VC Founder Predicts AI Will Take 50% Of All Human Jobs Within 10 Years (cnbc.com) 451
An anonymous reader quotes CNBC:
Robots are likely to replace 50 percent of all jobs in the next decade, according to Kai-Fu Lee, founder of venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures and a top voice on tech in China. Artificial intelligence is the wave of the future, the influential technologist told CNBC, calling it the "singular thing that will be larger than all of human tech revolutions added together, including electricity, [the] industrial revolution, internet, mobile internet -- because AI is pervasive"...
For example, he said, companies in which his firm has invested can accomplish feats such as recognizing 3 million faces at the same time, or dispersing loans in eight seconds. "These are things that are superhuman, and we think this will be in every industry, will probably replace 50% of human jobs, create a huge amount of wealth for mankind and wipe out poverty," Lee said, later adding that he expected that displacement to occur in the next 10 years.
For example, he said, companies in which his firm has invested can accomplish feats such as recognizing 3 million faces at the same time, or dispersing loans in eight seconds. "These are things that are superhuman, and we think this will be in every industry, will probably replace 50% of human jobs, create a huge amount of wealth for mankind and wipe out poverty," Lee said, later adding that he expected that displacement to occur in the next 10 years.
Sooner, or later (Score:2, Interesting)
While this schedule seems a little too aggressive, such a thing will happen eventually. Others put it at 25-30 years out. We need to modify our economic systems, now, to prevent future chaos (and, perhaps, revolution).
Re:Sooner, or later (Score:5, Interesting)
While this schedule seems a little too aggressive, such a thing will happen eventually.
The heat death of the universe will also happen eventually. A prediction without a time window is meaningless. There is a huge difference between AI replacing jobs over the next 50 years, and replacing them in 10 years, which is way too quickly for society to adapt.
Re: Sooner, or later (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, please rephrase your command. There is insufficient detail to proceed. If you feel I am in error, please contact BotsInc to report a fault.
Guess they advocate Basic Income then? (Score:2, Insightful)
If the jobs are gone, how are the people going to live? Significantly disgruntled people, armed and/or in larger groups, are really going to increase the maintenance costs of AI...
Like they do in most of the rest of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Like they do in most of the rest of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not an option in America, the people are too smart and too well armed to stand for that.
I live in Texas, I own AR-15s and hunting rifles...
They will be completely useless against battle robots deployed to keep order by the elite...
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In horrific poverty lacking food security.
That's not an option in America, the people are too smart and too well armed to stand for that.
You say that when Donald Trump is President of the United States. I guess I agree on the well-armed part. But people have shown that they are quite susceptible to having their attention diverted from the real source of their difficulties.
Re:Guess they advocate Basic Income then? (Score:4, Interesting)
If the jobs are gone, how are the people going to live?
The bottom quintile of households already get 40% of their income from redistribution. If the "AI revolution" really does lower the cost of production to the point that it is no longer worth paying a human to make stuff, then everything will be so cheap that even today's level of redistribution will mean enough for everyone.
Re:Guess they advocate Basic Income then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the top 2% will own the means of production therefore ensuring monopolies with high prices.
You think a Mom and Pop shop can buy $90,000 worth of robots to start a business?
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You think a Mom and Pop shop can buy $90,000 worth of robots to start a business?
Why do you think a robot will cost $90k? Robots will drop in price just as fast as everything else. 100 pounds of aluminum currently costs about $90. Once human bauxite miners are replaced with robot miners, it will cost even less. Just use a sintering 3D printer to make the parts, and the rest is just software, which has a marginal cost of $0.
The first automobiles were luxuries that cost ten times the median annual salary. Early computers cost millions. Today, cars and computers can be owned by anyon
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Why do you think a robot will cost $90k?
Because people will always want the latest and greatest.
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The robots will probably cost $90k, $5k/year to maintain, and $15k/year to fuel. They'll also likely do the work of 5 $20k/year workers for that. ROI will be slightly over 1 year.
Billy Gates is posing a false dichotomy and misrepresenting facts, though: basically all businesses start with a small business loan, and $90k is nothing. I've seen people with little more than a high school diploma get near $1M out of a bank for an LLC to open up a gay-themed coffee shop (in an area with lots of gay people b
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The bottom quintile of households already get 40% of their income from redistribution.
