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Instead of Slowing Down Innovation To Protect Few People, Policymakers Should Focus On Helping Displaced Workers Transition Into New Jobs, ITIF Suggests (itif.org)
A recently published report by Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) argues that rather than slow
down change to protect a small number of workers at the expense of the vast majority, policymakers should focus on doing significantly more to help workers transition easily into new jobs and new occupations [PDF]. From a report: There has been growing speculation that a coming wave of innovation -- indeed, a tsunami -- powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, will disrupt labor markets, generate mass unemployment, and shift the few jobs that remain into the insecure "gig economy." Kneejerk "solutions" from such technology Cassandras include ideas like taxing "robots" and implementing universal basic income for everyone, employed or not. The first would slow needed productivity growth, employed or not; the second would reduce worker opportunity.
The truth is these technologies will provide a desperately needed boost to productivity and wages, but that does not mean no one will be hurt. There are always winners and losers in major economic transitions. But rather than slow down change to protect a modest number of workers at the expense of the vast majority, policymakers should focus on doing significantly more to help those who are dislocated transition easily into new jobs and new occupations. Improving policies to help workers navigate what is likely to be a more turbulent labor market is not something that should be done just out of fairness, although it is certainly fair to help workers who are either hurt by change or at risk of being hurt. But absent better labor market transition policies, there is a real risk that public and elite sentiment will turn staunchly against technological change, seeing it as fundamentally destructive and unfair.
The truth is these technologies will provide a desperately needed boost to productivity and wages, but that does not mean no one will be hurt. There are always winners and losers in major economic transitions. But rather than slow down change to protect a modest number of workers at the expense of the vast majority, policymakers should focus on doing significantly more to help those who are dislocated transition easily into new jobs and new occupations. Improving policies to help workers navigate what is likely to be a more turbulent labor market is not something that should be done just out of fairness, although it is certainly fair to help workers who are either hurt by change or at risk of being hurt. But absent better labor market transition policies, there is a real risk that public and elite sentiment will turn staunchly against technological change, seeing it as fundamentally destructive and unfair.
Would these be the same policymakers that have been pushing students to go into STEM for the last several years? Or the same policymakers that were telling all the laid off machinists, welders & tool and dye makers to study computer science? I had several of those students in my classes, and they struggled because really had no interest in studying computer science. Most of them hadn't been in school for over a decade. They were there so they could get their "No worker left behind" money. I remember running into one of my former students a couple of weeks after he graduated & asked him how his job search was going. He told me he got hired at a new welding job for $13 an hour. He seemed pretty content.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
General purpose AI and advanced robotics are able to replace everything a human can do.
I'm going to stop you right there because your assumption is completely and totally incorrect. So-called 'AI' as it currently exists, and for the forseeable future, is not in any way, shape, or form equivalent to a human being. We have NO IDEA how human brains are self-aware, capable of actual 'thought', capable of having a 'personality', etcetera, and so-called 'artificial intelligence' is not capable of these things; there is no 'mind' inside that box, it's just a computer running software. Calm down, take a breath, and embrace the reality: advances in technology have happened before, will keep happening, they cause some disturbance of human employment, some types of employment may become obsolete, but new types always spring up to take their place, and life goes on. Please, please, stop drinking the media-supplied Kool-Aid, they do NOT know what they're talking about, MOST PEOPLE don't know what they're talking about, humans will never be 'obsolete', Just keep calm and carry on, okay?