The key questions will be: Are you good at working with intelligent machines or not? Are your skills a complement to the skills of the computer, or is the computer doing better without you? Worst of all, are you competing against the computer?
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of adapting one's skills to work alongside intelligent machines rather than competing with them.
Tyler Cowen's quote addresses the evolving relationship between humans and technology, particularly intelligent machines. It highlights the necessity for individuals to assess their abilities in relation to these powerful tools: whether they can enhance their own skills to complement machine capabilities or if they are being rendered obsolete. The quote serves as a cautionary reminder to adapt and thrive in an increasingly automated world, rather than being left behind in competition with technology.
In practice
In a technology conference discussing the future of work.
If you and your skills are a complement to the computer, your wage and labor market prospects are likely to be cheery. If your skills do not complement the computer, you may want to address that mismatch. Ever more people are starting to fall on one side of the divide or the other. That's why 'average is over.'
Economists love to talk about incentives, but the bottom line is that people hate being controlled or manipulated, even when done through voluntary institutions. This is one of the most important tensions in capitalism.
Considering what human beings do and have done to human beings (and to other living things as well) ... I can never imagine what the devil people think computers can add to the horrors.
Ultimately, it's not going to be about man versus machine. It is going to be about man with machines.
In my opinion, right now there's way too much hype on the technologies and not enough attention to the real businesses behind them.
We're all vulnerable to social approval. The need to belong, to be approved or appreciated by our peers is among the highest human motivations. But now our social approval is in the hands of tech companies.
I've felt strongly that the advantage of Linux is that it doesn't have a niche or any special market, but that different individuals and companies end up pushing it in the direction they want, and as such you end up with something that is pretty balanced across the board.
A good programming language is a conceptual universe for thinking about programming.
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