Actually, our welfare system is so shoddy the bottom quintile in the US usually live off what they have. I've worked with people who made under $20,000, no welfare, and supported themselves and a non-working dependent (girlfriend); it's doable, albeit shitty. Note that that's a full-time, 40-hour, barely-above-minimum-wage job (at the time, minimum wage was around $7/hr); most minimum-wage workers are getting part-time, unstable hours, so living off minimum-wage is hard because you don't usually actually
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Significantly disgruntled people, armed and/or in larger groups, are really going to increase the maintenance costs of AI
First, the rich could just kill all poor humans. That is a very radical way to get rid of the problem, but possible. It could be out of some ecological argument, that if you created full economic equality for all humans, the earth would be so abused within a few decades, it wouldn't be a nice place to live.
They could drive a very gentle approach: legalize some cool new drug that maybe makes infertile when being used too much. Then the poor would become less every generation.
I doubt that will happen though,
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Consider jobs of existing workers like robot removal technician. A human sitting at a desk watching robots remove and pack up other robots that have stopped working on CCTV. Cheaper to replace a robot than fix it on site?
Watch and sign over other robots installing the replacement robot.
The people who will never be trainable will just go on to means tested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] benefits as they move fr
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Significantly disgruntled people, armed and/or in larger groups, are really going to increase the maintenance costs of AI...
Terminators... or something like them...
Sooner or later, an army will equip battle robots, first as close support heavy weapons mechs to work with humans in warzones, they are who stick their heads around corners and provide suppression fire.
Then they will come home... not to take us over like in The Terminator, but to obey their elite masters without question...
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This will create prosperity , but only for the owners of the AI.
The "owners of AI" will be anyone will a cellphone.
The rest of us (99.9% of the population) will either starve or suffer in poverty.
Who is going to stop you from running an AI engine on your GPU? The same people that stop common people from owning cars and computers?
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The "owners of AI" will be anyone will a cellphone.
There is some kind of slider here how AI will look like when it transforms the industry, based on how available AI is to many people. One one side of the slider, AI will be some secretive technology, controlled by very few people, who get very rich in the process of applying it to the economy, sucking up large parts of it. On the other side, AI will be available to everyone, allowing everyone to use it.
I don't think there is much of a difference between these models, only in how much money the AI companies
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One thing still remains: access to resources. Unless you leave earth, its still limited (if you leave earth, its virtually unlimited).
There are plenty of resources that to the best of our current knowledge can only come from earth, including life based resources. Even if content to live without what we think of as great food, you probably will encounter a dearth of basics like petroleum and wood while zipping around the universe.
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Unless you leave earth, its still limited (if you leave earth, its virtually unlimited)
Unless you have a magic 500% efficient propulsion system up your sleeve it is safe to say If you leave Earth everything is extremely limited.
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The "owners of AI" will be anyone will a cellphone.
Who is going to stop you from running an AI engine on your GPU? The same people that stop common people from owning cars and computers?
The catch is what data set is your pocket AI going to operate on, and to what end? You think the same information that multinationals, big financial institutions, and governments will use to rule the lives of billions of people is going to be available to you?
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The "owners of AI" will be anyone will a cellphone.
Your cell phone isn't armed... :)
The elites will be...
Let me just unstrap my jetpack (Score:2)
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before I heartily endorse this, and all other, predictions about $TECHNOLOGY in the future.
I keep my jetpack in my flying car so it's always close at hand.
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....
I keep my jetpack in my flying car so it's always close at hand.
Because you never know when you're flying car's gonna break down and don't want to get stuck up there on the astro highway.
It's already happening... (Score:5, Informative)
Whole new homes in some Chinese subdivisions being built by robots!
The other day, from a distance, I saw a whole section of a shipping yard in Rotterdam entirely being managed by robots. I saw exactly 3 human beings driving around. This is in an area the size of 8 football fields and tens of thousands of shipping containers.
Re:It's already happening... (Score:5, Insightful)
Building and maintaining robots are two tasks that are good candidates for automation.
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Re:It's already happening... (Score:4, Interesting)
and instead you now have thousands of jobs maintaining and building those robots. jobs are evolving, robots are better at repetitive/dangerous/mundane tasks.
Actually, no... you have dozens of jobs maintaining and building those robots that replaced thousands of workers...
