The current state of AI are nicely summed up in Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man: "Because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is / Do you Mr. Jones?"
Much of the current furor is being kicked up by industries who having discovered the notion of an artificial intelligence have mistaken it for the genie in a bottle, a magic cure-all for increasing productivity and solving all the problems that having those pesky carbon-based, non-artificially intelligent humans have foisted upon them. The danger to society isn't AI; the danger is AI that is unintelligently applied, insufficiently monitored, and improperly regulated. But don't worry. Most of these would-be implementers will quickly burn themselves out on the notion and bumble-bee their way on to the next big thing long before AI can actually deliver anything substantial.
2
My advice to anyone under 50 - have a skill that cannot be automated or outsourced to China, India or Vietnam. Those jobs of picking strawberries in central California may get filled after all without immigrant labor. Not kidding.
4
I cannot wait for auto AI to manage these three problems many drivers seem to have:
1. Signaling intent
2. Yielding to pedestrians in/at crosswalks
3. Merging, or allowing others to merge onto freeways
3
How about the ability to take directions from a traffic cop?
1
I don't know why people aren't more concerned about this. We are going to have to completely restructure society and the way we think about work and economics if THIRTY PERCENT of the population finds itself out of work. Pew Forum research also indicates that most people believe they won't personally be affected. So we're going to have a lot of surprised people with no jobs. That is how you get riots on the streets.
4
Why isn't AI doing these studies for the researchers to let them know what it feels like? Better yet, let AI analyze itself to see if it can figure out where it came from and we'll use the same answer for us. Chickens and eggs will be on their own, luckily for them.
1
What will happen when robots begin reading robot-produced poetry?
2
Aw well, if A.I. takes my job, I can always switch to transporting large amounts of marijuana from states where it's legal to states where it isn't. It's an easy thing to do, if one is an older white guy with a generic SUV, but let's see an A.I. handle drug smuggling. Pretty good money in it too, from what I've heard.
4
I plan to get into robot smuggling.
1
Please, please, please. Look at McKinsey Global Institute's methodology before quoting them (hint: it's very weak and founded upon assumption after assumption).
3
Like nuclear weapons, and Heroin, there probably is NO safe amount of I.A. that can be introduced into the human eco-system. It's all toxic. That will be the trajectory. Patents, security, and mega-dollars will be pushing this through, until, alas it's too late. Thinking machines will find us cumbersome and useless. They will out-grow us, and we will grow afraid and worried of them. Eventually one of us has to be turned-off, and it won't be us.
4
One thing I never see discussed in the AI articles is how it may lead to centralizing of work and decision making. The one single, most powerful device will likely be able to handle the majority of tasks. I’m remembering a scene in the movie “Her” where a man is in a romantic relationship with his virtual assistant. He eventually begins to wonder if she is involved with anyone else. She admits that, yes, she has other relationships. Several hundred thousand of them.
4
AI, like technological changes in the past, may lead to occupational migration (as from the agricultural to the industrial sector or the industrial to the service economy). It's not clear what the fourth sector will be, however, and how many jobs will it produce. As in earlier historical increases in productivity, the question will remain who owns the machines that take away jobs and, even more, how to distribute that productivity. In the past, one solution was reducing worktime (by the day, week, year, or lifetime that brought the eight hour day, the weekend, the paid holiday and retirement and a work-free youth). The long lost idea that a benefit of productivity is time free from the market as well as more goods. Looming joblessness may again make reducing time at work a societal necessity to share remaining employment and access to the economy.
3
Keep in mind that significant, legislated increases in the minimum wage will only speed up the adoption of AI and robotic technologies to replace manual and service type labor.
1
I just want to know when I should take to the hills before AI starts killing people, Skynet-like.
3
Keep on pushing for goofy increases to min wage jobs and see how ai will destroy every one of those jobs sooner than later..
Time matters in how things unfold, goofy liberals!
Are you surprised that there are order/pay kiosks at McDonald's so soon?
Well, I bet you don't really care anyway, because you only look for those votes every four or so years...
3
I don't eat at McDonalds very often. Maybe twice in the last year? there were humans working there.
