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Futurist Predicts AI Will Take Jobs, Benefiting the Rich But Not Workers (venturebeat.com)
Citing "significant" new corporate investments in AI technology, futurist Gary Grossman argues that AI "may be the fastest paradigm shift in the history of technology -- and warns there's a counter-argument to the theory that AI will create as many jobs as its displaces.
"The other view is that this time is different, that we are not just automating labor but also cognition and many fewer people will be needed by industry."
KPMG claims more than half of business executives plan to implement some form of AI within the next 12 months... The disruption is already beginning, with fully 75% of the organizations KPMG surveyed expecting intelligent automation to significantly impact 10 to 50% of their employees in the next two years. A Citigroup executive told Bloomberg that better AI could reduce headcount at the bank by 30%. In the face of all this change, many companies publicly state that AI will eliminate some dull and repetitive jobs and make it possible for people to do higher-order work. However, as a prominent venture capitalist relayed to me recently on this topic: "most displaced call center workers don't become Java programmers." It is not only low-skilled jobs that are at risk. Gartner analysts recently reported that AI will eliminate 80% of project management tasks....
A New York Times article noted that while many company executives pay public lip service to "human-centered AI" and the need to provide a safety net for those who lose their jobs, they privately talk about racing to automate their workforces "to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers." The article also cites a Deloitte survey from 2017 that found 53% of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans. The figure is expected to climb to 72% by next year.... The net of this dynamic is that workers are not a major factor in the economic calculus of the business drive to adopt AI, despite so many public statements to the contrary.
So perhaps it's not a surprise when the Edelman 2019 AI survey shows a widely held view that AI will lead to short-term job losses with the potential for societal disruption and that AI will benefit the rich and hurt the poor.
He also shares a sobering quote from historian, philosopher, and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari on why Silicon Valley supports Universal Basic Incomes.
"The message is: 'We don't need you. But we are nice, so we'll take care of you.'"
A New York Times article noted that while many company executives pay public lip service to "human-centered AI" and the need to provide a safety net for those who lose their jobs, they privately talk about racing to automate their workforces "to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers." The article also cites a Deloitte survey from 2017 that found 53% of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans. The figure is expected to climb to 72% by next year.... The net of this dynamic is that workers are not a major factor in the economic calculus of the business drive to adopt AI, despite so many public statements to the contrary.
So perhaps it's not a surprise when the Edelman 2019 AI survey shows a widely held view that AI will lead to short-term job losses with the potential for societal disruption and that AI will benefit the rich and hurt the poor.
He also shares a sobering quote from historian, philosopher, and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari on why Silicon Valley supports Universal Basic Incomes.
"The message is: 'We don't need you. But we are nice, so we'll take care of you.'"
> Dad, why do some people want socialism if it doesn't work?
> Because they also don't work, son.
I improved your headline.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
They'll only need a few million bodyguards.
Wow. We are nice. There's a howler. The Big Lie, say something outrageous. Silicon Valley, the home of intolerance, is telling us deplorables that it's nice and will care for us? Show of hands, who believes this?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It is obvious that deploying AI has nothing to do with deploying robots in factories. This is just a software deployment !
The previous automation revolution, ie robots in factories at least required robots be built. The AI revolution only requires someone at Google or Amazon to push the deployment button and could wipe by this single action loads of jobs.
As such is unlikely we can consider the AI revolution as something that will replace old jobs with new jobs, It will simply destroy them. End of story. A very small team of engineers and data scientists could actually wipe a whole type of job... worldwide.
It's not like the AI they're talking about will have any use for rich people. Seriously, what do "the rich" bring to the table that "AI" needs?
