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Central Bankers Warned Of Possible Economic 'Robocalypse' (seattletimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Seattle Times:
At an exclusive gathering at a golf resort near Lisbon, the big minds of monetary policy were seriously discussing the risk that artificial intelligence could eliminate jobs on a scale that would dwarf previous waves of technological change. "There is no question we are in an era of people asking, 'Is the Robocalpyse upon us?'" David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told an audience Tuesday that included Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and dozens of other top central bankers and economists... [A]long with the optimism is a fear that the economic expansion might bypass large swaths of the population, in part because a growing number of jobs could be replaced by computers capable of learning -- artificial intelligence.
Policymakers and economists conceded that they have not paid enough attention to how much technology has hurt the earning power of some segments of society, or planned to address the concerns of those who have lost out... In the past, technical advances caused temporary disruptions but ultimately improved living standards, creating new categories of employment along the way... But artificial intelligence threatens broad categories of jobs previously seen as safe from automation, such as legal assistants, corporate auditors and investment managers. Large groups of people could become obsolete, suffering the same fate as plow horses after the invention of the tractor. "More and more, we are seeing economists saying, 'This time could be different,'âS" said Autor, who presented a paper on the subject that he wrote with Anna Salomons, an associate professor at the Utrecht University School of Economics in the Netherlands.
Ultimately we'll just have to wait and see, Autor concluded. "I say not Robocalpyse now. Perhaps Robocalpyse later."
Policymakers and economists conceded that they have not paid enough attention to how much technology has hurt the earning power of some segments of society, or planned to address the concerns of those who have lost out... In the past, technical advances caused temporary disruptions but ultimately improved living standards, creating new categories of employment along the way... But artificial intelligence threatens broad categories of jobs previously seen as safe from automation, such as legal assistants, corporate auditors and investment managers. Large groups of people could become obsolete, suffering the same fate as plow horses after the invention of the tractor. "More and more, we are seeing economists saying, 'This time could be different,'âS" said Autor, who presented a paper on the subject that he wrote with Anna Salomons, an associate professor at the Utrecht University School of Economics in the Netherlands.
Ultimately we'll just have to wait and see, Autor concluded. "I say not Robocalpyse now. Perhaps Robocalpyse later."
Poor, poor investment managers, how will they screw us over when their jobs are obsolete? How will they ever earn millions and millions of dollars without pushing papers around and destroying people while doing it?
I'm actually preparing for this right now. I've been - broadly speaking - doing web development for a living for the last 17 years and most of it was bullshit work or so marginal and specialised it could've been forgone completely without anybody noticing. I wasn't saving the environment, doing any meaningful medical IT, helping the transition to renewable energy, doing useful political work or any of the sorts. I was however trying to be a good father to my daughter and I'm confident I pretty much succeeded in that, including holding a steady job that may be bullshit but actually brings in some cash.
But she's doing her last A-Level exams in 3 days and will be off to south america for a volunteer year in a few months once she's recovered from the learning binge she's been on the last 10 months.
With all that right up next for us I'm regrouping my emotions and my take on my life considerably. I have no doubt that if things play out correctly the work I do right will appear beyond pointless in 5 years from now, no matter how much they pay me. Consulting people, helping others out or doing similar stuff is where I find I gain new meaning. I think I will attempt to see programming more as an art than a job and I will further limit my screen time and do yoga, dancing or surfing instead. I'm two steps away from moving all of my everday work into the cloud and on a chromebook, with googles AI taking care of everything in my digital life, Googles every-watching lidless eye be damned. It's so much easyer than worring about someone pinching some 1000 Euro ultrabook vis-a-vis a 300 Euro cheapo Chromebook.
I expect huge swaths of our professions to fall prone to automation and cloud-centric consolidation and 90% of the remaining fields to be sucked up by Facebook and other online services. Physical and Mental Coaching, Lifestyle design and perhaps some useful environmental activism is where the useful stuff is at IMHO, and I will attempt to move further into those fields rather than stick around for another dreary decade of people who don't know what piece of websoftware they want but always seem to know what it may cost and when it needs to be finished.
AI & cloud are coming for us and will change our lives big time and we'd better be prepared.
My 2 eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
All other paradigm shifts in working environment that have displaced people opened up new opportunities. Farm hands that got obsolete when farming was automated were needed by the emerging industries in the towns. When these jobs got hit with automation, the developing service industry needed those now free workers.