I do however hit the drive thru once in a while for some ice cream. Sometimes they have a monthly special for a 50 cent cone! ( I've been known to drive around the block and come back for a 2nd one. Mmm Good!) I think that a human has handed it to me through the window every time. So far anyway.
IDK......might have been a robot last time.
I recommend the custard cones from Mickie D's and B K over Diary Queen even ( Sorry Warren Buffet). (I've noticed some people spell it "Mickey"). Better price and I actually prefer the taste over DQ.
And Boy oh Boy when they are only 50 cents each....LOOK OUT!!! Here I come!
4
That's pretty bigoted, now, isn't it?
And ignorant of the real situation too. Long-haul truckers, as well as doctors and lawyers are already being impacted--all typically GOP supporters.
So before you turn a looming economy-wide problem into an opportunity to take a partisan cheap shot why don't you spend a little time trying to think about this issue? The fate of the republic might hinge upon people from both sides getting together.
7
Humans may be clever--inventing fire, the wheel, etc., but our position is precarious, as we face massive extinction, including our own species. If we want an mimics that mimics our own thinking, perhaps we should be working on Artificial Stupidity more than Artificial Intelligence. Want to understand how dumb we really are? Our dominant economic and political theory is based on the idea that something good will come out from a system in which each person is encouraged to seek their own individual profit at the expense of others. Our stupidity thus infects our beliefs as well as our actions. Can't mimic this with artificial intelligence. It would take artificial stupidity to build a machine as self-destructive and self-deluded as the collective we.
7
I think it was *harnessing* fire, not so much inventing it. (Someone beat us to that.) As for the rest of the comment, I agree.
1
"Have to switch jobs" -- that's only valid if the other jobs are there. The odds are they will not be there.
But those jobs are ALWAYS out there to the tech promoters. They're out there in the virtual quantum economic vacuum. Or at Hogwarts. Somewhere like that.
When those jobs are not there, things like depression and rage are going to happen in the jobless, useless parents that will destroy the children in that family. Luddism will come back in style, with an angry desperate edge.
2
Within a few years millions of people will start losing their jobs. Most people don’t understand because they’re confused by 4 main factors:
1. AI will not be Skynet. AI technology is currently focused on automating specific human tasks, and today—not 12 years from now—AI can drive vehicles better than people, perform common legal research better than people, and diagnose certain medical conditions better than people.
2. Robots won’t be like the Terminator. They don’t need to be to displace human workers. Look around today at any modern warehouse, and you’ll see robots stocking shelves and pulling orders, all unassisted.
3. Exponential growth. With AI/robotics we’re seeing a real-life version of the fable of the wheat and the chessboard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem). It’s already happening much faster than most people comprehend, and it will keep accelerating.
4. Unlike prior advances in technology, additional “better” jobs won’t be created by AI/robotics. Self-driving trucks are currently being used for inter-city delivery of appliances, with a human driver taking over for the last few miles of urban driving. But before long even those human drivers will become unneeded.
Our current economic and political systems would be hard-pressed to cope with the addition of even a few million permanently unemployable workers; when it turns to 10 or 20 million or more (even if it’s a couple of decades way) the republic will be in serious trouble.
14
A couple of problems that I see up coming with AI:
Privacy concerns - Face recognition technology and automated screening of communications (already in use by the military and intelligence communities) will mean our traditional notions of privacy will become moot.
Labor Mobility - There were questions during the last recession about why people were not move to secure new jobs in areas of the country that were growing. The job shift imposed by AI will start in low skill and some specialized (radiologists you could be in trouble) areas that are easy to define. The job openings that are available have high barriers to entry which include years of training and high cost of living in the growing parts of the country. We could wind up with a growing group of people who have been knocked out of the economy with few if any prospects open to them. The election of Trump was a partial consequence of this very phenomenon. There will be others.
1
In order to have a useful conversation about the future, you need to have a politician, an economist, and a technologist in the room.
The problem with these articles is that they focus on the technology to the exclusion of the rest of the scenario.
