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Please note that Robot welders have nearly replaced human Spot Welders in the automotive and many other industries. this has led to the unemployment of many, many people. This will only increase as the robots take over more complex tasks.
The problem is figuring out how to share the productivity of the robots with everyone not just the owners. I think a progressive income tax based on all income from all sources used to fund a form of guaranteed income would be a place to start.
So your solution is to take the former union welder making $80k and place them on welfare?
30 years? NOT soon enough. Statement like: "It's a matter of time" is too broad, one can generalize everything like this & make an argument. It's not gonna go anywhere. Reality is: R&D takes time to develop, mature, and stabilize and then commercialize if the market see it beneficial. It takes even longer time to make it popular with the general public, gain enough traction to become mainstream with 3rd party vendors, OEMs and ultimately the end users.
We engineers and management people ain't stupid; we know what can and cannot do within reasons. We are not as advanced as you hope, really. Exaggerating about robot take over human labor force entirely is a pipedream. Thinking A.I.will outsmart us and become a threat like the situation in the movie "The Matrix" is simply delusional. Have you devote yourself in computer programming before? Have you actually write codes for A.I before? Computers are dumb calculator, they preform tasks based on instruction from humans, that is it. Without those instructions, they can perform nothing. They are pointless electronics counting zeros and ones; they can't even self correct if we type in the wrong set of code/instruction. Without us humans, they are irrelevant.
Hello! Apparently you are a fellow engineer. I disagree with you.
R&D DOES take time, but its taking less and less time. While in some places you are right, we aren't as advanced as you might hope. But most of it is progressing nicely.
I HAVE written some basic AI stuff, simple neural network type stuff. Its all very unimpressive. I've written a ton of code over the last 2 decades. Some of my coworkers who I used to work with however DO work on current gen research. Its not AI's, but expert systems. And expert systems are the things that will unemploy people more and more. IBM's Watson can now do in minutes what takes cancer doctors weeks - Business Insider
True AI....right now they're about as smart as a stupid mouse-at best. Not too impressive. With the next hardware upgrade, they might hope to be a actual mouse.... Maybe. Two more...and they are maybe hoping to be as smart as a cat. 1-2 more and they will be a chimp....1-2 more...and you hit a human...and then you let that design the next ones.
These people say by next year it will be a mammalian brain simulation-maybe.....we shall see: DARPA SyNAPSE Program
Watch the computer take on Jeopordy players 4 years ago. Theres a lot going on there. Its the system mentioned above taking on cancer therapies better then Drs. This is a expert system that in the near future will challenge us, and later become AI systems.
Moores law MATTERS. Its one subset of it, larger storage, better connectivity, etc. The research on how brains work matters as well. .........
There is a lot more involved that better computers with higher speed, lower cost and smaller size. In fact those factors may make little difference at this point. Understanding how the brain works can have all sorts of implications for advanced healthcare and dealing with issues such as dementia. Such understanding may have little impact in designing computers with AI. Computers are never going to function as copies of the human brain. They operate very differently and for one are not organic. They don't rely on neurotransmitters.
We engineers and management people ain't stupid; we know what can and cannot do within reasons. We are not as advanced as you hope, really.
I'm an engineer. Yes, I know it takes time to develop and actually build and sell products and acheive full market penetration, well after the tech is mature. That only effects the timeline though, not the eventual result. And the more sophisticated robots will not be a mass consumer item, so consumer buying power isn't an important issue.
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Exaggerating about robot take over human labor force entirely is a pipedream. Thinking A.I.will outsmart us and become a threat like the situation in the movie "The Matrix" is simply delusional.
That certainly isn't my take on things. I think you are the first one to mention something like that in this thread.
This thread is about computers and robots causing people to be functionally unemployable (at a decent 1st world wage). At first a small fraction but growing %. And the economic and social implications of that.
The limit will depend on physics, but it is certain to be a large effect based on tech that is already known.
