Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 195 posts

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#61

Post by garysieling »

congerous wrote: post #8

Rometty doesn't even know that Watson is a vaporware boondoggle, so how would she know what's going to happen when AI impacts society. She is probably the least qualified person at IBM to talk about AI, and IBM itself is one of the least qualified companies practicing "AI". She too far removed from the trenches. But IBM has excellent PR, and this is the line I would take if I were betting my company on AI services.

What part is vaporware? I've used the AlchemyAPI bits they acquired in building https://www.findlectures.com, and it's useful, albeit way oversold.

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#62

Post by malka »

RRRA wrote: post #43

This whole question is missing philosophical context. Maybe not now, but once we all get automated, what is the goal we're trying to reach? Where are we going with this?

what do you think will happen to the working class when it becomes useless to those in charge ? Don't you think they'd enjoy more living on earth without us, plebeian ? (eg, like the spacers living in Solaria in Asimov novels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria )

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#63

Post by cjlars »

burkaman wrote: post #23
cjlars wrote: post #14

There's a lot believers in technological unemployment here on HN and one thing I think that viewpoint misses is just how darn resilient humans are to changes in the economy. In the past 150 years, we've seen human manual labor replaced by mechanical labor. Think about that -- a lot of early California settlers walked here, and now you're commanding power roughly equivalent to 100 horses when you hop into your car. Ag…

The Industrial Revolution caused a lot of suffering for a lot of people. I don't think "eventually society adapted" is good enough. The point is that we need to learn from history and develop responsible policies so that we don't screw over most of the planet with massive inequality. That doesn't mean technology and AI are bad, just that we have the benefit of hindsight and we don't have to just blindly plunge ahead…

> In 1760, the lowest 65 percent received about 29 percent of total income in Britain; in 1860, their share was down only four percentage points to 25 percent. So the lowest 65 percent were substantially better off, with an increase in average real income of more than 70 percent. [1]

Despite what Dickens may have written, the period was marked by faster gains for the lower classes than the previous century. And perhaps in part due to what he's written, we now have a social safety net -- I'll admit the quality of this system could be improved. What concerns me is making broad, major social changes in anticipation of a completely speculative (and very specific) view of the future.

I'd be curious about your answer to this: If conditions for the bottom third improve -- instead of falter -- as this trend develops, does that change your policy recommendations (about presumably, UBI)?

[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/IndustrialRevolutionandth...

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#64

Post by semi-extrinsic »

Houshalter wrote: post #40
cjlars wrote: post #14

There's a lot believers in technological unemployment here on HN and one thing I think that viewpoint misses is just how darn resilient humans are to changes in the economy. In the past 150 years, we've seen human manual labor replaced by mechanical labor. Think about that -- a lot of early California settlers walked here, and now you're commanding power roughly equivalent to 100 horses when you hop into your car. Ag…

Yes, this time it is different. I like the comparison to horses. Steam engines and trains threatened to replace horses in the mid 1800s. A lot of things that were previously done by horses were replaced with trains and steam engines. Yet the horse population grew, and cities remained full of horses. There were countless transportation innovations in the 1800s, from canals to streetcars and omnibuses to bicycles. But…

> I can not imagine any jobs that an average, unskilled human can do, that a machine won't soon be able to do.

Whenever I hear statements like this, I cannot help but think that the person making the statement has never done a week of work as "unskilled labour" themselves. (No offense intended.) Be it flipping burgers or building houses, there is improvisation both when it comes to high-level intelligence and in the ranges of motion the human limbs go through that make robots a complete non-starter.

Adding to that, a cheap robot arm that can lift as much as a four-year-old is $20k purchase price, plus another $20k for the controller/AI system, and probably $2k-$3k a year in maintenance. Figure four year depreciation when run 8 hours each day, you're looking at a yearly cost of $12k. That's compared to ~$15k for someone working full time on minimum wage. Take into account the huge process of switching your business over to robots, and it just doesn't look good.

Also, we don't need AI to take a customers order, you just need a touchscreen, or even just an app. The tech has been here for more than a decade. Why don't restaurants do this?

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#65

Post by Pamar »

jedbrown wrote: post #21
josho wrote: post #3

This is all you need to read from the article: > Advances in artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, but new forms of employment will take their place...History, though, has demonstrated that technological breakthroughs lead to new employment opportunities -- IBM CEO Ginni Rometty But, I think we are approaching (if we haven't already crossed this point) the time where new jobs created by technology advancem…

The bottleneck here is education. There will always be demand for employees in the emerging industries, but the required skillset will increasingly be out of reach of the masses, partly due to the time needed to learn these skills (compounded with age and expected time working in that field) and partly due to aptitude. I think UBI is the only ethical long-term solution, but ironically, the people most passionately op…

Yes, this is exactly the point that I argued in a previous discussion about the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12876133

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

Alex3917 wrote: post #58
Houshalter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this time it is different. I like the comparison to horses. Steam engines and trains threatened to replace horses in the mid 1800s. A lot of things that were previously done by horses were replaced with trains and steam engines. Yet the horse population grew, and cities remained full of horses. There were countless transportation innovations in the 1800s, from canals to streetcars and omnibuses to bicycles. But…

> I like the comparison to horses. I haven't seen any data, but my guess is that the average person's commute is roughly the same as it was 150 years ago. And if at some point we have self-driving cars or flying cars, we'll still spend roughly the same time commuting as we do today.

