The following article hopes for a soft post Singularity event landing in terms of Robotics/AI working alongside humans (who will still be paid for their jobs). I am less convinced. Once we have general purpose Robotics/AI (the kind of Android like robots you see in the Sifi genre, e.g., "I Robot") then "why have an uneconomic unit (a human) attached to oversee it do all the work?" Not only are ALL blue collar jobs at risk, but so are many white collar jobs: who needs a human Doctor/Nurse/Teacher, etc., when a Robot/AI can be online 24 hours a day, never tire; never make a logical error due to tiredness; has access to learning routines as well as instant recall of updated knowledge from the WorldWideWeb; and can simulate compassion and professional courtesy with precision? The alternate thesis... "The hopes and fears prompted by workplace automation has been a favourite topic of ours. Will we end up living in a utopia where no-one has to work? Will all the gains go to the rich? What are the implications for the policy arguments of today? But at their heart, all these questions rely on one key assumption: that the automation of the early to mid 21st century will be different from that of any period preceding it (except maybe the peak of the industrial revolution). Crucially, the change has to be quicker and wider than previous waves. Quicker, because otherwise people displaced from old jobs will just be absorbed into new ones smoothly and painlessly; and wider, because the hopes and fears rest on automation spreading far beyond simple mechanical tasks, into areas we consider innately human. Journalists, lawyers, doctors and researchers have all seen their jobs replaced by machines doing the same thing." newstatesman/economics/2013/09/robots-not-actually-all
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 08:58:28 +0000
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