The transition from tech being a tool to actually *replacing* humans is a huge one. Every tech advance squeezes humans into a smaller niche of economic viability. Lately in developed countries this has meant an increase in service and government administration jobs, and tech for those who have the talent, as manufacturing has become more efficient. Before that it was farming. What next? As the tech gets more sophisticated and approaches human capability, what inherent human talents will remain that can viably employ everyone, and are worth paying a large salary? Start at the bottom... the people who are physically and mentally "challenged", and then work your way up.
When the hardware is sufficiently capable, the software isn't far behind. Billions are already being spent on it. Why? Because the benefits in productivity are huge. Think of the time and expense to raise and train a skilled human in any task. And the tremendous amount of resources, space and energy they consume. You only have to train one robot to train them all in the same task... perfectly. And you have a tireless slave that only needs energy and maintenance (a lot less than a human).
So your solution is to take the former union welder making $80k and place them on welfare?
Union welders making $80k/hr disappeared from these parts a long time ago (if they ever existed). Very little unionization at all, and wages for most "normal" jobs are quite low.
People need to transition into working less and doing whatever they like with their extra spare time. Freedom.
A UBI should be sufficient to keep a decent poverty floor, and then people can work as the they are able and willing to find employment... without the government micromanaging with means testing and a bunch of rules and regulations.
Heck, if the machines are so smart & fully functioning on its own, we'd have skipped the engineers and scientists and talk to them robots directly, wouldn't we?
You seem to keep forgetting that computers have human level capabilities is a projection into the future, based on well established trends. No one is arguing that computers are currently exceeding humans in high skill tasks and decision making.
"The transition from tech being a tool to actually *replacing* humans is a huge one. Every tech advance squeezes humans into a smaller niche of economic viability. Lately in developed countries this has meant an increase in service and government administration jobs, and tech for those who have the talent, as manufacturing has become more efficient. Before that it was farming. What next? As the tech gets more sophisticated and approaches human capability, what inherent human talents will remain that can viably employ everyone, and are worth paying a large salary? Start at the bottom... the people who are physically and mentally "challenged", and then work your way up.
When the hardware is sufficiently capable, the software isn't far behind. Billions are already being spent on it. Why? Because the benefits in productivity are huge. Think of the time and expense to raise and train a skilled human in any task. And the tremendous amount of resources, space and energy they consume. You only have to train one robot to train them all in the same task... perfectly. And you have a tireless slave that only needs energy and maintenance (a lot less than a human)."[/quote]
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I think I'm pretty smart. I like to think, to get philosophical, I like to learn. But, I can tell there are limits to my smarts. I bet I'm a pretty good click above average intelligence, but Albert Einstein intelligent? No way!
Humans have definitely gotten smarter over the years. We don't have to spend all of our time gathering bark and berries and running from saber tooth-tigers anymore. We don't have to work from sun up to sundown in the fields, in order to raise a crop we hope will sustain us for a year. We have better medicines and nutrition (well, processed foods aside, we have decent nutrition), so we don't conk out on the sweatshop floor.
But, has our capabilities plateaued? Have we topped out in intelligence? We don't have to make robots "just like us", they just need to be able to do certain tasks, with certain human capabilities, but not all of them. And robots certainly don't need all of the "drama" that comes with being human! (When robots start gossiping about the latest rumors running around the office, ok, that's when robots failed.)
So, when the jobs start disappearing, it will start at the bottom. The cashiers, the remaining bank tellers, the truck drivers, the warehouse workers. Can they be trained to jobs that require so much more intelligence? Google for sure has some very bright people working for them, but are they the exceptionally bright? What happens to the "not cut out for college" bunch? Well, just have some ambition. But is having some ambition enough? I have plenty of ambition and I dont' always get what I hope for. Just work hard. Work hard for what? I don't know how to design a flippin' robot!
IheartWA, I think you have mentioned some very important points.