Other than the plot of yet another Terminator movie, of course....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It is arguable all previous labour automation technologies have also been automating cognition. We've been able to automatically apply raw force without the use of humans for millennia. Doing it in a controlled/reactive way is much more difficult. There was a time when weaving fabric was a very cognitively demanding job. Also there seems to be a fallacy here that past automation had created jobs in the same industries that it removed them from. This has never been true. As always, the rate at which automation will replace all the jobs is being overstated by people who are least familiar with the actual capabilities of AI. Until researchers manage to develop general artificial intelligence, I suspect this cycle will continue to repeat.
The article also cites a Deloitte survey from 2017 that found 53% of companies had already started to use machines to perform tasks previously done by humans.
I'd say it's closer to 100%. Do you still have switchboard operators? Elevator operators? Calculators (it used to be a person, not an object)? No? Then you've already replaced humans with machines. Ever send an e-mail or fax? Then you've replaced the postman and the telegraph operator, too...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Futurist predicts $RANDOMTECH will benefit the rich not the poor.
There you go. I just built the first AI based title generator about AI and obvious facts...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Tractors benefited land owners who could buy them, not farmers using them.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
You are aware that the futurists grew into the Italian fascists?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
They need lots of people to buy whatever crap it is they are selling, yet they don't want to have to pay people enough to be able to afford their crap. So once they finally get rid of all or most of the workers no one is going to be able to buy their crap and then what? Ford had the right idea.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Tractors benefited land owners who could buy them, not farmers using them.
Massive numbers of slaves benefitted large land owners, not the common wage workers of Rome who became welfare cases on a Universal Basic Income.
... or does it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The slave-ification of the Roman economy was a process that in many ways was similar to automation since it was a massive infusion of extremely cheap un paid labour so here are historical precedents indicating that this is not guaranteed to end the way you predict. UBI in Rome was simply a mechanism the wealthy slave owners used to keep the masses from arming themselves and coming for them. This was an ever-present danger since many of Rome's free citizenry were veterans of Rome's constant wars to secure resources and pre-emptively neutralise potential competitors which was one of the few career options still open to those who wanted something more out of life than just subsisting on a UBI. That last part about constant wars over resources of course has no parallels in post WWII US history
Employees training their AI replacements as a requirement to receive their termination pay. (Hint: you don't have to train them right...)
Strangely enough, it seems like management jobs would be easiest to replace with software.
Or are they going to build AI consumers as well?
Solaria on Earth
When they got rid of the receptionist in the office and gave me part of her work did my salary go up? No. When they got rid of local HR and gave me an email address I could use, did my salary go up? No. When I started to do three times as much work because technology got better, did my salary go up? No. . If I applied for a job in a different company that had already done these things would they pay me more? No.
What would lead anyone to believe the workers will get anything out of automation but more work to do for the same pay and just to be thankful for a job.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
"The Hamptons is not a defensible position." - 4:00 minute mark.
Mark Blyth on the Brexit vote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"The message is: 'We don't need you. But we are nice, so we'll take care of you.'"
but they do need us, who else is going to buy all their products/services?
a bit like when factories used to own the house you lived in, and all the stores and pubs in town were owned by the factory. you got your paycheck, but you spend (almost) everything on the services that the factory provided in your town.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
As I sit here waiting in Florida to finally travel back to civilization, Iâ€(TM)ve seen a huge effect of automation and centralization while on this visit.
The US is way ahead of anywhere else in the world with regards to killing jobs. To be honest, Iâ€(TM)m envious. Due to vast amounts of cheap and untrained labor, the US has made incredible progress towards to a Wall-E like society. People like me have no need to go to the mall or the grocery store or pretty much anywhere else since you can order anything online and get it quickly.
The malls are replacing retail shops with services and entertainment. The roads are littered with abandoned retail shops except those catering purely to poor people lacking credit cards or novelty. The decline is very obvious to an outsider.
Automation and centralization has made it so the people are forced to work in almost entirely service oriented jobs.
America is the logistics powerhouse of the western world. The country is famous for its ability to move things from place to place efficiently. This is glorious to watch. Compared to Europe, America is years ahead with regards to killing off jobs because in Europe, logistics companies are not yet able to offer dirt cheap delivery options. This is because outside of England, there arenâ€(TM)t enough uneducated people in Western Europe to handle all the logistical tasks manually for slave labor wages. We need the machines.
