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Automation eliminates value but not risk: Difference between revisions
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Automation eliminates value but not risk (view source)
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Proprietors of contract assembly tools, take note. The value is in ''what'' you assemble, not ''[[Secret sauce|how]]'' or ''with [[Boilerplate|what]]''. Neither “how” in the sense of your precious inviolate [[boilerplate]], or “how” in the sense of the “ingenious” application that you, and a [[Java coder from Bucharest you found on UpWork|Java coder from Bucharest you found on ''UpWork'']] threw together over a mad weekend six months ago. You know how your software contraption was quite easy, in the scheme of things, to make? How it only cost you five thousand Romanian Leu? This should be your clue to understanding that | Proprietors of contract assembly tools, take note. The value is in ''what'' you assemble, not ''[[Secret sauce|how]]'' or ''with [[Boilerplate|what]]''. Neither “how” in the sense of your precious inviolate [[boilerplate]], or “how” in the sense of the “ingenious” application that you, and a [[Java coder from Bucharest you found on UpWork|Java coder from Bucharest you found on ''UpWork'']] threw together over a mad weekend six months ago. You know how your software contraption was quite easy, in the scheme of things, to make? How it only cost you five thousand Romanian Leu? This should be your clue to understanding that ''this is no impregnable hillfort from which to launch your megacorn''. | ||
The ''what'' comes not from your friend’s elegant runes of JavaScript, nor from your cheeky user interface, but from your customer’s unique use-case. If you can explain what justifies your monetising ''that'', do write in and let us know. | |||
===Automation eliminates value...=== | ===Automation eliminates value...=== | ||
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> | 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> | ||