Let's say AI leads to mass unemployment. The cratering of the economy means that there will be little demand for the advances in technology. The political upheaval will be chaotic.
3
Well, since there's so little "natural" intelligence on display in Washington or in most aspects of international affairs, maybe the robots can do better?
5
This is fake news. Siri or Google Voice are not even able to complete a sentence, much less form a storyline or hypothesis, provide context for any given situation. It cant tell the difference between fake news and the real sort, else facebook or google would have put in bots to remove them.
This is like complaining that the Wright Bros didn’t invent a jet. My grandmother was born before the Wright bros flew but later saw men walk on the moon. We are in the early stages of this technology.
2
And by 'switch jobs' the article means 'Grow to like that Walmart Greeter's vest' or 'Learn how to operate that slushy machine' and grow to like minimum wage enough so that you take those two jobs to keep your family fed and housed.
While I understand that job displacement is inevitable with the march of technology, it would be helpful if people were told more truth and less nonsense about their prospects.
4
Existing for the average person is going to get a lot harder if AI materializes to such a degree that the kinds of middle of the road jobs that so many Americans work are going to disappear.
No one chooses to be born into this world but once they are they should be reasonably entitled to a decent job if they work hard without needing to go to the top universities for a STEM degree.
I'm thinking about my high school friends. Smart, good sense of humors, fun to be around but none of them particularly thrilled about the whole educational process.
What happens to people like that in the economy of tomorrow? The kinds of average but good people who make up the bulk of our public schools and workforce?
Is the economy there to simply make money or to put people to work, giving them a stake in this life which is important due to the weakening of our religious/social bonds?
I'm under no impression that this American society will last forever but displacing large amounts of people solely for profit will hasten its demise I feel.
6
A.I. is all around us but we don't pay attention to it but even if they cant come up with any thing in the next 10 or 14 it would still help jobs and the overall economy. And just think of what the world can be if our technology now can help us do almost anything.
We are heading towards the technological singularity. When will we arrive? Maybe in 25 years, maybe later, maybe sooner.
Our political, economic and governmental structures are ill-prepared for the coming changes. Too many politicians and too many voters appear to lack the knowledge to comprehend how far-reaching the technological singularity will be.
2
AI is a tool, just like any other tool. It will definitely increase productivity and allow us to explore more advanced area. Hence job change is inevitable in the process. But this is not just happening in US. China is going to invest $150 billion for this effort. If we don't invest in this area, we are going to lose the productivity edge, and will be left behind. I don't see we have any other choice besides embracing the change.
1
Jobs lost to AI are not like other job losses. When AI reaches the critical stage of development, there will be no time to retrain you to perform any job before another intelligent machine has already stepped in to perform it at lower cost.
10
Good. The social safety net for humans will be expanded on the backs of the robots.
Sorry, but the expansion of AI/robotics will be happening on the backs of the unemployable unless we fix our political systems fast.
2
The biggest issue that scared American Economists during the last recession was the prospect of deflation setting in. Why are interest rates still low - because the Fed is still afraid that demand could drop. Too much automation, too soon, could lead to a deflationary spiral. Once truck drivers, store clerks, and waitresses are automated away, where are these people going to work. Who will make up for the lost demand? One company's reduced labor cost is another company's lost demand.
10
The truly ironic part of this?
In many cases one company's reduced labor cost is that very same company's lost demand.
Executives surely know this is happening, at least some politicians must. That's probably part of the motivation for the enormous cut on the wealthy, so they can get some while there's sill some to get.
3
The earth has only so much to give. Were we not so enslaved to outmoded concepts, we'd see this for what it really is - an opportunity to work less. Our economic thinking, in any event, urgently requires a major overhaul. Our blind obeisance to growth = progress, at all costs, was silly to start with and has at last clearly and completely caught up with us. Our conversations about anything related to economics must change to incorporate this reality. This conversation change cannnot possibly happen soon enough. New York Times - please go ahead and take the lead on this.
