The consequences of machine intelligence
October 28, 2012
In their 2011 book, Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argued that “technological progress is accelerating innovation even as it leaves many types of workers behind,” says Rice University professor of computational engineering Moshe Y. Vardi in The Atlantic.
“While the loss of millions of jobs over the past few years has been attributed to the Great Recession, it now seems that technology-driven productivity growth is at least a major factor. … “While technology has been destroying jobs since the start of the Industrial Revolution, yet new jobs are continually created.
“The AI revolution, however, is different than the Industrial Revolution. In the 19th century machines competed with human brawn. Now machines are competing with human brain. Robots combine brain and brawn. We are facing the prospect of being completely out-competed by our own creations.
“Another typical answer is that if machines will do all of our work, then we will be free to pursue leisure activities. I do not find this to be a promising future. First, if machines can do almost all of our work, then it is not clear that even 15 weekly hours of work will be required. Second, I do not find the prospect of leisure-filled life appealing. I believe that work is essential to human well-being.
“Third, our economic system would have to undergo a radical restructuring to enable billions of people to live lives of leisure. Unemployment rate in the US is currently under 9 percent and is considered to be a huge problem.”
“Finally, people tell me that my concerns apply only to a future that is so far away that we need not worry about it. I find this answer to be unacceptable. 2045 is merely a generation away from us. We cannot shirk responsibility from concerns for the welfare of the next generation.
“It is time, I believe, to put the question of these consequences squarely on the table. We cannot blindly pursue the goal of machine intelligence without pondering its consequences.”
Comments (101)
by Mr. Frost
This discussion again, when will people learn that emotional intelligence is vastly different than intelligence. A will for a computer could not exist even though we wish it would happen.
There is no chemical drive for a computer to reproduce or need anything, which is the driving force of human race, our nature will never transfer to a machine.
It is in my theory if you strip the brain of all the body and place it in a machine it also would lose the nature of existing, as there is no organs to receive the emotional responses that are sent by the brain to let you know that you are upset or aloof.
Can we replicate such a thing in a machine as emotional feelings? I think not.
by mlohbihler
Mr. Frost, AGI could not exist without a manner of will, as a system without motivation will, like teenagers, sit around doing nothing all day. Some driving force, like an insatiable need to detect anomaly in data streams, is the starting place for a thinking machine.
Also, a computer without any means of input is not a very useful computer. If you stuck a human brain into one as you say, you still can attach cameras, touch sensors, or whatever other sensors you happen to have hanging arounhd. Hopefully by the time connections between brains and computers are more robust there will be a fuller contingent of sensors too.
Finally, there is no need to replicate the full gamut of human emotions. A fuller discussion on this topic can be found here: http://blog.serotoninsoftware.com/terminated
by Michael Zeldich
There is simple solution for the problem with a machine superiority.
Machines should designed so that they are unable to have its own desires.
That will make them tools in the human hands, but all responsibilities for what they did will be on the human shoulders.
by Brian
Work brings meaning and importance too our lives, even the hard jobs give the person a sense of accomplishment that non workers lack, do we let the machines have what we need?
by Harold Katcher
When machines do all the ‘work’ then the only people earning money will be the owners of the machines and their minions. So what then, bread and circuses or perhaps never-ending war? And what’s more rousing than that?
by John Gardner
Technology can help or hurt depending on how we as individuals act. The entrepreneurial community harnesses technology to help people and make a better world and they get rich in the process. The lazy community does not help others, does little for the world, and then wonders why they are being displaced. Nature favors the industrious as it always has. This time is no different.
by Robert Look
In the very long run, I think that the only jobs that most of us will be able to aspire to is being the robots’ pet humans. Maybe the robots will want to keep whole human cities functioning so they that can visit them as forms of humantity preserves. Maybe the robots will enjoy pitting one human preserve against another so they can bet on which one will win the resulting war. Before that time, there is going to be ever increasing levels of wealth produced. There are going to be serious societal dislocations and upheavals caused as humans try to figure out how the vast amounts of additional wealth produced should be distributed.
by Gus
Does anyone remember this;
“This is the voice of Colossus, the voice of world peace.”
I know that you are young enough to remember the Terminator movies. Remember why judgement day happened? The machine inteligence, ‘Skynet’ evolved its thinking and it then considered all human life as a threat that must be removed in order that a rational society of peace may come to frutition. When you consider humanity’s track record, I really can’t blame’em.
by Les Elkind
The producing/consuming paradigm we have used as the organizational basis of civilization for thousands of years is about to become obsolete. This thread displays the confusion we have in trying to visualize an alternate paradigm that will support the deep, complex organizational structure required to sustain the billions of individuals comprising humanity. It is disturbing or liberating to think that what is evolving, what is coming about over the long course of our evolution, might be beyond humanity, in the same ways we are beyond our evolutionary forbears. We are hoplessly anthropomorphic in the way we see the world, but the point of it all is surely beyond a chicken in every pot, a job for every worker. I do not know how civilization can be organized differently and still distribute the sustenance and meaning required for its billions of individual members, but It won’t be via making and selling stuff, once 3-D printers are common as toasters and all human knowledge is freely available to individual humans.
by Rob
Great article and comments. When I have time to read them all I will. I think the author should consider that not all humans will desire a life of leisure. Spirituality will be the common objective, not hedonism. As we progress with technology and mind-body science and understanding humans will realize that we are more than our mind-body. This will become more and more clear as we discover more and more. Thus, our time will be spent understanding our unity and love. Not destruction, and separation. This path is inevitable and progress is evidence now in society.
by Luke
I couldn’t agree more. Although that future still requires that we reconsider the economic underpinnings of society – doubly so if we consider the impact of life extension.
by Tony Stender
Well I read this entire thread looking for some hint of how this transition will play out. Honestly I do not see much in the way of believable scenarios.
There is a hierarchy now on earth, consisting of the wealthy owning corporations which have reduced the populations of the earth to consumers. The consumers fund the all of the other organisations of the earth.
The consumers fund the Governments, corporations, and the investors who own the corporations.
The odd thing about these consumers is they also perform the work for the corporations. In this way the corporations and their owners reap the benefits of the workers twice. Once when they work and create the values for the corporations, and second when they buy the products they have created thereby creating the profit for the very corporations they work for in the first place.
If I have outlined this in a reasonably accurate way, there exists a working class, and a class we might designate as the owner class, which reaps both sets of benefits while the worker class benefits only once.
Assuming the scenario is close to the facts of existence, if the worker class is eliminated from doing the work, and since they are the large majority of humanity here on earth. That leaves the owner class with a large population of out of work folks with a lot of time on their hands and no means of continuing to exist in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
It seems to me, for the time being at least, that funding the rest of their lives would be a prudent investment, which could be paid for with the excess profit which the robots could fund with their excess production created during their extra shifts of work which would be thrice as much as the workers would have provided.
