- If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?
I believe that the consequences of machine intelligence are in some ways irrelevant, because I see machine intelligence as inevitable. I believe it is human nature to always seek for ways to do things faster, more efficiently, and with less effort. We can attribute this drive to virtually every human accomplishment. It is what brought us out of the caves, made civilization possible, capitalism, the industrial revolution, you name it. This drive is so powerful it means that if machine intelligence is possible, it is unavoidable. We will build it regardless of the consequences because we must increase production, and machine intelligence offers us a way to automate and optimize nearly any task.
I also think it is inevitable. And although I am generally an optimist when it comes to technological development in the future, I can't help but be scared and frustrated sometimes. I am currently in graduate school and I'm afraid that by the time I'm done there will be a robot that could be programmed to know everything I know about my subject (and probably every other subject) and also be able to do independent research more efficiently and better than my own. That leaves me scared of what my future is. I think it is quite analogous to what blue collar workers must have felt to varying degrees throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as machines "took their jobs" (south park voice).
Do you think that the jobs that require the reading of human emotions will be less likely to be overtaken by machines? Jobs like sales? In sales, the most successful practitioners are those that can quickly identify what someone's motivating factors are. I wonder how a machine could do this? That said, I'm sure that someday they will be able to. But, how is it going to make you feel as a consumer knowing that you are being spoken to by a machine that has been programmed to know how to sway your opinion? Right now we have people that are highly trained to do this but yet because they are "people" we seem to be okay with it to an extent. These types of jobs and positions may be the last to be overtaken by machines in my opinion. But perhaps that's just me being a protectionist.
Steven Clausnitzer asked me to join this discussion. I see that the discussion here is focusing on the inevitability of machine intelligence. But this issue, as well as the issue of trying to stop the march to machine intelligence, was not the focus ofthe article. The focus of the article was the hypothesis that machine intelligence will cause, and is perhaps now already causing massive job losses, which will not be compensated by the development of new jobs. If you accepts this hypothesis, then we could start the discussion of what should be done about it. Moshe Vardi
Thanks for stopping by, vardi. Great article. I do buy that structural unemployment is a likely scenario as machine intelligence absorbs more jobs. That being the case, I wonder if Capitalism will become ill-suited for the type of market forces that evolve. You touch on this at the end of your article, mentioning that Keynes predicted that we might be at a 15-hour work week in the near future. However, it strikes me odd that he didn't suppose that we would just do a similar amount of different kinds of work. In other words, as long as you can create value with your time, our current economics sets the bar at a willingness to sacrifice a certain amount of time, as long as the return on that time is significantly measurable by someone else. If most are willing to sacrifice 40 hours a week at a task, you will have to do it too, no matter how soulless or inane. Maybe we will be doing absurd things, but as long as there can be demand for what machines cannot do, I don't see that we will find ourselves with much free time. I'd like to think that at some point the jobs left for us would be so absurd that we might collectively just refuse to put so much time into them. However, in Capitalist societies, people slave for the majority of their waking lives doing things like painting wind-up toys. Do we need new jobs, or do we need to rethink why we are doing them?
Agreed. IMO it has to do with rewards. If you replace workers (and their wages and benefits) with a robot, the reward is immediate. However, the reward for thinking about the consequences is distant, and ill-defined. This is why we are on a one-way street to severe climate change, right? It seems the only way that we can deal with these issues is through a kind of central planning, but history has plenty examples of how that can go awry. We are too short-sighted to plan ahead as individuals, and too ignorant to plan ahead as leaders. Maybe we can ask the machines to plan for us? An alternative might be to attach philosophers and ethicists to Senate and Congressional committees, and at they very least, allow them to attach commentary on legislation, giving a moral perspective that the public can center discussions upon.
What was done about the job losses via the industrial revolution? Many craftsman were made moot, especially in the textile industry. What happened in the aftermath of that? -This could be a guiding light as to what to or not to do. Right now, you hear politicians openly admit that many of the lost manufacturing jobs "aren't coming back" and that's largely because they no longer exist. But you also hear the politicians talk about "retraining" and "retooling". Retraining for what? I'm not sure. Previously mk made the remark that eventually the machines will be the consumers. Perhaps he is right and our job market will revolve around servicing them in some way. I was watching an episode of Mr. Rogers, with my daughter the other day and it showed a toy factory making a rocking horse. There must have been 20-30 people involved in the process. Today I would be shocked if it took more than 10. Tomorrow, people will use their 3D printers to make them at home.
Industrial revolution - Machines compete with human brawn
AI Revolution - Machines compete with the human brain
Perhaps, this will lead to humans valuing our ability to create abstract art and celebrate our creative pursuits. That is until machines begin competing with our heart. The day a machine can write a Farewell to Arms, we're in trouble and perhaps the future really doesn't need us. Do you have any thoughts on what should be done to ensure that the next generation is well equipped to handle this major sea change?I do not find their promises to be supported by a serious analysis of machine intelligence and robotics.
I would imagine much of their promises are rooted in historical evidence. We've always been able to replace jobs with emerging industries (as your piece indicates). What I don't think people realize, or perhaps they're too afraid to face is that emerging industries will now be created on the backs of machines and not humans.
it is very hard to think of solutions to problems of such magnitude. My goal has been to highlight the problem, pushing towards societal agreement that we have a major problems on our hand. we need to bring many people to this discussion: computing researchers, economists, philosophers, and the like. Right now, the job problem is just starting to be recognized as a major problem.
Just read an article in Forbes titled *End* of the Engineer? which starts off The great companies of tomorrow will be built around something else: a competency of customer understanding.
Seems like a bandaid, not a solution. But at least there is the recognition of a problem.
Do you believe it's possible to effectively plan for the consequences of machine intelligence? After all, the ramifications would be so huge it's difficult to know exactly what the practical implications for society would be. Moreover, we're talking about a technology that doesn't even exist yet. We don't know what the limitations (or unforeseen possibilities) are implicit within an intelligent machine. How can we prepare ourselves for something we won't be able to understand until we build it?
Is the 2045 immortality that Singularitarians believe will occur one that will sustain humans biologically or just consciously? Meaning, will our bodies be rejuvenated via electronic nano-cells or will it just be from "downloading" our consciousness to a computer?