CdM has long waited for this day
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/01/robots-will-soon-make-bankers-and-many-more-job-now-done-by-humans-totally-redundant-expert-says/
QuoteRobots will soon make bankers — and many more jobs now done by humans — totally redundant, expert says
Republish Reprint
Rebecca Burn-Callander, The Telegraph | September 1, 2014 | Last
Robots will be running the City within 10 years, rendering investment bankers, analysts and even quants redundant, it has been claimed.
Artificial intelligence is about to outpace human ability, according to Dave Coplin, a senior Microsoft executive. Computers will not only be able to undertake complex mathematical equations but draw logical, nuanced conclusions, reducing the need for human interference, he said.
This will render certain professions redundant, while other "human only" skills will become increasingly valuable.
"I believe in Moravec's Paradox," Mr. Coplin, Microsoft's UK-based chief envisioning officer, told The Telegraph, referring to the Eighties hypothesis discovered by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers. "This states that what we think is easy, robots find really hard, and what we think it really hard, robots find easy," he said. "Complex maths equations are hard for humans but take nanoseconds for a computer, but moving around and picking things up is easy for us, while being almost impossible for a robot."
Meanwhile, he said, professions currently viewed as commodities will become specialist human skills. "It would be hard to train a robot to be a nurse, or even a chef, but the City could be run by algorithms," he said. "People who use their hands will have jobs for life."
Algorithms are already commonplace on City trading floors, and are used in many industries, from online retail to internet dating. High-frequency trading, governed by algorithms, is already one of the most profitable trading classes. But, according to Mr. Coplin, in 10 years people will no longer be required to manage these algorithms. Decisions will be taken directly by the artificial intelligence.
"Everyone thinks of Terminator and Skynet [the computer that becomes self-aware and attempts to destroy mankind in James Cameron's 1984 film] when I start talking about this, but technology affords us a tremendous opportunity to play to our strengths as humans, and stand on the shoulders of robotic giants," said Mr. Coplin.
Microsoft has tasked Mr. Coplin with exploring the new trends that will shape the world of work in the coming years.
"I am hunting for the game-changers of the next 10 years," he said.
Mr. Coplin believes that the rise of big data and innovations in the field of "ambient intelligence" – smart technology that responds to the presence of people – are going to bring about radical changes in the workplace.
"I call my mobile a smartphone but even though it has information about where I am and who I speak to, it doesn't do anything with that information. It doesn't deliver a service."
In the future, ambient intelligence will allow devices to anticipate your needs and respond in real time. Your phone will send automated email responses based on keywords and contributing factors such as location, time of day, and calendar entries. "Business processes will be increasingly automated, freeing up humans to do more useful things," Mr. Coplin said.
Big data is not a new concept but technologists are increasingly interested in finding new ways that these mountains of data can be read and interpreted.
Microsoft is an active participant in this field of research. It recently trialled a new feature for Skype, its voice over IP service, which allows users to select a language and translates their speech in real-time.
Social media is also changing the way organisations will communicate in the future, according to Mr. Coplin, who has a vision of a transparent, digital corporate infrastructure, where emails, documents and spreadsheets are all accessible to and searchable by anyone in that organisation. "Knowledge will flow freely, you will be able to see information even if you're not part of the conversation. It won't be locked up in teams of inboxes any more."
Many of the new workplace trends may seem alien today but, according to Mr. Coplin, "This new technology will bring about cultural change."
The Daily Telegraph
[JR]This will open up brave new frontiers in job-having and productivity-producing, from the dumbest possible human worker, whose quality of life will be improved, to the loftiest Of Counsel or whatever I am, whose quality of life will surely stay exactly the same as it is today: perfect in every way.[/JR]
Fun fact: Timmay has been replaced months ago by an automatic news aggregator.
This sort of change heralds a major shift in our way of life. Hunter Gatherers would just sort of hang out once they got all the food they need, if things are going well that takes them a few hours at most. It was only with agriculture that we became laborers who would toil from dawn til dusk and set up all these institutions to manage human labor. But if we do not need massive amounts of human labor, how will out institutions change to manage the shift? What will all these people be doing?
Jews will be redundant? How ironic. :(
Quote from: Syt on September 02, 2014, 02:20:48 AM
Fun fact: Timmay has been replaced months ago by an automatic news aggregator.
Quote from: Syt on September 02, 2014, 02:20:48 AM
Fun fact: Timmay has been replaced months ago by an automatic news aggregator.