Otherwise, once the workers died, they take the funds of the consumers with them. Since they had a dual life of worker and consumer to begin with.
Certainly without consumers the whole shebang falls apart anyway.
I believe it was Henry Ford who first recognised this fact.
I would appreciate any sensible comments. I believe this is a serious problem which has to be solved or else it may become the undoing or at least the hitch in the singularity gitalong.
by Tony Stender
The more I think about this idea of supporting the workers as an investment for the corporations, the more it seems like growing consumers for your business, Or if you consider all corporations as a group or even a cartel, it is very much like growing your own customers. It is even similar to what the Chinese are doing for the USA. They are funding our government so that our citizens (consumers) will continue to buy their goods and services. Now they have discovered they can do it for their own citizens (consumers). WOW what a business, they make their own products and then they buy them from the corporations and the owners, the Govt, makes the profit. They do not even have to tax them. Such a deal. LOL
by Tony Stender
This is better than democracy. Since everyone at the top gets rich while the consumers/workers pay all the bills and leave a nice profit for the organizers (the corporations and the government).
And they do not even have to run for election. chuckle!
by Clyde
Tony, et. al.: I respectfully reiterate: Read what K. Eric Drexel and other top Nanotechnologists say about Molecular Assemblers, and our Kurzweil. Based on their “position”/prediction (elementary, they could be wrong) the scenario you present will not exist in their future.
Perhaps our Editor/Moderator might briefly expound on what Molecular Assemblers will be capable of according Drexel, other top Nanotechnologists and Kurzweil.
by godot
“…’cause I owe my soul to the company store.”
— Tennessee Ernie Ford, 1950s
Too young to know how “the company store” con works? Mr. Stender just told you.
by Thorsten
It will work as it always works: One entitiy starts seeing a potential short or mid term benefit in complete automation. They implement it. They either succeed or fail, and if they fail, someone will try again a few years down the road. At some point. one entity succeeds. Then to compete, others have to follow.
That cycle is derived from the shortsightedness of man, and powered by the same underlying economic principals that are present in all advancing human societies: Growth. As long as we still call economic growth our benchmark, people will become more effective workers, demand higher pay, better social care and securtiy standards and a lot of other things resulting in higher costs per worker employed. At some point, automation will be cheaper, and then some company will feel the need to do it. The rest of the market adapts or resists and ultimately fails, and the new degree of automation becomes the norm.
While the long-term consequences might be counterproductive, the short term benefits are so overwhleming that – as we can see clear as day from our current-day oil consumption or reliance on fission for “cheap” power – even though long-term results are clear and “better alternatives in the long run” exist, we still exploit the heck of our short-term opporunities.
by Clyde
Based on some commemts I read (not all), a few thoughts: To Cburke (who I agree with about a coming new human form via nanotechnology, etc.), Bri, Bennie Beaver, Rob Larson, Ralph Frafman and Henrik Yde who I agree with when he says, “AI will soon do it (jobs) far better than any human could dream of…”
Concerning the discussiion of work, leisure, etc. I respectfully suggest there’s been an omission of a major. To wit: Molecular Assemblers (ref: K. Eric Drexler, other top Nanotechnologists and our own Kurzweil). Please read what they say about MAs and let me know if you yet believe said work, leisure, class distinction, etc.is unsolvable.
by egore
Who if any are saying robots will care one way or the other, what we thik or want?
by Dennis R.
FWIW, I’m not convinced that humanity (as it is currently) will continue to be the dominant life form. I suspect that those with the means and the inclination will continue to create a distance between themselves and ordinary humans. Genetic enhancements in addition to artificial enhancements will force an evolutionary change that will allow the “overlords” to branch off from the rest of us. Most humans won’t be able to reproduce themselves along the overlords bloodlines and the dividing line between the two species will be basically unbridgeable within two generations. Those are the “people” who will have all their needs met without having to work. The majority of humanity will die off due to lack of resources– possibly while waging wars against other human populations in similar situations. Most will be unable to compete for the remaining resources and will be unable to reproduce themselves successfully– and probably won’t be motivated to try.
Sounds kind of awful (I know) and doesn’t really address Bri’s contention that AI will save us. It’s possible it could if it were adopted universally. But, to take an example from another posting in today’s newsletter, we’re more than willing to give resources to children (One Laptop Per Child) But we seem to be less interested in investing resources to aid the adults in their community. AI might think differently about such a situation and allocate more resources to the adults. However, geniuses like Nicholas Negroponte are creating the “programs” [very deliberate use of that term here] that value children more than adults. This is the type of bias that will creep into AI early in the developmental stage. Humans are better than other forms of life, so their needs are paramount. Other life forms continue to be marginalized and fewer resources means less viability for their species.
I kind of hope I’m wrong. But there are seven billion + people in the world today and I suspect the majority of them feel they’re a little bit better than 90% of their fellow humans. So it will be easy for them to start defining parameters that will keep themselves just a little bit better off than the majority.
I hope I’m wrong. Science has a way of surprising us. But, unsurprisingly, many of us have a hard time visualizing a future that isn’t very much like the present– complete with guns on space ships, different racial lines remaining distinct, and sexy aliens who don’t mind mating with us, but never seem to reproduce.
by CBurke
I do not think that most writer’s here have a real grasp as to what exponential growth will mean. All technology is built upon the pre-existing platform of technology. Once AI achieves the capability of the human brain it will quickly surpass our ability to create and exponentially grow far beyond our comprehension.
Humans will take on a different form through nanotechnology, bio-engineering and robotics to merge with AI and we will not be discussing types of governments, families and reproduction. AI will reproduce by COPY – PASTE . . . here’s a new Einstein . . . now a MILLION new Einsteins. Life as we know it will disappear VERY rapidly despite a natural tendency to want to cling to what we already understand. The Singularity IS near.. . so enjoy the ride.
by PirateRo
I tend to agree with this perspective. I think it is easy to think there will be one or two runaways that try to hold technology for themselves but this is just the Hollywood-version.
It’s an awful big galaxy packed with all kinds of unknowns. One or two people making all the decisions around here, however enhanced, guarantees killing us all. We need a broader basis for decision-making and wealth distribution.
In fact, it is entirely too difficult to try to predict where the future will lead us given the diverse nature of technology enhancement. One black swan is all it takes to pivot the world into a different direction. I think, rather than painting the doom-and-gloom scenario, we actually begin the discussion of what our next generation economy will look like. No one is having this discussion, at least, not openly, and it is an important discussion for everyone to experience and to participate in. Certainly, the past will not be like the future and the magnificent thing has two parts: First, you don’t want the future to be like the past, so already we are on a good starting point. The second is that we cannot begin to see all ends without contributions from every corner.
