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Ray Kurzweil Explains Why Technology Won't Eliminate Human Jobs (fortune.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the employed-at-the-Singularity dept.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil, now a director of engineering at Google, made an interesting argument in a new interview with Fortune: We have already eliminated all jobs several times in human history. How many jobs circa 1900 exist today? If I were a prescient futurist in 1900, I would say, "Okay, 38% of you work on farms; 25% of you work in factories. That's two-thirds of the population. I predict that by the year 2015, that will be 2% on farms and 9% in factories." And everybody would go, "Oh, my God, we're going to be out of work." I would say, "Well, don't worry, for every job we eliminate, we're going to create more jobs at the top of the skill ladder." And people would say, "What new jobs?" And I'd say, "Well, I don't know. We haven't invented them yet."

That continues to be the case, and it creates a difficult political issue because you can look at people driving cars and trucks, and you can be pretty confident those jobs will go away. And you can't describe the new jobs, because they're in industries and concepts that don't exist yet.
Kurzweil also argues that "the power and influence of governments is decreasing because of the tremendous power of social networks and economic trends..."

"A lot of people think things are getting worse, partly because that's actually an evolutionary adaptation: It's very important for your survival to be sensitive to bad news. A little rustling in the leaves may be a predator, and you better pay attention to that."

6 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. We'll never run out of douchebag futurists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, this is so dumb. It assumes an equal amount of social or intellectual positions will be eventually created and some smooth transition of the working populace to these new careers.

    Nope. Not going to happen.

    We will see more hookers, maids, maid/hookers, oddjobs contractors, etc. Already see this in high tech cities.

    1. Re: We'll never run out of douchebag futurists by DThorne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I agree with your succinct evaluation of the man who used to be my hero back in Synclavier days, on a very broad level I agree with him. You can pick apart his specific arguments until the cows come home, but I'm tired of the Chicken Little stories about everyone on welfare while rich people get richer. It belies a complete lack of historical research - people have *always* been losing jobs to technological advancements, the only difference is in the specifics. Just because many of us aren't terribly removed from a period of massive growth (post war expansion), we see that constant growth as some sort of norm. Read more history.

    2. Re:We'll never run out of douchebag futurists by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Plus, isn't Kurzweil's thing "The Singularity", which takes (as something between a premise and an article of faith) the impending availability of AI so strong it ranks somewhere between "indistinguishable from magic" and "indistinguishable from divine power"?

      The "eh, don't worry, there will totally be jobs in the future, I just don't know what they'll be because they are so futuristic" assurances are rarely helpful; but among AI pessimists(either in terms of absolute capability or in terms of development schedule) they are at least plausible. Coming from someone who expects AI powerful enough to nerd-rapture him before he dies, less plausible.

    3. Re: We'll never run out of douchebag futurists by Evtim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Always....always...always....

      A group of bacteria were growing in a petry dish. Their civilization lasted for 60 days. Every day they doubled their numbers. On the 59th day some bacteria were trying to make a point that the food is finite that this level of growth is unsustainable. "What, are you crazy!" - replied most of the rest - "We have always found a way! Look how numerous we have become, surviving and adapting for FULL 59 DAYS! Also - half the world is empty, you morons (yep, the last division changes the dish from half-full to full; progression, bitches)! Remember back in the ancient times during day 42 we ran out of food but we found a way, we found that New world full of untouched agar-agar (apart from few savage bacteria that we killed). And then there was that "crisis" during day 50 when we ran out of agar-agar but we mutated and started eating the polymers below, that the great bacteriophage in the sky created for us (that was the polymer support mesh that the PhD student used). We will always adapt, always have been and always will. Always, do you hear! Always!!! Bloody alarmists"....and so the 60th day came and the bacteria could not mutate to eat the dish itself. The great bacteriophage in the sky got all the souls she needed and the PhD student got his article.

      Ponder this (you can also stibbons it) - on one hand we have, unprecedented by their magnitude and significance, events coming towards us (machine learning replaces intellectual jobs as well, no?) and on the other we console ourselves by extrapolating past events that have nothing to do with what is coming. Weird! You understand that we can make machines run the whole of the economy. ALL of it. Forever, because AI learns faster so if we create a new job, ANY new job, AI will be able to do it better and cheaper...understand? All future jobs are gone as well. From that moment we either enter the Aurora situation - 1 human per 100 km2 served by thousands of robots or we kill each other since there is no "profit" in such future....

  2. Kurweil explains nothing by ARos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During the last paragraph of the piece, Kurzeil merely articulates that 'creative destruction' has taken place several times since the industrial revolution. He doesn't actually present any evidence that creative destruction will recur in the age of AI.

  3. Clear logical fallacy by engun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's take this to the extreme. Imagine that we invented AIs that matched the average human intellect. All of a sudden, most jobs would be eliminated (including robot repair, because robots would repair themselves), because most jobs no longer require humans. This is similar to how most horses are still out of a job since the advent of the automobile. So the idea that when one job is eliminated, a new one will always arise is simply false.

    That is therefore, not an argument to say that we should not welcome an AI revolution - I think such a revolution would bring more positives than negatives for the future of humanity. But to assume that jobs will continue to "invent" themselves is magical thinking - we should consider serious alternatives such as UBI.