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This is extremely optimistic. We don't have AI that advanced, or evidence that AI will get that advanced any time soon. People joke all the time about the cra

This is extremely optimistic. We don't have AI that advanced, or evidence that AI will get that advanced any time soon. People joke all the time about the crazy stuff that Siri comes up with. What IS coming soon is automation of mindless, lower-level jobs. Waiting tables is a good example here: humans do a terrible job of it, and add 10-20% to your food bill in exchange for screwing up your order. Having a tablet computer on the table for you to place your own order would be better, and some restaurants already do this (like Panera) to some degree. Factory work is another: today's factories are filled with automation, and robots produce better-quality products than humans because they don't make mistakes. Taxi driving is another: we're working on automated cars, so pretty soon "Johnny Cab" will be a real thing, and all those cab drivers will be out of a job. This will extend to truck drivers pretty quickly, probably faster than cabs actually. Fast food cooking is another: McD's already has the job of cooking a Big Mac down to something that someone with almost no training can pick up right away because their machines do most of it, they just have to follow some pictorial directions. People have Roombas to clean their floors. So what happens when you automate all the simple jobs that don't require an education? Now you have a large portion of the population that's unemployed, and they're really not smart enough to get an education and get a higher-level job, or there's not enough higher-level jobs to go around for them if they are. It's going to be a long time before engineers, for instance, are replaced by robots (and maybe never), but you don't need smart people to cut grass and rake leaves, and jobs like that are going to go away before long.

gnaritas 11y ago
> This is extremely optimistic. It's inevitable. > We don't have AI that advanced Correct. > or evidence that AI will get that advanced any time soon. That's incorrect. The trend is obvious, watson can already out diagnose a doctor. AI doesn't have to work like a human to out do a human just as planes don't have to flap their wings. > What IS coming soon is automation of mindless, lower-level jobs. That is coming, but as things like Watson show, it won't be limited to mindless lower level jobs. All but the more pure intellectual pursuits will gone in very short order. Most jobs, even white collar ones, don't take that much thinking. > It's going to be a long time before engineers, for instance, are replaced by robots It's not going to be long at all before the bulk of humanity is replaced by robots; that humans are still useful in the highest levels of intellectual fields is for all purposes irrelevant, the labor based economy will crumble far before unemployment reaches 50%. If robots put the lower half of society out of work, it's game over for our current economic system regardless of whether we have strong enough AI to replace engineers.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  I have to disagree about AI and doctors, until at least you can get much better sensing technologies. Computers are only as good as the data you feed them, and someone saying they have a pain in some vague region really isn't enough to diagnose anything accurately. It's why doctors tell people to not use the internet to self-diagnose: they quickly determine they're dying of some rare syndrome when really they just have heartburn. A human doctor can interact with human patients (most of whom are not very logically-minded) and figure this stuff out; a computer can't. Remember, a lot of diagnosing depends on the symptoms a patient self-reports, which is bound to be extremely error-prone. Now, if we get to the point where we have Star Trek-style medical scanners, then things will of course be different, but that's a long ways off. However, I totally agree about the labor-based economy crumbing well before unemployment reaches 50%. If 30% of the workforce is displaced by automation, our economy won't work any more the way it's set up now. It's why we really need a Basic Income.
- nradov 11y ago
  Religious fanatics believe that coming off the messiah is inevitable. You don't have any more evidence than they do. This belief that general AI will show up soon and change the world is nothing more than a secular religion.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    That's a straw-man. There's plenty of evidence that even limited non general purpose AI will harm the job market enough cause massive social issues; I was very clear, general AI is not necessary for these things to be problems. Self driving cars alone will cause massive unemployment across many sectors over the next decade as it becomes common and unemployment need only get so high before social change is forced. As for the inevitability of general purpose AI, that's not an unfounded religious belief based on nonsense from the ignorant, it's an obvious and practical step that will be taken because there's every reason to believe it's possible and no reason to believe brains are magical and intelligence isn't achievable, and tons of the smartest people in the world are actively trying to do it. Informed and logical predictions are nothing like superstition and to say there's no evidence is just willful blindness.

gnaritas 11y ago

> This is extremely optimistic. It's inevitable. > We don't have AI that advanced Correct. > or evidence that AI will get that advanced any time soon. That's incorrect. The trend is obvious, watson can already out diagnose a doctor. AI doesn't have to work like a human to out do a human just as planes don't have to flap their wings. > What IS coming soon is automation of mindless, lower-level jobs. That is coming, but as things like Watson show, it won't be limited to mindless lower level jobs. All but the more pure intellectual pursuits will gone in very short order. Most jobs, even white collar ones, don't take that much thinking. > It's going to be a long time before engineers, for instance, are replaced by robots It's not going to be long at all before the bulk of humanity is replaced by robots; that humans are still useful in the highest levels of intellectual fields is for all purposes irrelevant, the labor based economy will crumble far before unemployment reaches 50%. If robots put the lower half of society out of work, it's game over for our current economic system regardless of whether we have strong enough AI to replace engineers.

Grishnakh 11y ago
I have to disagree about AI and doctors, until at least you can get much better sensing technologies. Computers are only as good as the data you feed them, and someone saying they have a pain in some vague region really isn't enough to diagnose anything accurately. It's why doctors tell people to not use the internet to self-diagnose: they quickly determine they're dying of some rare syndrome when really they just have heartburn. A human doctor can interact with human patients (most of whom are not very logically-minded) and figure this stuff out; a computer can't. Remember, a lot of diagnosing depends on the symptoms a patient self-reports, which is bound to be extremely error-prone. Now, if we get to the point where we have Star Trek-style medical scanners, then things will of course be different, but that's a long ways off. However, I totally agree about the labor-based economy crumbing well before unemployment reaches 50%. If 30% of the workforce is displaced by automation, our economy won't work any more the way it's set up now. It's why we really need a Basic Income.
nradov 11y ago
Religious fanatics believe that coming off the messiah is inevitable. You don't have any more evidence than they do. This belief that general AI will show up soon and change the world is nothing more than a secular religion.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  That's a straw-man. There's plenty of evidence that even limited non general purpose AI will harm the job market enough cause massive social issues; I was very clear, general AI is not necessary for these things to be problems. Self driving cars alone will cause massive unemployment across many sectors over the next decade as it becomes common and unemployment need only get so high before social change is forced. As for the inevitability of general purpose AI, that's not an unfounded religious belief based on nonsense from the ignorant, it's an obvious and practical step that will be taken because there's every reason to believe it's possible and no reason to believe brains are magical and intelligence isn't achievable, and tons of the smartest people in the world are actively trying to do it. Informed and logical predictions are nothing like superstition and to say there's no evidence is just willful blindness.