gthippo
This feels a lot scarier to me since as a ML engineer, I rarely see applications where we can reach human level performance easily but the idea of making existing top performers 2-5x more effective feels much more viable.
The idea of 80% of people in relatively high-skill jobs who are used to a relatively high income level becoming redundant is a pretty scary one.
For example in "CONTAINER TERMINAL PRODUCTIVITY: EXPERIENCES AT THE PORTS OF LOS ANGELES AND LONG BEACH" Le and Murphy give some comparisons of LA and Long Beach to other leading terminals.
Taking Singapore as our main example, as of 2004 it moved 2.7 as much container volume as LA but occupied roughly half the land area. It has 6 times the TEU/acre of LA and 64% higher TEU/crane. General trends also hold for Kwai Tsing (HK) and Klang (Malaysia).
To quote Le and Murphy in the above-mentioned paper:
"Further consideration of these factors reveals that the terminal operators at these ports are aware of the technologies and practices used at other world ports that would allow them to achieve a higher level of performance. However, the present operating agreements between terminal operators and port labor prevent the implementation of such technologies and practices."