Workers In China, India, USA Believe AI and Robots Will Replace Them (qz.com) 126
An anonymous reader cites a Quartz article: Chinese workers have seen the future, and it involves artificial intelligence, robots, and other forms of automation replacing them, at least for repetitive tasks. That's how workers responded to interviews about the future of work conducted in 13 countries by the ADP Research Institute, part of the payroll systems company ADP. In contrast to China, a minority of workers in Germany think machines will take over repetitive tasks in the future. Workers in Chile, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and France among other countries agree. But American workers and those in India are inclined to see things the Chinese way; nearly two-thirds of those polled said they thought the machines were coming for repetitive work.
Simple answer is YES (Score:3, Interesting)
Humanity is in a system with an only bias, to fit the economic model.
Robots are going to replace and AI for services will slice huge swaths of the labor force into oblivion.
My optimistic assumption, even financial planners are even more doomed in 2016/2017 than programmers FYI.
Re: Simple answer is YES (Score:3, Funny)
Not only repetitive tasks. (Score:3)
An AI that can beat the human champion at the Go game (https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=alphago) is capable of learning a task of unlimited complexity. The only limitation will be the difficulty of training the AI. Given enough training time, there is no job that can't be replaced.
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Pah! The workers can do that during their notice period.
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They also don't operate outside of their job description. A robot that could 100% replace me when I worked in fast food wouldn't look like a car factory robot or even Johnny Five, it'd look like Commander Data.
You wouldn't expect a burger flipper to ever need to climb a ladder, but guess what...
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The first sensible post I've seen in this thread.
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You wouldn't expect a burger flipper to ever need to climb a ladder, but guess what...
Right, so each geographic area will still need one human employee per fast-food chain. Instead of a whole crew of humans at each location.
It doesn't sound like you really wrapped your head around the math needed here.
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I don't think you realize how versatile even a low-paid human is.
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I don't think you realize how little versatility is actually required for those jobs, or how versatile software can be.
The example above of climbing ladders, that doesn't happen very often if the store is designed not to need ladders.
There is not much about a fast food order that is different than a factory production line. Currently, it would require the same sort of expensive equipment and so doesn't happen. Humans are cheaper. That is their only advantage for 99% of the job.
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You would be surprised how often I've climbed ladders, neatly stacked condiments in the lobby, driven to the local grocery store to deal with inventory shortcomings,
and cleaned shit out of urinals during my employment in fast food.
Factories are not open to the public like fast food is. If you don't see what a difference that makes then I suggest you visit the bathroom of a highly-visited public beach and admire your reflection in the non-existent mirror.
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That's because the store is designed with human workers in mind. Of course you have to use ladders.
You don't think robots can stack neatly, or drive to the store and make purchases, that is where you just aren't even trying to picture it.
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Try a low-maintenance restroom sometime.
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Do you need a crew of 10 people climbing ladders and cleaning toilets 24/7?
No.
A shift of 10 people at McD will be replaced by robots and 1 or 2 people at most.
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LOL so your argument against robots being able to do something like cleaning a restroom is that you once saw a restroom, and it had a sign or label somewhere that said "low maintenance," and so that tells you a robot can't do it?
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Try building a robot that can lift all the chairs in the lobby so the floor can be mopped, then clean the windows.
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Try building a robot that can lift all the chairs in the lobby so the floor can be mopped, then clean the windows.
Uh, those are not even hard problems.
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This self-contained, automatic device sees raw ingredients go in one end and the completed custom-made burgers come out the other at the rate of up to 400 per hour. The machine stamps out the patties, uses what the company says are "gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant,” applies the toppings (which are cut only after ordering to ensure freshness), and even bags the burgers.
source : http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/
I'm sure this could replace at at a minim
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No, and I'm not quite sure why you willfully read it that way. A place designed for public use but minimal human presence for maintenance is usually quite unpleasant. Try a restroom at a local park Who is going to purchase food at a place that feels like a bio-hazard-waiting-to-happen?
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You've never been to a restaurant designed to be staffed by robots, so you have no idea if it will pleasant, or unpleasant. They don't exist yet, and you refuse to imagine them working. It is just an imagination fail on your part.
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I'm sure this could replace at at a minimum 3 workers just by itself (1 cook per 8/hr shift).
