Will A.I destroy more jobs than it creates?

[Obsessed With Gaming]

Also what will the world be like if there are no jobs left? Will we just sit around all day doing nothing? Or will there always be jobs regardless?

Edited January 27, 2019 by Obsessed With Gaming

[iNow]

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/forecasting-a-robot-driven-workplace/

 

[Sensei]

2 hours ago, Obsessed With Gaming said:

Also what will the world be like if there are no jobs left? Will we just sit around all day doing nothing? Or will there always be jobs regardless?

There will be no money or there will be minimum unconditional income. People won't have to go to job to earn money. See what happens if somebody wins on lottery: on majority of the cases instantly resigns from regular work. Why? Because majority of the people hate their daily jobs, and work only for money..

Smart people can find alternative activities like self improvement by learning and training..

[Prometheus]

6 hours ago, Obsessed With Gaming said:

Will we just sit around all day doing nothing?

We could learn new languages, write poetry or literature, connect with other people, dance, sing and play. But the fact that many people can only imagine sitting around doing nothing says a great deal about the modern psyche. 

[John Cuthber]

2 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

But the fact that many people can only imagine sitting around doing nothing says a great deal about the modern psyche. 

To be fair, if all you want to do is sit round watching daytime TV, that's fine too.

The point is that it lets you choose what you do.

[Prometheus]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/forecasting-a-robot-driven-workplace/

I'm delighted to see lawyers on the redundant list. However, i think it far too optimistic. Lawyers (in the UK at least) come from a privileged sector of society and they will not let their children's future cushty jobs go easily. Once jobs for the affluent are started to be affected there will be significant push back (not that there won't be push back from the poor - but who cares about the poor).

 

3 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

To be fair, if all you want to do is sit round watching daytime TV, that's fine too.

The point is that it lets you choose what you do.

True enough. Though i hope by then we'll have some damn fine virtual gaming.

[John Cuthber]

Once the AI lawyers start to win cases it will get interesting.

It might not be long. 

 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

Once the AI lawyers start to win cases it will get interesting.

It might not be long. 

 

Can we be sure that the AI judges won't be more favourable to the AI lawyers than human ones?

[iNow]

32 minutes ago, Strange said:

Can we be sure that the AI judges won't be more favourable to the AI lawyers than human ones?

No, especially given how sexist and racist it seems to be today:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05707-8

 

[Ten oz]

8 hours ago, Obsessed With Gaming said:

Also what will the world be like if there are no jobs left? Will we just sit around all day doing nothing? Or will there always be jobs regardless?

Jobs will still exist. In some cases new technology will lead to greater opportunity. Camera's made hand created portraits obsolete yet also led to a massive expansion in Theater which became Cinema and employees far more individuals than hand made  Portraits ever had. Also a market for hand made Portraits does still exist. 

All jobs are not inherently productive. Automatic doors should have already replaced door greeters at Hotels and shop yet they haven't. People enjoy the human element of things. From reality TV, Instagram fame, YouTube stars, there are whole cottage industries which exist around people just watching people. 

Also it isn't always the case that if one companies can do something more cheaply and faster they will corner the market. McDonald's makes a burger cheap and fast yet we can all list 10 other burger franchises off the top of our heads that all successfully compete. People like variety. In the case of bars/pubs all of them are literally serving the same product. A Jack and Coke is the same Jack and Coke everywhere yet numerous different establishments exist all over the place charging different prices for that Jack and Coke and people all have their favorite ones. The Bar serving the cheapest and fastest Jack and Coke hasn't cornered the market. 

Efficiency is obviously critical to the success of a company but so too is providing a product people want. That second part, what people want, isn't always logical because people are not also logical. 

 

[iNow]

Another report just out shared that (obviously) the effects will be uneven, and notes that the rust belt and the young will be hit hardest. More at the following:

https://www.wired.com/story/robots-will-take-jobs-from-men-young-minorities/

Quote

The analysis, from the Brookings Institution, suggests that just as the dividends of recent economic growth have been distributed unevenly, so too will the disruptive effects of automation. In both cases, nonwhite, less economically secure workers lose out.

