, and that doesn't mean that they do anything more than crunch lots of numbers.
Human-level AI will be about organizing that processing power in a way that's similar to the human brain's functionality.

Exactly. The human-level AI problem is about knowledge representation and automated reasoning, and not about raw processing power. And as much as "futurists" like to describe a future filled with intelligent machines, no one has a clue about how to efficiently encode and process knowledge.

>> ^flavioribeiro:
Exactly. The human-level AI problem is about knowledge representation and automated reasoning, and not about raw processing power. And as much as "futurists" like to describe a future filled with intelligent machines, no one has a clue about how to efficiently encode and process knowledge.

One of Kurzweil's inventions was a computer program that taught itself how to distinguish between pictures of dogs and cats. No one programmed it with any description of either. This is built into a camera that he has demonstrated in public. You can take a picture of the page of a book and it will read it to you as well.

Much of the advancement in the processing of knowledge will come from reverse-engineering the human brain. We've already mapped a good deal of it, and the resolution with which we can explore it has been doubling yearly. It won't initially lead human-like AI, but it doesn't have to. Most "marketable" AI and robotics will be highly effective within a limited scope. Replacing most jobs won't require broad-reaching knowledge, just a high proficiency in specific areas.

We aren't going to simply create sentient AI out of nothing with current tools, but with every technological advance comes the ability to create new advances. Many of the things we take for granted now were thought to be impossible 15 years ago, yet people like Kurzweil predicted them with a surprising amount of accuracy. I think he's a little optimistic about when certain technologies will disappear (like desktop computers), but he is very good at predicting the capabilities we will have for new technologies.

>> ^chilaxe:
Creating human-level AI isn't an issue of processing power.
We've had for some time supercomputers that already possess greater processing power than the human brain, and that doesn't mean that they do anything more than crunch lots of numbers.
Human-level AI will be about organizing that processing power in a way that's similar to the human brain's functionality.
Regenerative medicine and reprogenetics are much closer on the horizon, and have just as much potential to transform society.


I agree with everything you said. =)

As far as regenerative medicine, that will be an interesting path. We are on the verge of "curing" the aging process. That doesn't mean by 2020, but certainly within our lifetimes.

That brings entirely new situations involving ideas like Social Security and the entire idea of "retirement", not to mention population growth and resource availability.

I totally agree that software will be the largest hurdle on the road to true "strong AIs", but I also think that when most people ponder the possibility of achieving that goal they are doing so in the context of our current technological tools. The leap we've had specifically in data mining has been incredible... Kurzweil spoke of Google Images as one of the main reasons why his computer program was able to teach itself how to distinguish between dogs and cats. We have so much information available to us today (and still increasing) that it is becoming increasingly possible to create learning AIs based on that information.

I don't think it will be terribly long before the same thing is done with medical knowledge, which will be very interesting when combined with voice recognition. The biggest hurdle will be teaching computers to understand the meaning behind what people are telling it, but that is an area of AI that is increasing rapidly as well. There are already programs for cell phones that can translate your speech into other languages. It won't happen overnight, but when you're talking about the current speed of technological progress, 2030 is not an unreasonable prediction for something like that.

>> ^Flood:
I agree that eventually we'll get to the point where it simply isn't possible for every citizen to work. I don't think that means we'd have to go to socialism though. You can accomplish the same goals that socialism would tackle by using a Negative Income Tax, without the drawback of giving complete control to the government on deciding whose work is most valuable.


Once you've developed an automated workforce you'll be looking at a planet with probably 10 billion people, 9.5 billion who will likely have no access to a job of any kind.

By that point your glorious Negative Income Tax would serve no purpose.

Doing away with money all together will be the only effective way of dealing with society at that point.

As it stands, we have the technology and resources to provide a much greater quality of life for every person on the planet, but few are willing to sacrifice the false sense of superiority they derive from their wealth. So we continue to prop up a failing economic system, maintain pointless class separations, encourage debt, propagate false scarcity and let millions suffer poverty needlessly, so that rich people can substitute the fact that they're miserable people by driving Mercedes cars and wearing Prada.

The saddest part is that those same greedy scumbags have convinced enough of the lower class shlubs, that it's your own fault if you're not as rich as they are because you're either too stupid or two lazy, and you should work harder because if you're not rich you're not worth anything. And unfortunately enough people have fallen for their bullshit that they continue to facilitate the same system that exploits them and keeps them down.

About supercomputers already exceeding the power of the human brain -- I call bullshit and do the math to back it up.

10^11 neurons * 10^4 connections per neuron (average) * 1 floating point operation per switching event per connection * 1000 switching events per second = 10^18 flops. The most powerful supercomputer in the world does 10^15 flops, and is probably too large to have millisecond message passing from point to point.

http://www.top500.org/system/performance/9707

>> ^Psychologic:
One of Kurzweil's inventions was a computer program that taught itself how to distinguish between pictures of dogs and cats. No one programmed it with any description of either. This is built into a camera that he has demonstrated in public. You can take a picture of the page of a book and it will read it to you as well.

