Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
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.
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?
In this context, taking care of us means what it means when mafia says they will 'take care' of someone
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
My wife who was saved by "socialist medicine" twice begs to differ with you.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
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.
"But it's Socialism!" is the battle cry coined for them who work for their money by them who have their money work for them.
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.
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
I believe it. But if it's Silicon Valley (i.e. big business) basically calling the shots, then they will be exactly as nice as they deem necessary to keep us from revolting, and not a sou more. In other words: if you are unemployed, off you go to your TerraFoam* tenement block where you will find the food, shelter and entertainment you need. Of course it will not be long until you will be told to ("asked") not to leave your social housing district, and once the robot guards are in place, they can slowly reduce your benefits, because what are you going to do about it. And perhaps at some point they'll slip a sterilizing agent into your food, because who the hell needs more deadbeats. If we are not careful, the poor will die out while the rich will inherit the Earth. If AI will indeed make the majority of workers redundant, then we will have to move to some form of UBI and socialism, although that does not necessarily mean we will have a planned economy instead of a free market.
*) Read "Manna" by Marshall Brain, a free short SF story on this very subject.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
My brother in law who fled Venezuela three years ago, and talks about his neighbor killing and eating his own dogs, begs to differ.
>Dad why do some people get a lot of money even if they didn't earn it but simply took it from others by abusing their position?
>Because we are dumb and naive and we let them, son.
socialism = capitalism = democracy = fascism = same bullshit buzzwords designed to distract suckers while you steal their life and time away
Only used by 'academics' while real life works differently.
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.
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".
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
Get off your high horse. Even if the tolls pay for the entire construction and maintenance of the highway, which I doubt, and even if the developers are paying to maintain the roads long after they finished building in that area, which I doubt, then there is still fire stations, police stations, garbage pickup, water, sewage. Are you on health insurance? You realize if you get seriously ill, others plan members will be picking up the tab for you right?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Do not ever conflate charity/generosity with government confiscation and redistribution. The confiscation is backed by force, and the benefits of the redistribution always goes to the politician pushing for it. There is not force in charity, that the recipient's gratitude goes to the one who is making the sacrifice.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Strangely enough, it seems like management jobs would be easiest to replace with software.
At maximum automation, 90% of management function ceases to exist. Management is largely about keeping track of what a bunch of humans are doing. No humans, no need to track what they're doing. The machines self-report accurately and completely, and what little "management" is still required is a very small shell script.