<...>

Food preparation scores as 91 percent automatable, compared with software development at 8 percent.

<...>

On average, half of the tasks performed by workers aged 16 to 24 can be automated over the next couple of decades, the report says, compared with just 40 percent of the tasks of older workers. Hispanic workers are in jobs that are already 47 percent automatable; for Native American and black workers, those shares are 45 and 44 percent, respectively. For the average white worker, according to the study, only 40 percent of their job is within reach of machines in the next two decades.

Men are more exposed to changes wrought by automation than women, the study says. Brookings estimates that 43 percent of an average male worker’s job could be automated by 2040, compared with just 40 percent for the average woman’s job.

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by iNow

[Huckleberry of Yore]

First, the term AI is used way too much.  Most of it is actually just advanced algorithms and improvements in the technology of automation which has been evolving for decades.  Sure, true machine learning is pretty amazing; for example Google's chess program, but since chess is just a game, it's not clear how revolutionary that advancement will be.  IMO it isn't enough to simply pass the Turing test (which I don't think we are even close to), but when AI can autonomously research and build even better AI, then we're talking.

Second, the fully automated lifestyle portrayed, for example, in the movie WALL-E is probably just fantasy.  Technology is just an evolution in human effort and innovation, not a terminal event.  This might sound pretty silly, but I can imagine that given the exponential growth in technology, humanity could, given time and luck, at some distant future achieve the type of omniscience portrayed by the Q in Star Trek NG.

[iNow]

27 minutes ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

Most of it is actually just advanced algorithms and improvements in the technology of automation which has been evolving for decades

It’s also evolved to a point and is accelerating at such a rate that it’s likely to fundamentally change the world more than even the industrial revolution did. 

[Huckleberry of Yore]

13 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s also evolved to a point and is accelerating at such a rate that it’s likely to fundamentally change the world more than even the industrial revolution did. 

As I said, technology grows exponentially.  Plot e^x and imagine what we can expect in the future.  Moore's law is just one example of many.  Of course technological growth isn't guaranteed.  I've wondered if it holds in places like North Korea.  It might, just slower.  IMO as a society it behooves us to encourage technological growth, and not stifle it (which we actually do too often).

Edited January 27, 2019 by Huckleberry of Yore

[iNow]

Glad you agree

[beecee]

32 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s also evolved to a point and is accelerating at such a rate that it’s likely to fundamentally change the world more than even the industrial revolution did. 

Interesting concept and something I have just read about.....https://phys.org/news/2019-01-advanced-artificial-intelligence.html

"To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now"

 

and another side of the hypothesis....

https://phys.org/news/2015-03-artificial-intelligence-apt.html

"Artificial intelligence systems more apt to fail than to destroy"

[Huckleberry of Yore]

I'm getting that Y2K feeling all over again.  And global warming.  People love to be scared of nonsense.  It'd help if people viewed "AI" as a potential for improving science and medicine and forget about the Terminator style dystopia.

[beecee]

6 minutes ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

I'm getting that Y2K feeling all over again.  And global warming.  People love to be scared of nonsense.  It'd help if people viewed "AI" as a potential for improving science and medicine and forget about the Terminator style dystopia.

This sin't about global warming, and while the hypotheticals about  "ÄI" maybe nonsense, global warming is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence.

[Huckleberry of Yore]

Probably fodder for a different thread.  My point is that even highly educated/intelligent people seem to have a tendency to hype stories to the point of hysteria, and ultimately are proven to have overreacted.

[iNow]

20 minutes ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

My point is that even highly educated/intelligent people seem to have a tendency to hype stories to the point of hysteria, and ultimately are proven to have overreacted.

And nobody in this thread has done that. Not even close. 

1 hour ago, beecee said:

"To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now"

The Elon Musk position

1 hour ago, beecee said:

and another side of the hypothesis....

The Bill Gates position

[Huckleberry of Yore]

31 minutes ago, iNow said:

And nobody in this thread has done that. Not even close. 

I wasn't referring to anyone in this thread.  I had Musk and Hawking in mind.

[iNow]

Thanks for clarifying. Hawking is dead.

HAL didn’t do it. 

