Would You Bet Against Sex Robots? AI 'Could Leave Half Of World Unemployed'

Machines could put more than half the world's population out of a job in the next 30 years, according to a computer scientist who said on Saturday that artificial intelligence's threat to the economy should not be understated. Vardi, a professor at Rice University and Guggenheim fellow, said that technology presents a more subtle threat than the masterless drones that some activists fear. He suggested AI could drive global unemployment to 50%, wiping out middle-class jobs and exacerbating inequality. "Humanity is about to face perhaps its greatest challenge ever, which is finding meaning in life after the end of 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread'," he said. "We need to rise to the occasion and meet this challenge."

Comments

"Sex robots will put 50% of world out of work"?

[jeffb (2.718)]

Okay, that's actually not what TFA is saying. But I'm sure it will trigger some productive discussion here.

Re:Its always been like this

[Knuckles]

Citation please? beyond a few islanders that lived with abundant food surrounding them in regions with warm climates all year around I don't know of any that this is true for. In fact it used to be more common to work 365 days a year.

Here is a citation that contradicts your "common to work 365 days":

During one period of unusually high wages (the late fourteenth century), many laborers refused to work "by the year or the half year or by any of the usual terms but only by the day." And they worked only as many days as were necessary to earn their customary income -- which in this case amounted to about 120 days a year, for a probable total of only 1,440 hours annually (this estimate assumes a 12-hour day because the days worked were probably during spring, summer and fall). A thirteenth-century estime finds that whole peasant families did not put in more than 150 days per year on their land. Manorial records from fourteenth-century England indicate an extremely short working year -- 175 days -- for servile laborers. Later evidence for farmer-miners, a group with control over their worktime, indicates they worked only 180 days a year.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/ma...

Re:Its always been like this

[geoskd]

A totally unemployed person in a western country today would still be better off than a fully employed person 1000 years ago.

Not in the United states. A completely unemployed person in the United states has to rely on charity in order to eat. 1000 years ago, an unemployed person could still find wilderness and hunt their own food. Today that is not possible in *any?* western country anymore. I would stipulate that a chronically unemployed person in this day and age is *worse off* than that same chronically unemployed person was 1000 years ago.

To look at it another way, a person who is healthy and whole, but has an IQ of 60 is basically unemployable in todays western world. In the United States, there are NO jobs that these people will be hired to do. Why would any employer hire someone who needs to have their hand held through every part of the job because they just don't get it? Those employers hire people with 80,90 or 100 IQs instead. The folks in the 60 range collect permanent disability from the government (if they are lucky, and the republican party is continually trying to cut the few programs that do exist). Today that number is 60. With automation taking ever larger numbers of unskilled jobs, how long until that line is 80 IQ points? 90 IQ points? what about 100 when 50% of the population cant even qualify for a job? Do they just go on permanent disability and the other 50% have to work (often at jobs they wont like) for no other reason than because they are the ones who can do the work? You might even make it work if you could eliminate all of the work, that people don't like to do, all at once, but you can't, you'll replace a little bit at a time, so you'll be left with them that can and them that cant. How do we convince the capable people to do the crappy jobs while we give the incapable people a free ride? The capable people are not going to like that, and will sooner or later start electing politicians who promise to sterilize the incapable portion of the population "for the greater good". Being the ones with the money, they will have the power, under our current economic and political model, to do as they please, and they will get their sterilization programs.

Re:Its always been like this

[bheerssen]

Poverty is a huge driver of overpopulation. Poor people tend to have more kids to provide for them in their later years. Countries with prosperous economies that are broadly shared tend to have much lower birth rates than poorer countries. That's because raising new humans is a lot of work; if people don't feel like they need to do that, they won't. China, of course, is an exception due to their one-child policy.

Re:Its always been like this

[drsmithy]

You're an idiot. Look at north and south korea. Look at east and west germany before unification.

Look at inequality steadily increasing as more and more regulations are removed...

The freer the market, the better off the average person gets.

This is a religious statement. (And is demonstrably false anyway. Wages for the average person have gone nowhere in decades.)