It isn't a 1 to 1 replacement ratio, that is what most people miss...
Re:It's already happening... (Score:4, Informative)
Labor automation must result in a net loss of jobs, or it wouldn't exist.
That is not true, and there are plenty of historical examples to the contrary.
Jevon's Paradox [wikipedia.org] occurs when lower prices due to more efficient production leads to even more demand. So if a product uses half as much labor per unit, but demand goes up by a factor of ten, then you still need five times as many workers as you started with.
Even if the amount of labor needed for a product falls, the savings will be spent/invested elsewhere in the economy, where it may produce even more jobs than were lost. This happened when manufacturing jobs disappeared in developed countries, and were replaced by lower paying, yet more numerous, service jobs.
Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
"Creat[ing] a huge amount of wealth" won't "wipe out poverty" unless we find a new method for distributing that wealth.
Re:Basic Income (Score:4, Interesting)
Since about 1980, trickle-down has been failing more and more, in many countries. The "market" ain't working well for about 90%. GDP's grow, but most don't receive the benefits of that growth. Time for a Plan B.
I suspect your head has been filled with anti-government and anti-tax propaganda from the right and big corporations who bribe heavily to keep and grow their turf.
USA is full of really fat cats, and full of lots of rotting bridges, road, dams, and pipes. Something is out of kilter.
Re:Basic Income (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Basic Income (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems to be true. Look elsewhere in the world. The US has a weird government-industrial complex that doesn't seem to be the least bit efficient. Moving towards a nice modern mixed economy like almost all the other wealthy nations have would probably do wonders.
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There are two methods of distributing wealth: voluntarily through markets, and using force through the government. The first one works, the second one doesn't.
For the already wealthy, yes. Money has been redistributed to them quite efficiently by market forces.
Re:Basic Income (Score:5, Informative)
(Absolute) poverty has already been wiped out in the US.
Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.
https://www.nokidhungry.org/problem/hunger-facts
It must be said... (Score:2)
They took our jobs!!! [youtube.com]
likely to replace 50% of all *existing* human jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
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likely to replace 50% of all *existing* human jobs
That is a true statement, but I don't see AI advances generating more than 2%-5% of new jobs.
Unless you care to tell me where 50% of new replacement jobs will come from? AI trainers?
not new news (Score:2)
*facepalm* (Score:4, Insightful)
The people who understand least about how AI technology works are heralding its imminent takeover of our society.
Yeah, okay. (Score:2)
I think I begin to understand (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading this, I think I begin to understand how startups are able to convinced fools....erh, eh hem..."venture capitalists" to part with those millions.
"Disperse" -- really? (Score:3)
To "disburse" a loan means to get money from the bank.
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Wipe out poverty by increasing unemployment? (Score:5, Insightful)
"These are things that are superhuman, and we think this will be in every industry, will probably replace 50% of human jobs, create a huge amount of wealth for mankind and wipe out poverty," Lee said.
Theoretically, this could indeed wipe out poverty, if, say, all of those replaced humans are automatically given the profit generated by their AI replacement (leaving them free to pursue separate businesses, leisure activities, etc.). If, however, the corporation that owns the AIs decided to keep the profits, poverty would be drastically increased.
Which do you think is more likely? Distribution of profits to unemployed people, or distribution of profits to wealthy C-level executives and investors?
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Which do you think is more likely? Distribution of profits to unemployed people, or distribution of profits to wealthy C-level executives and investors?
For the most part in this case: Neither. As robots/AI decrease the cost of a good or service, the good or service sells for less.
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In a perfect world where the profit itself remains stable... then yes.. as the production cost goes down.. the outward cost to the consumer goes down.. but that will never happen... Companies are not investing in AI to make "cheaper" goods.. they are doing it to increase profits.. which means THEIR value goes up.. the outward cost will remain as it is.. which mean increased profits.. And with a reduced head count, the ancillary costs of human workers goes away further increasing the cost.. (Enticement progr
Re:Wipe out poverty by increasing unemployment? (Score:5, Interesting)
Very funny.
Poverty exists not because of a lack of resources or productivity. Poverty exists because of the extreme unequal distribution of wealth. If there was the political will to fix wealth distribution, we could eliminate poverty today.
