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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

#181

Post by cityhall »

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…

It should be easier to automate a web developer's job than a handyman's. A lot of less skilled jobs call on people to understand instruction, look at what's in front of them, and use common sense. Skilled work often just involves having people do something repetitive using obscure knowledge.

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

#182

Post by Pamar »

pbalau wrote: post #160
Pamar wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not dismissing it, but I don't see your point. Yes, to become a truck driver your basic qualification is "driving license" (for trucks, if your country treats it differently from driving cars). You may have extra skills, e.g. a foreign language would help you qualify for driving across the border, maybe, but it is not required. So when your main/only skill is "driving a truck" what can you pick up as a new job w…

The point is that at the moment we will replace all truck driving jobs in US, we are not going to replace 3.5 million individual workers, with skills that took a life to master, but 3.5 million jobs that a big slice of the 7 billion humans could learn to do in a couple of weeks (let's not start a debate about how far away we are from actually starting to have automatic trucks...). I don't see the point of feeling bad…

Then we are talking of two different things, I am afraid. I never said or implied "we must prevent truckers from being replaced by automation". I have my own ideas on this, but it wasn't the point I was answering to.

What I was trying to address was: "Yeah, in the past technology advances always created new jobs, this will happen with AI too, do not worry". And I am arguing that this time we are not sure it will work because the skill gap between - for instance - truck driver and self-driving-sensor-suite repairman is much bigger than the one between farmer and factory worker.

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

#183

Post by wwkeyboard »

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…

The same can be said for the real estate used by banks. I guess they are used for meeting to sign paperwork and as support centers for people not comfortable banking online. In the future I don't see that need requiring a large building.

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

#184

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

ilaksh wrote: post #109
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are proof that the hype surrounding AI/Machine Learning has gone way too far.

_I_ am proof? I wonder why you are making it personal. Its not about me though is it? Look at the Open AI Universe, Deep Mind AI Lab, Good AI Universe, etc. Look them up. They all say that the goal is artificial general intelligence. All of these companies/programs have multiple literal geniuses and tens or even hundreds of millions or more in funding. The AGI environments are public, so who knows how many hundreds,…

> _I_ am proof? I wonder why you are making it personal. Its not about me though is it?

Fair enough. Your post is proof

> Do _you_ think that all of these large programs, companies, investors would be so publicly pursuing this goal if it were not feasible?

Sure, it happens all the time.

> If not within two years, then how many years do you think it will be before these projects yield results that have human-like generality or abilities?

I'm not sure those projects ever will but in general before we get AGI? It's totally unpredictable. My current best guess is that self-driving car systems won't be as good as promised and because they've pierced the public consciousness, we will get AI backlash setting in another AI winter. This winter will trim the fat of all the crap that gets published now and maybe* a couple new fundamental techniques will be born. Maybe those techniques lead to AGI when we emerge from the winter. We'll get AGI like we'll get cold fusion. When it comes it comes.

> We have already achieved super-human intelligence in numerous particular domains.

Sure but show me a system that can do just two unrelated tasks. Doesn't even have to do them above human intelligence, but something that can say put blocks in holes like a two year old and do some basic language processing. Or play chess and recognize pictures of dogs. What kind of leap is even required to get there?

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

#185

Post by norea-armozel »

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…

There's some big flaws in the argument that we'll find new jobs to employ many thousands of industrial workers in. First, retraining someone in their 40s or 50s that have been working at Coleman or some other firm isn't going to likely happen. Mostly because the workers themselves either never completed the equivalent of high school or barely got by. Most of that retraining would have to be in complex tasks and not old fashioned data entry (those kinds of jobs are the ones that are being replaced by software automation and auditing). So, that means fewer still can make the leap from working on a manufacturing line to software development or some other skills based position. You just can't drop the equivalent of Homer Simpson into a code camp. It's just not going to happen. Second, there's not enough demand for such people in such a new economy. For example, I've known people who've worked on all kinds of software from games to enterprise development and all instances when a product was finished the amount of staff ever needed to maintain it was many times smaller than what they had during development. It doesn't matter if you employ waterfall or agile development, if your product only needs 20 people versus 200 people to maintain a product after it's release and future releases then you're not going to hire 200 people ever again. Third, many modern jobs are shifting to what seems like contract work via employment agencies like Volt and Man Power which bothers me because the benefits are greatly reduced without the equivalent increase in wages to offset this (especially in healthcare). Unless there's something I'm not aware of that could absorb all those thousands of people, I'm just not buying this theory that we'll just create new jobs out of thin air. Past performance is never an indicator of future returns.