That said, once logistics is automated, both Europe and America will face a huge problem. The issue will be that if products can be delivered by drone or self-driving vehicles or whatever else, a HUGE number of jobs will disappear.
This will cause governments around the world to place many people on unemployment or social welfare because unless people open massive numbers of vanity oriented services like theme restaurants and eyebrow plucking shops, there simply will be no jobs to go around.
As the governments dilute their currencies via deficits, the value of their money will plummet. The ripple effect through the world will be that eventually companies will no longer see a clear path to profitability by manufacturing, distributing and marketing useless shit.
The people will focus on purchasing necessities rather than novelties therefore collapsing markets for endlessly disposable crap. This will hurt financial markets as well as the general import/export markets. Unions like the EU will become a matter of survival and will make it so as the market adjust, the governmentâ€(TM)s will be able to balance their deficits (not reduce, but increase systematically) until people are still being fed and kept healthy but with far less purchasing power than before.
The rich will be hurt because the vast majority of their sources of income will dissolve. The mass dilution of currency will mean that everyone will move progressively towards the middle or many will die because governments dependent primarily on manufacturing will lack the resources to balance their deficits as their exports will become unimportant.
The end result will be somewhat chaotic. Countries will unite to mega corporations who no longer see the financial benefit of producing and distributing necessities. Companies like Amazon will become more similar to a welfare system.
This of course is a doomsday scenario and if I were to write five more pages, I would add predictions that would include the one month work year which will make a big difference. But the point is that rich people are only rich because their money is perceived to have purchasing power. As that perception erodes, so will their wealth.
They won't survive, it's that simple. If they revolt, they will be destroyed. Faced with violence, people will choose the slow death by poverty and starvation rather than the quick death in a hopeless struggle. They will hold on to their shrinking resources, hoping in vain that something will change. The game is over.
A while back, there was a story about this where a erson become "property of the state" as he owed them so much. He was then "Rescued" to Australia, I believe,
Anybody have the URL to that story? It is a great read an higly on-topic. I could go into more details, but do not want to set of any spoilles.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Took all the way until the end of the post for what this was really all about.
The end-goal will be neat, the path going there will be ugly. And hurt.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If people are going to give their savings to companies to invest (i.e. buy stock in) they will expect a return on their money. Companies will only spend money on a project if it is going to produce a return on that investment. Because sometimes companies win big as a result of the risk they take, they are encouraged to take risks that benefit all of us. The alternative is state capitalism where only the state is allowed to invest - and does so badly because it's risking the taxpayers' money. So don't knock profits per se - but do ensure that there's plenty of competition.
The usa needs single payer healthcare or Medicare For All
We have the people to fill the logistic jobs because we are importing them from elsewhere in Europe. We're doing the logistics thing because on the whole our unions are weaker. OTOH it's remarkable how often my Amazon packages come from elsewhere in Europe, so I'm not sure your perception is valid at all.
This rant at the Economist argues that most of the West is facing a labour shortage. Then we hear this. Someone's going to end up with egg on their face... https://www.economist.com/fina...
What would stop us from building an AI that could process the same material as the task force and producing the legal foundation for prosecuting tax fraud by the ultra-wealthy. There are lots of other wonderful targets one could work on while whiling away the hours on UBI
Like all disruptive industry technologies, It will generate new sources of wealth and make services that used to be expensive and labor intensive cheaper and more accessible.
The rich are parasites, they didn't get to wealth by their efforts, they tapped into and exploited workers and the state to steal from both.
Except your god Trump hasn't made anyone better off except a few of his rich buddies. And you clearly don't know what a marginal tax rate is or how it works, so maybe you should just STFU?