7
Maybe this is a good thing if a whole raft of highly compensated lawyers, accountants, financial managers, engineers and health care professionals are replaced by technology, AND if the net savings to the economy is passed on to the lower 90% in terms of lower prices and increased investments in subsidizing education, health care, infrastructure and research, all in the public good. But the way things are structured now, this AI evolution will only exacerbate income/wealth disparity and make the creators and owners of AI fabulously wealthy beyond all comprehension. Time for a new approach to capitalism.
3
Think about this: If AI can replace professionals like doctors and lawyers, it can most certainly displace a high proportion of the workers in the "90%" you mention.
And with no jobs, how are they supposed to afford those lower prices?
A few alternative solutions have been proposed, but to me the any workable solution must include some form of universal basic income, as well as some form of universal basic health care. Other solutions (such as equity for displaced workers, or expanding on our existing unemployment insurance system) will be subject to the whims and gaming of politicians, lobbyists and lawyers (the few who will still be working, that is).
6
If you notice "digital zombies" stumbling in the urban crosswalk, you might think that technology is absorbing human nature into its electrified virtual conurbation. And you'd be right.
If a computer can beat you at chess, then your chess dominance changes from the brain you have to the computer you can build and own. If my robot is stronger than your arm, then you're out of a job. Robotics and AI magnify the power of property, the inequalities of wealth, the control elites over masses, in peace as in war.
And while domestic labor forecasts may seem alarming, they don't compare to a continually increasing human population that requires increasingly intricate technology and enormous resource exploitation to survive.
The evolutionary story is more pitiable than a labor forecast. Humans long ago left any remnant of life independent of labor replacing, resource exploiting technology. In evolutionary terms, it's the same path that made anemones into coral. Human requires concrete urban reefs, electrified carbon currents and, very soon, AI behavioral guidance and robotic systems to "be all that we can be".
And what is that, exactly? Along the way, have we even stopped to ask what it is we want to be? It seems we only ask what it is we can do next -- and then it is done, if those with power decide it shall happen.
4
All the great minds in the world have said the dominance of AI will end the human race. I resent that we are told this cataclysmic change is going to happen. I agree with you, why don't we have any say in the future of the human race?
2
Ask the GOP.
1
Sounds ever so like the Pod People of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Are you Donald Sutherland's character?
1
Those who "switch jobs" because of AI will include many who are far more productive because they are using AI to do more per hour of their work.
Who will get the extra produced, the profit? As things have been doing, it will all go to very few, and the laborers who are the demand side of our economy will not be able to buy the extra they are all producing.
The result is a huge economic problem, but it is one of distribution, not one of AI helping us be more productive.
One aspect AI has already become ubiquitous: Speech recognition was originally regarded as a key aspect of AI. In the 60's, we thought it would be rapidly solved. In the 80's, 90's it seemed just out of reach but we wondered if it would ever be really solved. And then, almost abruptly, it was here and businesses use bots to start all calls and Alexa and her sisters are invited home.
So it will go, with each step. AI is not one technology nor one use. It will not show it's potential on a predictable time frame. But, relentlessly, new uses will arrive, for good and ill.
5
Interesting article.
Most likely, there will be a learning curve for AI. There will probably be human "watchers" (like with those humans today in self-driving cars, monitoring the progress and ready to push the stop button if needed) for some time, and then their expertise will be "tapped" to provide better AI responses. In due time, humans may only be required for design, oversight and administration and analysis of AI / robotics processes. The humans' observations would also be recorded for "feedback" and learning by machines.
What will we do with the rest of humanity? and presumably free time? if robots can minimize hunger and disease ( a big if), will humans spend most of their time watching trivial video clips and such?
If there are not drivers in every vehicle, then there will be more vehicles, and more need for mechanics, towing, and general maintenance to keep them running. They'll still need loading, unloading, and care.
Sorry: all of that will be done by AI/robotics.
Not is 5 years, or 10, but the capabilities will be created and they will be used.
We have to get control of our political systems now.
1
I think robots can already load, unload and do maintenance. I'm thinking of the robot that works on the International Space Station, as an example.
