Artificial Intelligence

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Seenenough

Artificial Intelligence

#1 Post by Seenenough » Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:22 am

60 minutes is about to run a story that holds that AI will make 40% of the world's jobs redundant.

Go and think about 40% of the work force in the world not having work.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#2 Post by boing » Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:34 am

How do you spell luddite?
the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#3 Post by Seenenough » Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:25 am

boing wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:34 am
How do you spell luddite?
luddite

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#4 Post by Cacophonix » Fri Jan 11, 2019 5:37 am

In truth this process of automation and transformation, specialisation and eradication of certain classes of human labour, has been going on apace since the beginning of the industrial revolution, but the rate of change has not been linear, and since the advent of the microchip it is not simply repetitive, relatively simple jobs that are being supplanted by machines but skilled manual and mentally challenging jobs, both blue collar and well as white collar, that are being automated and done better by machines, aided by the digital revolution, as that rate of change moves in a logarithmic way, in lock step with Moore's Law.

Moore's Law.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

The visionaries at firms like Bolt Baranek and Newman sought to produce AI algorithms that would allow natural language translation and Turing posited his famous test back in the 60's but the machines were still not powerful enough then to do make these seemingly impossible so called "mental" tasks processable by the machines at the time. Now we have natural language translation on tap on our desks, digital robots whose responses are indiscernible from that of a human and machines like Deep Blue, et al, able to beat chess grand masters, the beginning of driver automation and the advent of driverless cars etc. and that list just goes on and on.

The so-called knowledge workers are now being transplanted, as whole offices of people are being replaced and whole classes of human skilled jobs are likely to be done by machines in the future. Number among those jobs, drivers, pilots , translators, office clerks, certain classes of lawyers, many classes of city office workers and so on. Whole tranches of human endeavour will go the way of the typing pool and the human calculators of yore.

These changes now pose even more profound challenges to human society, industry, employment, politics, norms, behaviour, economies, wellbeing and happiness etc. Far more today than they did back during the first industrial revolution and unless there is is a concomitant uptick in the sophistication in human discourse, thinking, preparation and civilised social evolution then the outcomes could be very ugly for humanity.

Already we see negative outcomes, such as the rise and enablement of atavistic and inappropriate leaders, enabled in part as in the case of Donald Trump, for example, by the misuse of the very technologies that some posit as the enablers of the brave new world.

The fact that many normal people harken back to a supposed golden age, when coal was king and iron forged by men with full employment, gives the economically and socially displaced masses hope, but in truth those days are long gone, no matter what the demagogues and would be depots say and wish, and this poses profound questions for the whole of humanity. The rise of gross inequalities where technology enables an ever shrinking class, think of bankers, senior directors, companies that operate globally and pay little tax anywehre and so on, to prosper and garner obscenely larger proportions of the wealth in economies and society, accelerating the the disenpowerment, frustration and poverty of the masses, has also been partly aided by the rise of the new technologies.

It is a huge and very complex and relevant subject and we are all being affected by it right now.

As somebody who works in the technology industry I have hope, but as a realist I also have dark forebodings.

Caco

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#5 Post by boing » Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:53 am

Caco,
but as a realist I also have dark forebodings.
I see no hope. The short term greed of the already wealthy shows no sign of abating even in the cause of self-interest. The possible routes in and out of disaster are many but they would all seem to lead to ultimate social breakdown. When people run short of food they will take desperate action. If no changes are made the final result will be some Mugabe type states where the rich and powerful employ private armies to protect their privileged positions. By this time anyone with civil authority or political power will be firmly in the pocket of the rich so any injustice will go unpunished.

The poor masses may be starving and with little influence over their lives but they will still be the masses and, at least in America, they will be armed because a move to disarm a suffering population will be the final trigger of a new revolution. The main difficulty for the masses will actually be organising effectively because their darling internet will be one of the first means of communications to be removed from their use but bad news travels fast even by word of mouth.

It is interesting to note that if every member of the military, law enforcement and civil para-military organisations in the US should choose to support the US government, against civil unrest, which is by no means certain, it would amount to one supporter for every 6 square miles of the country.