However, I would disagree with at least one: "Humans have definitely gotten smarter over the years. We don't have to spend all of our time gathering bark and berries....." The problem is we no are smarter. Evolution takes many centuries and we are not doing anything to weed out the bottom of the gene pool. We are not smarter but our society and workplace demand greater intelligence.
I am sure you are right about jobs being lost at the bottom. We have been seeing that happen for years and it keeps getting worse. I think there will continue to be a lot of jobs for people who cannot necessarily handle college. Where I live it is all but impossible to find a decent auto mechanic, plumber or electrician. People with those skills are making very good money. Those with additional drive and abilities to start their own businesses are often making extremely good incomes.
There is a lot more involved that better computers with higher speed, lower cost and smaller size. In fact those factors may make little difference at this point. Understanding how the brain works can have all sorts of implications for advanced healthcare and dealing with issues such as dementia. Such understanding may have little impact in designing computers with AI. Computers are never going to function as copies of the human brain. They operate very differently and for one are not organic. They don't rely on neurotransmitters.
That was last year. Its advanced since then I am sure.
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Originally Posted by IheartWA
So, when the jobs start disappearing, it will start at the bottom. The cashiers, the remaining bank tellers, the truck drivers, the warehouse workers. Can they be trained to jobs that require so much more intelligence? Google for sure has some very bright people working for them, but are they the exceptionally bright? What happens to the "not cut out for college" bunch? Well, just have some ambition. But is having some ambition enough? I have plenty of ambition and I dont' always get what I hope for. Just work hard. Work hard for what? I don't know how to design a flippin' robot!
Things to mull over.
Cashiers...being replaced.
I haven't been inside a bank in months. Last time...they told me I had to call in for that request.
truck drivers? The first self driving truck was demoed last month.
Warehouse workers? Amazons been replacing them.
Maybe you should learn how to design a robot.....or at least repair them.....til the robot repair robots come along. And they will.
So, when the jobs start disappearing, it will start at the bottom. The cashiers, the remaining bank tellers, the truck drivers, the warehouse workers. Can they be trained to jobs that require so much more intelligence? Google for sure has some very bright people working for them, but are they the exceptionally bright? What happens to the "not cut out for college" bunch? Well, just have some ambition. But is having some ambition enough? I have plenty of ambition and I dont' always get what I hope for. Just work hard. Work hard for what? I don't know how to design a flippin' robot!
It started years ago. I know a building inspector who inspected the construction of a Wal-Mart regional warehouse about 10 years ago. It covers 5 acres and is nothing but a giant 3-dimensional conveyor belt. The orders come in by computer, the machines put together the loads for the truckers, including calculating the best packing to fill the truck, then they order replacement inventory and store it in locations that are machine retrievable. Other than the truck drivers and a few guys on the loading dock, nobody works there.
About 6 miles from my house is a lumber mill. After the logs are delivered and scaled, they go into the barker/log washer, trundle along to the head rig where a laser scanner scans each log 10,000 times, calculates the optimum orientation of the log in the saw, and feeds it into the mill. The mill employs about 40 guys per shift. Before it was automated, it employed 600. The employees there now mostly do control systems and run the co-gen plant.
The "strong back, weak mind" group is already unemployable, except for service jobs like yard work.
On the up side, computer aided design is already producing products that would have been impossible 20 years ago. I have a point-and-shoot camera which has a 26x optical zoom, all the way from super wide angle to super telephoto. Once upon a time, doing the calculations to design a lens like that would have been impossible. A very smart human using a very powerful computer managed to figure it out. Then the design specs can be downloaded to a robotic assembly plant and it will sell for $200 on the US market with a huge profit markup for the manufacturer and retailer. The whole camera probably cost about $50 to manufacture.
The job losses started years ago. There is no way you can train a human being to be as productive as a robot. Plus, robots don't need health insurance, pensions, don't get sick, hung over or take vacations.
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