[Sensei]

3 hours ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

I'm getting that Y2K feeling all over again.  And global warming.  People love to be scared of nonsense.

Okay. So you don't understand Y2K issue. Let me explain. In old times, some programmers used packet BCD (binary-coded decimal) to store year number. In range 00..99, single byte data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-coded_decimal

On slow computers, or microcontrollers with limited capacity of built-in memory, it was used to save code and memory for translation back and forth from the real integer to ASCII to display to user of device. Early devices didn't have built-in CPU/microcontroller multiplication, division and modulo math functions built-in them (because they are slow to execute, and require massive amount of transistors, at that time designers bothered about it). So to convert from integer to ASCII and back, there would be needed massive amount of code to simulate them.

8 bit CPUs like Motorola 6502/6510 didn't have multiplication, division nor modulo math functions. Check list of instructions of Intel 8080/8088 and Zilog Z80. BCD instructions were implemented built-in a lot of CPUs and microcontrollers.

The all devices and software source codes had to be reviewed and fixed or replaced by new one.

3 hours ago, Huckleberry of Yore said:

And global warming.  People love to be scared of nonsense.

So you don't understand global warming either..

 

Edited January 28, 2019 by Sensei

[Ken Fabian]

Huckleberry - I disagree on a couple of points, neither the subject of the thread. 

Global warming is real and serious - every mainstream expert report and study, whether commissioned by Conservatives or Progressives (or however you prefer to categorise the 'sides') is clear on that. People do get scared of nonsense, like fear of Green conspiracies to force World Government on everyone by making up global warming scares - after subverting hundreds of leading science institutions. Or scared that committing to regaining climate stability will be economically ruinous (whilst believing not fixing the problem won't be or cannot be ruinous). If you want to debate this, start another discussion in appropriate category - or join an existing discussion. (I'm mostly okay with discussions going wherever they go, but Moderators mostly are not; they like people to stick to the subject). 

I also disagree on the nature of Progress. I think progress is not exponential, it is an S-curve; it just looks a lot like exponential when you are riding the steep part. Again, I'm happy to debate this, in an appropriate thread (and on this subject you might find more people here agreeing with you than me).

AI - I'm not sure how that will play out. But I don't think anyone does. Automation still comes at a price; robotics, doing and making physical things add a level of complexity that can add to energy and resource use. On the other hand it can greatly improve efficiencies of energy and resource use. The social costs of high unemployment and poverty tend not to remain restricted to the poor - keeping prosperous and safe amongst large populations of desperate people can be more expensive than providing welfare; automation with AI could reduce the costs of providing basic welfare at the same time as it creates the unemployment welfare has to deal with. And perhaps provide the circuses as well as the bread - virtual mansions for the indulgent, virtual jobs for those who can't tolerate idleness.

[Huckleberry of Yore]

>>>> some programmers used packet BCD

Yeah, I'm an embedded software engineer and I'll bet you've flown in an aircraft with my code helping to get you to your destination safely and on time.  Y2K was way more than BCD for heaven's sake.  I also have spent much of my career building control systems for research and manufacturing.  As engineers we don't design the safety of our systems to fail because the year has 3 zeroes in it.  Perhaps you are too young and don't have personal knowledge.  People were truly terrified that nuclear power plants were going to  melt down, and planes were going to fall out of the sky.  Rubbish, and most of us engineers tried to calm people, largely to no avail.  As I recall, there were a few credit card companies whose billing systems had some glitches, but the Y2K scare was an embarrassing time, and demonstrates how the masses can be lead into hysteria.

>>> So you don't understand global warming either..

Start another thread and defend your position then.

>>>> The social costs of high unemployment and poverty

As members of a dynamic economy it is everyone's responsibility to have skills that are in demand.  When the cotton gin was invented, cotton workers were VERY upset as I recall.  Might have been some violence involved.  We've all heard of the buggy whip, typewriter, etc.  I view the technological expansion we've seen over the last 2 hundred years as fairly constant without any decline that you'd see in an S curve, but I'm open to examples.  Automation just makes us more efficient (otherwise we wouldn't adopt it) and leaves more manpower (physical and intellectual) and allows for that effort to be put to improving our situation even more.  That's real progress.