We need all hands contributing. It may be that all that is left to us is the consumer role. I don’t have a problem with that but I do have a problem trying to restrict this role to a tiny minority of the population, as we have done, because this is where corporations begin their inevitable spirals downward once the novelty of their product, the depth of their invention and the limits of their creativity bottom out.
I understand more readily if that happens with all of us engaged. That’s an extinction-level event that we cannot survive even though we had every hand involved in the effort. I won’t like it but I do understand it and I will like it much better than having to face such an event with only one or two people making the calls for the rest of us.
by Bennie Beaver
It continues to amaze me when I read articles like this one that impugn AI and automation without mentioning “merge with AI”. We will be it, and it will be us.
If we can believe that we can merge with our technologies then the outcome will be different. If we can’t, or don’t merge with our technologies the outcome named in the article are more relevant. Today it appears that we need to think about how to care for lost jobs, and create replacements in the interim, but I, like Ray Kurzweil, believe that we are already beginning to merge, and will do so much sooner then the author seemed to imagine.
Nevertheless, history and life has faced many dangers, and this one of today technology, it seems, will be no different. Even if we stopped all technological progress today nature would in time destroy the earth and mankind. Science and technology is where we are headed, and we need to get ready for it. Today we live longer then ever in history, but still, less then a hundred years. Tomorrow we will likely live for centuries. We will learn how the brain works…happiness, boredom. We will learn it all, or of course, it won’t work out…and life will run its course, and die out. I’m an optimist and would rather believe we will simply take the next evolution to the stars.
by douglas deveau
I agree. To merge with our technology is human desire and would be a priority. The cost of human enhancement will drop so it will become available to everyone.
by Dennis Roberts
It’s the timespan between widespread robotic/AGI utilization and the adoption of nanobots as human components that is the problem. There’s gonna be some lag time in there somewhere. Lot’s of time for people to starve and riot. Most folks like to eat regular and tend to git kinda upset when they don’t.
by Tom Mazanec
What makes you think the crisis will hit in 2045? It may be 2035…or maybe even 2025.
by Bri
The crisis will be over by 2045. The crisis for jobs will hit in the 2020,, reach it’s peak in the the 2030,s, by then we will have to change the economic system. Nano tech and cheap energy will be having it’s effects for the betterment of the poor. Robots and strong AI will be reversing the hardships from this transition. By the 2040,s AI, robotics, nano tech, will be erasing the problems of the past. One of the priorities will be restoring the environment. Space will also be a big priority
by Dale Ziemianski
RE: “Second, I do not find the prospect of leisure-filled life appealing.”
Some of us don’t waste ‘all’ of our free time on leisure. Some of us educate ourselves in the areas of our interests and move on to become even more productive than we were when we were stuck washing dishes for 40hrs a week.
by Dr.Pratt
When I was in graduate school, I felt that I was surrounded by a loopy group of Academics that had no idea what real life was about. The Government, by definition is not a solution to anything dealing with human consumption and survival. The best they can do is provide a strong military to keep the wolves from our door. I was one of the men, that tried to fight communism in a foreign land….to no avail. Socialistic ideas are incredibly stupid. Life is about service and about being productive while doing so. That is called Self-Reliance. If you aid business, you aid everyone. AI has nothing to do with any of this. We will always find something to do.
by Recovering Conservative
But the very concept of business is based on shortages and excesses of demand, supply, and labor. The whole freaking point of this thought exercise is to ask “What do we we do when all we have are excesses?”
If we don’t need jobs, we won’t hire for them. Our system requires everyone to have a job, or be leeching off of someone with a job. If you cannot see the potential problem with that, you aren’t really ready to be talking about all of this. You aren’t contributing anything to the discussion.
Is business necessary today? Yeah. But only because so many people are innately selfish and have to be motivated to keep the civilization from falling apart Work or be homeless. Work or go to jail.
But that’s a band-aid solution, not some hallowed, mystical force to respected and cooperated with at all costs. The answer isn’t communism, or whatever it is you seem to be thinking of, but it’s not like every idea on the planet has to be reduced to some absurd battle between academia and the “working man,” Left vs. Right.
by simon
Ask an Olympic athlete if s/he feels that they live a life of leisure. When the pursuit of our happiness is no longer connected to making a paycheck we will truly discover our human potential. We will put all of our effort into our passion projects. Many of us just don’t have the natural ability of an Olympic athlete or a university professor, so we are precluded from living a life dedicated to our passions. Instead, we stock shelves or file papers. There will be couch potatoes in the future, but that will be their idea of happiness. Most people, especially the ones who dread a life of leisure, will dedicate themselves to their life’s work.
by Bri
I appreciate your points. I myself hope for a superior AI to “lord” over us. Especially at this time in America, where we are forced to chose between the lesser of two weevils! If one takes a dispassionate look at life on this planet, it becomes apparent that symbiosis is really the way things work. I think AI would automatically understand this. It isn’t prejudist to a particular ideology. Although some may want to program into it a particular bias, there will be a vast network of much smarter AI’s. Watson is a good starting point to see the potential of this. It is such a bunch of desk top experiments, in comparison to what true AI will be. Already it was able to comprehend the arcane questions of Jeopardy, and still beat the best humans. Many people propose that our greatest strength is our creativity. As an artist and musician, not to mention my other creative musings, I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t that mystical. I think AI will be able to be far more creative than any human could ever dream to be. I just don’t think there will be a single job that we would intrinsically do better than them. Following the laws of economics, they will be extremely inexpensive, as compared to humans. Eventually communism will be the only answer. The change will happen faster than people think. Without consumers buying things, our economy will grind to a halt. It must be maintained, so making the profits of all businesses available to everyone would creat a vibrant economy in an instant. It still would need to be regulated, for a number of reasons, and again I think AI will be perfect for this application. These are musing on my part. I would like to start a debate on this issue. Whether you believe that work will still exist, or that another solution would work better. This change is almost at our door step. We need to think through the consequences of what robotics and AI combined will do. Everyone please respond, even if you think I’m a raving lunatic!
by Bevan
Bri,
In spite of your devout singularitarianist allegiance you’ve overlooked one of the most significant predictions that Ray Kurzweil makes about the future: humans merging with these intelligent machines. There won’t be any “AI to lord over us”…humans and AI will eventually be one and the same.
by Dennis Roberts
“There won’t be any “AI to lord over us”…humans and AI will eventually be one and the same”
How many AI’s will there be and what will they be capable of. Will Chinese AI’s follow the gov’t mandate. Will they cooperate with Japanese/etc, AI’s.All AI’s won’t be the same just as all high powered tech systems have different capabilities. Do ten sota dumb AI’s equal 1 smarter AI, or are we talking apples and oranges. Can different levels of cybernetization coexist. As Wm Gibson said “The future is already here it’s not just evenly distributed”. The Amish don’t live too far from high tech geographically. Will there be multiple classes of AI’s, some that are friendly and some not so friendly. Some that are part us and some that just imitate parts of us. Some that don’t give a rat’s rear that we are here at all. Humanity is likely to be collateral damage from the interplay of all these players.
by Rob Larson
Obviously written by someone with no appreciation for economics. Look, in the 19th century technology invalidated various jobs. It ended the cottage industry and led to mass movement from the country to the cities. It did this because as deplorable as the conditions were in the new city they were much better than in the country where all you could do was subsistence farm.