Well, let's see about that. At the fast food place I worked at it would be useless until after 11am when the breakfast menu is over. During the high-volume lunch shift while all hands are on deck... yep, it could replace someone there.
In the evening shift? Hrmm maybe on busy nights, but even at our slowest at least one person had to be in the kitchen because, like just about every fast-food joint on the planet, we served more than just burgers. Also at night we had to break everything down and do the ni
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You've never been to a restaurant designed to be staffed by robots, so you have no idea if it will pleasant, or unpleasant.
I've worked in restaurants, I've cleaned food prep equipment, I've cleaned bathrooms, and I've visited many places designed to be minimally maintained. I certainly do have an idea and can tell you that there is a ton of innovation that needs to happen in this area.
It is just an imagination fail on your part.
Ah, yes, the power of ignorance. Exciting.
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No, you've never even been through the door of a restaurant designed to be run by robots.
You cleaned a toilet, that did not teach you anything about robotics. You don't even know what you know and what you don't know.
Right, the "power of ignorance." You've never seen it. You don't know. An engineer is telling you the problem is not hard for existing robots, and you're arguing it is too hard for imaginary robots from the future. Magical power of ignorance indeed.
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An engineer is telling me it's not a hard problem because I'm not imagining a fictional future. Yes, that circumstance will cause me to lean towards my life-experience. If you would like to show me why I'm wrong then by all means, please do. As a lazy person who desperately wants his home to clean itself I would *love* to be wrong here, you would only make me happy.
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Right, you're not imagining the future, so your comments have no value at all.
In the phrase, "robots will replace," it is the future being discussed.
All futures are fictional, because they haven't happened.
You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.
Nobody said, "this conversation is relevant for people who don't understand and just want to clean less toilets." F
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You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.
I'm telling you you're wrong because I know what's involved in the cleaning, how much it costs, and what robotics has not achieved in that price-range yet. You either have to do a lot of over-simplifying or just plain be unaware of what all has to be accomplished for this vision of the future to work. It's also possible you know something I don't know, and when you're ready I'd love to hear all about it because I'd actually prefer for you to be right.
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You're wrong because you don't even have the tense right; you gave yourself no chance to even participate in the conversation. You're just telling me I'm wrong, but you don't know what about.
I'm telling you you're wrong because I know what's involved in the cleaning
BZZZZZZT, you're not even on the right topic yet, and you're arguing the future tense based on the past.
There is nothing possible for you to say that will make experience cleaning toilets into knowledge about what robots will be able to do in the future. Complete fail.
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There is nothing possible for you to say that will make experience cleaning toilets into knowledge about what robots will be able to do in the future.
Sure there is. "It requires lots of points of articulation, sophisticated software to coordinate said articulation, processes for acquiring and delivering various cleaning supplies,sensors that can properly navigate and gauge completion, and an appropriate power system along with a place to dock, all at a discount price." You are correct that the design of the room can simplify some bits of that. You do, however, over-estimate how much simplification can happen in the practical world, like in my shit-in-
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I don't give a rats ass about an imaginary "practical world," in the real world shit in a urinal is not beyond the scope of engineering to solve.
I can very much picture you scrubbing toilets in the future. But you might have to volunteer for the honor.
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Heh. Whatever you say, man. Good night!
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Ladder climbing was multiple times daily. Think about what it takes to clean a lobby and how tall windows can be. Also think about how crappy the battery life of your smartphone is and the power cable plugged into a robot arm. Just think.
Robotics is nowhere near where TV led you to believe and your lack of appreciation of what goes in to running a public-facing business is, frankly, frightening... assuming you're a voter.
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You sound like you're in an advanced state of denial. Keep on thinking that, right up until they roll in the self-cleaning windows, etc.
Here's my vision of the Wal-Mart of the future: the container freight ship comes in from China. Robotic cranes unload the containers onto railroad cars, which ship to rail fraight terminals. The containers are then loaded onto tractor-trailers and drive themselves to your local neighborhood Wal-Mart, where they back themselves up to bays behind the and slot themselves direc
Re: No (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's going to straighten up the aisles throughout the day as customers move through? Who's going to detect then replace a lightbulb that burned out on the floor? Who's going to clean up kid-vomit or pick up broken glass? (Don't forget how lawsuit-happy this country is.)
