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Tim O'Reilly: Don't Fear AI, Fear Ourselves (wired.com)
Tim O'Reilly, publisher of geeky books, "seizes on this singular moment in history" for a futuristic new book of his own, according to this interview with Steven Levy. An anonymous reader writes:
When it comes to artificial intelligence, O'Reilly sees a reason for optimism in the fact that we're already discussing biased algorithms. ("We had plenty of bias before but we couldn't see it.") O'Reilly ultimately believes AI won't take away our jobs, and even argues that we're defining it all wrong. "What we now call AI is just the next stage of us weaving our intelligence together into a greater whole. If you think about the internet as weaving all of us together, transmitting ideas, in some sense an AI might be the equivalent of a multi-cellular being and we're its microbiome, as opposed to the idea that an AI will be like the golem or the Frankenstein. If that's the case, the systems we are building today, like Google and Facebook and financial markets, are really more important than the fake ethics of worrying about some far future AI.
"We tend to be afraid of new technology and we tend to demonize it, but to me, you have to use it as an opportunity for introspection. Our fears ultimately should be of ourselves and other people."
O'Reilly calls financial markets "the first rogue AI," while also priasing innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for moving humankind in new and positive directions. And he also calls Uber "a good metaphor for what's right and wrong in tech" because of its clashes with both its drivers and city governments.
"It's interesting that Lyft, which has been both more cooperative in general and better to drivers, is gaining share. That indicates there's a competitive advantage in doing it right, and you can only go so far being an ass."
"We tend to be afraid of new technology and we tend to demonize it, but to me, you have to use it as an opportunity for introspection. Our fears ultimately should be of ourselves and other people."
O'Reilly calls financial markets "the first rogue AI," while also priasing innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for moving humankind in new and positive directions. And he also calls Uber "a good metaphor for what's right and wrong in tech" because of its clashes with both its drivers and city governments.
"It's interesting that Lyft, which has been both more cooperative in general and better to drivers, is gaining share. That indicates there's a competitive advantage in doing it right, and you can only go so far being an ass."
you can only go so far being an ass
Well, you can get at least as far as President of the United States.
Why should it be different in this era of cognitive enhancement?
Because when robots can do everything (or nearly everything) a person can do, what is the prospect for employment, let alone increased employment? Before, people always moved on to jobs that machines couldn't do. First from farming to manufacturing, then to services. The final refuges will probably be software development, some retail, and a little bit of hands on medicine. Also top corporate leadership, not because computer programs won't be better than they are at their jobs but because they're the ones in charge so will continue paying themselves enormous salaries for something a computer could do for free. If sexbots are legal, prostitution will diminish greatly. Pretty much everything else will be automated. This isn't happening in 10 years, but it's happening.
Because when robots can do everything (or nearly everything) a person can do, what is the prospect for employment, let alone increased employment?
Automation and ever 'smarter' machines needing ever-less human intervention has been going on since the Industrial Revolution. If people work less because machines do all the work, that means more spare time for the people. In today's day, despite all the complaining, people have never had more spare time to do with as they wish.
Think of a Dickensian urchin in a garment factory, or that poor bastard from the 12th century who spent all day in the mud or behind some ox pulling a plow. Or leave the 1st world and go check out like Zambia or something where automation and machine intelligence are not already stealing all the jobs. Is that a better deal? No, absolutely not.