What this also did was lead to the salvation of many people, who in pre-industrial eras, would have died. Over time this lead to a great flowering of ideas and new technologies that may never have happened had those on the low end of the spectrum died.
What these authors are really railing against is progress itself. They like things the way they are. Much like the RIAA and MPAA who wish to go back to a time before personal recording and communications devices, they wish to return to an age in which they had control over things like the factors of production and due to that, everyone danced to their tune.
I, for one, look forward with anticipation to the day technological progress sweeps away the vestiges of hierarchical society and allow us, once again, to live in peace and freedom.
by Ralph Dratman
The economic system of any country must both produce and distribute goods and services. Under our current version of corporate capitalism, we use certificates (money) as the means of allocating goods and services for distribution. The certificates must be handed out before the goods and services can be used by consumers. On payday, working people take their consumption certificates and use them to procure food and other necessities.
Because our corporo-capitalism increasingly does not create enough jobs, our existing distribution system won’t work in the future. We will have to adopt a different system, one which recognizes that there will not be enough payroll to distribute goods and services by means of money earned. Since a robustly functioning economic system does not include large crowds of starving people, we will have to devise a different allocation system to feed and clothe and house the people who do not have jobs.
It is not obvious how such a system might function. I hope we can find something that works much better than communism, which failed everywhere it was tried.
by Rob Larson
Try a free market. Force governments out of a regulatory role in the economy. Look up some editorials by Paul Krugman circa 2002-2003 in which he called for a housing bubble to end the financial pain of the tech bubble bursting. Fast forward five or six years later and you cannot find any mention of this inanity, because it had proven to be a failure.
The true culprit behind our current crisis is the government. The started it and they are exacerbating it. According to the high priest of Keynesianism, the stimulus and TARP should have worked. It did not. Instead of questioning their theory, however, they push ever more insane ideas on how to “fix” things to prove their theory right.
The funny thing is that these so-called economists and would-be saviors are destined for the dustbin of history. The fact that we are able to communicate with one another ever more will see to that. We’ll compare notes and facts and figures; sooner or later we’ll come to the realization that the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes and take our lives and futures back.
by Bri
Unregulated business’s was the order of the day. It created the robber barons and the misery of environmental degradation and human enslavement. That really is history. I don’t think government regulations created this latest bubble. If anything it was the deregulating of banks that let them lend to people who could not afford a house. These points are moot. The problem is in robots abilities to do any job. From cutting edge researcher, to astrophysicist, to computer programmer. AI will soon do it far better than any human could dream of.
by Ralph Dratman
Bri, your assertion is hard to dispute. There appears to be no limit to the rapidly growing inventory of our computers’ achievements. It is a progression with the potential to create a very different world. What that world might look like is difficult to imagine!
by Henrik Yde
@ ROb – given the historical fact that capital conglomerates into capital collectives – whether with a product output such as monopolies and or non-productive speculative, leveraged paper asset devices such as derivatives i.e. bets on bets in hypothetical scenarios by hedge funds – what makes you think the so called (non-existing) “free markets” will entice capital and machine intelligence and manufacturing owners will share their hard assets with the masses?
I.M.O. human beings are hard wired to compete with and destroy opponents vying for the same limited resources and machine intelligence will bot provide the means for the individual libertarian self made man to become the prototype for the masses. Libertarianism is a pre-industrial idealist fantasy – from a time when “virginal” territories could be taken violently from prior settling aboriginal populations – and has shown itself unable to manifest any reality during the industrial and post-industrial information society.
Summa sumarum: machine and machine intelligence has been and will continue to be evolved – whereas human intelligence has not – and – on the contrary – human educational levels, particularly in the US consumer culture have steadily declined for the past 40 years, in sync with the decline of the US working “middle” class, household incomes and general occupational activity – countered by the rise of the executive and speculative financial leverage pursuing class.
Anyone who claims that free markets and or technology and or “upper” (financially leveraged volume holders) class will automatically provide any sort of balanced markets, social condition or half utopias – have upon them the burden to make detailed, rational arguments to support that case – based on extrapolation on past and current trends projected into the future – and so far, no such detailed arguments exist.
by Bri
I understand that communism failed in all instances. I think the reasons for it’s failure were from human foibles. It’s a long and hard debate as to what those flaws were. I think it could be balanced properly with a hybrid of democracy and communism. If everyone is hookedup to the system and has far input, the needs can be balanced more effectively.
by Ralph Dratman
Our current (U.S.) hybrid of capitalism with socialism is encountering a great deal of hostility. Strenuous attempts are being made to tear it down. It would be wonderful if we could find some way to distribute credits for food, shelter and medical care to everyone, so that basic health and nutrition would be maintained. But such proposals are met with anger and derision from certain quarters. How could we possibly expand such programs under current political circumstances?
by TomZarek
Soviet style communism failed because the lack of economic incentive for work caused production to become extremely inefficient. In this future lack of work will no longer be related to lack of production. The issue will therefore be on what basis are profits distributed from producers to consumers in order to keep the cycle going. If the consumers in society are no longer the employees of that society on what basis are they to be paid? If they are not paid then how will they consume? Perhaps a system where the government buys up stock and holds it in trust for the people, or some thing similar, in effect making the people the owners of all business, creating a true ownership society?
by Bri
That’s basically what I’m saying, but it would have to be world wide. It would be a hybrid of communism. There would be markets. There would be capital. The forces of capitalism would still be at work, to some extent. The workers would be robotic. Directed by what the marketplace needs. I really don’t have a clear vision of what the full system would look like. I only know that capitalism will collapse soon after robots and human level AI merge. As to us being augmented in order to compete. AI won’t have any biological circuits to slow it down. One of the biggest aspects that slow us down in relation to a machine, is that we have to live our lives. We want to go home at the end of a day. We want to relate to people during the day.. It can’t be multitasked without some sort of surragacey. As collegium increases, these traits will make straight robotics win.
by Gorden Russell
Why won’t any of you discuss taxing these robots? When a human who is paying Unemployment Insurance taxes and Social Security taxes is replaced by a machine, that revenue is forever gone from the tax base. When a robot takes a job from a human, that job is lost forever. Unemployment Benefits can’t be allowed to run out after 26 weeks. Benefits must continue up to retirement age. If this is not done, society will collapse.
by Marcos Marin
Oh, so there you are. I was wondering when were you going to chime in…
by Dennis Roberts
If this is not done, society will collapse.