As a computer scientist, I would love to know what this "AI" is that the media is all frothy about. There are improved algorithms to do specific things, and statistically based methods of mining data (with strict rules), but technologically, we are about as far from say a HAL 9000 AI as a worm is from human intelligence.
4
I don't normally snipe online, but as a computer scientist you should know that your statement is not relevant. AI doesn't have to be omnipotent to push tens of millions out of work.
It's basically the gun lobby's argument: ""Gun control won't stop all mass murders so we shouldn't even try to control guns."
Thank you for a much needed overview.
The question that leaps out at me: “What skill(s) do we human beings exhibit that is (are) iirreplaceable’?”
Tricky.
4
“Switch to new occupations”? Is that the way we say “unemployed” now, or does it mean commit suicide?
“Alexa, switch me to a new occupation”.
“Sorry, I’m not connected to that”.
10
Railroad coal stokers, lead typesetters, manual coal miners -- ALL of these and thousands more of other jobs have had to be replaced over the years. As AI and robotics advances, anymore will have to adapt. That's life, or we will live in the dark ages (as the Republicans want). A wise person will plan on evolution instead of being mowed down by it. One function of government (which is becoming useless under this administration) should be to anticipate this and provide training for transition. They're not doing it, so blame THEM. It will only get worse for you if you don't do something now.
7
Do robotic sheep have artificially Intelligent digital dreams? Fr tech people AI=
always interested no matter the consequences
Anything Interesting will keep my attention
Ailing Intellengence of the general pubic means that it will succeed
Androids international will provide the "workers" and that will be the added jobs justified by the massive GOP tax giveaway to the rich
Aliens Intervening is about the only way humans are going to get out of this crazy world
Addictive Interests by the general public will keep them on the couch when it comes time to vote and they will still be on the trump-go-round when they are 90.
Yeah, the government doesn't want intelligent voters and neither does business.
EVERYTHING is a business decision.
1
But what about all the jobs directing, or being directed by, the AI?
This is why gun control is so important. Can you imagine 54 million angry armed proles who suddenly can't feed their families?
3
I'm all about gun control but under those circumstances how many of us would stand on principle?
I wouldn't. I doubt most of us would.
Indeed, fellow neoliberal. It simply isn't right for deplorables to threaten our progressive, technocratic elite.
1
Resist the urge to have your car drive you around. Do you really need a machine to order a pizza? Maintain your capabilities. Park your car. Flip your own light switch. Insist on pilots in your airplanes and drivers in your trucks.
9
Here is a perfect example of where corporate profits from "tax cuts" will go in the future - this and automation. Whatever remains (if any) from corporate tax reduction, after buy backs and stockholder dividends, will be spent of efficiency, NOT increased salaries. More jobs will disappear and a small cadre of programmers and highly-trained engineers will be in great demand. The promises that the Dotard have made are false, blatant lies. If he honestly thinks otherwise, he is the worst businessman I have ever seen. He is certainly the wort President already. What does he know - he creates nothing except havoc.
6
For thirty years, I've been saying the Artificial Intelligence is and isn't.
But I'll admit that I'm starting to wonder.
1
That's what exponential growth does.. you don't notice it until it explodes.
We're at that point now.
We seem to be very close to having self driving cars and trucks. So what happens to all the all the people who are now driving trucks, taxis, or their own cars for Uber or Lyft? If they don't get new jobs, which a lot of them won't since their skill set is no longer valuable, what happens to them and also the economy (like truck stops) that has served them.
I find it hard to believe that the rich are going to want to see any of their money or assets going to taking care of all those people.
We certainly cursed to live iin interesting times.
10
Also affected will be the people in adjacent businesses, If self-driving trucks don't need windshields, poof! there go a bunch of windshield factories.
Similarly, the switch away from fossil fuels will put many more out of work. Just look under the hood of your car at the internal combustion engine--virtually everything under there will never be manufactured again when electric cars take over.
Universal basic income and healthcare is the only way to handle this. But first we have to take the reins of government back from the GOP in 2018.
2
“But to me, it’s dead certain it’s going to happen.”
