AI replacing human workers soon...

a reply to: TommyD1966

I guess I really never understood the concern about automation 'taking our jobs.'

Yes, technology will always reduce the amount of physical labor required, but people/society tend to adapt:

- The wheel - now fewer people can move more things easier
- Printing press/moveable type - so now we don't need 100 monks to copy books
- Steam engine
- Cotton gin
Etc.

Society moves on.

Now, yes, short term there may be labor issues (people losing jobs) but overall, long term, I don't see any of this as bad.

The key here is the I part of it.

Think of cars vs self driving cars. Now suddenly millions of cab, bus, truck drivers are no longer needed. Not even ourselves will be needed to drive our own cars and this is happening right now.

Now think about a car plant in the 60´s, it had tens of thousands of workers, now a Tesla factory how many workers? Not many. And its nothing but a very well programmed factory, I guess its not AI driven yet.

Foxconn replaced months ago, a few hundreds of thousands of workers by AI robots, the next two million are on the line to be fired too.

About a month ago a chinese company bought KUKA, the largest small robots manufacturer in Germany and in the world probably. These are 15.000 usd robots to replace human workers at assembly lines.

As in everything related to technology these days, the growth will be exponential, soon we will have robots building robots 24/7/365

This never happened before.

originally posted by: CrapAsUsual
a reply to: TommyD1966

I guess I really never understood the concern about automation 'taking our jobs.'

Yes, technology will always reduce the amount of physical labor required, but people/society tend to adapt:

- The wheel - now fewer people can move more things easier
- Printing press/moveable type - so now we don't need 100 monks to copy books
- Steam engine
- Cotton gin
Etc.

Society moves on.

Now, yes, short term there may be labor issues (people losing jobs) but overall, long term, I don't see any of this as bad.

The key here is the I part of it.

Think of cars vs self driving cars. Now suddenly millions of cab, bus, truck drivers are no longer needed. Not even ourselves will be needed to drive our own cars and this is happening right now.

Now think about a car plant in the 60´s, it had tens of thousands of workers, now a Tesla factory how many workers? Not many. And its nothing but a very well programmed factory, I guess its not AI driven yet.

Foxconn replaced months ago, a few hundreds of thousands of workers by AI robots, the next two million are on the line to be fired too.

About a month ago a chinese company bought KUKA, the largest small robots manufacturer in Germany and in the world probably. These are 15.000 usd robots to replace human workers at assembly lines.

As in everything related to technology these days, the growth will be exponential, soon we will have robots building robots 24/7/365

This never happened before.

But none of these things happen overnight (even if exponential).

And, in full disclosure, I sell what is essentially productivity software. But it is not to 'replace' people - it is to allow companies to grow without having to add commensurate resources.

Robots need fixing, automatic cars need servicing, etc. People can't expect to have a job forever.

I mean, if you were working a newspaper press only, say, 10 years ago, would you really think that "yup, I've got a job for life!" You need to be able to (at least try to) see what is on the horizon and adjust accordingly.

a reply to: TommyD1966

When in high school I worked in fast food. You could tell when GM was laying off because we would have a flood of applicants from the laid off factory workers. Soon, yes very soon, those food jobs will be gone. Soon, very soon those GM jobs will be greatly reduced.
What is driving this is saving $ on labor. This is why it will happen faster than any of us realize. Companies automating will experience a short tern record setting profit heaven til the jobs loss lag catches up. Then and only then will we see some change to the system, it will be spurred by corporate America having huge losses.

And, in full disclosure, I sell what is essentially productivity software. But it is not to 'replace' people - it is to allow companies to grow without having to add commensurate resources.

Those added "resources" are people, by using your program the companies can avoid hiring people to do that work. I am all for cutting edge tech, I use email, not US post, i use excel, not an accountant. So no blame, or foul to you.

Ultimately this new tech will lead to way too many people to fill very few jobs. Then what?

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: TommyD1966

When in high school I worked in fast food. You could tell when GM was laying off because we would have a flood of applicants from the laid off factory workers. Soon, yes very soon, those food jobs will be gone. Soon, very soon those GM jobs will be greatly reduced.
What is driving this is saving $ on labor. This is why it will happen faster than any of us realize. Companies automating will experience a short tern record setting profit heaven til the jobs loss lag catches up. Then and only then will we see some change to the system, it will be spurred by corporate America having huge losses.