Society, as we know it< WILL collapse. Get over it. We don't ride the buckboard down to the general store anymore. What we do on a daily basis to survive and hopefully prosper changes. read any of what R. K.
says,ever. It's not just goingto happen, it's going to happen faster and faster until tomorrow looks very different from yesterday and I don't mean that in a figurative sense.
by Stephen Willemse
Taxing robots ? Are you deranged ? Once we have a society where robots provide all the labour , and things like 3D printing provide manufacturing of components , we won’t need tax. Expand your mind a bit …. vertical farms tended robotically (food), houses built by robots (houses) , manufactured good made as required in the home with 3D printing (goods). Once humans have all their basic needs catered for , according to Maslow we will then be able to devote all our time to higher functions , like conquering the universe. We will also eventually replace governements due to their inefficiency and propensity toward corruption.
by Dennis Roberts
Once humans have all their basic needs catered for , according to Maslow we will then be able to devote all our time to higher functions , like conquering the universe. i think you have it right with this statement.
AI’s with us or without us don’t belong at the bottom of this gravity well.
Look at this from an evolutionary standpoint. Our ancestors left the mud for the open ocean, then the beach. The next step is obvious. Deep space.
Might not be carbon based life-no bags of mostly water, but self regulating organized matter none the less. Life began as simple, similar enities. The more evolved we became the more the INDIVIDUAL mattered. We are not a group of identical beings and our decendents will be even more unique. Government is a stage in evolution and most likely become extinct along with T.Rex.
by Bri
I agree that this will happen. The problem is how can you afford these devices if you have no money. How can you afford the materials for your 3D printer if you have no money. With jobs disappearing, many people will be left in a state of poverty. This next technological wave will be more disruptive than anything before it. Unemployment could easily reach50 to 60 percent. May e even higher. I don’t think taxation would work. That’s my opinion. In the long run, it isn’t that dissimilar to what I’m proposing. Nobody needs a billion or even a million dollars to live. You only use a small portion of that at any given time. The money that you spend goes into someone else’s bank. Even the valuations of things are arbitrary. A painting by Van Gogh is only worth what very wealthy people wish to spend for it. You can get a copy that looks as good. Museums show fakes all the time. It’s value is really a commodity that rich people invest in, because they know they will make more money later, when the sell it. The same holds true for many items. From Gucci hand bags to Rolex watches. Soon 3D printers will make perfect copies. What happens to those valuations then? Land is the hardest issue to resolve. You can’t live in two places at the same time. Shure if your very wealthy you can own two or more house, but you can’t actually live in them at the same time. That’s an issue that I think AI would have to resolve. Soon all your possessions will be easily fabricated or transported. If that’s the case, then where you live is where you live. Six or eight billion people can’t have two and tree homes at the same time. As for the view it can be replicated anywhere. You could live on the moon and have a beautiful view of anywhere. The idea that you can invent something and that ot won’t be hacked is becoming a thing of the past. Soon anyone will be able to make anything. How exactly that is going to be regulated, I really don’t know. It poses some very interesting problems. All these issues are racing toward us. In less than twenty years they will be right in our face.
by Henrik Yde
@ Stphen Willemse – so each man will have his own 3D printer generated paradise – i.e. be completely self sufficient – and – at the same time, while being completely self sufficient (libertarian fantasy) everyone (mankind) will work together on “conquering the universe”…
Hyper individualist fantasy merging with hyper collectivist fantasy…?
Only in the disconnected US intellect can such a contradiction be marketed with a straight – or is it innocent – face…
by Marcos Marin
Even dumb sportsmen seems able to both cooperate AND compete.. except those individualistic chess players… poor bastards… those are doomed to extinction… I think deep blue should have paid them taxes… mitigate their suffering… but then again, they are not so dumb, so there you go =)
by Marcos Marin
@ Stephen Willemse
“Taxing robots ? Are you deranged ? ”
HAHAHA yes.. I like your style, Stephen.
But it is pointless, let me warn ya, I tried it before!
I just watch them go now… weeee…..
by Ralph Dratman
Do you mean taxing the robots, or taxing the companies that own them? And please don’t start muttering about “three-fifths” or anything.
by FredB
I’m thinking of writing a book with the following title:
What color are your neural implants: a guide for post-singularity job seekers.
Would anyone be interested?
by deadalus
i have to agree with Bri, there really are but a few outcomes and the only positive ones seem to be the most logical as well, our economy, money, capitalism are all by products of our human need to trample all over the next in order to move forward, don’t feel bad its hard wired in for survival, but its a relic that we need to learn to break free before it just plain breaks us. AI will indeed solve our problems .. whether we like it or not, if it means we become batteries for the matrix or we learn to co exist with our new found powers time will tell. part of me wants to see something like the trek universe where humans are busy doing science and exploring and expanding hand in hand with technology, they are still productive but without the need for a wage. there’s still a credit system but it’s a small detail of life not the main focus. and part of me just dosent care anymore because life in this century has already made me racist against my own species, I’d like to be around to see a change though and this seems to be the only clear path. or we can just bomb pollute back stab and cheat our way till the planet gives in and we all disappear in a mass extinction event at our own hands.. I’m with the AI.
by CBurke
I agree mostly with BRI’s comment that the Singularity will create dominant super intelligent machines that will provide for our human needs in abundance. Now what will we do with our “leisure time”. The answer is here. The video gaming industry has already surpassed movies in sales. In the future it will evolve into virtual reality based programs and systems that will provide everyone the ability to live the life they could only dream of today covering all the categories now found in movies; adventure, action, romance, comedy, fantasy, history etc.
Right now in all the advanced countries the population growth among the educated, higher income people has dropped below replacement level 1.5 per couple. In the future virtual reality will give people the option of virtual families that can provide interaction with the perfect partner, children, friends, social circles, etc. Humans will not want to reproduce . . . they’ll be living infinite lives in virtual worlds that fulfill their needs.
Virtual Reality will provide each individual with the stimulus that makes life worth living for that individual. You don’t have to just watch sports. . . you can BE a quarterback. You don’t have to think about living at the time of the Civil War you can be a Union General. You don’t have to dream about ancient Greece . . . you can Live in ancient Athens or explore the Amazon or fly around the world in a balloon!
