Posted on 10/30/2011 10:29:59 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
A debate on the future of the American economy and the role of intelligent computers and robots. Will rapid technological innovations aid American workers, or will it render large numbers of American workers obsolete?
(Excerpt) Read more at ideasinactiontv.com ...
Artificial Intelligence took over No-Bama’s Brain many years ago.
I think they should improve their new models.
Real intelligence is constantly destroying “jobs.” The question to ask is: why are Democrats so beholden to anachronistic and shrinking unions thai they keep in place laws and regulations that protect those unions and punish the independent, job-free worker?
In the end, there will only be two jobs in America. One for a dog and the other for a man.
The man’s job is to feed the dog. The dog’s job is to keep the man away from the computer.
I’m the man, you’re all hungry.
I’m more worried about what happens when AI gets advanced to the point that robots fancy themselves as superior to humans and suprass human brain power. Than being out fo work wont be an issue for us-we’ll have plenty of unpaid labor provided to us by machines whose AI got too advanced.
considering many people under 30 cannot do a simple percentage...
hand calculators can take American jobs. forget AI
on top of that, there are only about 140m jobs in the US... and almost 7 billion people on the planet
the odds are, a person in a 3rd world country will gladly take your job, if possible.
this is not a sellers market (workers selling labor)... this is a buyers market where Americans will lose if we allow free trade and open borders for anyone to compete for American jobs. the supply of potential labor will just crush labor prices
Conclusion of video discussion:
Automation has been and is doing two things: creating wealth, and taking jobs away from human beings.
This trend is continuing and accelerating. Machines are now capable of doing enough to take away quite a few of the “middle” jobs. The ones that are left are increasingly menial and low-paying, or high-end jobs that a machine can’t (yet) do. But every day, more of the middle jobs are getting eaten up. In the last 4 years, companies have increased their spending on human resources 2%, but increased their spending on software & technology between 20 and 30%.
This increase in automation is driving a growing widening gap between the poor and the rich, with some of the rich (who own the companies that are employing machines) becoming more and more fabulously wealthy as they are increasingly the beneficiaries of the wealth created by the machines. This is particularly true in the developed countries.
The people in the discussion seemed to conclude that the only possible remedy for this unbalancing of wealth is going to be a more progressive income tax.
Look, if someone can come from overseas, not speaking english, replace you today without loss of productivity, then you probably deserved to be fired.
i have conducted a couple of thousand interviews in my lifetime. for positions paying from average salaries to top level. i have run companies in the US and abroad. i can tell you for a FACT, US salaried personnel are easily replaced for 1/10th the price. Americans have no super powers. they have no amazing mental capacity (many times, quite the opposite).
to listen to globalists, such as yourself, is to invite the never ending horde of potential employees to flood the country.
is there an endless supply of work for these people? no. so what would be the result? the positions would go to the cheapest person willing and able to do the job. for career positions, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc... all it would take to replace these people is a 10-20 year effort of training their replacements... and slowly move the jobs overseas, or bring the replacements into the country directly.
there is no magic. you hold no special qualifications. there is ALWAYS someone else willing and able to do your job... cheaper. especially when the economy is in the tank.
here’s a question, why send your kid to college? you think your kid is some special snowflake? hardly. actually, the specific act of sending the kid to college could result in undermining his/her ability to get ahead in a career. how so? unless you fully fund their education, they will be sitting across from someone like me looking for an entry level position, someday. they will also be holding $100-300k in college debt. this will require $50-75k/yr starting salary just to cover expenses. remember, as an employee, i’m looking at your kid as a 2.5 times base expense. so he/she would cost roughly $125-185k/yr to the company.
meanwhile, sitting right next to your kid... is a long line of other kids with equal education and experience. except these kids have no college debt. they were brought in by a body shop via an L-3 visa program and only cost $30-50k/yr, if that. the kid will see about $10k and will live in a group home with 4+ others. all of which is much better then where they are from. meanwhile, they are a straight expense to my company, so $50k/yr is a sweet deal
now... who do you think gets that all important, entry level job? it sure isn’t your kid. but that’s ok... your special snowflake will try harder at the next interview... until finally landing at starbucks. after 3 years slopping high priced coffee and muffins to the L-3 visa kids, your kid will be completely disenfranchised and start asking why bother. after all, starbucks isn’t paying anywhere near the $50k needed to cover the college debt... which forces him/her into bankruptcy, but the college debt still hangs over their head. unless they get lucky, there is no way out of that rabbit hole.
welcome to reality. this is what the go-go globalists have brought us.
7 billion people. 140 million jobs. what i described is inevitable... unless we protect the integrity of our country by ending visa programs and off/on/near-shoring efforts
The question is whether the segment of people who used to fill these jobs can be channeled towards other types of jobs or if we are facing a future where a large portion of people will have to be supported indefinitely because there won't be any place for them in the workworce.
In effect, we are doing that now with extending unemployment and other forms of government payments.
If we keep going the way we have been for the past several decades, your question will be valid. But -- and this is also a response to the "close the borders" crowd -- if we remove the heavy taxes, unproductive regulations and the government-caused shrinking dollar; we will find that the economy will spring back to life.
People have been worrying about the effects of free trade and automation for centuries, and it's wrong to think that it's somehow different this time. Man must work to survive and he will. If government only lets him.
Bubbles pop.
Note that “minimum wage” means it is illegal to pay workers what some jobs are worth, and other regulations make it hard to hire. Given the need to do the job, and the encroaching prohibitions and restrictions on having humans do them, machines fill the gap.
I’d rather a human wash my dishes and sweep my floors, but a few hundred bucks for a dishwasher and Roomba are just so much easier than the gov’t paperwork & restrictions.
The great question though seems to be whether the advent of increasingly effective artificial intelligence is breaking down the traditional theories regarding automation and employment.
Machines are much better at repetitive, precise operations and they work 24/7 with only breaks for maintenance. Where we could funnel our less-ambitious siblings or children into a nice factory job or into the service industry, we are facing the permanent replacement of human labor in most and soon all sectors. We are even exploring robotics for infantry warfare - I mean, who could complain? No fear, no fatigue, no letters home.
The question about what we are going to do for all those IQs under a hundred (or 110 or 120) who don't have the gifts of artistic ability or sports skills or terrific looks or something else marketable has yet to be solved. It's uncomfortable but the question has to be asked and some answer found and soon.
Most of these operations used to require many young men and women to execute but not anymore.
As an artillery designer, I oversaw the development of an automated artillery system that didn't require any people at all except to pass ammunition to it (I was never funded for an ammunition magazining system) and it achieved very fast response times and unbelievable accuracy. It also never got tired, never got sick and never got scared.
We need to recognize that we are on the cusp of the next developmental revolution and people will need to be able to find their own new directions.
Soon.
What you propose would, more than anything else, kill American business. There are simply not enough skilled workers to fill the positions that need to be filled. I don’t see why businesses shouldn’t be able to hire folks who are willing to come to America to make a living and work for them.
As for global competition, there are things like medical tourism. People will go where they can get the best deal for their money. Unless you are willing to curtail american freedom to travel and conduct business abroad, then you are going to deal with foreign competition.
I believe the American worker can and will be competitive with anyone. I don’t believe that he needs a tariff which will stifle American businesses more than anything else, and reward uncompetitive union firms with our dollars.
America is not doing all she can do to bring about a competitive business environment. It makes no sense to complain about being uncompetitive, while at the same time, a minority of states are right to work. Fix the red tape, fix the bloated bureaucracy, and you’ll see what the American worker is capable. That is what is killing America right now.
Blessings,
Sean
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