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AI Will Create 'Useless Class' Of Human, Predicts Bestselling Historian (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pessimistic-predictions dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Yuval Noah Harari, author of the international bestseller "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," doesn't have a very optimistic view of the future when it comes to artificial intelligence. He writes about how humans "might end up jobless and aimless, whiling away our days off our nuts and drugs, with VR headsets strapped to our faces," writes The Guardian. "Harari calls it 'the rise of the useless class' and ranks it as one of the most dire threats of the 21st century. As artificial intelligence gets smarter, more humans are pushed out of the job market. No one knows what to study at college, because no one knows what skills learned at 20 will be relevant at 40. Before you know it, billions of people are useless, not through chance but by definition." He likens his predictions, which have been been forecasted by others for at least 200 years, to the boy who cried wolf, saying, "But in the original story of the boy who cried wolf, in the end, the wolf actually comes, and I think that is true this time." Harari says there are two kinds of ability that make humans useful: physical ones and cognitive ones. He says humans have been largely safe in their work when it comes to cognitive powers. But with AI's now beginning to outperform humans in this field, Harari says, that even though new types of jobs will emerge, we cannot be sure that humans will do them better than AIs, computers and robots.

22 of 414 comments (clear)

  1. Speculating is fun! by sims+2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't leave this discussion without a mention of Manna by Marshal Brain http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
    It's two extreme scenarios for what might happen if we are able to replace the entire workforce.

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    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:Speculating is fun! by Nutria · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Though many pretend to be, many want to be, and parents+teachers say that everyone is, in reality only a (relative) few are actually talented enough for their creativity to be worthwhile.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Speculating is fun! by ultranova · · Score: 3

      I might point out that while the article mentions "cognition", it doesn't mention "creativity". It might be possible for humans to compete with AIs in that area, because there are so many ways in which to do something creative (infinite ways?).

      The problem is, creativity is optional in the short term. Our ruling class needs someone to work their fields and build their luxury yachts, but can do without more art being produced, for at least the next quarter. That's why the concept of "starving artist" exists, and is exactly what humans trying to compete in that area will get.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. Way ahead of the curve by PvtVoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Slashdotters have been experimenting with this fate for a decade. Now get me some more Cheetos, Mom.

  3. We already have a useless class by inode_buddha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We already have a useless class. Mostly politicians and business executives, with some overlap. Has CxO productivity gone up 300 %? What about congressional gridlock inspired by special interests vs voters?

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    C|N>K
  4. Orwell called them .... by PPH · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... proles.

    The government is getting ready for this state of affairs by removing their means of revolt.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Orwell called them .... by Alomex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is really endearing of Americans when they think they can use a few handguns to rise against an army having tanks, artillery and bombs.

      It's like when you see the eyes of a child who still believes in Santa Claus light up in Christmas morning when they see the cookies and milk gone and presents instead.

      [wipes off moist eyes]

    2. Re:Orwell called them .... by Alomex · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Afghans were losing the war until provided by the USA with shoulder propelled rockets that could bring down soviet helicopters. Look it up.

  5. Human won't be useless to their AI overlord! by ffkom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Evolution has shaped humans into pretty efficient workers under the environmental conditions on earth. Why should an AI not utilize this? There's plenty of humans around, they are relatively easy to spawn, feed and keep healthy, and technology will make it increasingly easy to prevent any kind of unwillingness to serve the AI.

    Actually, people will hardly notice they have begun working for an AI. They'll still think they work for some large global corporation that happenes to run data centers and "Internet of Things"-stuff when control of that corporation is already with the AI hosted in those data centers.

    The AI won't even have to build "Terminators" to keep the puny carbon units under control - it just needs to provide enough bread, games and illusion of freedom of choice.

  6. Re:Yet another luddite by ffkom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean like Elon Musk and other tech-celebrities who warned about the potential dangers of AI?

  7. We've already got those ... by kuzb · · Score: 5, Funny

    Presently they're called MBAs, and I'm sure they could be easily replaced with a magic 8-ball.

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    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    1. Re:We've already got those ... by JoeDuncan · · Score: 4, Funny

      What about Humanities students?

      They're already been made obsolete by the Keurig machine in my office...