Both fine examples of pattern recognition, and featuring no automated reasoning whatsoever. The current state of AI was well predicted in the 70's and 80's, because most ideas used today were actually conceived back then (or even before). They just weren't implemented because the hardware wasn't fast enough.

My point is that current AI doesn't scale. One can't get the neural network used for image recognition and propose that human level AI is just a matter of using more nodes, because it isn't. And I have yet to see a proposal for useful (i.e., robust and expressive) knowledge representation that don't have exponential requirements (or worse).

There has always been a huge amount of handwaving in the AI scene. The bleeding edge of today's AI is basically an improvement of what began in the 70's (for example, regarding detailed specialist systems for medical diagnostics, or theorem provers for assisting professional mathematicians). The human-level part remains very unclear, and academic researchers are very conscious of how little is known. However, this doesn't stop "futurists" from making wild predictions about the singularity and what not.

>> ^jwray:
About supercomputers already exceeding the power of the human brain -- I call bullshit and do the math to back it up.
10^11 neurons 10^4 connections per neuron (average) 1 floating point operation per switching event per connection 1000 switching events per second = 10^18 flops. The most powerful supercomputer in the world does 10^15 flops, and is probably too large to have millisecond message passing from point to point.
http://www.top500.org/system/performance/9707


Your neuron count seems accurate, but I've only seen estimates of less than half the number of connections per neuron (2000-5000) that you are using, aside from the fact that not every neuron in the human brain is dedicated to intelligence (less than 85% by weight, not sure about neuron count).

That still puts it over the output of modern supercomputers, but that is also assuming that the human brain runs at full capacity 24/7. Brain power is affected by mood, nutrition, and the need for sleep... computers are not. Brain calculation estimates are also very rough... we're still figuring out what is going on in there. How many of those connections per neuron are actually used? No one really knows how many computations are accomplished by the human brain in a given day.

But I will concede that we cannot currently claim that the fastest super computer on Earth is more powerful than the human brain. Kurzweil predicted that it would happen some time in 2010 (not that it matters). Whether we actually build one at any given time will be mostly a function of whether we feel the need to spend the money on it, but we are still improving the processes needed to build such a machine even if we don't do so immediately.

Like you said, the software is the important part, and that depends on a lot more than what hardware is available at the time.

[redacted]

>> ^flavioribeiro:
My point is that current AI doesn't scale. One can't get the neural network used for image recognition and propose that human level AI is just a matter of using more nodes, because it isn't. And I have yet to see a proposal for useful (i.e., robust and expressive) knowledge representation that don't have exponential requirements (or worse).


The idea of a computer being better than a person at everything is a while off, but that doesn't need to happen to cause social and economic problems. People aren't hired because they are good at everything, they are hired because they are very good at specific things, and that is something that computers will be able to replace. Price/performance will be the main decider of what jobs remain on the human end.

Either way, I don't forsee the number of available jobs keeping up with the number of people, especially as medicine continues to advance. I can't think of a reason not to expect more widespread unemployment even if computers stay exactly where they are today.


The singularity you mention is a very interesting subject in itself, but that is talking about a time well beyond the advances which will further limit the number of jobs that require people.

For the AI/singularity discussion, which is a bit off topic, I recommend: http://www.videosift.com/video/Building-Gods-Documentary
and also this: http://videogames.videosift.com/talk/Intelligent-Design-Where-is-AI-going

Free markets are, for the most part, self-regulating. Investors and consumers punish and reward with far greater efficiency than government mandates.

The left is quick to blame "deregulation" and "greed" for market problems, but never wasteful government spending and meddling which punishes investors and creates market conditions that reward bad decision-making, with taxpayers soaking up the risk. HUGE disconnect there; now the US is trying to stimu-spend its way out of a hole while ignoring the lesson of Japan, which tried the exact same thing for the past two decades. And failed.

Government remains the problem, not the solution. Don't know why this proven lesson is never learned. Probably cause there's no money in it. Ha ha ha.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Thursday, February 5th, 2009 8:02pm PST - promote requested by kulpims.

I like seeing people with grey hair saying things that make sense.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, November 27th, 2010 9:58am PST - promote requested by dotdude.

I find it funny that when Capitalism fails in some aspect then it is the fault of the individuals. When Socialism fails in any aspect its the fault of the system.

Its only natural that in times of crisis those seeking to make changes see it as an opportunity. Capitalism might not be broken in itself, but it its corrupted. Personally that doesn't surprise me for a idealogy based on greed.