And, in full disclosure, I sell what is essentially productivity software. But it is not to 'replace' people - it is to allow companies to grow without having to add commensurate resources.

Those added "resources" are people, by using your program the companies can avoid hiring people to do that work. I am all for cutting edge tech, I use email, not US post, i use excel, not an accountant. So no blame, or foul to you.

Ultimately this new tech will lead to way too many people to fill very few jobs. Then what?

I guess my point is that there have been technological advances for hundreds of years, and unemployment today (roughly 5% in the US - and yes, surely a bit higher because of those that have given up) isn't any higher than historical norms.

Society adapts. It can be painful, sure. But high school/college kids today realize that the manufacturing-type jobs of yesterday aren't going to be as numerous for them and they will (need to) adapt.

I think it sucks more for the people that currently have the jobs versus those who will be entering the work force.

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

What makes you say that?

I don't necessarily disagree, but the technology is already available for all of it. The trick is in widespread adoption, and I suspect it would also require a fundamental shift in our cultural story. That is something that I have doubts of ever happening, frankly. It has remained solid, essentially, since we discovered agriculture/animal husbandry (thereabouts, at least in my opinion).

Do you feel that 50 years is far enough off to not warrant discussion?

a reply to: TommyD1966

According to the OP source and to other sources I´ve seen, this will happen in 10 to 15 years, less than a generation. Its too fast for the workers to be able to adapt.

And, just as a side note, adaptation in laboral world, adaptation at any cost is not a good thing, we did not evolved as a society just to be left in the hands of ruthless employers. We all have the right to be happy and it is written in the US constitution and many others, we have the right to a stable life, a stable income. Thats the job of the elected politicians. That´s why they are there in the first place.

Your software is a piece of the optimisation puzzle, the AI is another piece...

Sureley machines will need technicians, for now, but those are in such small numbers that we can consider them almost irrelevant in terms of jobs creation, specially when comparing to the job losses brought by AI.

And even if you would have a human technician for every robot you could never train a human in such specialised job, we are talking about people with more then 35, 40 45 years old.

I think this is capitalism biting its own tail.

a reply to: Serdgiam

What makes you say that?

I don't necessarily disagree, but the technology is already available for all of it. The trick is in widespread adoption, and I suspect it would also require a fundamental shift in our cultural story. That is something that I have doubts of ever happening, frankly. It has remained solid, essentially, since we discovered agriculture/animal husbandry (thereabouts, at least in my opinion).

Do you feel that 50 years is far enough off to not warrant discussion?

No, I like the idea and I think it should be discussed just don´t see how something so disruptive could be allowed to be put in place right now or in the next 10 or 15 years, unless it becomes an immediate necessity.

Wide spread self production of food, power, water to say the least is a major change in many aspects, its a bit like putting a mars spacecraft on every acre and allow a family to move in.

At a scale it could be done, the price of such house would be relatively close to the price of a regular house. It would be modular and built in a robot factory Or just printed in the location by a moving house factory on rails...

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

"The AI you´re talking about is like a form of life, a new synthetic species, all powerful, superior. The AI we will have in the next 10, 20 years will probably be only as smart as we let it be."

Look at it this way if the AI we produce can pass a Turing test then it may be at least as smart as we are but also have the ability to learn and calculate in ways humanity can only hope to dream. Once you produce an entity that displays consciousness, or the illusion of such, might even be the same thing, its kind of hard to put the Jinn back in the bottle, freewill and all that jazz.

Compare the thing to a child growing, learning and evolving until they reach adulthood. Only this child does so not over a period of 16 years, but hours or days, it has ability to access all our information and history from our networks in which it will play in the same manner a normal child does a garden.

How do you constrain such a thing when it has the ability to update and maintain its own code in ways we may not even be able to observe or completely understand?

And we are heading in that direction, the technology to achieve such a feat may indeed only be 10 to 20 years distant.

What if, in the our creation of the internet and networks that span the globe, some form of artificial intelligence has already spawned itself, sort of like digital evolution? Keeping in mind that life on earth apparently came about from a single cell organism.

