SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Tim O'Reilly has advocated for the idea of algorithmic regulation - reducing the role of people and replacing them with automated systems in order to make goverment policy less biased and more efficient. But the idea has been criticized as utopianism, where actual implementations are likely to make government more opaque and even less responsive to the citizens who have the least say in the operation of society.
Now, as part of New America's annual conference What Drives Innovation Around the Country? Virginia Eubanks has written an essay examining such automation in the cases of pre-crime and welfare fraud. Is it possible to automate away human judgment from the inherently human task of governance and still achieve humane results? Or is inefficiency and waste an unavoidable part of the process?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @05:37PM
Interesting points on that story.
My biggest nit with it was the sharp divide between the old and new. The motivation of the new world just did not exist earlier in the story. The earlier story was much more interesting than the later which seemed to be a giant 'wish this could happen'. It would have been a better story if the people living the 'i was automated out of a job' lives created a better world. Instead of 'take this magic carpet to a new land of unicorns'.
that success happens instead of collapse
This was what I mean. The assumption that money hoarders will not hoard harder. That somehow magically giving everything away will fix everything. It ignores that most people are very selfish. There was no motivation in the book for anyone to change.
Fast food places will not automate in that way at all either. They will put in boxes that make things and need minimal service. They will go from a crew of 10-15 workers to 2-3 with some dude driving around servicing kiosks. With mostly people mopping floors and a sensor that says 'this is dirty'.
The other big assumption is that the money hoarders actually gave a damn about the lower class and would put them in 'cubes'.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:25PM
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday May 04 2015, @08:10AM
>It would have been a better story if the people living the 'i was automated out of a job' lives created a better world.
That's what happened though. The person who founded the Australia project was primarily motivated by "The people who are automated out of jobs (i.e., everyone) should benefit from technology instead of having their welfare taken away by technology". It just happens that the main characters did not witness it happening, so we only hear about it post facto from the perspective of the characters.
It might have been interesting had the author written about the project itself, but then again, it might not be; hard sci-fi is only fun for people who like hard sci-fi.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by IntelliCow on Tuesday May 12 2015, @02:32AM
I think we might be missing the larger point (and what made Manna such a fine read on a weekend evening) --
(CONSIDERABLE SPOILERS)
-
-
-
I'm relatively certain the Sinister Twist actually occurs, and we're so surprised as readers that no Sinister Twist is spelled out for us that we fail to realize it happened until I'm thinking about the story in the shower the next day. Dammit.
The large, oddly-apportioned plane (with the standing/sitting/lying down accommodations, "walls that display a view of the outside", and apparently VTOL engines)? Also the out-the-window view of the space elevators, because The Good 'Ol USA "slowed down" so much that Australia SPED UP, presumably due to relativity. XD
... I am... _relatively?_... certain that the narrator is still sitting there, or some other long-term Human Storage Zone. I.e., the spinal/optic splices happened during the first blackout, because they sorta-consented.
But that's the thing. In that (fairly well-supported) read of the story, the Australia Project is fucking brilliant and perfect, save perhaps the moderately creepy "the escorts were possibly selected (self-selected?) as breeding partners for the protagonist and other people with great genes (airline pilot father) computer-directed soft-eugenics project". I especially like how well the gamified credits system works to actually encourage behavior that gets a species through a crisis/paradigm shift/economic slump.
... what? Stop staring at me. >:-|
I assume this reading is traveled in Manna's subreddit, but frankly I'm 31 and reddit's interface still confuses and frightens me.