I don't think Capitalism is done yet but it seems its on life support. I'm gonna guess 50/50 that things are fixed and it makes it. If not, well then its a matter of time.

Greed: when you don't want the same things I want, in the exact same amounts

>> ^quantumushroom:

Greed: when you don't want the same things I want, in the exact same amounts


greed
n.
An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.

Source: The American Heritage Dictionary

>> ^vex:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Greed: when you don't want the same things I want, in the exact same amounts

greed
n.
An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.
Source: The American Heritage Dictionary


Like wanting to send your kid to the best schools? Deserves and needs is a loaded word, as is greed. The real problem with this video is that capitalism isn't about wages, it is about ownership of things. The ONLY reason you can talk about wages is because of the price model that capitalism follows. Talk of wages in other systems and mixed systems is very difficult.

Of note, the 70s break is also very close to the end of the gold standard for the US. Also, corporate charters have nothing to do with capitalism, per say, but of governments. You could have communists corporations, or even households, I know my house is mostly a communism. I find this video's title, and most discussions of capitalism foul play, as no one is actually talking about not owning the fruits of their labor; the heart of capitalistic intent. Banking, wall street, and other economic features could be expressed differently in capitalism, in other words. They aren't PART of the ESSENTIAL structure, but emergent from the economic and social conditions of our day. You can cause mutations, however, that look like anomalies. Retirement funds are an example. The start of the idea of the retirement fund was in WWII. Wages were locked, but not intensives, and thus, the unnatural birth of retirement funds were born. After wages were unlocked, the slowly died. The same could be said of loans, wall street, and corporate explosion. Years of inflationary Fed policy has aggregated enough wealth in concentrated vestibules as to drive the democracy of the dollar into the tyranny of the aristocracy.

There was always in inherent fear of this tyranny coming to exist in a free market. A sorts of driving off the cliff. I fear that the fear of this reality caused those of a liberal persuasion to make the argument for safe guards to prevent this unknown quantity, and for good reason. Life, she has a cruel irony at times. The problem, as I see it is the safeguards are too distant from our eye, and our care. Those things made to make the system immune from this hypothetical situation has enabled those evil doorers great ability to carry out that goal. Far from our eye and care, they manipulate taxes, tariffs, rules and regulations meant to stave off their evils in their favor. The most powerful were able to bypass the rules meant to stave off their existence. They, in effect, created their existence from the process meant to keep them from existence, anti-entropy. Now, they have so much to loose that subtle reform will be very unlikely.

So high the unwilling to fall then to let it happen.

It will take the outcry and action of 300million people to fix, the manipulation of politics will no do. This will take action of feet than laws, lives than rules, actions than decisions. The objective clear, the voice unwavering, the resolve unfaltering. A march will not bridge it, a man will not solve it, a law will not stop it. Only with the lifeblood of your everyday action will you dent it. This is why I believe that REAL capitalism is the answer. Only with 300 million legislators can you avoid the tampering. The moral penance for daily dollar more greatly considered. Less reliance on bodies that fall prey to the hidden tampering of interested powers. Our safeguards imploded, our nations blood exploited.

Individual redemption must be claimed by the individual, always corrupted the voice that speaks for another.


(edit, typos sigh)

@GeeSussFreeK I think most of us on the left aren't really looking to end capitalism, so much as file down its sharp edges.

Mostly we're pushing back against this sort of deification of "free markets" as an answer to every problem our culture faces. This is especially perverse, since it's actually at the root of almost every large-scale issue facing our society today.

That said, we don't really want to throw the market baby out with the bathwater either. We just want to put markets in their proper place in people's minds. Markets are just one of many ways to do things. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing either. We can have a market for produce, even if we decide markets for medicine just don't bring us the results we need.

We also need to stop pretending that capitalism is sorting people into some sort of moral hierarchy. By and large people don't get what they "deserve" in capitalism. I doubt anyone who's poor has done something so awful that they deserve to be punished with poverty, just like the rich haven't done something so wonderful that they deserve to be lavished with riches.

Once you put markets into the proper perspective, then you can really start talking about what to do with the areas of our society where markets aren't delivering us the results we need. That's where the entire raft of liberal causes come in like environmental protection, universal healthcare, income inequality, labor rights, health and safety regulation, etc.

None of those are aimed at ending markets and capitalism, so much as trying to get people to accept non-market solutions to the problems the markets aren't solving.

And yes, the favorite response to that line of thinking is usually some form of "we still have laws, so everything that's wrong must be the government's fault because it's not really a free market until it's total economic anarchy!" But that's exactly what I mean when I talk about deification of markets. There are a lot of people who are not being objective or rational in examining the cause of the problems. For them, it's simply an article of faith now that "free" markets would fix everything in life, despite all evidence to the contrary.

That's what we're fighting against!