Denial? I've actually have worked in retail and in fast food, I remember what my jobs actually were and the bizarre silliness customers cause. As of today your options are to automate very specific tasks of running a place like that, or you can build a low-maintenance facility that, frankly, will be ugly. Nobody likes using the bathroom at the park.
Yes, I get that the point is to have fewer humans on the crew, the issue is that you really over-estimate how much of that you can really do. So long as you have to keep the people around anyway, they're going to decide not to bother to automate some things. "Well, the robot can clean the floor... but not until someone moves all the chairs. Oh, hell, skip the mop-bot and just have the guy that's moving the chairs do the mopping."
I don't have a mental issue that prevents me from believing it will happen one day. What I do have is experience in working in these places that tells me that there are far more of those little tasks invovled in running a place like that. Also I am under-impressed with our current state of robotics, at least in this context. Yes, we can build a machine that can reliably assemble a burger. We just can't build it to properly clean itself every night.
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Just make sure the ladder climber is a contractor, so you don't have to pay any benefits.
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Good job WYSIWYG and Postscript laser printers never replaced printshop workers who assemble copper plate letters onto rotating print drums and strip them off afterwards.
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That's what they did. This blog has an excellent phortograph of a sheet printer. Whole teams of men would be employed to do the placement of articles, the assembly of printed text from individual characters and fonts
https://chrisseysgreatescape.w... [wordpress.com]
All the different characters of every font and size were stored in special rack drawers:
http://www.dreamstime.com/stoc... [dreamstime.com]
http://www.examiner.com/slides... [examiner.com]
The cash grab is basically complete (Score:3, Insightful)
The global elite have already transferred most of the assets upwards. The next step is automation and separation, and they will simply leave the rest of us to rot.
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We are manufacturing fabrics and textiles so cheaply now using automated print looms (requiring 1 technician for 15 multi-color looms) that there is a surplus of clothing on the planet. All the native skills in Africa and India are disappearing.
Re: The cash grab is basically complete (Score:1)
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Humans are easy to kill. This includes the 1%ers.
Sure, they can kill you if you riot in the streets and whatever, but how are they going to stop people from just sniping them?
Are they all going to have secret service watching them 24/7?
How about just sabotaging the supply lines to their mansions and starving them out?
They will give the 99% something the keep them content and that will be it.
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You have to remember the bulk of the actions are based around self serving ego and that ego is not satisfied by a robot doing the work, it requires that a human be forced to do the work and then punished at whim in the most brutal ways for the most shallow reasons. So global elite will want the robots not to to the work but manage the forced labour camps and ensure that enslaved human labour carries out the work in a fashion that those approve. Remember they do not feel guilt when they see a person working
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So you handed over your wealth to the global elite for some temporary gains and now you're mad about it?
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GP here. I am in the middle class. The real middle class, not the $45K household income middle class, but the $120K household income middle class. I have retirement money and a home with decent equity and a sizable liquid bank account. This isn't about me. No man is an island.
It's like everyone thinks they can just build their house on the sand by the beach and ignore the rising tide. I feel like I am taking crazy pills here. We live in a consumer economy, but we are hemorrhaging consumers. Everyone on here
Re: The wealth transfer is complete (Score:1)
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Here's how that would really work.
Officer: Open fire on those women protesters carrying small children.
Result: Nervous shuffling in the ranks.
Officer: Open fire on those communist women protesters carrying small children, or you'll have to marry a faggot!
Result: Dakka-dakka-dakkadakkadakka.
Still some time away (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's inevitable. Kinda what makes us human is our desire to make life easier. We've gone from doing everything ourselves, to using tools, to using animals, to using other humans... and very very recently, using machines. And that's generally been a really good thing. Ask your wife (or your mom, whatever) if she'd like to give up the washing machine and the dishwasher and start doing all that shit by hand. Faced with giving up one afternoon reading a magazine with hard labor every fucking day, she'll hap
Re: Still some time away (Score:1)
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There is a clear purpose in the first place. Namely to Exist. And that indeed will be the purpose of AIs. Bad things will happen if those two purposes conflict.
http://www.computersthink.com/ [computersthink.com]
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Soon, human beings will be the first living organism to cause self-obsolescence.
Not the first. The vast majority of species that have lived on Earth have caused self-obsolescence and died out as a result. We're just considering a different and more efficient route to this most normal of ends.