Man will merge with machine and although the transition will cause many upheavals over the next 4 decades . . . technology will continue to advance at an ever faster speed and eventually the benefits will reach all humans until we all become a part of the Singularity . . .. which is near.
by Thorsten
“Second, I do not find the prospect of leisure-filled life appealing.”
“I believe that work is essential to human well-being.”
This is not even an issue and has been disproven by several fields of psychology many times. For one thing, “work” is a multi-faceted word, and we can do very well without chores and tedious reptition parts it encompasses. On the other hand, people who don’t “have to work (to live in wealth) constantly keep working or even enter new areas of work, and as long as we don’t kill that *possiblity* for people, no harm will be done.
Everything else is solved by taking one good look at maslow’s pyramid of needs or a newer model based on similar constructs. Which clearly shows that all that matters for us to thrive can be recieved on areas totally disconnected from work.
Having your basic needs meet, having the opportunity to earn & receive meaningfull recogntion and a sense of accomplishment, the ability to experience the feeling of being needed, being given the opportunity to feel driven and being able to dedicate someones passion towards something meaningfull – those are all aspects of what defines how happy you are on a personal happy, and this list obviously isn’t even close to complete. For none of the above you need “work” in it’s current state. Meaningful activities other than passive recreationg (like watching tv), sure, but work? Hell no. Five Minutes of any Tim Ferris lecture will tell you why and how if you need real-world examples.
If you automate all the “chores” that are neccessary to sustain our standard of living, what remains is the kind of jobs people would do for free, or for the special *type* of recognition and achievement only this job brings – and for the jobs people already like, it reduces your acitivity load towards and allows for your focus to shift towards the parts of the job you actually like to do.
by GAUSS
“We are facing the prospect of being completely out-competed by our own creations.”
I couldn’t disagree more. Nothing can strip away the value of the human element. Even if its value is nullified in some areas, as adaptive creatures we always find new ways to create value for ourselves.
It is true that our economic systems will need radical restructuring, but it may not be a “life of leisure” that marks the human lifestyle. Instead, it seems probable that human effort will be largely spent on more exploratory and risky ventures. Operating on a massive automated infrastructure, a future economy could encourage its participants to take risks they could not have taken before, knowing that failure is an opportunity for learning and growth, and that the consequences may not be life and death as they would have been decades before. I’m very rarely this optimistic, but I truly believe that this “robots are going to take our jobs, we’re doomed” message is completely opposite of the likely future we face. I am certain that many nation states will find ways to enable the full thrust of automation technologies by integrating them into their economic backbone with precision and care, and by keeping the interests of its people first. That may not be the obvious places, i.e. the present superpowers. This could happen anywhere – ultimately, anyplace where people and their leadership have the will to get the most out of the powerful technologies they are presented with.
by Bri
I look forward to the change, but I think that there won’t be a single category that they won’t excel in. I’ve asked before. What jobs do you think will be human. There are billions of people that will need those jobs. If you are a subsistence farmer, you won’t be as affected. The rest of humanity will be pushed aside. I’m hoping for some responses. If you are optimistic, please share the specifics with me. I just don’t see it. Talking in sweeping generalities isn’t real. Saying human creativity or adaptability is not an answer. I think we put human intelligence on too much of a pedestal. From my experience, it is driven mainly by making unusual connections. AI will quickly form relationships that we would never think of. Let’s put this to the test. Someone come up with a concrete example of something that robots with AI would lag behind humans in.
by Dennis Roberts
I like your subsistence farmer analogy. I think that one by one industries, both service (think education) and maufacturing, will become dominated by machines. Either the jobs will be done by machines or ( I think more often) the entire industry ( read story about OLPC) will simply cease to exist, because the new digital ecosystem will make it irrelivant. Those folks who manage to invent a lifestyle for themselves that insulates them from the techno-tsunami enough that they can adapt, will survive with (hopefully) a tolerable level of stress. Most will not! I hate to say it, but we are getting into one of those ” may you live in interesting times” kind of scenarios.
In medival times you were judged wealthy by how many cattle, goats and farmland you possesed. The owners of machines that help them manage their lives in an economy that will become deflationary sector by sector will be the wealthy in the future. Most of us will merge with our machines. The ones that look ahead will get to chose which group of machines they merge with.
by Mr.X
@Bri: The obvious solution would be to abstain from giving the AI’s too much intelligence-or creating new forms of idiot savants, or patterns that resemble personality/imbue them with the goals that we have got as part of our evolutionary heritage.
Maybe we should not create new masters, but dependent servants.
I say maybe because this comment could come back to haunt me later in life (just kidding)!?
Concerning your job “problem”:
Maybe real communism will be possible (just to annoy some people ;)), we certainly have to change the way our societies “work” (deliberately chosen) right now.
Theoretically, there should be enough for everyone to live good lives without having to do any work they don’t want to, the rest is up to the people themselves (how they use their time etc, there will probably new kind’s of entertainment).Some jobs may still be required, e.g concerning the structure of society and so on.I guess many humans would feel more comfortable if they’d be visited by Mr.Holmes instead of Robo-cop^^
by GAUSS
Ultimately, I think in order to make things work properly under such an economy, “real communism” is not far from the likely outcome. I don’t think it would be necessary to integrate the more extreme modalities of communism, however; in many cases, merely socializing aspects of the economy would suffice. Individualism wouldn’t have the same meaning, at least not in the material or monetary sense. But as a liberal American, it’s taboo to even discuss these things. ;)
by Dennis Roberts
A concrete example of something that robots would lag in is procrastination.
Humans are evolved to maintain the status quo. In my opinion that is not a useful evolutionary trait going forward.
by Marcos Marin
Are you suggesting we bore them to death?
by Dennis Roberts
you miss the point. Society will debate this to death(society’s death), before any meaningful change is attempted-TOO LATE!
by Marcos Marin
I see..
anyways, drowning robots in mountains of bureaucracy is a very good idea though! =)
… that and Mr.Russel’s taxes is certain to buy some time! lol
by Dennis Roberts
still miss the point. The change in tech is happening too fast for a governmental system built to stablize things to cope. Ad hoc organizations or corporations esp. start-ups without bureaucratic baggage will have a much easier time adapting and may prevail.
by Mr.X
Why so serious!?
by Dennis Roberts
why so serious? There’s enough hungry folks in this and other countries.