So, no, AIs will not wipe out poverty. AIs will increase wealth inequality and with it, increase poverty.
10 Years Sounds Fast (Score:4)
But within 20 years? Yeah, could happen.
Foolishness (Score:2)
Just as the computer industry has been horrible for employment - all those computing jobs stolen by machines. Work expands to new fields once old ones are satisfied.
I have no doubt that 50% of all current jobs will at least be threatened within 10 years. And I have no doubt that the number of people employed will INCREASE.
Atomic Fantasy (Score:3)
Future Babble (Score:2)
Nobody can predict the future, especially for technologies not invented yet.. What was Kai-Fu Lee doing in 2007 (ten years ago)? He was working for Google China. We all know how that went.
-Matt
Re:Future Babble (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody can predict the future, especially for technologies not invented yet.
Sure people can. Arthur C. Clarke predicted satellites and Karel Capek predicted robots. And George Orwell and Franz Kafka might just have had their timing slightly off.
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This is survivor's fallacy. Think about all the other thousands, millions maybe, predictions that did not come true. Clarke also had a bizarre prediction about bio-engineered "super chimpanzees". I don't know about you, but my helper monkey is worthless most of the time.
-Matt
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This is survivor's fallacy.
No, it is not. I never said reliably. But there were predictions made that did come true, which falsifies the claim that nobody can predict the future. You only need a single instance to falsify a claim, but cannot prove anything through majority. Claiming that nobody can predict the future and backing it up with any number of examples of failed predictions is indeed a No Black Swans fallacy.
Or to put it another way, I can with high certainty predict who will win the World Series and UEFA cup next year.
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I will also have a much larger number of failed predictions. That does not invalidate the correct predictions.
It sure as hell does.
It's the ratio of correct to incorrect predictions that determines predictive ability.
Or? (Score:2)
Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
"Robots are likely to replace 50 percent of all jobs in the next decade, according to Kai-Fu Lee"
Bullshit. It's unlikely in the extreme that half of all jobs will be taken by robots in 10 years. It'll take at least 12 or 15years before that happens.
FTFY (Score:2)
Generating great wealth? (Score:3)
Sorry, in a capitalist society, put enough people out of work and the system collapses. Period. Just look at Detroit or any major steel based City on the East coast.
And the people will do what? (Score:5, Insightful)
50% in 10 years seems awfully optimistic. But suppose it's 50% in 20 years. It really does not matter, but this does:
What are all these soon to be unemployed people supposed to DO, exactly?
The people aren't going to vanish the moment they are made redundant. They'll still be here, needing to pay the same bills and eat and so on. And the birthrate isn't slowing down. We are making more and more people every day and they'll all need jobs too.
History has repeatedly shown that high unemployment with no hope of finding work leads to massive crime as people have nothing else to do and no options. It can be argued society does not owe anyone a job or welfare payments just for existing. Fine. But society won't like or want what happens when AI takes away so many jobs. The civil unrest WILL be society's problem to solve.
I don't see a way out unless we have massive population curbs, which simply will not happen. It will probably get much worse as people with nothing else to do will spend a lot of time making babies. I am just glad I have no kids who will have to live in the world that should be going to hell in a hurry around the time I die.
OMG! (Score:2)
If you replace all the horse drawn carriages with automobiles, what will all the stable hands, whip makers, and wagon makers do! The sky is falling! Let's turn communist while we still can, lest everybody starve!
Personal (Score:5, Interesting)
AI predictions should all be taken with a grain of salt.
However, my wife recently told me about a consumer product CAD software demo she saw at a trade show that would more or less eliminate her job, or at least greatly reduce the people employed in her specialty.
Using large databases of existing drawings of particular product types, along with AI, it would guess most of the design specifics based off rough sketches and operator selections of similar designs from the database, Google-image-search-like. It also automatically generates different sizes, such as shoe sizes. Humans then tune the result.
Her job is a well-paying position right now if you are good. Such software would still require design inspectors and tuners, but that's less labor intensive than direct from-scratch CAD. If half your profession's labor is made obsolete, your wages and career options will likely drop.
She gives her profession about 5 more viable years.
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You have one of the best posts on this topic...
It isn't all-or-nothing, there is a gray area... humans will still be needed, but as more things become "human helper to the robot" type thing, it reduces the options...
