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Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
Strudelkugel writes "The NY Times has an article about a conference during which the potential dangers of machine intelligence were discussed. 'Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society's workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone. Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.' The money quote: 'Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,' Dr. Horvitz said. 'Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.'"
Regardless of political orientation, this research WILL get done. If the US doesn't get it done, China will. How does that make you feel?
Also from the article "The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world."
An interesting thing to note is this: When a computer exists that is as intelligent as a stupid human, almost every job at and close to minimum wage vanishes. Robots can and will get cheaper than a human worker, no one will need taxi cab drivers, grocery store baggers, first tier phone customer service reps, construction workers, janitors, garbage men, delivery men, mail men, traffic cops, book keepers, data entry people, secretaries, fast food chefs, etc.
At this point we will have two choices as a society. 1) Let them (the stupid people) starve, 2) give them welfare for no other reason than they're economically useless.
1) Let them (the stupid people) starve
They are not going to starve. If there's one thing to learn from poverty, it's that it makes people revolt and rebel. Welfare is a means with which to pacify the poor so you'll have at least some form of social order in a society where unemployment exists.
"...An interesting thing to note is this: When a computer exists that is as intelligent as a stupid human, almost every job at and close to minimum wage vanishes..."
While it may seem "obvious" this is not correct. There has to be cost benefit.
I work in a medical lab - you'd *think* that it would be more cost effective to employ robots to handle cups of "body fluids" - and in some cases it is. But as of yet, we have a lot more people than robots, not because the robots aren't capable, but because they are just too damn expensive for the volume of cups we process.
A second follow up to your post is that "minimum wage" jobs are not the only ones targeted. In fact, again in our case, the more expensive a job is, the more likely that job is to be replaced by automation when the automation is available.
We have two labs - one which requires complex sample prep. This takes an educated person many steps. "Educated" = money and "many steps" = time and together equals "lots of money" - and has been the first area targeted for automation. The second lab does not require a 4-year degree, and the sample prep is about as difficult as data-entry and pouring from a cup to a tube. Here the economics are such that it's *better* to have hired help rather than robotics.
My final point:
Robots break. When robots break everything halts. This is immensely expensive from both loss of productivity and the repair itself. By contrast our man-operated lab can always do "something" even if the electricity goes out or the computer network goes down. Humans are much more adaptable that way (though they do tend to bitch and moan more).
-CF