Is it true CdM has Timmy's brain in a jar at home? :hmm:
Quote from: Valmy on September 02, 2014, 10:16:20 AM
This sort of change heralds a major shift in our way of life. Hunter Gatherers would just sort of hang out once they got all the food they need, if things are going well that takes them a few hours at most. It was only with agriculture that we became laborers who would toil from dawn til dusk and set up all these institutions to manage human labor. But if we do not need massive amounts of human labor, how will out institutions change to manage the shift? What will all these people be doing?
Why would institutions change? Isn't the point of having institutions to avoid change?
The result will be higher unemployment, higher lottery sales and more people speaking out against lazy welfare bums.
Quote from: Legbiter on September 02, 2014, 10:21:21 AM
Quote from: Syt on September 02, 2014, 02:20:48 AM
Fun fact: Timmay has been replaced months ago by an automatic news aggregator.
Is it true CdM has Timmy's brain in a jar at home? :hmm:
I find that hard to believe.
If he had Timmy's brain, would he really
keep it? :hmm:
And I thought ATMs were supposed to totally replace bank tellers by the 90s.
Quote from: derspiess on September 02, 2014, 11:58:10 AM
And I thought ATMs were supposed to totally replace bank tellers by the 90s.
:yes:
This will not happen 'soon' unless by soon you mean in 50 years or more.
Quote from: Ideologue on September 02, 2014, 12:40:50 AM
[JR]This will open up brave new frontiers in job-having and productivity-producing, from the dumbest possible human worker, whose quality of life will be improved, to the loftiest Of Counsel or whatever I am, whose quality of life will surely stay exactly the same as it is today: perfect in every way.[/JR]
That doesn't sound like what Joan would say.
Quote from: Valmy on September 02, 2014, 10:16:20 AM
This sort of change heralds a major shift in our way of life. Hunter Gatherers would just sort of hang out once they got all the food they need, if things are going well that takes them a few hours at most. It was only with agriculture that we became laborers who would toil from dawn til dusk and set up all these institutions to manage human labor. But if we do not need massive amounts of human labor, how will out institutions change to manage the shift? What will all these people be doing?
We learned part of the answer this week. People will be relentlessly trying to hack pictures of naked celebrities. Apple will need to upgrade its security.
Quote from: derspiess on September 02, 2014, 11:58:10 AM
And I thought ATMs were supposed to totally replace bank tellers by the 90s.
My bank already did this. No tellers.
Quote from: Caliga on September 02, 2014, 11:59:50 AM:yes:
This will not happen 'soon' unless by soon you mean in 50 years or more.
'Soon' in this case was four years ago. Seems to be working fine.
Quote from: garbon on September 02, 2014, 12:09:29 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on September 02, 2014, 12:40:50 AM
[JR]This will open up brave new frontiers in job-having and productivity-producing, from the dumbest possible human worker, whose quality of life will be improved, to the loftiest Of Counsel or whatever I am, whose quality of life will surely stay exactly the same as it is today: perfect in every way.[/JR]
That doesn't sound like what Joan would say.
[JR]History has shown that all economic shifts in the modern era ultimately result in not just greater wealth, but wealth more broadly shared, resulting in a higher standard of living. What makes this shift different, except for the fact that an economy where everyone is an hipster artisan or blog author is almost certainly not viable?[/JR]
Quote from: Valmy on September 02, 2014, 12:35:18 PM
Quote from: derspiess on September 02, 2014, 11:58:10 AM
And I thought ATMs were supposed to totally replace bank tellers by the 90s.
My bank already did this. No tellers.
Quote from: Caliga on September 02, 2014, 11:59:50 AM:yes:
This will not happen 'soon' unless by soon you mean in 50 years or more.
'Soon' in this case was four years ago. Seems to be working fine.
Yeah, I have an account at a bank that started deploying tellerless branches. Yet, a vast majority of banks still use tellers.
Quote from: Neil on September 02, 2014, 11:40:36 AM
The result will be higher unemployment, higher lottery sales and more people speaking out against lazy welfare bums.
That sounds about right.
Quote from: derspiess on September 02, 2014, 12:47:59 PM
Yeah, I have an account at a bank that started deploying tellerless branches. Yet, a vast majority of banks still use tellers.
Yes, but the vast majority of customers don't use them. I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year I have actually spoken to someone at my bank.
Banks with tellers? Jesus, you guys still have post offices as well?
While Ideologue's concern for the future of investment bankers is touching, perhaps Wharton should hold off a few more years before closing its finance programs:
QuoteAlgorithms are already commonplace on City trading floors, and are used in many industries, from online retail to internet dating. High-frequency trading, governed by algorithms, is already one of the most profitable trading classes.