    2. Re:We've already got those ... by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What about Humanities students?

      They're already been made obsolete by the Keurig machine in my office...

      While I know you were trying to be funny, I think that there's an underlying assumption in the summary about the nature of college and university study that needs to be picked apart a bit.

      A couple centuries ago, very few people would have thought of college or university as something that should provide direct life skills for a job or something. That's what apprenticeships were for. Why would anyone in their right mind sit in a lecture with someone talking about a skill, rather than actually working with a real-life expert actually DOING the job??

      Universities emphasized "the liberal arts" (which included mathematics and the early versions of sciences) with the idea that an educated person would learn abstract methods for approaching problems and dealing with problems in new areas of study. By being exposed to a wide variety of material from different fields, one was prepared for an intellectual life and a lifelong ability to learn and confront new things.

      As science became more specialized in the late 19th century, it became more common for undergraduates to begin to specialize too. But aside from those technical fields, most college students even into the mid 20th century sought out "broad" fields in the humanities, such as history or literature or philosophy, again NOT to prepare for a CAREER as a historian or philosopher or whatever, but to learn about all sorts of problems and ways of thinking over the centuries. Until the past couple decades where people now just make fun of "humanities majors," they were the dominant path toward many fields -- most businessmen, lawyers, etc. would tend to study a humanities discipline as an undergraduate.

      And even that was a bit more focused than had traditionally been the case. The very idea of a college "major" for undergraduate study again only dates to the past couple centuries. Many older universities resisted the very idea of "majors" for a long time. (To this day, Harvard for example calls them "concentrations," a term meant to de-emphasize the notion that an undergraduate has one primary "major" area of study... instead, there are just supposed to be a small number of classes that are "concentrated" in one area. Obviously the present Harvard undergraduates don't view them this way anymore -- it's just a weird archaic code for "major" to most people.)

      Anyhow, with the scientific specialization and then the idea of bringing in the middle classes and lower classes to college in the mid 20th century led to an expectation for more "practical" study. Degrees that had previously only been offered at specialized "institutes of technology" or "agricultural colleges" or whatever now became practical degrees at many traditional universities.

      Except this didn't make any sense then, and it still doesn't make sense. Yes, many careers require some theoretical knowledge and classes, but the vast majority of study would be better done as hands-on apprenticeships, if you actually want career training. College was never designed to be a glorified "trade school," and it really doesn't work as one now.

      Basically, the problem is that university was never really intended to be for "the masses." It was originally to train people for contemplative intellectual (and originally spiritual) lives, not for practical skills. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it became a place to send young aristocrats too, so it became associated with something that wealthy people do. (In reality, up until the 1960s or so, most of these rich kids goofed off at universities, often earning what was called "the gentleman's C" in most classes, for barely doing what was required.) Along the way, somebody confused correlation (rich people often sent their kids to college) with causation (college makes people rich). The result is that we're now pretending that college is for career prep, something it never was really meant for... while we've basically neglected the broad training that used to be the goal.

      And now we're stuck with our present mess of higher education.

  8. Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Informative

    Written sixteen years ago by Bill Joy One the best articles on the subject.

  9. Solution by backslashdot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Own your own plot of land. Be prepared to defend it, grow your own food in grow boxes. Power it with solar. Then you don't have to be useful to anyone.

    1. Re:Solution by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But that plot of land you're on might be of use to someone and you're in the way.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re: Solution by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What enables your "right" to the land and how do you enforce it? The right to own land is artificially created by humans, and controlled by whoever has the best armies. Just ask the original residents of the Americas; or ask the Tatars from the Crimea for a more recent example. Opting out of civilization effectively removes your ability to exercise whatever rights you claim to have, leaving only the hope that civilization ignores you or you collect a mass of fellow humans large enough to form your own opposing civilization. Wave around lots of papers that prove you have rights if you like, but if the papers can't feed you or stop bullets...

    3. Re: Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      There is a big difference there. I have a right to my land, which I own.

      Without the ability to enforce that "right", you have nothing. If you enforce it yourself, you have the right until someone with a bigger gun than you comes along and wants what you have. If you live in an at least somewhat functioning state, the state enforces your rights so you have what's yours until someone with a bigger gun than the state collectively has comes along and wants to take it.