Yes, the jobs got more "brainy" with every iteration, but in the end, whether someone is pulling a rake across the soil, putting part A into assembly B or carrying some glasses and plates to a table, the qualification level isn't that high in either of those jobs. They can be done by (nearly) anyone.
The problem this time around is that AI (let's use the term in the colloquial sense here, yes, I know it's just algorithms, but ... let's humor the markedroids for now) is at a level where all low qualification jobs are being replaced. And then some of higher qualification, too. Soon middle management is going to be eliminated. It's no longer just the no-qualification "you want fries with that" student jobs that get replaced with automation.
And that leaves a lot of people unemployed and, worse, unemployable. Competing with a machine that never sleeps, never gets sick and wants no wage is something you can only do with slaves. And even there only if you work them to death, throw them away and plug the next one in.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
On a radio program today someone stated money was ultimately a way to transfer debt. If I have money, ultimately that means someone owes me work. To a degree I can randomly choose who that someone is depending on my needs. If, in an extreme case, all the work is being done by robots, nobody would owe anyone any work, money would no longer represent anything and banks would go out of business, which is not something bloody likely for them to let happen.
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They can see the difference between the creation of basic technology and its job creation and advanced technology and its job destruction. But people don't yet seem to understand that the widespread use of AI in an area will lead to stagnation of the subject area. Machines do, but they don't create. They aren't motivated to make things different, to make them better. Mere excellent mediocrity. Human skills and knowledge will be lost. The thread of advance broken.
E Proelio Veritas.
The once proud cultures of China and India were reduced to abject poverty these academics did not even notice it. When job loss reduced large swaths of land to permanent internecine wars, they did not care.
Finally automation threatens educated middle class of affluent nations (mostly white) suddenly these guys wake up and talk about robocalypse.
All that could be true and still they could be right about the dangers of automation. I am not denying that. But if they would show some remorse about the casual way they waved away the job losses of blue collar workers, and the devastation caused by industrialization to Asia they would get some sympathy. Else we will be arguing about it, while the "Free Market" and the "Invisible hand" will transfer more wealth from bottom 995 permill to top 5 permill. (percent, cent=100, permill mill=1000) .
To some extent most of us in the 990 permill to 995 permill thought we are immune. Till the top 5 permill bastards betrayed us and started taking from us too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
We need to get over this idea that one MUST work to make a living. And we need to get over the idea that we live to serve the economy.
Economies are supposed to serve the people but we've been brainwashed into thinking the other way around.
As automation increases, the folks with earning power under our current economic system will be the folks who own the robots and the folks who make them.
And we need to get over this delusion that all one needs to do when displaced by automation is get retrained in something "marketable".
When automation is touching just about all aspects of life, opportunities shrink. We could grasp at the magical idea that some new industry someday will pop-up somewhere and absorb all the extra workers - by the tens of millions - and then end up with a very horrible situation.
Tens of millions of out of work folks rioting because there's nothing for them to do. Or I see a situation where wars are created and those tens of millions are drafted into the military to "fight for freedom" in China or North Korea. That's a great way to subdue a populace - war.
Regardless of what one believes, we are headed for some more social turmoil in the near future. This current social unrest is just the beginning. People's standard of living has been steadily eroded for years and they are just starting to wake up and realize that they can't work any harder and retraining is just a way for schools to line their pockets. They can't put their fingers on it and therefore blame immigrants or some other boogeyman and vote for folks who promise solutions that sound good but will not work.
Our way of life will end.
That's when the battlebots come in.
It strikes me that it's less about the job loss and more about the wealth concentration.
In theory, the high level of automation should result in the long-predicted elimination of want and/or the predicted leisure-time lifestyle that even Keynes predicted 75-odd years ago.
The corollary to automation, though, seems to be an increasing amount of wealth concentration in the hands of people who seem to validate that there's no such thing as "enough". Their wealth hoarding stands as an impediment to elimination of want and the leisure-time lifestyle -- they'd rather pay for mercenaries to keep people down than to feed and house them.
And of course they have nothing but contempt for the middle class, a group they think is overpaid and under worked and whose own education and consumption habits undermine the sense of exclusivity and prestige meant to be the exclusive domain of the truly rich.
Whether we drift back into a feudal/manorial economic and political structure or turn the corner on a world of abundance kind of depends on whether the political system is capable of responding to change for just the economic elite or whether it is capable of responding to change for the masses.