A dismal prediction but if the forecast rate of employment loss should occur, without any provision being made to change the traditional form of society to compensate for it, it seems to me that a breakdown must occur. Look at the implications of mass unemployment. Businesses need customers to stay in business, do paupers make good customers? So we progress to an economy that has cut costs incredibly, that has found a way to vastly increase production - but now they have few customers. Will Western businesses be able to increase exports to countries such as China to compensate? Fat chance. Businesses will be able to continue production due to automation but what would be the point? Can the unemployed be expected to pay taxes to keep the national coffers full? Can a vastly expensive military complex be financed without tax income? Are you going to reduce the size of the military and the businesses that depend upon it thus further increasing unemployment? Finally, the whole house of cards must collapse.


.
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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#6 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:49 am

40% of the work force in the world would not have a job.

Think about that statement.

What percentage of the work force in the world does not have a job today? Unemployment may be 3% in UK, but in Africa?

What is a work force? Is it those that currently work or are seeking work? 70 years ago fewer married women worked.

What is work? In Egypt we watched several men sweeping sand from the road across the Aswan Dam. Not very efficient or effective. When asked why they didn't use a truck it was pointed out that the men had dignity of employment.

Away from the emotive figure of 40%, I can remember 45 hour weeks, Saturday morning working, Soccer only that after noon, shops shut on a half day, Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. A tea room or corner house and pubs open only 5-6 hours per day.

Today, 7 day opening, part time working, full time perhaps 35 hours. Fewer pubs and bars many open 12 hours or more.

In many societies work is subsistence and I don't see AI farming in Africa or road sweeping in Egypt. You need capital to exploit machines to create economy of scale.

In UK and elsewhere previous manual jobs, ticket collectors on buses for instance went. Now on many buses even drivers only drive. That will go. But service jobs will continue in make-work areas.

You can grab a cafe Costa from a machine and go, or a bottle of beer, but would you go into a bar, put your money card in a machine, fill a glass and then sit by a radiator and listen to music on your head phones?

We already have 1984 scenarios with PC laws, daytime TV, Valium, Viagra, contraceptive pill, uppers, and downers. We have sex on demand and laws to try and curb those excesses.

It might almost be a Newtonian Law, work will be neither created nor destroyed . . .

Money, just print more.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#7 Post by Alisoncc » Fri Jan 11, 2019 9:05 am

The greater the disparity between the Haves and the Have nots the greater the instability and lawlessness that will prevail. I previously wrote:-
A long time ago a chappie by the name of Che Guevara in South America made a very profound statement. Words to the effect "Those who have nothing to lose have nothing to lose".

Western societies seek to impose control of their populations by taking things off their citizens. Thus exceed the speed limits and you get a fine - take some money off you. Do it often enough and they will take your licence to drive off you. Injure someone whilst driving and you might go to prison - taking your liberty off you. In some places in the world if you kill a lot of people deliberately whilst driving they might take your life off you. The whole system is based entirely on the premise that you have things you value that the State can take off you.

What then happens when you have a huge percentage of the population with nothing they have of value that you can take off them. The State now has no effective control at all, leading to a total breakdown of law and order as we know it.
In my view the greatest challenge of AI will be maintaining a stable society, with potentially vast numbers of unemployed. Yet providing a means whereby they can acquire assets.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#8 Post by OFSO » Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:45 pm

There seems also to be a demand for AS, or Artificial Stupidity, judging by some of the on-phone systems I use.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#9 Post by jimtherev » Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:54 pm

OFSO wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:45 pm
There seems also to be a demand for AS, or Artificial Stupidity, judging by some of the on-phone systems I use.
...or perhaps it's a recourse to Artificial Stupidity. It's conceivable that a refusal to understand what a complainant is on about often has the result that the complainant eventually gives up and goes away, and, for example, changes his bank, only to find in due course (of course) that the banker of the second part is even more stupid than the banker of the first part.

But it has had the effect that the banker of the first part has won: hasn't had to right wrongs.

We're doooooooooomed.

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Re: Artificial Intelligence

#10 Post by Cacophonix » Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:03 am

jimtherev wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:54 pm
OFSO wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:45 pm
There seems also to be a demand for AS, or Artificial Stupidity, judging by some of the on-phone systems I use.
...or perhaps it's a recourse to Artificial Stupidity. It's conceivable that a refusal to understand what a complainant is on about often has the result that the complainant eventually gives up and goes away, and, for example, changes his bank, only to find in due course (of course) that the banker of the second part is even more stupid than the banker of the first part.

But it has had the effect that the banker of the first part has won: hasn't had to right wrongs.

We're doooooooooomed.
Well I agree, but hell, let's have some fun on the way to our dooooooom! ;)))



Caco

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