Automation eliminates value but not risk: Difference between revisions

Automation keeps you in business; it isn’t ''a'' business. If every function in your organisation can be managed by an [[algorithm]], it is game over. There is no excitement, no difficulty, no skill required, ''no value left''. Behold the difference between [[noughts and crosses]] and [[chess]]: both are [[deterministic]], [[zero-sum game]]s — therefore unsuitable analogies for [[technological unemployment]], but that is another story — but [[noughts and crosses]] has been solved. There are trivial, mechanical steps to force a stalemate.  It is no fun. Skill in [[noughts and crosses]] has no value. It doesn’t really even count as a skill. [[Chess]] is ''capable'' of algorithmic solution, but ''it has not been solved''.<ref>''Yet''. But it is a matter of time, and processing power. Interesting question actually: can we deduce, now, that when Chess is solved, the solution will be a stalemate? Statistics seem to imply that white has a first-mover advantage, though Wikipedia tells us “chess players and theoreticians have long debated whether, given perfect play by both sides, the game should end in a win for White or a draw. Since approximately 1889, when World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz addressed this issue, the consensus has been that a perfectly played game would end in a draw”.  </ref> Hence, to those who enjoy that kind of thing, chess is still fun. Skill in chess has some value.<ref>But a diminishing amount: even though not entirely solved, the enhanced algorithmic power available to neural networks and so-on mean that they can consistently beat humans, which kind of makes it less interesting to see how well humans play. </ref>