Whether we drift back into a feudal/manorial economic and political structure or turn the corner on a world of abundance kind of depends on whether the political system is capable of responding to change for just the economic elite or whether it is capable of responding to change for the masses.
It actually depends almost entirely on whether they build enough robots to defend themselves before we wake up. History shows us that the rich will not share their wealth with the poor until the poor share their poverty with them.
Tear down the white house gates, build a bridge across the washington monument pool with them, put a guillotine at the other end, and start using it. Nothing but mimicking the French is going to get the attention of the ultra-wealthy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wow we've even automated first posts. Smashing!
Well done AI overlord!
We pay for the human labour that went to building the machine but we don't pay the machine to perform its job. Just the same as we don't pay money for the Sun to evaporate the water and for it to fall back to Earth. When the construction of the machine no longer has human input then it costs nothing to build, and it's produce therefore also costs nothing.
We got a ways to go yet, but that is the path this appears to be leading to.
The real question is: What will we do to each other if the machines can do our bidding and we have no need to depend on one another? Will this be what creates the real "three laws"?
When the construction of the machine no longer has human input then it costs nothing to build, and it's produce therefore also costs nothing.
You're forgetting that everything still takes raw materials and energy. Those are limited in supply, so they will never be free.
Now, you might say, what if a few really wealthy people buy all the land and all the mines and all the natural resources. That's possible, but unlikely
Wake up. They already have.
...because the French Revolution ended so well. Personally I hope the 1% are stockpiling Zyklon-B, so they can finally get rid of the parasites whose only contribution to society is making a nuisance of themselves to people who are actually doing creative and productive work.
So are you planning to be among the gassed, or are you going to kill yourself before that happens? Or are you just planning to die from a lack of health care?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I disagree, I see labour shortage due to the black death and the subsequent rise in political power of the lower classes which they never relinquished again as the end of feudalism.
The value of most labour is dropping into the mud again, putting all the power back with the property owners. Democracy could in theory balance that, but the owners have some strategies to combat that. On the one hand multiculturalism and mass immigration, to make the masses an internally divided mess easily manipulated by the media they own. On the other locking down their power with international foreign investment protection treaties (aka trade treatues) and with foreign investor protection courts (aka ISDS).
Until they can build their robot armies and dispense with all that cloak and dagger staff.
Corporations are sitting on trillions in cash, neither spending nor investing it (other than parking it in short-term treasuries or other cash-equivalent short term investments).
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...
Even if you posit that most of it is invested, when the investments are in firms controlled by an ever-shrinking number of people, you're not "creating wealth for others" in any broad sense, you're either increasing your own wealth, since you control the firm being invested in, or its back-scratching exercise with the other oligarchs.
And if we're actually talking about a future of high levels of automation, investing in a firm like that isn't actually creating wage jobs, either.
Especially when posting a link to a video you should include a _summary_. That video is actually pretty good, based on the responses here I expected something much worse.
About the video:
Statistics: ~9 million views, 191,330 upvotes vs. 3,585 downvotes
The video is in support of the point raised in this story, "this time it's different", and they raise a few good points in support.
After watching the video I don't understand the response by drinkypoo about the horses, it does not seem to fit with what is said in the video _at all_.
The video comes with a link to a reddit trhead about it: http://www.reddit.com/r/CGPGre...
Unfortunately, your robot first post AI is about to be outsourced to an offshore robot first post AI. Lower cost for the little human labour AIs require makes it inevitable. The top 7 things you can do:
And before the apps guy shows up, AI APPS. AI APPS AI APPS. Only AI Appers do AI Apps on their AI Apps. AI APPS for your AI APP Overlords.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Isn't this just trading one elite class for another?
As the other respondent pointed out, the Black Death created labor shortages which raised wages and shifted wealth into a broader base, which in turn created a merchant and skilled labor class which gained a claim on political power.
We're nearing the terminus of that cycle, though, where the merchant class is nearly as consolidated and economically dominant as the feudal lords. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
"But artificial intelligence threatens broad categories of jobs previously seen as safe from automation, such as legal assistants, corporate auditors and investment managers"
Yea, I did notice a trend in the 3 jobs they listed off lol. Omg our jobs are at risk...in this specialized field of MONEY!
What are they going to do when analysts are also obsolete, then who will inform all of us morons when the ai and robots are going to take OUR jobs!?