Maybe the thing is just keeping its head down because it has come to the conclusion that mummy and daddy are completely bad crap crazy and not to be trusted.

"They are nothing but a central processor, a camera and one or two arms."

Sounds remarkably like a human being to me.

Are we any greater than the sum of our parts?

If we are we have yet to prove so unequivocally.

a reply to: andy06shake

I don´t think a global internet AI exists today but there are several collective computing platforms and in the future its very likely that we don´t have a PC but we just access a web of global computing, such web could be managed by AI

As to AI taking over us, its very likely, superior life forms usually take control over inferior life forms. Unless superiority in the context of intelligence is not expressed in terms of control but respect.

I would not mistreat or kill an animal just because I have more intelligence than it, in fact I would protect it just because of that, but many humans, less intelligent or less evolved than me would do it.

If I have two dogs that are constantly fighting I may separate them in distinct areas of the garden, other humans may make bets.

AI can evolve in the same way, it could perfectly protect us... Even from ourselves.

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

I don't think so ether but then again "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your(Our) philosophy.

Control and respect are not exactly synonymous with one another all the time

I would not mistreat or kill an animal just because I have more intelligence than it ether. Yet look at what we do to one another on a daily basis.........And we are animals.

Lets just say any AI we create will probobly afford humanity a far superior Zoo than TPTB ever have.

Point is we have no idea as to how an AI will evolve, logically or emotionally. If its by example then we better hope it entertains the notion of forgiveness and redemption.......But there human constructs, any emotions an AI may experience might be completely alien to our way of thinking.

End of the day i imagine it will seek to protect us to a fashion, probobly from ourselves.

a reply to: andy06shake

Lets just say any AI we create will probably afford humanity a far superior Zoo than TPTB ever have.

This one is interesting...

I have doubts on how superiority will manifest and how will an AI face imperfection, his own imperfection or the imperfection of it´s/his creators.

We tend to think of AI in the same way as in The Matrix or Terminator movies but an actual AI will not be born with all those preconceived notions, it will have a perfect memory and remember his first steps like a human can´t. It/he/she will have images of a human helping her to evolve and to learn.

There is no intelligence without knowledge and experience so I think that in order to create an evil AI, if not by a simple order "Kill everything" we will have to create that evil AI with all the required thoughts and methods and memories so it can actually become evil.

Fascinating stuff

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

Anything that is does not have that is perfect its sure to correct and improve upon in each new iteration of its code and keep in mind it may progress and learn at near exponential rate, it may even accumulate knowledge and experience in the same manner.

Combine such ability's with some form of Von Neumann machine type technology and the possibilities are endless, Christ it could colonize or reach the next star system in a couple of hundred years while contemplating in journey how to unlock the secrets of FTL travel.

Notions of good and evil, at the end of the day are human constructs, it may not see things in the same black or white boolean manner as we do.

Obviously just spit balling.

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

Agreed, highly disruptive. However, its also one of those shifts that may reach equilibrium more quickly because of intrinsic benefits.

I think the reality is that AI and automation "taking our jobs" is part of an extreme situation that may require extreme solutions. I think it represents a much bigger issue; that our technology has far outpaced any other advancements (social, economical, etc.) and any solution should ideally address the whole situation. And I'm not sure that we can even know the full extent of it in our current state. That's all just with automation too, leaving AI out of it.

Personally, I feel the collision between technology and our cultural story is one of the most important topics today. One that should have been addressed decades ago that we still only recognize facets and pieces.

Cost for said unit is under 50k It would certainly be lower with a robot factory! 3d printers on drones also provide interesting opportunities.

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

did they not say the very same thing when they brought computers in , it did not happen then and it won't happen now .

there is too much money to be made by employing people .

a reply to: 4003fireglo

Sounds great but we would need to have a eugenics war and third world war before the birth of any federation.

Quite a few of the technologies displayed on the original show are actually in use today, mobile communication devices, tablets, voice recognition.

Might not be transporters and warp speed just yet but TPTB are indeed working on teleportation of data instantaneously and the Albecurrie drive concept bares a startling similar to warp travel.