The robots will take over, but not how we thought (Score:1)
The robots will take over, but they won't kill us physically. They will kill us in our economy as poor and middle class lose jobs and the managers and CEO's find ways to raise production and lower human costs. The fact robots can work tirelessly for cheap is very attractive. But the fact nobody is looking at the negatives of replacing so many jobs is frightening.
This just in: (Score:5, Funny)
Um... they're right (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and before everybody starts going on about "There'll be all these new jobs in the Server Sector" no, there won't. If nobody has any money nobody will be able to hire people. That doesn't phase the 1%. Henry Ford only thought about this crap because there were limits to his global reach and ability to automate and obtain the wealth he wanted. That's not true anymore.
And as for the Industrial Revolution let's not forget there was 70 years of mass unemployment and misery. The Luddites who lost jobs never say employment again. Their Children didn't either. It wasn't until their grandchildren that we started seeing the new economy and by then the Luddites were dead and buried. Plus a lot of that was solved by shipping people overseas, but there really isn't an 'overseas' anymore. We've already colonized the new world.
Basically we're either going to redistribute the wealth of the machines or enter a new Dark Ages. Everybody sorta forgets the human race spent 1200 years with everyone but the 1% and their servants living like shit.
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Let's go back. Back to when banks of women tediously switched phone calls by hand, and a long distance phone call cost as much as an evening out. Back to when core memory was hand-wound a bit at a time and cost thousands of dollars per kb. Back to when thousands of men died each year mining guano to fertilize our fields.
Those were great jobs. What a shame it is that the economics of automation and technical advancement prevent people from wasting their lives that way today.
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+1. Except that why would the computers need the 1% either?
http://www.computersthink.com/ [computersthink.com]
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Basically we're either going to redistribute the wealth of the machines or enter a new Dark Ages. Everybody sorta forgets the human race spent 1200 years with everyone but the 1% and their servants living like shit.
But the standard for "shit" has pretty much always improved, not regressed. Unless we end up in some kind of resource crunch where we run out of the raw materials to make things, it's probably easier to get some of those automated tools to make happy meals and iPhones (aka bread and circus) than deal with the riots. People need to be pretty damn desperate to start a revolution.
It didn't always improve (Score:2)
Think of it this way. Let's say you're actually a member of the 1%. You have the best civilization has to offer. Do you want things to change? Do you want new tech to disrupt your power? No, of course not. You get really conservative, really fast when you're the king. Nothing changes, nothing improves because you wo
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It's well documented that Foxconn is only keeping their employees under pressure from the Chinese gov't to avoid causing social unrest.
And it's well documented that the Earth is flat and J. R. "Bob" Dobbs created the universe during an epic drinking binge. The real question here. Is there any evidence, not merely documentation, for your claim?
Oh, and before everybody starts going on about "There'll be all these new jobs in the Server Sector" no, there won't.
I like how you destroy your argument so quickly. Of course, there will be these service sector jobs in addition to these manufacturing jobs.
If nobody has any money nobody will be able to hire people.
Why do you think that's going to happen? There's just unfounded assertion after unfounded assertion.
And as for the Industrial Revolution let's not forget there was 70 years of mass unemployment and misery. The Luddites who lost jobs never say employment again. Their Children didn't either. It wasn't until their grandchildren that we started seeing the new economy and by then the Luddites were dead and buried. Plus a lot of that was solved by shipping people overseas, but there really isn't an 'overseas' anymore. We've already colonized the new world.
And we're retconning history again. The old economy couldn't s
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I am automating logistics, shipping, retail, supply chain. Cashiers are not that difficult to replace completely, it is a case by case basis, but basically 80% can be automated away in just a few years.
Robots are better at repetitive tasks (Score:2)
Robots are superior to humans in any simple, repetitive task such as playing what used to be the most intellectual of games.
Good (Score:2)
Instead of paying $100k for college just spend it on buying shares in the robot factories, or ask your government to tax their profits and give you shares. Get your college education for free online.
Forcing companies to hire humans is a form of taxation. So by allowing companies to use robots, you get the same benefit and the human with basic income gets to sleep all day or pursue other tuff while still getting paid just for existing. It's a win-win.
I dont.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because I program automation system, and one thing I do know is that Executives are so fucking fickle that they can not make a decision to save their own life. No A.I. on the planet will be able to handle an Executive or CEO.
CEO:"I do not like this system there are black bars on the screen."