IANAE (economist), However I see this large deployment of AI and manufacturer reducing cost of everything. These are businesses and need to make money. Once an entire supply chain is managed by AI from mining ores to having a end product say a phone, no labour and unions to deal with, you are left with cost of maintaining such machines. So instead of selling $200 iphone for $2000, and again, that $200 components may drop to few cents and the iPhone ends up costing $20 to manufacture. Then Businesses will be forced to sell these iPhones for $200 or maybe even less.
We have seen with other automation that costs drop, ice is cheap because there is no human delivering it to your door anymore.
So I see no money to be made in products as populace has no money and cost of manufacturing went from $100s to few cents.
Humans will be more free to enjoy their life. Who is to say some philanthropist won't set up auto manufacturing that gives free cars to everyone.
Venezuela is not a socialist country. It is a failed petro-state that would have actually succeeded if:
1. Oil prices didn't collapse.
2. Horrible mismanagement by Maduro and previously by Chavez in his later years.
Saudi Arabia does the same system as they do and they've pulled it off for decades. No one is calling Saudi Arabia "socialist".
This whole Venezuela is an example of how socialism can't work is total horseshit told by people who have an audience of people who can only understand things on a bumper sticker level.
Venezuela's predicament is extremely nuanced and complicated that has nothing to do with socialism. Their problems were decades in the making - waaaay before the "socialism".
Hrm. You don't know how taxation works. Interesting.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Trusting the government to do anything right is quite naive.
They will either fail to pass something like that, or fail to implement something like that.
It probably would be better off to just limit the power the patents have at a point you can actually have some competition in the sector.
Thank you, futurist!
After the "bust", many companies discover it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Has many "I told you so" disadvantages. Doesn't deliver as promised. Companies dislike the loss of control. Turns out to be costly and unreliable.
Are you talking about general computing here? Magnetic swipe security cards? Outsourced coding? Low bidding rentacops for security?
Companies experience this scenario all the time. If it helps the bottom line and doesn't sink the business, it gets adopted. If some C* gets a bee in their bonnet about how X can be done cheaper by Y than by their current employees, they're going to push the company that direction. And as long as they can creatively present the numbers to the rest of the C* folks, they get to play the hero. The ones that stick around in those positions tend to be good at this.
But you're ignoring the fact that AI is just a catchall phrase that doesn't mean what anyone really thinks it means. However, the bucket of related technology is already replacing employees, and providing a serious business advantage.
Voice recognition is one part. Lots of phone trees now just have you say what you want, instead of pushing buttons or talking to people. Personal digital assistants essentially completely replace a secretary for everything, and are accessible to about everyone.
My credit union uses machine learning to categorize my expenses. It's right about 95% of the time for routine purchases, and maybe 75% of the time for things that are one-off purchases. What would have once been an accounting job is now outsourced to a computer.
My phone tells me the weather, in more detail than the news ever could, or will be able to. I do not need an on-air weather forecaster explaining anything to me. I have a graph of the percent chance of rain binned by the half-hour. It can even slap a message on the lock screen telling me it's going to rain soon!
This is the tip of the iceberg of "AI". To think that it's not going to be disruptive is burying your head in the sand.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Sigh.
This argument will never go anywhere, since different people use the word "socialism" to mean different things.
I blame the libertarians, actually. They started accusing any action where a government does something with the intent to benefit its citizens as being "socialism!", and the word has now almost completely lost the original meaning, "worker ownership and control of the means of production."
If two people don't even have the same idea what the word means, however, it's impossible for them to come to any consensus on the trade-offs of benefits, if any, and costs.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The danger here is allowing technology companies to continue to horde and charge exorbitant prices for the latest technology. Even technology that is ten years old is being horded and only allowed out in small sips instead of the normal capitalist race to the bottom we saw through the 90's and through 2012.
They are hording the most valuable hardware and pieces of this technology and using it internally and not selling to the public. I'm not worried about companies automating everything, I'm worried about companies automating everything to gain control and creating a new ruling class.