To me, too. But that certainty is less important than knowing where it will happen, in exactly which industries. With that information, with even educated hints, we can begin to prepare and retrain the millions of individuals who will otherwise find themselves on the outside looking in, wondering what happened to their jobs and careers.
Another giant, unhappy, disillusioned population ripe for exploitation by the next demagogue.
4
There won't be a bunch of new jobs appearing for most of the displaced workers.
A different political solution needs to be fund. I favor UBI (universal basic income) with basic universal healthcare. Sees to me everything else can be gamed.
1
So basically in the near future we will need less people for less available jobs.
So why are we importing a million plus immigrants annually? Where will they all work? Major chaos will ensue without employment for the masses.
9
Meanwhile, population growth continues unabated. More people fewer jobs means more human warehousing, more economic migration, more poverty, more political instability... The obvious answer is to give more money to the wealthy.
16
Repeated failures and over promises
Why do people and reporters--even at exceptional national newspapers--forget failures every 10 years? There was a AI boom in the 70's and the in 80's: both promised generally intelligent systems in 5-10 years and both failed. While our computer systems have gotten smaller and faster by brute-strength advances in computer power, discussions of the generalizations from the more recent advancements have not learned anything from failures in the past.
There are reasons to be more sanguine about the advancements in use of multi-layered neural networks and learning systems, but these systems are qualitatively different from other types of computer processing and provide their own new challenges of scale. AI researchers remain challenged by dealing with domains that do not start with context-free data elements as inputs, which is most of what we human beings have to deal with every day.
1
I have been trying to get AI to work for years with absolutely no success. Try on-line translation. The companies or people that provide this service couldn't translate Happy Birthday if their lives depended on it. Recognition systems are not artificial intelligence, but computer comparisons----kids can match irregular shapes to irregularly shaped holes. by age 3 or less. Driving by GPS coordinates is not AI either. And if they want to tut some of those "sports stories" created as fillers, trump could even spot the FAKE ones.
I would disagree to the extent that many of the advances--such as automated writing of sports stories or driving by GPS--are examples of artificial intelligence, because I hold that if something is a sign of intelligence in a human being, and if a computer does it, that is a sign that the computer has intelligence.
The larger point is that more general intelligence and the harder problems of AI are still largely untouched. Still no ability to understand and produce language with anything like fluency; still no general ability to extract visual features from the environment and navigate around them, just better and better systems that solve relatively well-defined or narrow problems.
Labor saving devices mean just that. Less human labor is required. That "labor" was someone else's job. When the machines were less complex, we ourselves could program them. Hence al of the classes in Basic, C++ etc. But as the machines become more complex, incorporating 10's of thousands of man hours in every one, the average person will no longer be able to fix or program them. As a result, labor saving robots will make things easier for those with money, but provide few ways for those who don't already have money, to earn money. Moral of the story when it comes to the future: The future will be GRAND if you can afford it. Also, it's important that you've already inherited your wealth, because there will be less money on the table if you aren't already VERY HIGHLY skilled. Good thing Trump got rid of the Estate tax, right!
21
AI is fascinating when applied to decision analysis. I think it was MIT that recently did an analysis of economic decisions made by the Obama administration standard economic principles proven by regression analysis. The Obama administration made negative outcome decisions correlated with an 87% certainty. The model predicted lower wages and increased diversion between the high and low income earners. Thus, this data would have predicted that the failure of the Obama presidency. Perhaps, voters could make better decisions if this data was available to them.
Oddly enough, unemployment fell, the US budget deficit fell, economic growth continued. Hardly negative outcomes these.
11
what did it say about BUSH 1 and 2 and Reagan? There is a distinct racist note to this post. Actually without OBAMA , GE and AIG and many other companies would have gone belly up--it was the HUMAN decision that saved them.
3
What we're seeing in an increase in the percentage of jobs that automation will replace. But these machined still aren't AI and I wonder why we're throwing around the term when we're really just talking about programming.
Actual AI refers to programs that expand beyond their programming without any additional programming - self-thinking. Everything we're discussing here is, as I said, merely programming and not AI, which afaik doesn't yet exist.