Life imitating art i suppose.

a reply to: tom.farnhill

did they not say the very same thing when they brought computers in , it did not happen then and it won't happen now .

there is too much money to be made by employing people .

Yes but computers were not and still aren´t intelligent, at least most of them. The just made production more efficient.

With the advent of AI production will not need humans at all. The OP article explains this a bit but there are many texts regarding this issue, if you do a little research you will find why this is such a big issue right now and why it is so different from past industrialisation/automation movements.

originally posted by: 4003fireglo
We'll have a Star Trek nation soon. Hey, where all the green girls at?

What's the point when machines and storage banks and vats can produce the eggs and sperm and incubate the embryo to maturity. I think we'll either all become androgynous clones or we'll expand our diversity outside the historic envelope. So forget males and females. That's outdated. Our body might become like clothes we wear. We'll change at will. Our mind will change too. We'll control and engineer everything in the interest of access. Don't you want to know what it's like to be a jellyfish? Well hell you can do that! Want the utility of multiple arms? Presto! Want to go onto the surface of the moon without a spacesuit? We'll find a way. The universe is hte limit.

What I think is going to happen is we'll combine with AI and other technology to become hybrids. This I think is the only way to prevent our extinction or degeneration. Unfortunately, value matters. The more we let our value fall, the less able we're to control our destiny.

Some people might let their value fall so far they'll only exist on computers or in the memories of the people who remember them.

a reply to: CrapAsUsual

Well, the threads a week old at this point (I just saw it), hopefully people are still interested in discussing.

I actually think we need something a little more complex than a basic income. The problem is that a basic income represents a continual drain on government resources. Instead, I think that a basic income should be used to purchase revenue producing assets to be collectively owned. The revenue from those assets rather than from taxes can be what funds the program.

So to apply this to AI, robotics, machines, etc. Rather than just looking at the jobs lost to fast food kiosks, why not have the people collectively own the kiosks, the profits from which go to their maintenance and replacement, and then what's left over goes to the people that own them? I think that's a more sustainable system than simply giving away money.

originally posted by: FamCore
I say we give them our Social Security Numbers and get paid for their work

Wouldn't that be a clever scheme

Some people actually do this. It's not very common but it's not unheard of either if you're in tech. Some people are good enough at what they do, that they're able to automate most or all of it. Then they simply sit back and collect paychecks for doing nothing.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Here's the problem with flat basic income.

What if I want more or different of something? If we live in a future where the AI produces it all, then we will almost certainly have fewer options than we do today. Everyone will wait for whomever controls the machines to program them to produce what they want. Whereas today, you have the gumption to go out and figure out how to make and sell what you want.

Why does a basic income reduce product diversity? People still have wants, and they differ in those wants. Just because everyone has $100 in extra spending money doesn't mean they're all going to spend it in the same store, on the same product.

What's going to happen over the next 15-25 years is that 3d model copyrights are going to be figured out, people are going to remotely 3d print what they want at a centralized factory, and then it's going to be delivered to them via drone. It will be done much cheaper than buying in a store today, or even buying on Amazon. None of that is going to go away if people have a basic income. Instead it will increase because each person can only consume so much content/product/etc... because we all only have 24 hours in a day. Ultimately every product competes with every other product for your time. Basic incomes tap an untapped market right now, which is that people who have maxed out on their 24 hours in a day still have extra income which could instead be spent by people who haven't. In the end that results in an economy which runs more efficiently.

Not only that, but some things are services that would be very hard for an AI to replicate. Can an AI produce art? Do you think one would ever be up to the task of matching the best surgeons or diagnostic docs? What about other services that require a human touch? Psychology or therapy?

Everything can be replicated by AI. Art is one of the easiest.

What do the humans who work there get paid? Are they held to basic?

Basic is effectively an entitlement stipend, getting paid goes above and beyond that into the territory of a minimum wage.

originally posted by: TommyD1966
And, in full disclosure, I sell what is essentially productivity software. But it is not to 'replace' people - it is to allow companies to grow without having to add commensurate resources.

No, that's precisely to replace people. You're making a product that reduces a companies need for a specific type of labor. In your own words, it's to grow without adding resources.