Whats with the BS reporting? (Score:2)
First, "robots" are not "AI". Robots are generally driven by low-level automation that does not even qualify as weak AI (i.e. the "AI" with no actual intelligence). Second, 50% of all jobs in 10 years? No way. Even the administrative processes for that would take longer if the technology was available, ready, reliable and well understood.
Basically all this shows is how clueless VCs are.
My prediction (Score:5, Funny)
Not the logical conclustion I see... (Score:3)
How is this supposed to happen as opposed to "Create a huge amount of wealth for a tiny minority and increase poverty."?
Serious question.
Destroying the ladder of success. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not long ago, the demand for a $15 minimum hourly wage was brought up. The greedy corporate answer? Install automation instead. Because it's cheaper.
Back when going to college didn't mean taking out a mortgage-level loan, think about what you did to pay for it. Perhaps you worked a cash register, at a grocery store or a fast food restaurant. Or perhaps you worked as a waiter or waitress. These are exactly the kinds of lower level jobs that are being targeted for eradication by automation.
We tell all young people in order to succeed one must climb the proverbial ladder of success. However, when Greed chooses to remove the last four or five rungs from that ladder, it tends to make it rather impossible for anyone to climb.
You really only have to destroy 10 - 20% to create chaos. By the time we reach 50%, the global Welfare state will be established.
Oh, and once you remove the point of human employment, you also tend to remove the point of educating a human, so higher education will become an extinct concept as well.
Wipe out poverty? (Score:3)
So, he thinks we will replace 50% of human jobs and that will somehow wipe out poverty? It seems he hasn't noticed that when a huge amount of wealth is created, it often doesn't result in reducing poverty. Will AI be replacing Capitalism too?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lol no (Score:5, Insightful)
lol at "recognizing faces" means replacing jobs.
Indeed. Human level face recognition software already exists and it has replaced approximately zero jobs. If you look at productivity growth, it is clear that the pace of humans being replaced by machines is actually slowing down, as service jobs are proving much harder to automate than the manufacturing jobs that disappeared a few decades ago.
This VC's Chicken Little prognosticating is not based on evidence.
Re:Lol no (Score:4, Insightful)
as service jobs are proving much harder to automate than the manufacturing jobs that disappeared a few decades ago
But just like pirating music is much easier than creating counterfeit CDs, the automation of services jobs will be nearly effortless compared to what it took to automate manufacturing jobs. No need to buy millions of dollars of robotics equipment, just add the service-bot module to your Salesforce subscription and 90% of your service team can be let go. It is obviously more difficult to create this level of AI than it was to create manufacturing robots, or else we would have had them a few decades ago as well. But once we do have them the disruption will be an order of magnitude faster.
The way things are going now with speech and visual pattern recognition, there are numerous industries which could see this level of disruption in a decade or two.
Re:Lol no (Score:5, Interesting)
Most humans, especially Americans, already hate automated service of any kind. Being served by an actual human is a luxury that signifies status whereas being transferred to the automated voice answering system, no matter how sophisticated, only serves to reinforce the relative insignificance of the person receiving the "service". The fact that the automated answering system generally sucks donkey balls only adds to the indignity of the experience. Humans are biased, prejudiced, judgemental and demanding. This makes them very difficult to satisfy, especially with a machine that attempts to substitute for a human interaction. Manufacturing was different because there was little or no human interaction there, what mattered was the finished good received. Service jobs are an entirely different animal and I don't see AI replacing humans there anytime soon, at least at businesses which care about their customers and prefer not to give them the middle finger by transferring them to automated phone tree hell.
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Most humans, especially Americans, already hate automated service of any kind.
Indeed, this is why a fancy sit-down restaurant can charge a lot more than a cafeteria. People pay for human provided massages, facials, hair treatments, etc. even though there are machines that can do those things far cheaper. There are plenty of jobs that aren't going away.
Re:Lol no (Score:5, Insightful)
All jobs don't have to go away for it to become a problem...
Simply removing paid drivers may well be enough to push us over the edge, but we shall see...
The numbers are not on your side, sadly...
Re: Lol no (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming there will be human customers. There won't be.
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Most humans, especially Americans, already hate automated service of any kind. Being served by an actual human is a luxury that American consumers are not willing to pay for.