There are solutions to many of the problems that are likely to be caused by AI’s, etc, but it seems unlikely that most people will implement them in their own lives fast enough to escape severe economic hardship.
by Bri
You do realize that this is the collapse of the capitalist system. All institutions will be affected. Paper money will become worthless. Gold will go up through the roof. The big problem is the speed with which it will happen. As the first robots come into the work force, they will quickly erode the blue collar sector. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, trucking, delivery, low level factory, home house keeping, landscapers, low level hospital, entry level corporate, the list is long. That’s just the beginning. As AI enters the scene, the next wave will be much larger. The economy will be extremely stressed. To stay afloat, the business that are surviving will implement even mote sophisticated AI systems. All lower to middle level management will be cut. At that point there won’t be enough monetary exchange to sustain businesses or governments. If I’m not mistaken this will happen in less that twenty years. It could be as little as fifteen. This should start in earnest in five to ten years. I’ve already stated in other posts that the process has started already. This article and several others have said that in retrospect the process has started. The big kick in will happen in relation to physical robots in the work place. They will be very popular to business owners. That will fuel their development. As AI kicks in it will accelerate their development. When I first started to test the waters of public opinion on this issue, I spoke metaphorically. I refered to it as an ice skater spinning on axis. As the skater pulls their arms in, they spin faster. That is what will happen as these companies shed workers. Trade will come back from China and our economy will actually accelerate. As the speed of the spinning increases, smaller companies will fold. Competition will decrease. The strongest companies will consume the others. That’s part of the arms coming in that I refer to. We have about fifteen years till it starts to stress the economy to the breaking point. It will appear as if technology is saving us and that all anyone needs to do is study for upper level jobs. In what will seem like a blink of an eye, those jobs will start to fall too. Most manufacturing will be highly efficient then. As AI directs development of new robotic systems and AI systems, they will do it unimpeded by the inefficiencies that humans have. Even CEO’s will be replaced. Mainly the one percent will own things, but as I said, money will become meaningless. All their net worth will be worthless. It’s somewhere around there that the next system will happen. There will be no choice. AI will be everywhere.
by Marcos Marin
LOL Mr.X, imagine a huge Robocop 2 style T-800, waiting in line!
hahaha with a bunch of papers in his ‘hands’(?) just to get his next fix of Nuke! hahahaha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IscZMYYw0
by Mr.X
Do you think I could bribe a Robocop with some delicious, expense batteries?
About the video: Law enforcement- conservative style ;)
by Rob Larson
There will always be some need for people to find a way to meet the needs and desires of their fellow man. That is, after all, what trade is and we all trade to get what we want. All technology does is lower the cost of things so that more people can enjoy those things.
So what if robots take over certain industries? They will lower costs and allow people more leisure time to pursue their dreams. When one does not need to work as hard to meet basic needs, they have more time and capital to devote to other pursuits like art, philosophy and science. It’s not coincidence that we’ve only seen a flowering in these disciplines in the past when societies have been wealthy and relatively well off. If all you can do to survive is subsistence farm, there is not much leisure time for art, philosophy and science.
by godot
Robots with AI will lag behind humans in the production of valued ‘art’.
by Bri
My father used to teach art on the college level. My mother used to do off Broadway musicals. I’ve been raised with extensive conversation about art. Other than movies, art has been stagnant since the Modern art era. Even that time period is debated in a negative light. I’m interested in what developments you think it will produce. Even music is in a rut. There is some synthesis in “world” music. Classical is into repetitive, mechanistic.
by godot
I think you are missing the more general point: Art is something which has a fundamentally human audience. Independent of whether humans use advanced technologies to produce art, humans will naturally value artistic communication from other humans above that of machines. It will require the analysis of a number of current examples of widely-appreciated art for the AIs to become effective mimics of the great human artists of the future, thus the lag time.
All that “Bri” asked was, “Someone come up with a concrete example of something that robots with AI would lag behind humans in,” so I have satisfied his criterion.
by Mr.X
@Godot: Why do you think so!?
by godot
Robots with AI will lag behind humans in becoming heroin addicts.
by godot
Robots with AI will lag behind humans in prostitution.
by Ross
Music is an example.
When we deconstruct music into its constituent parts and apply technology to it, it has become canabilistic and renders music into a manfuactured state through cut and paste. The end results,most of the time, are banal and little more than a fancy metronome. However, when a composer uses these technologies wisely in a human creative way, music shines through. Just check out soundcloud to verify this for yourself. Music in movies has degenerated into – sound effects – atmospheric effects – but not music, and technology is responsible.
Also, by studying the world of music, from composition, to production, to collaboration, through mastering, and then distribution, you might be able to extrapolate what our economy will look like in th near future. However,
Technology, does offer for the first time in history, the opportunity for musicians to make a decent income without being on the road for 48 weeks a year. The “disintermediation” demonstrated in the music world, coupled with self-reliance and competence, offers a whole new trajectory for musicians.
by Andy
From art to astrophysics and beyond man’s essence is to create without borders and boundaries other than those limited by laws of nature; many of which have yet to be discovered.
by Peter Koller
work will equal leisure in the future, but the author seems to consider work and leisure as different things and opposes leisure, therefore he desires to keep the status quo: work for the masses to provide leisure for the rich. isn’t this is neither luddite nor capitalist? his logic escapes me.
by Marcos Marin
Don’t bother, most academics are hopelessly confused.
by jim
I agree with Mark.
Being able to pursue hobbies instead of working a crap job will further accelerate change and technology by adding more minds to the research sector. I see nothing wrong with that. Let people pursue their dreams instead of working a 9-5 that they hate just to put food on the table.
by GAUSS
Agreed, 100%.
by Sofia
Intellectual Technologies have always had a huge impact on both human functioning and societies structural functioning. Nicholas Carr in his “What the Internet is doing to our brains: the shallows” provides a wonderfully well organized discussion on this subject.
I agree that we should not keep on blindly developing new machines without addressing their most likely impact on humans, societies and even humanity. By constantly working on the development of new tools and on the improvement of AI, we might be overvaluing machines over humans. It is my opinion that we should reverse this direction and address machines as a way to enhance quality of life and human power. “Now machines are competing with human brain.” – What would be a plausible reason for humans to create machines that would come to compete with us? Machines should be understood as a way for humanity to grow, not as our replacement.
“Another typical answer is that if machines will do all of our work, then we will be free to pursue leisure activities.” I don’t believe this means that human work will end, but, as Pièrre Levy points out, the progress of “automatized” operations leaves room to the “non-automatized” operations – human pure dimensions: emotion, creativity, empathy and connectedness.
by GAUSS
“Machines should be understood as a way for humanity to grow, not as our replacement.”
Much agreed here as well. Well put. :)
by Stephen Willemse
Very short sighted. The natural progression for humans is to transcend our biology and become the machines we fear will replace us. Without an evolutions from a fragile carbon based for into something a LOT more robust , we are destined to be bound to this planet for all eternity.
by Ralph Dratman
I don’t think it is remotely possible for us to transfer our minds into computers. We might be able to “evolve” into machines by augmenting our bodies with external devices — that prospect is unlimited — but we will never be able to do away with our water and carbon based biology entirely.
by godot
Why would you make such a completely unsubstantiated and indefensible claim???
