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'Tech Companies Should Stop Pretending AI Won't Destroy Jobs' (technologyreview.com)
Kai-Fu Lee, the founder and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and president of the Sinovation Ventures Artificial Intelligence Institute, believes that we're not ready for the massive societal upheavals on the way. He writes for MIT Technology Review: The rise of China as an AI superpower isn't a big deal just for China. The competition between the US and China has sparked intense advances in AI that will be impossible to stop anywhere. The change will be massive, and not all of it good. Inequality will widen. As my Uber driver in Cambridge has already intuited, AI will displace a large number of jobs, which will cause social discontent. Consider the progress of Google DeepMind's AlphaGo software, which beat the best human players of the board game Go in early 2016. It was subsequently bested by AlphaGo Zero, introduced in 2017, which learned by playing games against itself and within 40 days was superior to all the earlier versions. Now imagine those improvements transferring to areas like customer service, telemarketing, assembly lines, reception desks, truck driving, and other routine blue-collar and white-collar work.
It will soon be obvious that half of our job tasks can be done better at almost no cost by AI and robots. This will be the fastest transition humankind has experienced, and we're not ready for it. Not everyone agrees with my view. Some people argue that it will take longer than we think before jobs disappear, since many jobs will be only partially replaced, and companies will try to redeploy those displaced internally. But even if true, that won't stop the inevitable. Others remind us that every technology revolution has created new jobs as it displaced old ones. But it's dangerous to assume this will be the case again.
It will soon be obvious that half of our job tasks can be done better at almost no cost by AI and robots. This will be the fastest transition humankind has experienced, and we're not ready for it. Not everyone agrees with my view. Some people argue that it will take longer than we think before jobs disappear, since many jobs will be only partially replaced, and companies will try to redeploy those displaced internally. But even if true, that won't stop the inevitable. Others remind us that every technology revolution has created new jobs as it displaced old ones. But it's dangerous to assume this will be the case again.
Having completely abandoned the economic class focus of their old leftist counterparts, they're going to have a "diverse underclass" that has been kicked around and called obsolete gunning for them. I'm not a Marxist, but Marx would be shitting himself if he could see the arguments today like a "gay billionaire being oppressed by poor workers who don't want to work at his wedding." Adam Smith would also agree that it's a recipe for disaster because both point to the same problem, which is it that it's an elite-focused system without even a pretense of noblesse oblige and a terribly smug disdain for the "wrong people" almost all of whom are poor or poorish.
Just like the article points out. You can't make it as a professional go player anymore.
You don't even have to make it past TFS to realize that mocking this situation is an ignorant mistake.
It won't even take displacing 10% of human jobs to create a massive impact on society.
"I have no idea how we'll all adjust but we're clever and motivated. I'm hopeful that 7 billion minds can figure something out."
I'm sure they thought something similar back in the day when agricultural machinery started replacing workers on the farms and whole families starved because they had no income or had to go and live in slum conditions in newly industrialised cities. But hey, for the farm and factory owners - win! What did they care.
> So you are saying that AI will let us work 10% less and retain the same pay and productivity?
In any sensible society yes, that would be it. But not in capitalism:
Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before[...] The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work.
(Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness, 1935, see also Wikipedia.
Capitalism, as we have today is just too stupid to cope with that problem and flees into more and more mass-production of less and less useful crap, at an exploding externalized cost: environment, civil society, whatever that has not a price tag or can be bribed.
AI right now is nothing more than a new type of index search. Where instead of building a tree first the system customizes the tree before searching. It is very limited and often fails in illogical ways as it correlates data that doesn't correlate often.
Show me true AI that is self learning.
STOP being ignorantly stuck in the idea that "AI" needs to be perfect in order to disrupt or replace humans. Put simply, it doens't.
Automation will work to create enough of an impact and displace human employment. There is no such thing as a "perfect" human, so it will only take "good enough" AI to displace a human from their job. Sorry, but this is the reality of the situation. We can ramble on and on about how AI isn't equal to the human brain and won't be for a long time (which may be true), but to put it bluntly, 90% of those employed today are using a fraction of their mental capacity, so human employment WILL be disrupted, and sooner than you think.
"AI right now is nothing more than a new type of index search."
Not sure what gave you that idea.
"Where instead of building a tree first the system customizes the tree before searching"
Depends on the algorithm being used. There are many difference types, some are neural nets, others are mathematics based doing massive statistical analysis and prediction.
"Show me true AI that is self learning"
There are already self training AIs. Google it (spot the irony).
"Even ai in video games"
Hardly a cutting edge example of AI. Most games "AI" is just hard coded if-thens.
"A basic feedback loop would at least help point it correctly."
No shit, why didn't they think of that?? Oh wait, they did, its called back propagation and was invented in the 1960s.
You might want to get a clue before posting.
We'll need a basic income for all and higher taxes to pay for it.
And folks who are hung up on insisting that people work are gonna have to get over it because when folks get displaced and have nowhere to make living, they're gonna revolt. So, we gave them basic income to keep them from reaching for the guns and torches.
Revolution is what will happen if the negative effects of AI are ignored. The thought that some other parts of the economy will soak up the displaced workers is just a fantasy.
So you are saying that AI will let us work 10% less and retain the same pay and productivity?
No, I'm saying automation and AI will displace 10% of human employment quicker than anyone can predict, and Greed won't give a fuck about your pay or your ability to survive. Greed never has.
Oddly, that didn't happen in America. People fled to the cities here (just like they're doing elsewhere now) because the conditions were much better than the grinding rural poverty they left. Heck, those city jobs actually payed money for work, not just room and board. Farm automation lagged the growth of cities, as demand rose for automation to replace the people who had left.
Working on a farm when you're not the one who owns the land has always been terrible work.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Your entire argument is based on the premise that people already have everything they need, and there is no demand for either more, or better quality, goods and services.
Go stick your head in the sand like a good ostrich.
Fast food worker from places like McD, Burger King, etc. are the most at risk, since there is no skill involved with preparing an order.
The patties, buns, fries come from the factory ready for final heating, assembly and bagging. I can easily see the tweaking of the the factory packaging into a format that can be easily loaded into dispensing robots that would heat the patty, grab and place the appropriate bun where the condiments are applies using depositors, which come in in factory prepared cartridges, wrapped and bagged.
Fries are just as easy if not easier since only salts needs to be added once cooked. Dispensing would be by weight, which is dead easy.
Same goes with apples pies or other deserts like ice cream sundaes, etc.
Even the order taker can be eliminated by having the customers order and pay at a kiosk.
Finally, if you are a CEO and you are not looking at AI and automation then you will find yourself looking for a new job, since the market only cares about profits and if the market thinks you can profit from automation and you not taking advantage then your stock will get hammered until you change you mind or your replacement does something about it.
Ignore at your own risk.