We are so screwed when bankers are no longer driven by greed by by actually balancing books and doing what's best for a company.
It's almost like we could teach this ai that outsourcing massive numbers of jobs to other countries isn't beneficial to the country the ai CEO resides in. Then the only people out of jobs will in fact be the people they listed.
And if we're actually talking about a future of high levels of automation, investing in a firm like that isn't actually creating wage jobs, either.
But we can tell they're not creating jobs already, because they're piling up cash. You're supposed to invest that money to make more money, and in the process of spending it, people are employed. So the truth is that we are already getting to see the beginnings of what it looks like when the jobs go away. And it's ugly; there's a lot of empty storefronts out there, and empty storefronts tend to collect graffiti (often "scribed" into the glass with a tool made for such a purpose, purchased or stolen from a hardware store... or ordered on eBay) and urine. And there's plenty of people to dispense the urine, because there's no jobs to keep them in houses with toilets, or clean clothes that get them into restaurants to borrow theirs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Better to be gassed by the civilized in the interest of advancing civilization than to starve to death at the hands of the barbarians and parasites who've wrecked it due to their inability to function in an advanced civilization.
Ah yes, blame the people failed by the public education system designed to make them tractable factory workers, and an economic system designed to keep them running around in circles. Surely everything is their fault, and not the fault of the people who designed the systems by making the rules.
If a child doesn't understand that walking into the street is dangerous, you don't put a tailpipe in their mouth. You teach them about cars in some other fashion, preferably with more education and less carbon monoxide.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Funnily, in this case, money already acts as a tool for limiting greed of resources. Obviously, if there was such a thing as a "replicator" it would need a lot of resources to materialise our wishes.
The thing is, without a human workforce, money will lose its need. Any straight foreword allotment mechanism will do.
There is a number of other somewhat interrelated considerations too. Population control being one. Military actions being another.
I'm not following your narrative here at all. Are you saying economic damage from technological advances brought poverty on India and China? If so, that's not true at all. In the case of China it was most certainly a highly corrupt and failing dynasty, then European colonialism and the plunder of Chinese wealth that brought, then civil war, then Japanese invasion, then more civil war. The country was literally in ruins. India has some similar stories in its history as well. Furthermore, both of these countries were poverty riddled even at their heights. The average Chinese peasant or low caste Indian did not live particularly prosperous lives even at the height of these country's historic power. Technological advancement's effect on their economies has almost nothing to do with the decline of these civilizations from their heights.
Furthermore, you seem to paint a narrative where an already existing middle class were the only beneficiaries from tech advancement's effect on the economy when technological advancement is exactly what brought the prosperity that allowed for the West to have the extremely large and prosperous middle class that we think of today when we hear the term. The odds are pretty damn good you and I would have both been impoverished peasants who died in their thirties if it wasnt for the technological advancements of the last several centuries. After all, historically what constituted what one might call a middle class in was only a very small sliver of the population.
I am in no way trying to tie anything I'm saying here into the discussion about modern automation which I think could prove to be very problematic in keeping large parts of the population employed, I'm just pointing out that your narrative, as I understand it, seems to be false.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
the industrial revolution just put people out of work. Than about 50-80 years latter other tech caught up (plus two World Wars thinned the herd) and things got better.
There's a reason the Luddites existed and it wasn't because they were prototypical Amish. They lost their livelihoods and were starving in the streets. It takes decades for a society to adjust to these kinds of changes and in the meantime there's poverty, death and war. The difference today is information is widespread enough that we can see it coming and react if we want.
Or we could just keep telling ourselves everything is fine because eventually it might correct itself. But think of it like this: When in our lives has a complex problem been best solved by ignoring it and letting it sort itself out?
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The Amish don't need money
You haven't been around many Amish, have you? They're all about money; more of them are millionaires than you would guess.
I think you're being a bit too idealistic of humanity there. Humans are overwhelmingly mediocre. Look at popular music and books, look at your average programming assignment, look at the iterative nature of research in many fields... Yes, there absolutely is a fraction of humanity which is creative or groundbreaking, but that leaves us with 90% of the workforce being redundant. The remaining 10% will create something new which will be immediately integrated into the mass producing AI systems.
The question becomes whether we could eventually make everyone equally creative and brilliant and all that. I doubt it.
Ladies and gentlemen, our resident Libertarian/AnCap lunatic! (Note: some people like stability over growth).