In every technology wave so far, we've disrupted many existing jobs. However we've also opened up new kinds of jobs. And, because it is easier to retrain humans than build machines for those jobs, we wound up with more and better jobs. This is the first technology wave that doesn't just displace humans, but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can. Right now it can't replace human…
> but which can be trained to the new job opportunities more easily than humans can What makes you think that? Self driving cars have had untold billions of dollars in reaearch and decades in applied testing, iteration, active monitoring, etc and it still has a very long tail of unaddressed issues. They've been known to ignore police traffic redirections, they've run right through construction barriers, and recently…
I also think that most job domains are not actually more nuanced or complex than driving, at least from a raw information perspective. Indeed, I would argue that driving is something like a worst-case scenario when it comes to tasks:
* It requires many different inputs, at high sampling rates, continuously (at the very least, video, sound, and car state)
* It requires loose adherence to laws in the sense that there are many scenarios where the safest and most "human" thing to do is technically illegal.
* It requires understanding of driving culture to avoid making decisions that confuse/disorient/anger other drivers, and anticipating other drivers' intents (although this can be somewhat faked with sufficiently fast reaction times)
* It must function in a wide range of environments: there is no "standard" environment
If we compare driving to other widespread-but-low-wage jobs (e.g. food prep, receptionists, cleaners) there are generally far more relaxed requirements:
* Rules may be unbreakable as opposed to situational, e.g. the cook time for burgers is always the same.
* Input requirements may be far lower. e.g. an AI receptionist could likely function with audio and a barcode scanner.
* Cultural cues/expectations drive fewer behaviors. e.g. an AI janitor just needs to achieve a defined level of cleanliness, not gauge people's intent in real-time.
* Operating environments are more standardized. All these jobs operate indoors with decent lighting.
