dagblog - Comments for "Rethinking the Knowledge Economy"

Yeah, it's a transition - we

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 19:20:20 +0000

In reply to The world eventually has to

Yeah, it's a transition - we're still not there, need more automation, process improvement, micro-robots and other specialties. Much of what we do is still people-intensive, serious no-stop work for 8+ hours, other jobs can be shaved down. The machine learning/AI stuff is a bit "low hanging fruit" yet again, unsurprisingly. Investor-driven. The shit jobs involving repetitive mind-numbing or even happy customer-focused still can't be toned down, even if fries machines or espresso bars have it down to an assembly line. And then look at something like education where you need an individualized human approach yet me often get mechanical changes but more teacher burden...

The world eventually has to

artappraiser — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 19:12:50 +0000

In reply to A bit conspiracy laden.

The world eventually has to get off the productivity hamster wheel introduced with the industrial revolution and move on to something else like, perhaps: quality of life. I have found that if you grok with trying to understand what's going on with medicine, the big picture that way becomes ever so clear. I'm sure that people who try to grok the environment issues see it the same way. It's probably a long ways away, hopefully the planet will last in the meantime. That said, there has been a lot of progress in my lifetime in getting the world population problem down, to the point of many countries with the "problem" of not enough "replacement" of cog bodies in the machine.

A bit conspiracy laden.

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 18:30:29 +0000

In reply to Rethinking the Knowledge Economy

A bit conspiracy laden. Between 1989-1992 we added Soviet Union/East Europe to the relatively global free trade economy, China's paeticipation steadily grew from 1980, SE Asia sprung wings, and even Africa performed much better while the EU solidified its free trade zone.

We had an eruption of goods and new tilt towards services. Not every community could participate equally, competence wise, biz model wise, access to capital wise. But the *knowledge* was and is there largely for everyone, often for free - Linux used for servers, mobile phones, embedded camras; free cloud computing systems, big data, databases - even now Python et al libraries for IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data analytics... with online courses for free or $15, good enough translations via Google of tech and general interest articles from Wikipedia et al. Desktop computers for $200-400, mobile smartphones even lalthough over Africa for payments (with much improved mobile and wireless infrastructure). Specialized med help online, travel, logistics, procurement, language learning, cheap tools to run a business - video collaboration, free Office tools, shared calendars, Project Management, HR, tax... It's not completely easy for non-native English speakers, but it's certainly not hidden nor tough to access.

What likely is the toughest is that the disruptive technologies like Uber or Amazon need far fewer resources, esp human, than what they replace. So while productivity goes up for the few, the rest have to shift work - as the new winners are largely winner-take-all, rather than say auto manufacturing with coopetition and a large supply & delivery ecosystem. And these changes have to be absorbed much faster - continual improvement.