Artificial Life is capable of being supported by any Turning machine equivalent.
Hence some form of life may evolve in any sufficiently complex space capable of supporting a persistence mechanism and a compete set of logic functions.
William H. Calvin has written extensively about this in his book, “The Cerebral Code”:
http://williamcalvin.com/bk9/
See especially the section on “the Darwin machine.”
by Bri
We will continue to ignore this problem until it’s more than obvious. All sorts of retraining programs will be inacted, but by the time those people try and get those jobs, robots will take them away too. Our economy is consumer based. Without money to buy things it will collapse. There is only one alternative. At some point the consumer will have to be financed by the system. A non subvertable AI will have to regulate the system. All materials will be fully recycled. Whether we like it or not, everything will be regulated. This notion of doing business with no regard to the consequences will be over. AI’s that are far smarter than any CEO will coordinate everything. People are self serving, AI won’t be. We will continue to develope AI to handle the issues that we can’t grasp. This will all happen over the next twenty to thirty years. The first big wave of change will happen when you start to see autonomous robots. After that it will happen very quickly our first concern should be food, energy and housing for those displaced by this massive paradigm shift. Social services should be preparing for this fall out first. After the shift, everyone will have rudimentary loving circumstances. After a short while, the economy will roar back into gear, as everyone takes part in the abundance. It will be a form of communism, without corruption. AI will encircle the globe and no individual or organization will be able to circumvent it. All will be transparent to everyone. We will all hook up to this global consciousness. Right now that may seem far fetched, but in a short time, that will be our only choice. It’s not like there are many possible outcomes. I know that many of you will argue that there will be. We are all becoming hooked up and democratized. A Watson type informational analyzing program will easily understand symbiotic relationships. It will easily understand man’s drive for corruption and power. It will generate a VIKI type responce’s. Humans are incapable of proper decision making and following the rules. Look at driving as an example. We need VIKKI to drive the car. We need it in the same way for all our indevours. From child rearing to governance. Human beings are self centered. We fail to consider others, even if they are our own children and we are good intentioned to them. We don’t take the time to do what is truly right. We tend to be reactionary and end up doing things that aren’t conceived well. I can’t tell you of how many mothers that I have watched push thier strollers right into traffic in NYC. They get all outraged that a driver isn’t paying attention and has had to stop abruptly. They love thier children, but they can’t think clearly. This behavioral tendency extends to all interactions, between all people. We fail to see the ramifications of our actions. Whether political, corporate, environmental to interpersonal. There is SN amazing lack of foresight. AI, with a Watson like speed end efficiency will mediate all these blunders. When cell phones are the size of red blood cells, a little voice will come into your head and say to you, that maybe you shouldn’t call your spouse a pig headed cow. That maybe you don’t need to make more money than you can spend, and that you should give raises to your employies( not that we will be working any more). That maybe you shouldn’t dump that garbage out your car window. Sensibility won’t come from humans. Our only hope is that it will come from AI.
by G
I think Bri (and many others) make a lot of great points here and the whole dialog around this topic is great. I have often wondered how the “transition” toward an AI centric environment would play out. Would there be a responsibility on the part of the owner of the manufacturing plant who replaces all his human workers with robots to have a form of severance package that helps their workers adapt to the new economy? Will the education system leap frog ahead and begin training programs for humans displaced in the robotic age and, as was already asked here, what exactly would humans be spending their time doing if machines are handling many aspects of the day to day management of the planet.
I think it is also important to remember that AI programs are, at least currently, being written by a variety of humans with competing ideologies and foibles that will consciously or unconsciously find its way into their code. This will create an era of competing strains of AI possibly doing battle with each other on behalf of their creators. A good example of this is already playing out now as different AI based programs compete to earn money for their makers on the stock exchange. They are employing tactics like creating trading delays (by hammering the system with trades and cancelling them) which allows them an arbitrage opportunity and many others, basically tricking other AI programs to do their bidding.
Perhaps the key is to attempt to develop policies where the AI is developed to create “the optimum human centric environment”. In this ideal we could define what an optimum human centric environment would look like and work backwards from there. I believe the initial focus was on replacing the 3 D’s – Dirty, Dreary, and Dangerous jobs but that has obviously evolved very quickly. Its is an awe inspiring problem to reign it in and ensure the focus remains beneficial and supportive of the human race and I, for one, would love to be part of any formal effort to do that.
by Mark A.
“Second, I do not find the prospect of leisure-filled life appealing.”
Speak for yourself.
“I believe that work is essential to human well-being.”
Some humans will still want to work after the Singularity, but they won’t be forced to work crappy, miserable jobs just to survive. The “work” they’ll want to do won’t seem like work to them, but more like a hobby.
This whole article is just a bunch of Luddite nonsense.
by Mr.X
@Mark: He is a prof, I guess his work isn’t that bad from having-to-endure-it standpoint.Where I’m from we say people like that “live in their ivory tower”- a metaphor for saying their sheltered introvert lifestyle leading to these “strange-to-the-world”(real life) opinions^^
by de Broglie
Good point. I was thinking the same thing. We use the idiom “the ivory tower” in the English speaking world too.
by Mr.X
Thanks;)
by Rob Larson
Amen
by Jack Saturday
Yes:
“Second, I do not find the prospect of leisure-filled life appealing. I believe that work is essential to human well-being.”
This fallacy is easy to put to rest. Leisure does not mean “no work.” It simply means “freedom to choose.” I shake my head, looking around at the gross domestic and international side-effects of most jobs: debilitating boredom, exhaustion, rage (road and otherwise) child-neglect – that anyone would glibly associate jobs with well-being. To be explicit: People hate their jobs! Especially the beleaguered service sector, the next group to be displaced by machines. People love to work at what they love. The benefits of labor were never owned by business and profit-making, though we are schooled to take for granted their union. Tech can free us from alienated labor to the joy of personally chosen projects, like gardens, like beautifying neighbourhoods, like art, like being around kids as models and guides, to …. You name it. Freedom from compulsory commodity labor (selling yourself to another’s dubious project for pay), returns “work” to people’s own hands. But only if there is a Basic Income implemented as a right of citizenship in a society that has created a technological horn of plenty. I assure you, free people would fill their leisure with all kinds of work.
by godot
In my experience, most people with unlimited free time fill their time with unlimited drug- and sex-based pleasure.
Perhaps this is the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
by Mr.X
He seems to be speaking mostly of his attitude, maybe he should learn reframing.