We need make a number of critical technologies much much more easily obtainable and cheap. That includes chip fab techniques, there are a number of technologies we've come across that aren't dense enough to compete commercially but would be much cheaper to scale to geek diyer with an oscillioscope in his garage use. This includes the key pieces for a number of biology tools that have been horded such as crisper.
In short, we need to make sure we are in a position such that if and when they win this game and bail we can rebuilt and if they win this game and try to rule us we can simply take it back and dismantle it.
And a few week paid to engineers to maintain them. And engineers are nerds most of the time, they won't care that they're not on top like, say, a military general would, so little to no risk of them overthrowing you.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
To buy his crap. When you already own everything you don't need to buy, sell or trade.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"The message is: 'We don't need you. But we are nice, so we'll take care of you.'"
I think it goes deeper than that. The people in Silicon Valley understand where we're heading as well as anyone, so they know even their own jobs will eventually be automated. They also tend to be engineers and think like engineers: spot a problem, look for a solution. They see the problem, and conclude UBI is the most straightforward engineering solution to it. When no one has to work, you can't base income on work.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Works 24/7, no complaints, no time off, no 15 dollar an hour "livable" wage, shows up on time. It's a business owners DREAM.
that this is one tech that's not going to "trickle down".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's all this is. Nothing to see here, move along, move along..
Fails to realize that capitalism in man's natural state.
Here. I'll write it so you can understand. Cave man have two stone ax. Other cave man have antelope. First cave man hungry. Want antelope. Second cave man won't give antelope to first cave man. First cave man offers a stone ax for part of antelope. Second cave man agrees. Both eat. Both now have stone ax.
You know what we call that, bright eyes? Capitalism.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Keep their tummies full and their internet connections up, give 'em a few toys. They won't revolt. It takes a lot to get to that point.
... will be available and affordable when they are really needed.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It's one of those trifling reasons I don't like government at the beckoning call of financial institutions. We saw its purloined consequences lead to The Great Recession during Bush 43's reign, and again when Obama bailed out the rich at the expense of everybody else.
My god, this article is so 1811. Are all the automated milling machines going to replace human workers now? Shall we throw our shoes into them and break them?
How do I get to be a futurist? Is there some kind of application process? Because if it has good benefits, I'd like to sit around all day long and make predictions about the future, also without understanding the technologies that will constitute it.
Those of us who actually do AI stuff for a living, know far better than this.
Are we sure this is from a "futurist"? People were saying the exact same thing about industrialization 200 years ago.
Well, both sides of this "discussion" have beautifully illustrated and reminded me of what happened to this site and why I left.
Eh? Fluffer and I are actually having a civil discussion. Slashdot too often degrades into name calling and flaming the days, to be sure, but this discussion isn't an instance of that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The only difference on a healthy country is that there's competition between the corporations, so they try to do above the average.
But the US is not a healthy country, so whatever is a monopolistic corporation or the government, you will not get a good service as they're basically the same thing
But on the other hand, if you have a public service but it is not the only service, the government ends counting up like a competitor and most likely improve the things around greatly.
Yeah, Igw and I are really lovers in real life! Seriously though. I don't have anything against anyone here. I was set aback the first time someone called me an a moron. Slashdot is debating in the purest sense, and some times it gets raw here. I find i ta nice break from the much more PC forums I am in.
I'm not saying you have to like the discussions here, but I have found growing a thicker skin to be helpful in life. I have had to work with people worse than anyone here.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Comment above posted to wrong person.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Has NO ONE studied history? If you make 50% of the poorest, gun-toting folk unemployed, there won't be any rich folk (or AI) for very long.
Do you want Sky-Net? Cause THIS is how you get Sky-Net!!
That just means that social capital was the primal currency for that society. Which makes sense. It works pretty well for groups small enough so that everyone knows everyone.
Just impose/increase Wealth tax
https://www.change.org/p/13002...
Casteism