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

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

#91

Post by marchenko »

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.I'm unsatisfied with the ubiquitous horse analogy as well. The economy exists to solve human problems, not horse problems. We are constantly generating new problems and new social performances. It would not surprise me if the economy of the future was based around elaborate, manpower-intensive tea-ceremony-like rituals or something equally preposterous. Human obsolescence is not inevitable, but might be engineered.

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

#92

Post by vkou »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #68
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

They've rolled out touch screen grocery checkout... Pretty much everywhere over the last decade. My local QFC used to employ a dozen cashiers - now, they employ 4.

What jobs have been created by this automation? This certainly didn't create 8 (times the # of stores) jobs for software engineers - otherwise, this wouldn't have been profitable for QFC.

Does anyone seriously think that those 8 people went on to do work that paid better, or was more valuable then putting groceries into plastic bags? If so, why haven't they done that before they were put out of work by a machine? Do engineers not see a connection between this, and the fact that they get to step over human excrement on their way to work?

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

#93

Post by euyyn »

Retric wrote: post #82
cjlars wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The day will come when machine productivity dwarfs that of humans by orders of magnitude It already does. Have you tried to build a house without power tools? Strong-form, self perpetuating, Terminator style AI has not even been invented yet and you're jumping to the closing chapters.

I don't think several orders of magnitude is really true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P73REgj-3UE is slower than a modern house, but not that slow. Further, with just hand tools the Amish where known for raising a barn in one day.

Did they build those hand tools by hand? Honest question.

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

#94

Post by dharma1 »

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'm not so sure about that.

I think there are plenty of manual jobs that I don't think will be done by robots any time soon. Plumbers, electricians - just don't see it happening.

Digital or easily digitised jobs on the other hand - lawyers, accountants, possibly certain type of programming jobs - will be automated

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

#95

Post by josho »

EternalData wrote: post #47

The problem with AI is that it's dynamite when it comes to capital-labour relations. You can't compete with something with perfect agency that never gets sick. Now, are there going to be new categories of work and new economies? Yes. But in the meanwhile, for a category of work that defines a plurality if not majority of the functioning economy (basically anything that doesn't require creativity across multiple domai…

> You can't compete with something with perfect agency that never gets sick. Now, are there going to be new categories of work and new economies?

Follow your own logic to its conclusion. If AI does that then what are the new jobs? We are eliminating entire job categories. While the new jobs will be in entirely different categories (e.g. manual labor will be all but eliminated, and the new jobs will be in creative industries). There is very little cross over between those job categories so we are heading to a future with a significant portion of the population jobless.

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

#96

Post by K0SM0S »

nickparker wrote: post #77
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think your analysis is based on shallower automation than we'll actually see. Let's assume your robot arm example is about a frycook at a burger joint. I agree a robot arm isn't an effective way to replace the frycook, but a specialized system like Momentum Machines is developing[1] will be. The automated fast food joint isn't a regular one with robot arms instead of people, it's a box the size of a small office th…

I think the biggest change, functionally, between past automation and today's going forward is the actual ability of the system to "know" what it is doing and correct/adjust accordingly. We're moving past "dumb" automation essentially, and from a historical (technology) perspective it's every bit as fascinating as we'd hoped it to be, and then some.

I mean, real-time voiced-over translation on Skype? Eventually even mimicing the other person's voice? Yes please!

All thanks to this shallow form of AI that Nick Bostrom coined as "artificial narrow intelligence" (as opposed to "general" intelligence, i.e. human-like; and "superior" beyond ours). It's becoming possible for businesses of all kinds and all trades, thanks to the drastic cost reduction of deep learning since we moved these tasks to GPUs (and these bad boys keep improving at +25% performance per generation roughly every 18 month). And what AI does, sometimes is order of magnitude better than what any human individual/team could do (think Spotify's recommendations, anything with "big data" and "subjectivity" in it).

Which leads to the same conclusion as your last sentence.

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

#97

Post by cjlars »

briholt wrote: post #75
cjlars wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The day will come when machine productivity dwarfs that of humans by orders of magnitude It already does. Have you tried to build a house without power tools? Strong-form, self perpetuating, Terminator style AI has not even been invented yet and you're jumping to the closing chapters.

This is a discussion about closing chapters isn't it? Are we merely disputing the date on which a billion power screwdrivers can direct themselves and then Instagram pics of their accomplishments? I give it 50-150 years.

No. We're (or I, at least, am) debating whether the concept of 'new job' continues to exist.

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

#98

Post by K0SM0S »

robalfonso wrote: post #88
nickparker wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your analysis is based on shallower automation than we'll actually see. Let's assume your robot arm example is about a frycook at a burger joint. I agree a robot arm isn't an effective way to replace the frycook, but a specialized system like Momentum Machines is developing[1] will be. The automated fast food joint isn't a regular one with robot arms instead of people, it's a box the size of a small office th…

I keep telling people the Mcdonalds of the future isn't going to be the same large box with robots running around - it will be much smaller, because robots can use every inch of the kitchen area unlike humans. I think this also has some interesting implications for real estate long term - if every mcdonalds needs 50% of the space they currently occupy over time that real estate will be put back in the market, multipl…

Very true, never thought of it this way. Add to that the fact that robots don't have the same needs (can operate with little air/heat/light, don't even need to get out of the room, much less safety concerns in general and practically 0% comfort). You could build kitchens in basements or beneath roofs and save 100% of the floor surface for customers.

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

#99

Post by retube »

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…

> Is the large scale rollout of predictive algorithms really a bigger wave than those that have come previously?

No of course it isn't. But because it's called "artificial intelligence" instead of "conditional probability" or "regression" or something people think otherwise.

The reality is that this kind of technology will make us more productive, bring down the cost of products and services and make them available to a mass market, in exactly the same way literally every tech advance has done.

Of course some jobs and disciplines will be lost, but they will be replaced with different, higher skilled jobs. Just look at the range of disciplines and jobs that the web has created over the last 20 years. I mean just look at Google. The world's largest "AI" platform has spawned entire industries. No evidence this trend won't continue.

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

#100

Post by geodel »

I think it is also matter of time scale. There may be new jobs once this all settles down. Today I have real fear of mass job disappearance. If I lose job today due to AI and tumultuous times continue for next 50 years it is of no use to me that 2080 is the start of AI based golden era.
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