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Bill Gates Thinks AI Taking Everyone's Jobs Could be a Good Thing (businessinsider.com)
Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, thinks that artificial intelligence will take over a lot of jobs and ultimately will be a good thing. From a report:
In an interview, Gates said that robots taking over our jobs will make us more efficient, and lead to more free time. "Well, certainly we can look forward to the idea that vacations will be longer at some point," Gates told Fox Business. "If we can actually produce twice as much as we make today with less labor, the purpose of humanity is not just to sit behind a counter and sell things, you know?"
I don't care if a robot takes my job, but I *do* care if a robot takes my salary. I would imagine most folks feel similarly.
There will either be some sort of basic income or some other redistribution to the people left salary-less, or in another decade there will be social strife that makes today look positively quaint by comparison.
Easy enough to say when you have enough resources that you won't need to work to support yourself. How does he propose to distribute this bounteous windfall? Does he think the companies run the AI production facilities are going to be handing out their product to the idled (non-)workers?
Yeah, right, Bill. You go first!
Anyone else remember the 1960's, when they were telling us by 2000 everyone would only have to work 20 hours a week? That sure ended well!
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
...is A-OK with no one else having money.
Exactly. He's been a billionaire for most of his adult life and has no concept of reality.
A hundred years ago, Henry Ford paid his employees wages that were higher than most other companies at that time. Not because he was generous, but because he understood that they weren't just workers, they were also customers, and good wages meant they had more money to spend and in the long run he would sell more cars.
Ironically, in the long run, the destruction of jobs by robots and AI hurts the billionaires just as much as everyone else. You aren't just getting rid of jobs/employees -- you're getting rid of customers. Once you've used robots and AI to eliminate all the jobs, who exactly do you think is going to buy your company's products?
He means unemployment and time to wander the streets because you're homeless.
Once you've used robots and AI to eliminate all the jobs, who exactly do you think is going to buy your company's products?
Who cares about getting more money when you own 100% of global wealth?
What do you need money for if there are robots and AI agents capable of producing everything humanity needs. Once you're able to supply everyone with basic needs at essentially no cost because you don't need expensive human labor, everyone is essentially rich to the point that they can spend their days engaged in leisure or their own creative endeavors.
There's no point in wealthy people trying to control the poor because unlike now where they could be potential workers to produce more wealth, they offer no such utility in a future with advanced AI and robots. So either the wealthy completely eradicate the poor and there are no longer any poor people, or the wealthy decide to let everyone benefit from the improved production efficiency and no one is materially poor in the way that might be now.
Dystopian societies where the technologically advanced rich oppress the poor for no rational benefit or reason only exist in novels and films. As soon as they cease to be valuable as labor the only sensible thing to do is either exterminate them or give them everything they need to survive and leave them to their own devices.
not to work? The phrase "Those who don't work don't eat" exists in just about every culture. And the American political system's seen welfare used as a defining wedge issue of our political system since Reagan.
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I guess that's easy for a billionaire to say. Someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, like myself, disagrees wholeheartedly. If Billy Gates is feeling generous, why doesn't he help out main street America?
Gates is parroting various post-scarcity or Star Trek-based economic theories that if technology can provide everything people want, so they will live for their own happiness and the well-being of society. Star Trek lore says they ended scarcity with "replicator" technology that can make anything people want; Gates is suggesting robotic automation will end scarcity instead, but the effect is the same.
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/...
https://medium.com/@RickWebb/t...
There's literally a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Trekono...
Henry Ford paid his workers more so he could reduce turnover and get the best workers.
He also fired many workers after raising pay, he could find better ones.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Indeed. 10,000 Microsoft employees became millionaires through their stock options.
Bill paid way better than Henry.
With all the automation and huge increases in productivity, how many of you are working fewer hours than you were 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago?
I'm willing to bet it's damn few of you. The fact is that automation and increases in productivity do not put money in the pockets of people who work for a living, they put money in the pockets of people who own for a living, which is a very small fraction of the population.
If you're excited by the prospects of automation and AI and all that good stuff, you better come to terms with a massive increase in the social welfare state, because there is no other option.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's the transition period that is the problem. There are plenty of people who seem to have a visceral reaction against anyone without a job or existing material wealth receiving even the most basic goods or services needed for life. Until that is eradicated, we can have only dystopia.
He also sent busses into the south to recruit black sharecroppers to move north and work on his assembly lines. His plan was to break the UAW, which, at the time, refused to allow blacks to join.
His plan didn't work, because the UAW opened up their membership to blacks, who turned out to be just willing as whites to agitate and strike for higher wages.
This alliance of labor and civil rights that began in Ford's factories, later became a core coalition of the Democratic Party.
That's really not how it works. If for example, automation focused on nothing but foot production, retail and restaurants. It became so effective that food was basically 100% free in the US. Grocery stores, free, take out food, free anything food related was totally free served by robots for next to nothing.
Now there are let's say 10 million jobs lost in farming, ranching and retail out of 200 million jobs in the US. But there is also a lot of money no longer needed for food by the other 190 million people working. Will everyone simply pile that money under a mattress or burn it for fun? No, they will mostly spend it on something else, probably creating even more, higher paid jobs in the process. And now nobody is hungry.
The problem I see with automation, is that it will often be controlled by a few companies, with patents and such so that they can keep the prices high. By doing this we'll still see the 10 million jobs lost, but the extra profits will be taken by a few people at the top. Governments will need to break up these companies and patents to make it so anyone can use the automation, fight prices down and create new jobs in other areas that can't be automated. Overall automation will benefit everyone, but there will be fights along the way to make it fair for everyone.
jesus fucking christ what an asshat.