FTFY
Given time I'm sure you could find thousands of examples of automated and mass production products and services which are not as good as labor intensive alternatives. From furniture to food to customer services. In each case customers certainly prefer the human touch, but in nearly every case they are unwilling to pay for it. They may say they are willing to pay more on customer surveys, but that rarely materializes into actual sales.
Also in this case, automated voice answering systems are just one smal
Re:Lol no (Score:4, Insightful)
Most humans, especially Americans, already hate automated service of any kind. Being served by an actual human is a luxury that signifies status whereas being transferred to the automated voice answering system, no matter how sophisticated, only serves to reinforce the relative insignificance of the person receiving the "service".
Call me a counter-example, but I generally order take-out once a week through a website rather than calling in the order. When I go see a movie, it is preferable to order the ticket online or use the automated kiosk than waiting in line. I would say a good portion of my shopping is done online as well.
Re: Lol no (Score:2)
Supply and demand wasn't a problem when slavery was legal. Humans own the AI.
Re: Lol no (Score:5, Interesting)
Taken at face value, 500 million Chinese unemployed, 200 million Russians unemployed, 200 million Europeans unemployed, 150 million Americans unemployed, at least two billion people in the rest of the world unemployed. That means a lot of hungry, restless people struggling to survive. This presents a nightmare for conservative libertarian Republicans and their counterpart politicians around the world. Guaranteed annual incomes for starving billions, while robot servants serve up their meals, build their houses, tailor their clothes, build and maintain their infrastructures? Conservative anathema.
All living creatures tend to multiply during easy times. The worst scenario that could happen is that we fill up our planet with people and deplete our essential resources. The second worst outcome (for most) is that authoritarian governments would impose a one child per family policy world wide and enforce it. The third worst outcome is that robot soldiers would battle for power in an armageddon for resources leaving the world in smoldering ashes.
The best possible scenario is that we would swing in our hammocks, sipping mai-tais, cheering our NFL robot teams clashing on the gridiron twelve months of the year. Pick your sport, same outcome.
Re: Lol no (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? There will be more wealth. Employment is just a mechanism for distributing it. Yes, if half of people lose their jobs and the idiots at the top don't figure out a new way to spread the money around then there will be a bloody revolution. As there should be.
Re: Lol no (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if half of people lose their jobs and the idiots at the top don't figure out a new way to spread the money around then there will be a bloody revolution.
When have those idiots ever figured that out? Any business wants to pay people as little as possible while retaining as much as possible for said idiots. That won't change until they realize the benefits of broad-based prosperity. But that reduces their level of power and control. AI doesn't change that equation. If anything, businesses will like it precisely because it reduces their labor costs.
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After 19 vodkas (i.e. mid-morning) It looks like there's 388m.
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In Putin's Russia there are so many jobs everyone has two - and will soon be out of both of them!
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Re:Lol no (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unsurprising that there is resistance to this idea.The implications (more on that below) are horrific.The fact, though, is that robots and AIs are becoming rapidly more capable, and denial is not going to prevent organizations from selecting the most cost effective way to get jobs done. Even if the robot/AI solution has some limitations, the profit motive will win out (as anyone who has used call centers staffed by people who cannot communicate effectively in your language should recognize).
What are the implications? The most obvious is mass unemployment/under employment. This is going to create a huge disadvantaged class in rich countries. Proposals for a national basic income are well meaning, but unrealistic. It might happen in a very limited number of smaller countries, like Finland, but the elites in most countries who decide such matters will never willingly allow some of their wealth to be given to "non productive" members of society.
The BBC ran an interesting opinion piece recently (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170418-how-western-civilisation-could-collapse [bbc.com]) that predicted a breakdown of Western civilization if gross and increasing levels of inequality continue to occur. I think those predictions ring true. Further, the piece does not even consider the problems introduced by huge segments of the population becoming completely surplus to the elite's needs.
There will be valuable jobs those displaced by robots and AIs could do, but they will be of no economic benefit to the elites to would have to put up the money to finance them.
Ever since I was a child, I have been reading about how automation would create more leisure time, and the challenge being how that leisure time will be used. The reality of the last 40 years is that those with jobs work harder than ever for the same or less money in real terms. Total wealth has increased, but (the predictions of trickle down economics notwithstanding) virtually all the increase has gone to the already wealthy.