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

#186

Post by anonbanker »

funkymike wrote: post #146
VLM wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The restaurant business is all about signalling and having the right people doing the right imaginative artisinal ultra-trendy hand labor. Its very much like the prostitution industry or pr0n. None of those are going to automate any time soon.

There's a big difference between McDonald's and a high end restaurant, even if you just order a hamburger. McDonald's has already been working on automation. Have you noticed that humans no longer dispense drinks there? They are also working on getting rid of the human order takers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34T3IkAtOrc&ab_channel=McDon... For restaurants where one of the main draws is price I think automation…

These menu displays are wonderful toys when you get to use them (they're in every McDonald's in my city). Looking through all the menus makes you realize how many things you could do before to customize your order. I usually add extra patties to my burgers, add extra onions/lettuce, and then go to the "free condiments" section and order 5-10 peanut packages. All of which are happily placed on my tray without question, which is the only time I should interact with their employees: when I'm receiving my food.

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

#187

Post by anonbanker »

laughfactory wrote: post #155
funkymike wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between McDonald's and a high end restaurant, even if you just order a hamburger. McDonald's has already been working on automation. Have you noticed that humans no longer dispense drinks there? They are also working on getting rid of the human order takers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34T3IkAtOrc&ab_channel=McDon... For restaurants where one of the main draws is price I think automation…

Agreed. There will probably always be specialty and high end restaurants, where it's more about the experience (in some way). If you want mass produced, a robot is great for that. But they're not so great for limited runs. Which is to say that general purpose robots (for any application) are a long way off. I think we'll adapt as a race, but it'll be mighty uncomfortable for some (say those reliant on low skilled job…

Adobe bricks, to give the resultant houses that "artisinal" or "natural" feel.

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

#188

Post by EternalData »

josho wrote: post #95
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 ind…

Machines are bad at transferring domain knowledge and generalizing/making unconventional linkages between topics -- what some would regard as creativity, they're also not going to be very good at empathy without essentially solving for strong AI and regularized data on human emotions -- there also are going to be human jobs because of protectionist instincts. ex: A machine right now would actually probably do a more optimal job of determining interest rates if given more economic data and more data on outputs/outcomes, but replacing the Fed and analysts under it with a machine is a political football and a half to even say.

If we solve for strong AI, we might as well kiss the species goodbye, never mind just jobs -- but the AI we have in between is not going to completely eliminate every category of work in the present, never mind future ones that might arise.

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

#189

Post by EternalData »

EternalData wrote: post #188
josho wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ind…

Machines are bad at transferring domain knowledge and generalizing/making unconventional linkages between topics -- what some would regard as creativity, they're also not going to be very good at empathy without essentially solving for strong AI and regularized data on human emotions -- there also are going to be human jobs because of protectionist instincts. ex: A machine right now would actually probably do a more…

I think we agree on the larger point, just to the degree of the damage. I think I'm on a 7.5, you might be on a 9 in terms of damage AI can do to employment.

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

#190

Post by slededit »

megablast wrote: post #152
serge2k wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate those self checkout machines. They are slow and constantly try to error out and alert a human to help me. I'm capable of bagging groceries, just let me do it. still, there is rarely a line.

They are incredibly simple to use if you follow the 3 instructions. But hey, people can't even signal when turning reliable, of course a lot of people are going to have problems with these machines.

As a former cashier I can certainly bag and scan efficiently. I actually like the machines because it reminds me - but they do get in the way. I'm maybe a quarter as efficient on them as I was on a proper register.
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