Oh yeah, right. Algorithmic trading is huge. And it hasn't eliminated bankers, it's added a whole new layer of them to develop and program the algorithms, and integrate them into the broader set of things that banks do.
QuoteBut, according to Mr. Coplin, in 10 years people will no longer be required to manage these algorithms. Decisions will be taken directly by the artificial intelligence
No doubt Microsoft's "chief envisioning officer" knows a lot more about the future capabilities of computers than I do, although apparently not enough to prevent MSFT from getting its clocked cleaned in every new tech evolution and market since the Browser Wars of the 90s. But this needs a little more explanation. Like what does he mean about "managing algorithms" - I don't think anyone does that now - algorithms do run themselves, no one needs to turn a crank. What are the "decisions" that are going to made directly by AI? Is this for prop trading, retail wealth management, brokerage operations? The fact that Mr. Collin appears to have no professional experience or exposure to the financial services industry gives me pause.
Quote from: Ideologue on September 02, 2014, 12:47:38 PM
History has shown that all economic shifts in the modern era ultimately result in not just greater wealth, but wealth more broadly shared, resulting in a higher standard of living.
Not a true statement.
However, if the focus on the period since 1978 it would be true if one looked at the world economy as a whole.
For the prior 30 year period it would be true for the US, Western Europe and Japan.
I just read a review of one of the better robo-vaccum cleaners, it encountered a fresh cat turd and preceded to very efficiently cover one whole level of his house with a fine coating of shit.
Quote from: mongers on September 02, 2014, 05:44:19 PM
I just read a review of one of the better robo-vaccum cleaners, it encountered a fresh cat turd and preceded to very efficiently cover one whole level of his house with a fine coating of shit.
Robotics are proceeding faster than I expected; it seems the subprime mortgage executive robot is ready to take over.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 02, 2014, 05:33:22 PM
While Ideologue's concern for the future of investment bankers is touching
:lol:
Look, there are many problems, one solution. :P
Quote from: mongers on September 02, 2014, 05:44:19 PM
I just read a review of one of the better robo-vaccum cleaners, it encountered a fresh cat turd and preceded to very efficiently cover one whole level of his house with a fine coating of shit.
Yeah, if you leave a big puddle of paint on your floor, you will get the same thing. In fact, if you vacuum using a regular, non-robotic vacuum cleaners, and run over a fresh cat turd, you will manually cover one whole level of your house with a fine coating of shit.
I have an easy time saying good bye to these luddite fears when I think of my previous job, where a huge building was full of around 1000 IT guys, and these were the ones actually supporting and overseeing the computers others worked with.
So all of this will just create new kind of jobs. Only possible concern is that there will be less and less jobs you are capable of doing if you haven't learned anything past 3rd grade in school, but boo fucking hoo. I, for one, am not ready to stop human progress just so lazy people can remain comfortable.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 02, 2014, 05:33:22 PM
While Ideologue's concern for the future of investment bankers is touching, perhaps Wharton should hold off a few more years before closing its finance programs:
QuoteAlgorithms are already commonplace on City trading floors, and are used in many industries, from online retail to internet dating. High-frequency trading, governed by algorithms, is already one of the most profitable trading classes.
Oh yeah, right. Algorithmic trading is huge. And it hasn't eliminated bankers, it's added a whole new layer of them to develop and program the algorithms, and integrate them into the broader set of things that banks do.
QuoteBut, according to Mr. Coplin, in 10 years people will no longer be required to manage these algorithms. Decisions will be taken directly by the artificial intelligence
No doubt Microsoft's "chief envisioning officer" knows a lot more about the future capabilities of computers than I do, although apparently not enough to prevent MSFT from getting its clocked cleaned in every new tech evolution and market since the Browser Wars of the 90s. But this needs a little more explanation. Like what does he mean about "managing algorithms" - I don't think anyone does that now - algorithms do run themselves, no one needs to turn a crank. What are the "decisions" that are going to made directly by AI? Is this for prop trading, retail wealth management, brokerage operations? The fact that Mr. Collin appears to have no professional experience or exposure to the financial services industry gives me pause.
Yes, algorithms do need to be managed. Many different algorithms could get to the same result with differing operational complexity and performance drain. It's not just a case of picking the shortest route, either- especially in large database situations, the optimal algorithm from a complexity standpoint could put an untenable strain on system resources.
