Would you bet against sex robots? AI 'could leave half of world unemployed'

UK Guardian ^ | February 13, 2016 | Alan Yuhas

[C19fan]

Machines could put more than half the world’s population out of a job in the next 30 years, according to a computer scientist who said on Saturday that artificial intelligence’s threat to the economy should not be understated.

Expert Moshe Vardi told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): “We are approaching a time when machines will be able to outperform humans at almost any task.

[Wolfie]

Well, I’m sure the half that are SOL will just slink away and quietly die.Or not.

[Hot Tabasco]

Would you bet against sex robots? AI 'could leave half of world unemployed'

Only if they could cook, vacuum and do the laundry too........

[jjsheridan5]

What do you think of my voice typing reference? ... is it not a good analogy? ... i’m serious, I could be way off.

It's actually way off :)

Voice typing is not a case of computers replacing people at a particular task. Instead, voice "typing" involves a change in method from typing to speaking (in other words, the computer is not "typing" for us -- instead, it is allowing us to speak rather than type). There were several big studies about why this never really took off as expected, but the biggest was that people are more efficient writers when they type, relative to their efficiency when speaking.

The question isn't "are computers more efficient typers?" The question is: are people more efficient when typing or speaking.

[dp0622]

that makes sense.

but did you have to say way off? lol

my ego is taking a beating lately :)

[P.O.E.]

Politicians figured that out decades ago. Turn them into voters.

[marron]

Because of the creative and entrepreneurial nature of people, there will always be jobs to be done. What robots do will free people up to pursue other more creative and inventive projects.

That, and things always have to be fixed.

Automation doesn’t dispense with people, it multiplies them, it allows a man to be a dozen men or a thousand men which frees other men to go after other goals. Automation, in the hands of free people, is a great boon.

[Salgak]

Pretty much, they already are. Most of them already do suggestive sell. After all they are always telling me to get f. . . .. (evil grin)

[jjsheridan5]

I think if this is accurate you are going to have a massive welfare state. We could be headed back to more historical norms of wealth concentration, pyramid shape.

We are in the early stages of the greatest transformation humanity has ever seen (even greater than agriculture, the industrial age, or sliced bread). It will fundamentally change virtually every aspect of civilization. And even your contention involving "historical norms of wealth" will be anachronistic, since the very concept of "wealth" will fundamentally change (as will, incidentally, "welfare"). The marginal cost of production will asymptote towards zero, as will the cost of almost all "services" that humanity has ever known.

There is no real question that people will not have to work in order to have an abundance of what they need and want (this may be beyond the 30 year horizon), and that it will mean that, in order to produce enough goods and services for all of humanity, the average person will spend an ever shrinking amount of time on labor. The "welfare state" will be massive, but it won't come from a malevolent government. It will come from the ever shrinking cost of production.

[jjsheridan5]

but did you have to say way off? lol

Look at the bright side. You were right when you said "I could be way off". That means that you were 50% correct in your post. Much better than 0%. :)

[jjsheridan5]

Because of the creative and entrepreneurial nature of people, there will always be jobs to be done. What robots do will free people up to pursue other more creative and inventive projects ... That, and things always have to be fixed.

And when computers are better at creating and inventing new "projects"? And when computers can implement a person's idea with no substantive human involvement? And when computers can fix things better than a human can? These things are coming. Maybe not in the next couple of decades, but they are definitely in the pipeline.

But the more salient argument, often spoken, is that automation will simply open up demand, presumably in products/services that computers cannot implement at zero marginal cost. But that contention begs the question: why? While it is true that improvements in production have historically opened up new industries, there is actually no logical case that this will be true in the ongoing information revolution.

Any new demands will be more efficiently met by automated processes, and, when people can have access to a fully comfortable life without "work", how much incentive will they really have to labor just for those few things not provided by automation?

[dp0622]

ROFL!!!!

i’ll never debate you. It will sink my ego to low to get back. :)

i was that genius in grammar school, still pretty smart in high school, and just another numskull in college :)

[DIRTYSECRET]

We can all work for the government as members of the military. Conquer the world and bring along this sex machines to keep our morale up.

[PUGACHEV]

I agree. The concern about unemployment resulting from technologic advance reminds me of the workers who threw their shoes into the machinery in an attempt to stop the Industrial Revolution. Yes, there will certainly be temporary displacement now as then, but the end effect of technology is to make a worker many times more productive, and thus to increase, not decrease, the value of his labor. Put more simply, if one worker can now produce 10 widgets per hour, but with AI can produce 1,000, the value of that man’s working hour has increased a thousand fold. There is legitimate concern as to who will reap the benefit of that surplus value, the worker or his employer. Still, while the battle over the last two centuries between between Capital vs. Labor has been won so far rather resoundingly by Capital, but no one can say that the average worker today does not enjoy a far higher standard of living that his pre-industrial counterpart.

[Pollster1]

If this is accurate, the people replaced by robots could find other jobs that robots cannot do as well, and we would all be better off. In the real world though, most of those people will be on welfare, despite the fact that being parasites would be far more harmful to them than real work. Even bringing back Civilian Conservation Corps would be much better. If you have people too unmotivated to find a real job, create a government job moving dirt from one place to another, or picking up trash, rather than just sending them a welfare check.

[jjsheridan5]

We can all work for the government as members of the military. Conquer the world and bring along this sex machines to keep our morale up.

I'll pass. I will simply ask my personal robots to create a doppleganger to take my place, and then take my sex robots to my private, artificially created island (made at no cost to me).

[jjsheridan5]

I hate to say it, but at some point, the concept of “capital” will also disappear. This transition will be a very long, and probably painful, process, but the foundations of modern economic theory simply do not apply when marginal costs approach zero. And over the next few decades, that is where they are going.

[jjsheridan5]

Even bringing back Civilian Conservation Corps would be much better. If you have people too unmotivated to find a real job, create a government job moving dirt from one place to another, or picking up trash, rather than just sending them a welfare check.

This is the equivalent of yelling at the sun telling it not to rise in the east anymore. Throughout all of human history, people, especially men, have been better off with work, than without work, for both personal and practical reasons. Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to adjust to a world in which this is not realistic, and where people are going to have to find purpose and value in life outside of their "labor". It won't be painless, but you cannot think that having 49.5% of the population digging ditches, and 49.5% filling them in again, is either plausible or desirable.

[marron]

In the end, a computer, robot, automated piece of machinery is always a tool employed by someone with will and imagination.

It allows you to multiply yourself.

People have infinite unmet needs, most of which they forego to meet the most necessary needs. When the cost of their met needs drops, thanks to automation, it becomes possible for them to pursue other unmet needs. As it becomes possible to build cars with ever fewer people, fewer people go into that business.

If people are stripped of their imagination and creative drive, you’ll have a socialist paradise where everyone sits waiting for someone to feed them and tell them what to do. If people continue to be creative and imaginative, then we will have an explosion of creation and exploration and invention.

It becomes important, as it already is, that people are inculcated with morality, creativity, and a work ethic. Yes, there will always be losers and people prepared to manipulate them. But that does not have to be whole story. There is a moral component; freed from the need to work to eat, would you sit or would you find something creative to do? Economics is creation and creative people.

[plain talk]

Yes but how many people have the cognitive ability to do that type of work. Perhaps the top 20% will make out like bandits but the other 80% could be zero value workers.

The key is for the 80% or whatever it is to acquire the right skills that are in demand. I don't accept that they are too stupid to learn. Perhaps many of them might not want to learn those skills. But that is what they will have to do to survive. This has happened before throughout history.

[dainbramaged]

Didn’t Frank Herbert write about this? It all went bad IIRC.