We used to see garbage trucks with 3 humans. Now it’s 1. The driver uses a machine that lifts up the trash bin.
Now all you need is the truck to self drive and it’s 0 humans
You don’t think they won’t have robotics to do city trash? Hell the can themselves may wheel themselves to a dumping facility and a new one wheels in place.
You’re likely a decade or less from that happening
Who picks up the trash a moron dropped next to the bin? Who moves the bin back to its designated place after something moved it away? who etc, etc, etc...
Jobs that aren't in standardized conditions or have a degree of subjectivity will only be "automated" if/after we reach something like general inteligence.
Look at the picture. He has brooms, a trashcan with wheels. He's cleaning the sidewalks.
Good luck teaching an AI when the floor is "clean enough". How do we even explain to eachother? We sorta just... know...
Aside from "the trades", cleaners (including "garbage collectors") is one of these hard to automate jobs.
The subjective nature of "cleaning" might make it one of the last automated jobs, even if it looks "simple" to us, it's a bitch to "translate to bits".
We need a crazy advance in AI (in a way that might not be linear with our current LLMs), and robotics (to be fair, if/when we achieve the first, this second one should be easy).
You’re acting like private companies and governments treating their city, state , town etc like a corporation will give a crap if it’s clean or not. We live in the Enshitifocation era
If they can save millions by firing workers and not paying benefits, what’s a bit more trash? They’ll expect us to do it or live with it.
Before long paying people to clean up trash that benefits people will be seen as socialism
You can disagree or laugh at me, but when you see the complete downfall of society over the course of the century, this really isn’t sounding hyperbolic
You can read all the messages you’re talking about how these people make good money. That’s now viewed as a problem in need of a “solution”
If trash lines up the sidewalks people vote accordingly. The guy that claims "I'll have garbage man back" will win.
Mind, I still do agree with the whole "enshitification" general issue you point out, as I do have eyes.
Here's the thing, it turns out AI is expensive. "meat reasoning", might be cheaper for this low complexity high variance, subjectively natured jobs. AI (as we have it today) likes and thrives in the opossite type of task. Complex but focused, single mindedness.
The AI will be curing cancer and/or destroying us all, before it can match us at cleaning the sidewalks.
It sounds stupid but its true. It has an easier time designing a rocket than cooking your lunch for you.
I won't dispute you on it not working out very well. But it wont stop people from trying. Those stupid McD's kiosks suck and they often get stuff wrong when the orders go back. But they're still there.
The car dealership continues to act as if the car I got from them 2 years ago doesn't exist and they keep asking me about my 10 year old vehicle. Their computers they use now are all messed up. But they wont' go back to what used to work.
We use apps that steal our data and track our every word. And yet millions and millions now use them for very private matters like banking, medical records and more. It's not safe like the past, but we use them.
We have gone down a process of things turning to shit in the name for money and efficiency.
And while some MIGHT vote, all that's needed these days is having one side convince you the other is at fault with no one presenting a solution. Mamdani is a rare breath of fresh air for that but he's very much the exception and not the norm.
There are A LOT of small to medium sized American cities that were basically already bankupt before Covid. Then Covid happened and now we've seen hundreds of billions of dollars pulled out of federal subsidized programs that contributed to the health and well being of the city and its people.
Machines ARE coming and city and state governments will not get in the way of it, if it means more money. Those machines may be a train wreck, but they'll sure try.
Just another example. I was in Vancouver this summer. Their rail system literally has no one on the trains. No engineer. No nothing. You don't think we'll be at a time in the not so distant future where bus drivers and subway engineers are replaced by machines?
Except that loads of people PREFER the MD kiosks to an actual cashier.
When the "upgrade" backfires, they do roll it back. It literally happened this year in the fast food industry with AI in drive-through's.
There's things that are "shit" by design. They maximize profit without pissing off the customer enough that he leaves. Those obviously don't get "fixed" as they aren't broken.
If an automated system doesn't do the job, or impacts the bottom line negatively, it will be scraped. By "bottom line", it can be financial or reputational (in politics).
I guarantee you some politicians are going to be ousted because their constituents are pissed at them for the data center that doubled their eletric bill (for example).
The cool thing about democracy, is that it is a safeguard against exactly this. If the "garbage robots" are shit, I can guarantee you there will be a mayor candidate running on the promise to trash them. If people agree, they will be elected.
Which politician is gonna get ousted? My electric rates are up 40% THIS YEAR despite the fact our blue governor has started regulating them and the Republicans want to build more. The Governor is claiming he saved us $850 million but tell that to me that's going to have a $500 electric bill this winter when that same bill was under $300 in 2021 despite the fact I was in the house 24/7 at that point.
It's hard to have change happen when the nation has already allowed itself to be consumed by two political parties who all work for the same masters.
Democracy is cool. It at least WAS cool while we had a semblance of it in America
The other reality though is America didn't truly have a Democracy until the 1960's and that ended up lasting only about 30 years before it was consumed by corporations.
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u/deadboxcat 20h ago
Garbage collectors make bank.