It was a poor choice of words, but what he's getting at is that computers have reached the operational capability and flexibility that once we've wound them up, they need almost no human interaction apart from tuning and repairs, and computers are starting to get to where we could an algorithm-based program to tune itself.
I'm going to go one further on this guy, in fact. These units are hitting so much computational power with such robust connections that I'd be willing to wager in the next few decades, we'll start to see more devices like Chromebooks, where all the heavy lifting is done by just a few servers, and the houshold devices are decreasingly complex but better-connected to the networks. Eventually, the IT market is going to collapse to a few highly-fought-over positions maintaining a few high-powered devices. Something like the Internet's current dozen or so root servers, applied to a broader category of devices.
That seems scarily plausible.
It will all be fine, though.
Quote from: Ideologue on September 03, 2014, 09:08:08 AM
That seems scarily plausible.
It will all be fine, though.
Software guys should be fine for a while longer. One of the few bright lines that hasn't really been crossed in systems development is that we still prefer humans for "design" tasks. While we design systems to be "intelligent," we don't design them to have "aesthetics." Once we've given a mechanical intelligence freedom of choice, a mechanism to choose, and Skynet doesn't happen, that will probably change, but until then, machines are programmed to perform a task and not be picky about how they do it.
TL;DR- hardware guys will die out because complex hardware won't need to be as ubiquitous as it is now. Software guys are (for now) okay because we don't design programs to design programs.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 03, 2014, 08:38:31 AM
Yes, algorithms do need to be managed. Many different algorithms could get to the same result with differing operational complexity and performance drain. It's not just a case of picking the shortest route, either- especially in large database situations, the optimal algorithm from a complexity standpoint could put an untenable strain on system resources.
It was a poor choice of words, but what he's getting at is that computers have reached the operational capability and flexibility that once we've wound them up, they need almost no human interaction apart from tuning and repairs, and computers are starting to get to where we could an algorithm-based program to tune itself.
I don't see anything in this description that would be a big hit to human investment bankers, just on some of the back office IT folks. Even there I am dubious based on my own admittedly anecdotal interactions with corporate IT systems.
In my experience with IT, I'm almost always given: "We had to start you up on a new hard drive as your former one was too far gone" with either all my data on new drive or all my data lost. :(
That said, why would investment bankers go away? Sure, they can run the con by machine, but a big part of it is having the con-man to lie and cheat his clients.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on September 03, 2014, 10:00:37 AM
I don't see anything in this description that would be a big hit to human investment bankers, just on some of the back office IT folks. Even there I am dubious based on my own admittedly anecdotal interactions with corporate IT systems.
On the contrary. If an algorithm designer can quantify an acceptable set of rules on when to buy, when to sell, and when to hold with at least slight predictable gains, that predictability and the massively decreased cost of labor would be a huge market incentive to automate the process. Computers don't have fat fingers and wouldn't get jittery while taking a huge gamble on volatile market data.
Generally speaking, the boss is going to take a predictable $0.10 yield each day for seven days over a flat line for six days with a possible $1 yield based on a risky investment on day seven.
Don't forget I was the first one to mention the Technological Singularity here in Languish.
I demand to be acknowledged as The Great Siegularity.
:D
Quote from: Siege on September 03, 2014, 09:44:13 PM
Don't forget I was the first one to mention the Technological Singularity here in Languish.
I demand to be acknowledged as The Great Siegularity.
We're talking about a sector of the workforce, not the entirety of human culture. If that was the requirement, the technological singularity could arguably already be in progress and have begun with the automation of automobile factories back in the '70s.
When the singularity does happen, if you're going to demand such a dorky title, I'll be happy to oblige, though. :)
The perfect intelligences that outlive humanity will keep Siege around as a reminder of why they nuked the rest of us.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 03, 2014, 09:35:09 PM
On the contrary. If an algorithm designer can quantify an acceptable set of rules on when to buy, when to sell, and when to hold with at least slight predictable gains, that predictability and the massively decreased cost of labor would be a huge market incentive to automate the process. Computers don't have fat fingers and wouldn't get jittery while taking a huge gamble on volatile market data.
Assume that it is possible to create a reliable and safe algorithm that can "manage" itself along the lines you suggest. Very quickly they would arbitrage all gains away. So then the next arms race would be hiring the teams of math and computer whizzes to design ever more fiendishly complex semi-autonomous algorithms. More hires, more salary
Meanwhile the nonquant side of the business would still be steaming along for the same reason it always has -- algorithms are limited in dealing with the vagaries and irrationalities of the human behavior that drives markets