> I haven't seen any data, but my guess is that the average person's commute is roughly the same as it was 150 years ago.

I think you'd probably be wrong (though it may depend strongly on which average you take); even with the industrial revolution, working at home, or essentially so (whether yeoman farming or living upstairs from the shop) was a lot more common 150 years ago than it is now, though it may be more common now than it was just before telecommuting.

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#67

Post by ZenoArrow »

kbenson wrote: post #50
Houshalter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this time it is different. I like the comparison to horses. Steam engines and trains threatened to replace horses in the mid 1800s. A lot of things that were previously done by horses were replaced with trains and steam engines. Yet the horse population grew, and cities remained full of horses. There were countless transportation innovations in the 1800s, from canals to streetcars and omnibuses to bicycles. But…

Horses are tools that people used. When there's no more use for the tool, it's usage may be reduces. People are not just tools, they are the reason we have an economy in the first place. A solution in some form will have to be put forth if one doesn't emerge. Another way of looking at this is that we weren't ever under threat of millions of displaced horses rising up and overthrowing the system. Since that is a possi…

>"Horses are tools that people used. When there's no more use for the tool, it's usage may be reduces. People are not just tools, they are the reason we have an economy in the first place. A solution in some form will have to be put forth if one doesn't emerge."

Putting aside my dislike for considering horses as tools, you're missing an important point. Economies only have to function for those at the top in order to be promoted. You could say that the majority of humans are just seen as 'tools' to the people in power that are driven by profit. To them, as long as they get to maintain their quality of life, what do they care about the masses?

If you think this is far fetched, look at what's happening in places like Flint, Michigan. People were drinking poisoned water for decades, and those in charge knew about it. There's even a story that GM had to get a factory in Flint connected to the Detroit water supply because the Flint water was damaging their parts. Plus Flint is not an isolated case. Some people put profit ahead of people, and sadly a high number of those people are in positions of power.

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#68

Post by monk_e_boy »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64
Houshalter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this time it is different. I like the comparison to horses. Steam engines and trains threatened to replace horses in the mid 1800s. A lot of things that were previously done by horses were replaced with trains and steam engines. Yet the horse population grew, and cities remained full of horses. There were countless transportation innovations in the 1800s, from canals to streetcars and omnibuses to bicycles. But…

> I can not imagine any jobs that an average, unskilled human can do, that a machine won't soon be able to do. Whenever I hear statements like this, I cannot help but think that the person making the statement has never done a week of work as "unskilled labour" themselves. (No offense intended.) Be it flipping burgers or building houses, there is improvisation both when it comes to high-level intelligence and in the…

They are rolling out touch screen ordering for our local macdonalds. I don't think they fire anyone, but throughput is higher (so I guess that is one or two less jobs per customer served)

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#69

Post by Pamar »

tdb7893 wrote: post #15
josho wrote: post #3

This is all you need to read from the article: > Advances in artificial intelligence will lead to job losses, but new forms of employment will take their place...History, though, has demonstrated that technological breakthroughs lead to new employment opportunities -- IBM CEO Ginni Rometty But, I think we are approaching (if we haven't already crossed this point) the time where new jobs created by technology advancem…

Tech never creates as many jobs as it destroys buy it doesn't have to. When there were less farming the economy compensated by creating manufacturing jobs so I don't think that the worst case scenario is a given, at least in the reasonably foreseeable future

Manufacturing jobs did not require enormously sophisticated skills (i.e. the equivalent of a PhD) to be performed. So "moving up" or "moving to" the new jobs was still possible. If automated trucks replace 1000 truckers, how many of them will be able to transition to "automated truck programmer"? (And note: they cannot move to "automated truck mechanic" because those jobs are already taken by "non-automated truck mechanics")

Re: At Davos, IBM Chief Predicts Artificial Intelligence Won’t Be a Job Killer

#70

Post by mars4rp »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64
Houshalter wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this time it is different. I like the comparison to horses. Steam engines and trains threatened to replace horses in the mid 1800s. A lot of things that were previously done by horses were replaced with trains and steam engines. Yet the horse population grew, and cities remained full of horses. There were countless transportation innovations in the 1800s, from canals to streetcars and omnibuses to bicycles. But…

> I can not imagine any jobs that an average, unskilled human can do, that a machine won't soon be able to do. Whenever I hear statements like this, I cannot help but think that the person making the statement has never done a week of work as "unskilled labour" themselves. (No offense intended.) Be it flipping burgers or building houses, there is improvisation both when it comes to high-level intelligence and in the…

the price of robots keeps going down and price of humans keeps going up, somewhere in near future it doesn't make sense to hire a human for a min wage job. we are not there but we will be. Restaurants are doing that, go download Starbucks or Yelp app and you see.
Post reply on HN