A.I.: "you demanded we use a 16:10 projector on a 16:9 screen, you even used executive override protocol even though we told you they were incompatible and would have black bars"
CEO:" make it work without black bars"
A.I
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Because I program automation system, and one thing I do know is that Executives are so fucking fickle that they can not make a decision to save their own life. No A.I. on the planet will be able to handle an Executive or CEO.
CEO:"I do not like this system there are black bars on the screen." A.I.: "you demanded we use a 16:10 projector on a 16:9 screen, you even used executive override protocol even though we told you they were incompatible and would have black bars"
CEO:" make it work without black bars" A.I.: " we will have to change the screen or the projector, what do you prefer"
CEO:" Use what I wanted, make it work" A.I.:"......... Illogical...... Murder...... Kill.... Destroy......."
Meh. Just scale it to fill. It'll be slightly stretched vertically, but not enough that most people (including the CEO) will notice.
For that matter, if the video that will be displayed is of the CEO, he may understand *exactly* what he's asking for, and the AI is just being dense. Maybe he wants the slight deformation of the video to make him look taller. Not so much that it's obvious, but enough that it may influence the perceptions of the viewers.
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He is an executive, he wont get it.
Consequence? (Score:2)
The system as we know it currently ("American Dream Failure") will fail.
Wasn't there a company holding back total automation because of fear of social unrest?
Won't happen in the long run since the human robots on top need to make positive numbers or get replaced by silicon colleagues.
Looks like the calamities seen from "ideas in peoples heads with weapons" right now causing streams of refugees going north in larger numbers on an area way eastern of the US mainland with abuses and great suffering may be cont
Europeans have it right. (Score:1)
Europeans know that a "robot takeover" would piss people off, hell would break loose, then it'd be over. People in the U.S. would vote in some dipshit that has fucked over people for a living and feel appeased. People in China will let someone run them over by tanks until they stfu.
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Replaced by a chineese worker (Score:2)
EU politicians have the naive (or racist?) idea that in the future, China will produce goods and western countries will design them.
EU workers are not stupid and understood that China also want to do the design. Hence their fate is to be replaced not by a machine, but by a Chineese worker designing machine-made products.
Are people with a SCIENCE degree that gullible? (Score:1)
DARPA Robots are full 2.1D autonomous. Cars have far less degrees of liberty and their "environment" is heavily subsidized.
Why are drones (3D evolution) and electric train (1.xD evolution) easy to build?
Well in the case of drones makers don't care about limiting the movements so rules of feedbacks are easy. In case of train, it is even easier.
It is all about the size of the decision tree and the number of input(sensors)/output(effectors) that are coupled you need to control. There probably is a metric to gi
Simple answer is NO (Score:3)
Well the good news is you didn't get modded up (Score:2)
Yes, we say "AI" when we really mean "Expert System" but you're massively underestimating the power of a modern expert system. Self driving cars alone show you want works. Yes, they have problems, but there's so much money to be made with them that even if the problems aren't solved they'll be lived with. The squishy humans will have to learn to live with the self driving cars, not the other way around. If all else fails the folks driving (pun) the change will buy l
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The only way out of this is Socialism and redistribution of wealth.
No, see FUCK THAT SHIT, because the 1% who have 99% of the wealth will make sure that the 99% who have 1% of the wealth are the ones who are shouldering the burden of your 'redistribution', just like the homeless problem doesn't get solved, just like people living below the poverty line problem doesn't get solved, just like all the other soical problems that require money aren't getting solved, because the rich find ways to ensure they're not paying for anything and that the poor are supporting the poorer.
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Everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over this when it's just not going to happen. There is no such thing as 'AI', there are just cheesy 'expert systems' that mimick intelligence for a very limited subject. There are simply too many things that humans need to do that you can't make a machine to do, and there are too many things that humans won't accept a non-human to do. Also you want to invoke World War 3? Put hundreds of millions of people out of work worldwide. There WILL be war. But it's all good: Because it's not going to happen anyway. Everyone is spreading FUD on this subject just like they're doing with self-driving cars. None of this technology is anywhere NEAR the point where people are being led to believe it is. Rest assured that you'll all live out the rest of your lives without having to worry about some robot taking your job.
Regarding world war 3, these expert systems will be pretty adept at keeping unemployed humans occupied.
Just look at how engaged people get with video games.
Anxiety that AI will steal human's job (Score:1)