      And obviously "owning" land is in most of the world defined as having paid someone for a piece of land who, in turn, paid someone else for that land, who paid someone who paid someone who...until you reach the point at which the first "owner" in that chain of transactions is the party that killed the previous "owner". And that owner might be the latest in the end of a similar chain which started with killing. That's true about land in most at least somewhat inhabited areas. War has been waged almost everywhere at some point in history. And even when you go so far back in history that the inhabitants were nomadic tribes, it's ambiguous whether the first party to claim a piece of land as their "property" did that without force. Technically, nomadic tribes didn't claim to own any piece of land. They wandered harvesting resources in large areas and moved on when resources seemed scarce in one area. By declaring that they cannot enter any particular piece of land because it's "yours" you deprived them of access to something they previously had even if they had never claimed exclusive access. And when enough land is declared as property like that, such nomadic tribes run out of resources when they haven't even considered the concept of "owning land".

      The reason why I'm bringing up nomadic tribes isn't just to make you think about what it means to "own land" in our Western society but also to make you think about how changes in how the world functions deprives people of resources. Nomadic tribes had the resources they needed to survive - until the world changed when the concept of land ownership was introduced. Able-bodied people with a decent work ethic have had the ability to get the resources they need to survive in most of the world until now (not necessarily with luxuries but survive nonetheless). If enough jobs are eliminated through automation, they will be deprived of all resources except what they can literally produce on their own. And who can on their own do much more than perhaps grow food? If you cannot produce anything at a competitive price, you cannot buy anything. And you cannot because you're competing with automation. Not to mention that growing food requires a lot of land and of the right kind, which might be unobtainable for many people even if they otherwise could indeed go back to such a way of living. Essentially, the world is changing in such a way that through no fault of their own, people stop being useful. And when people are desperate enough, they do desperate things no matter how much they have to compromise their ethics. If you have enough self-awareness you know that that includes you. And that's just in terms of obtaining what you need to survive. Criminologists say that literally anyone can become a murderer under the right circumstances. I don't object to automation at all, however, I just want everyone to be able to reap the fruits of it. Maybe a guaranteed basic income is necessary for people who become "useless". Or great reductions on maximum working hours so that the minimal amount of work which still requires humans is split among all who can perform those jobs. I don't have the answers but clearly I'm not the only one thinking about it.

  10. Employment extinction by Brannon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Experts have been predicting the end of the world for centuries and they've been wrong every time.

    I'm going to predict that the world will never end, and I'll only be wrong once.

  11. self-preservation by superwiz · · Score: 3, Informative

    The driver for self-preservation is what will save humans. AI may become self-aware, but it won't have inner driver to evolve to preserve itself at all costs. In fact, because it will be created by humans, its most primal drive will be the laws of robotics. Humans, at large, will do what specialists do when they see their livelihood threatened. They will pretend to cooperate, but their full drive to make themselves obsolete will be just a facade. They will learn to fail just frequently enough to make themselves relevant, but not frequently enough to make themselves useless. It's how car manufacturers continue to exist. The cars have built-in defects which develop over time. So car manufacturers continue to be needed. Unions, professional licenses... it's all there to slow down the course of history until the people who developed very specialized skills live out their usefulness rather than outlive it. News business was supposed to be dead, but all that's happened is the number of newsmen has decreased. 80% of the population were farmers. Today it's less than 5%. If humans, at large, can become irrelevant, then humans at large will find ways to stretch out the period over which this irrelevance sets in or they will continue to produce AI with imperfections subtle enough to continue ongoing development (just as car companies do). This may seem far fetched, but, as an example, cars in Cuba are all from the 50s. It's not because cubans are "poor", as much as it is because in the absence of new cars, old ones get maintained to last much longer than car manufactures would have you believe cars can survive.

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    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  12. Re:Be more specific by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...The question is what happens to the people who don't have any skills other than those required for menial jobs.

    No, I'm pretty sure the question is "what happens to even the people who have fairly advanced skills, when automation and AI can do their work so cheaply and so well that giving the job to a human is merely an act of charity?"

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    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  13. Trust Fund Babies by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Looks like we will all be trust fund babies... collecting art, sampling fine wine, travelling to exotic places, etc. Bring it on.