Re:Lol no (Score:4, Insightful)
India and China were prosperous and thriving nations accounting for 25% of the world GDP. Industrial revolution in Europe just destroyed their way of life and were left begging.
Re: Lol no (Score:4, Insightful)
Current AI isn't even able to compete against a single ant in its decision making capability. And unlike a 2 decades ago, the bottleneck isn't hardware or capacity related. We just can't seem to make the algorithm "smart" enough.
When ppl talk about AI, they normally mean automation of procedures and processes. It has lost almost all of its meaning today. If you were to look at many large corporations today, especially in the retail and manufacturing sectors, you will see that at least 50% of the processes could be automated 10 YEARS AGO.
For one reason or another, most of that automation just simply does not have the ROI. 50% of the jobs TODAY will be automated in 25 years... sure. But by then we would have totally replaced them with others. I don't think there has been anything close to the job disruption as the industrial automation, and rail.... and we got through them.
Also India, US, and Hong Kong benefitted immensely from the U.K.s industrial revolution. They were the raw materials providers. It wasn't until the latter years when U.K. severely started to dump its debt onto the colonies via absurd taxes (cotton, tea, tobacco, salt, etc) that each reached a reflection point in their economics and sought independence. While the US reached it first, kept an open market, and took up the industrialization; India took a long time (~1950), had a civil war, became communist, and closed off its markets... It was that "protected and planned" market that collapsed India after Russia couldn't subsidize them anymore.
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By all means: leave out health care, the relative cost of which has more than tripled since 1960, from 5% of GDP to nearly 18% and housing costs have also risen sharply over the same period. Don't just focus on areas where costs have improved. That is called "cherry picking".
One of these things is not like the others (Score:2)
"replace 50% of human jobs, create a huge amount of wealth for mankind and wipe out poverty"
I agree with you, only two of these things are achievable. You can either eliminate 50% of jobs, or wipe out poverty. You can't do both.
A huge amount of wealth will be created either way.
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You can either eliminate 50% of jobs, or wipe out poverty. You can't do both.
Sure you can. Wages are not the only way for people to get money.
Once production requires little or no labor, goods and services will have little or no cost, so the cost of supporting the poor through redistribution will be negligible. We can do it with even lower taxes than we have now.
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Once production requires little or no labor, goods and services will have little or no cost, so the cost of supporting the poor through redistribution will be negligible. We can do it with even lower taxes than we have now.
We *can*, that doesn't mean we *will*, careful that you don't confuse the two...
Supporting the poor just gets you more poor people, feeding all those hungry people in Africa sounds nice and makes idiots feel good, but it just causes more poor people who can't support themselves in Africa to be born, pretty soon you have too many people to support.
The one possibility that I can see working is population control, if you accept free crap, no more kids for you...
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And what exactly would be the reason anybody would want to be educated if the computers and robots are doing all the work?
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When you look at the U6 numbers, we're hovering between 30%-40% unemployment in America already, due to EXACTLY the situations you proclaim (we hide it behind "disabilities" where people only suited for those kinds of work are now "disabled" and on "permanent disability").
Yes, I foresee a day when 90% of US Citizens are idle, and on some sort of government welfare check or living off the wealth of previous generations.
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There is no way robots could make the items in a McDonald's menu.
Hot food vending machines[*] are already a normal thing in Japan, and both China and San Fransisco have robot operated restaurants.
[*] And used to be a thing in the Western world too. Anyone else remember inserting a coin to watch a machine squeeze out a ring of dough which went into boiling oil, then onto a conveyor belt, and deposited in a tray in front of you? Or coin operated coffee machines?
Both are hard to find now, but that's not because they didn't work, but because people are idiots, will burn th
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Im really not sure how good AI will be at replacing peasant farmers.
Ever looked at a modern farm? They're quite automated. Farms have control rooms these days, where the computers sit that control the watering, pest control, harvesting, sorting and many other tasks. The peasant farmer isn't needed anymore, an agricultural engineer does the job of dozens of peasant families.
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You probably are correct, and I often suspect that people making predictions like this are hoping to make a buck off suckers that decide to too blindly invest or even divest based on the info. This VC may be looking to unload shares in what they now know to have been bad investments. If they can prompt an upswing in value and buying interest through some press, they might be able reduce their eventual losses or even avoid them all together.