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The last time my family was replaced by technology

339 points · 641 comments · megalomanu

  1. alecst · · focus · HN ↗
    Humans ourselves are a technology. We have incredibly flexible brains and dexterous hands. Up to now, we could always do things that robots couldn't. That was where our job security came from.

    But what happens when a robot can do anything a human can? When a cheap machine can do anything you can do but faster and better, what makes you different from a horse in the 1920s?

    This is what the article misses and what people have trouble accepting. Yea, this is a technological revolution, but unlike the Industrial Revolution, you can't just upskill your way out of it.

    1. pyronite · · focus · HN ↗
      > But what happens when a robot can do anything a human can? When a cheap machine can do anything you can do but faster and better, what makes you different from a horse in the 1920s?

      I've already started to feel this.

      One thing that made us special was our intelligence. We were, and were always going to be (unless some alien form of life arrived), the most intelligent things on earth. Is that still true today?

      1. montagg · · focus · HN ↗
        We should start with the assumption that humans are valuable and deserve to live with dignity. Any philosophy that doesn’t have that at its center is broken.
        1. 0c3ca83 · · focus · HN ↗
          We should, but to date anyone that wanted to be treated as though they were valuable and deserved dignity needed some way to apply pressure to ensure that.

          I'm not optimistic that this will change in the future -- but, I am watching automation erode the amount of pressure that humans can apply.

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