Most Americans Think AI Will Destroy Other People's Jobs, Not Theirs (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of U.S. adults believe artificial intelligence will "eliminate more jobs than it creates," according to a Gallup survey. But, the same survey found that less than a quarter (23 percent) of people were "worried" or "very worried" automation would affect them personally. Notably, these figures vary depending on education. For respondents with only a four-year college degree or less, 28 percent were worried about AI taking their job; for people with at least a bachelor degree, that figure was 15 percent. These numbers tell a familiar story. They come from a Gallup survey of more than 3,000 individuals on automation and AI. New details were released this week, but they echo the findings of earlier reports. The newly released findings from Gallup's survey also show that by one measure, the use of AI is already widespread in the U.S. Nearly nine out of 10 Americans (85 percent) use at least one of six devices or services that use features of artificial intelligence, says Gallup. Eighty-four percent of people use navigation apps like Waze, and 72 percent use streaming services like Netflix. Forty-seven percent use digital assistants on their smartphones, and 22 percent use them on devices like Amazon's Echo.

Comments

yeah forget that

[phantomfive]

I HOPE it eliminates my job. My job sucks. The only reason I do it is because I get paid. And don't pretend you are any different. Would you go to work if you didn't get paid? No way!

This is what's wrong with America

[rsilvergun]

in a nut shell. It's always the other guy that gets screwed. It's so common there's a meme for it.

Plus, I can never seem to get people to understand survival bias. As in "I've survived layoffs so it must be because I'm so damn awesome, and not because I got lucky as hell".

But Christ people, even if your job somehow _isn't_ the one automated away everybody else is going to be gunning for the few jobs left ya know?

It's like the man said, I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas

Re:Your duty is clear

[TWX]

That's the thing, I've spent my entire career implementing and maintaining computing technology, including a huge amount of troubleshooting and repair where theoretically automated or maintenanceless systems should have not required my intervention.

I'm not going to say that is impossible for AI to do what I do, but AI is itself another layer of technology, subject to both failures in the underlying layers and failures in its own implementation. AI might be better at sorting-out some of its own problems, but there comes a point when the platform upon which its implemented is broken enough that it requires someone external to fix it.

Plus I'd like to see AI figure out how to OTDR and repatch around fiber cable that was chewed-through by rats when the LIU is mounted in a wall-mount enclosure behind an out-of-service boiler in a mechanical room of a 50 year old building that was built without even telephones in-mind originally.

Statistics are fun.

[dgatwood]

The difference between people who understand statistics and people who don't is that people who don't understand statistics see a 1% annual chance and think, "This will never happen to me," whereas people who do understand statistics think, "This will eventually happen to me if I live long enough," and plan accordingly.

It isn't a question of whether any given person's job will be replaced, but rather when. Eventually, nearly everything will be automated. Manufacturing is already mostly there. Retail and fast food will be next, replaced by touchscreen ordering, website-based ordering, delivery robots, etc. The trucking industry will follow shortly thereafter. Doctors likely will be replaced by a machine learning model within a couple of decades at most, though surgeons and nurses will hang around somewhat longer. Police will eventually be replaced by drones. Office workers will be slowly become unnecessary as the people they support cease to work.

At some point, the only jobs left will be writing software for the machines, designing the machines, jobs in arts/entertainment, and maybe firefighter robot drivers. The only real questions are how long it will take and whether the rate of redundancy significantly exceeds the rate of attrition.

Re:Your duty is clear

[Dutch Gun]

I think most people understand that their job probably requires some degree of human-level intelligence. As such, they figure that their own job is safe until technology reaches that point AND costs less than their salary to rent such an AI. The only ones who really have to worry are those who know that a reasonably sophisticated algorithm could replace them.

But those same people who know their own job requirements probably have no idea what many other types of jobs entail, and I suspect they're likely to over-simplify them. As such, they're "good candidates for AI to replace."

At least, that's my hypothesis for the patterns of these answers.

Re:Your duty is clear

[ranton]

But those same people who know their own job requirements probably have no idea what many other types of jobs entail, and I suspect they're likely to over-simplify them. As such, they're "good candidates for AI to replace."

Or, conversely, they may not be as personally invested and can therefore form a more objective opinion about other people's jobs.

One aspect of AI automation that most people tend to ignore is the disruption that even automating 20% of your job can have on the industry. Especially if it happens quickly. The law industry is one example where the job prospects for most graduates is hurt significantly just because one aspect of the job (research and discovery) is increasingly handled by advanced algorithms.

The other aspect which is ignored is the impact of other displaced workers on industries which are not as disrupted. Perhaps AI cannot do plumbing, but those millions of unemployed truck drivers sure could. The shrinking number of jobs which are insulated from AI disruption will instead see increased competition from those displaced human workers.

Literally anyone who thinks their job will not be impacted by improving AI technology is deluding themselves. It will most likely follow the general trend of the last 50 years, where a small percentage of people see dramatic gains in income / wealth (not just the top 1%, but my guess is closer to 5-10%) and the rest experience a much shakier career than the middle/working class of the last century.