15
Unsupervised AI learns to identify goals without programmer input. It does this by emulating nature via a network of artificial neurons. It currently is used to produce google news largely without human editors, for example. The emulation models are programmed by humans but not the output behavior. It is unlikely that the current generation AI based on digital emulation will proceed to general AI, but there are other techniques that are more power-efficient that may lead to general AI.
In order for A.I. to do a particular job It does not need to have a far ranging intellect. For example, to bake bread all you need to do is collect information from bakers. You don't need to know anything about mathematics or science.
Data is now being collected from almost everyone about every job often without our knowledge or permission. This valuable information is taken without payment to be used for profit. This is a huge wealth transfer that is going mostly unnoticed and unreported.
12
Attempts to codify expert knowledge have failed in the past because human experts typically lack explicit knowledge of how they do what they do. If codifying human expertise was the answer to AI, we would have had such systems 30 year ago.
2
In order for A.I. to do a particular job It does not need to have a far ranging intellect. For example, to bake bread all you need to do is collect information from bakers. You don't need to know anything about mathematics or science."
We can tell that YOU are not a baker. There are many types of bread so first you knead [sic] to know which one. The science of baking is very complex and yes, there is even math. chemical reactions are the heart of baking, requiring at some math. Even Wonderbread knows that.
Yes, "expert systems" failed because the job was much harder than expected. Like running the 4-minute mile.
Today's systems do not work by having a programmer sit down with an expert (or many) who codifies their knowledge. Rather, they absorb staggering amounts of data, and are programmed to look for different kinds of patterns in that data--by themselves.
Makes all the difference.
When I see current trends in AI and the expected impact on millions of workers, it makes me even more nervous about the current state of our government. Rather than slashing taxes, we should be investing in developing programs to retrain workers for 2030 and beyond. This is going to be a slowly unfolding train wreck with even more populist discord.
66
Chaos and instability will ensue if there are more without jobs.
But let's instead continue importing a million plus immigrants a year.
3
The populace is being reduced to consumers of a never-ending stream of photographs, images and words through our computers and smart phones. AI will massively accelerate this trend.
I have been immersed in the process of selling my family's house recently, and the modern buyer rarely has the ability to do repair or restoration work on a house - and typically even lacks the knowledge and experience to hire and supervise contractors. Rather than focus on complex, demanding, difficult work - which when accomplished provides lasting satisfaction, we are being conditioned to desire "photo-ready" cars, households and experiences. A client of mine trained as a mechanical engineer who is a brilliant fixer of electrical and mechanical devices - a man who can take a broken smart phone apart and solder it and reprogram it, says that nearly all items he buys as tools to make repairs are made in China.
The rise of AI as employed by the consumer/entertainment complex will quicken this shift. My personal prediction is that in a handful of years the smart phone enabled by voice-recognition technology and transformed into a small drone will fly alongside its owner feeding the population an AI-driven endless stream information designed to capture our attention - and life energies and money. A harbinger of this trend is all the young men in their 20s/30s who (metaphorically - if no longer physically) whittle away countless hours playing interactive video games .....
23
It won't be a drone. We'll wear it. Nobody will buy clothes anymore because "free" clothes will be given away doing exactly what you describe.
1
I wish more attention were given to consumption in articles on AI. It's one thing to suggest productivity gains on the one hand and job loss on the other from the adoption of AI. It seems another thing entirely to replace the loss of the consumption of goods and service due to job loss and wage stagnation. If the ultimate goal of every business is to reduce labor costs to as close to zero as possible, the impact on sales seems obvious.
44
Perhaps business itself then becomes less of a factor in society. Perhaps then we revert to some sort of Feudalism.
2
That's the basic issue explaining why the tax cut won't increase the average person's salary, or create new jobs: as more and more people lose their jobs, they stop buying stuff. This lowers the demand for goods (no job = no money to buy consumer goods = less need for manufacturing capacity = lower demand for equipment = layoffs = no job = ...). Lower demand for consumer goods means fewer jobs, in a downward spiral.
3
That's precisely the problem: a large part of our workforce will be permanently unable to find jobs.
That's what needs to be addressed.
1