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Andrew Ng Wants a New 'New Deal' To Combat Job Automation (technologyreview.com)
Andrew Ng, formerly the head of AI for Chinese search giant Baidu and, before that, creator of Google's deep-learning Brain project, knows as well as anyone that artificial intelligence is coming for plenty of jobs. Speaking at a conference on Tuesday, Ng said he would like to see a "new New Deal" that pays people displaced by technology to study, offering an incentive to learn new skills and reenter the workforce. From a report: Speaking at MIT Technology Review's annual EmTech MIT conference in Cambridge, MA, on Tuesday, Ng said he's visited call centers and spoken to workers, knowing that his teams of software engineers will then write software that will automate aspects of their work. "There are many professions in the crosshairs of AI teams across the world," he said. Ng, who's currently working on a startup called Deeplearning.ai that helps train people on deep-learning technology, has some ideas for helping those in jobs he thinks will be automated, from call-center workers to radiologists, truck drivers, and the like. His suggestion is for an updated version of the New Deal -- the Depression-era economic programs that invested in, among other things, getting unemployed Americans back to work -- that pays displaced workers to learn new job skills.
Human labor will always be valuable. The problem is that we're reaching a point where a great number of humans will be incapable of doing anything of value, or at least to the extent that they can support themselves. As much as it may sound fine to simply provide everything for such people, and while it may even be financially possible to do so due to increased productivity, most people tend to go a bit squirrelly when they feel they have no purpose in life. Not everyone is cut out to be a sculptor or painter either, so the kind of post-scarcity world that idealists envision where people can spend all of their time on artistic pursuits wouldn't pan out any better either.
I expect at some point someone is going to go down the Gattaca road and that humanity as a whole will find a way to stay ahead of the curve.
I have saved and invested ferociously since entering the workforce, and now that I'm into my 40's I have a 7-figure portfolio and no debt.
Let's say you were to retire at 65, live a simple but comfortable life of $50K/year, and die at 85. Well, 20 years times $50K/years is a million dollars - your "7-figure portfolio". Congratulations, you just saved enough for your own retirement - provided you don't live past 85. :)
Thing is though, people in countries like Denmark are also set for their retirement - total peace of mind. But they didn't have to save and invest ferociously to get there.
Currently, Americans seem to like inequality. They seem to like living in a world where one step off the straight and narrow, or perhaps just an expensive medical condition, will trap them and their descendants in desperate poverty. But that's a choice. Nobody is forcing Americans to vote for Trump and his fellow Republicans (other than the ignorance that comes from watching news media controlled by the ultra-rich).
There are a lot of things that are "pay me now, or pay me later" issues, that should be addressed:
1: No jobs or income. A guaranteed minimum income may cost something, but sure costs a lot less than having to deal with a constant insurgency of people with no hope or future, who view the only thing they can do is violence. Add to the fact that there are strong "shit stirrers" like the Nazis and Daesh, and random people who used to be just gangbangers now would have the desperation to do things never even thought of. Even with 100% gun control and none on the streets, one can still amass a death toll with a vehicle. Even with very Draconian laws with people going to prison for small things, eventually the guerrillas will win ("rednecks" in Afghanistan drove the best two war machines in all of human history, the USSR and the US out) unless the US decided to go the genocide route... and that won't happen because the press will show it to the world. So, pay me now with a GMI or New Deal jobs... or pay me later with guns, troops, mercenaries, green zones, and defending against constant incursions... which will destroy any quality of life in the country.
2: Global warming. Pay me now, or pay me later. Pay me now with moving to clean energy, redoing nuclear energy so it is trustworthy and advancing it from 1950s tech to 2010s Gen IV or thorium reactors, work on thermal depolymerization and CO2 abatement... or pay me later with ecological refugees, wars for arable land (Africa), people who have no hope and again... turn to Daesh because there is nothing left. Not just "those people in Africa". Everyone in the world is threatened by this... and paying for wars is VERY expensive.
The "red" part of USA would rather have their left nut cut off than allow such "socialism". They'll blame such unemployment on factors such as "too much" regulation or taxes, foreigners, a foreign country, Hollywood elites, Canadian cows or bees, Soros banking conspiracies, Hillary's emails, etc. etc. before they will submit to New Deal 2.
Table-ized A.I.