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The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

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Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#61

Post by xapata »

lhnz wrote: post #44
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read things less literally and you'll be less wrong.

Can you explain what you mean? There seems to be little connection between the category of blue-collar work and programming other than it is a form of 'building'. The crux of blue-collar work is that it predominately involves physical labor and does not require 'skill'. That's not a literal interpretation, that's the core meaning -- programming is not analogous to physical labor or 'unskilled' work.

> blue-collar ... physical labor and does not require skill

If you drop the physical labor requirement, some computer programming tasks can be performed by folks without much education.

Manufacturing has historically been a low-skilled, not un-skilled job. Programming can be, too, if we change the way we teach.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#62

Post by TheProbabilists »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #50
philipkglass wrote: post #43

That threat has many thinkers entertaining the idea of a universal basic income, a guaranteed living wage paid by the government to anyone left out of the workforce. But McAfee believes this would only make the problem worse, because it would eliminate the incentive for entrepreneurship and other activity that could create new jobs as the old ones fade away. Others question the psychological effects of the idea. “A u…

Boredom quickly becomes a non-issue when the real issue is starvation. I'd love to get to the point where the main problem is being bored. I fear that, if the current social and political dogmas don't change, a heck of a lot of people will get kicked to the curb once AI-driven automation really takes off.

Some learned observers say that's how we birthed communism, in the first place.

Bored intelligentsia, often very very affluent themselves or under the tutelage of wealthy benefactors, who have been divorced from even the merest worry of a hand-to-mouth existence thought up Communism.

The rest as they say is history.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#63

Post by v4voodoo »

boona wrote: post #18

So was the telegram, the telephone, automobiles, computers, but every time it's meant an astonishing increase in wealth for everyone. Employment isn't even the end all be all, we would be much happier with 50% employment and greater levels of wealth.

Who is we? The 50% that's employed and thus can afford to live, or the 50% that's homeless?

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#64

Post by orasis »

jeremydavid wrote: post #26
orasis wrote: post #22

I'm working on a machine learning product for conversion optimization, https://improve.ai . Despite my initial fears, I'm noticing that, like any tool, it simply allows the user to do more with less. My product isn't going to replace conversion rate optimization consultants - it's just another tool they use to provide more value to their clients. If the barrier to using machine learning were high, then I would be con…

I think there's more to conversation rate optimisation than randomly testing variations of a greeting. The price testing you mentioned looks interesting, but a good CRO consultant will do research and figure out the objections manually. Then, instead of having to test an infinite amount of variations with millions of visitors to reach statistical significance, they can test one or two. I call what your tool seems to…

Thanks for the feedback. The "Hello World" was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but obviously didn't come off that way. Oops!

We initially built the tool for this app:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/7-second-meditation-daily/id...

From hundreds of different daily meditations it has learned precisely which order to show the content in to maximize retention. So it knows the best message for day 1, day 2, day 3, etc.

The first month retention for this app is 43%, up from the 20s before optimization. The current rating is solid 5 stars ands usually in the top 10 in the mindfulness category.

The In App Purchase prices are automatically optimized, and soon we'll be throwing in a bunch of different background images, all of which will be automatically optimized.

Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#65

Post by problems »

prodmerc wrote: post #38
problems wrote: post #7

People have been saying this kind of thing forever. They said it about agriculture, they said it when the Luddites attacked factories, they said it about farm automation, they said it when computers were becoming popular. I'm not so sure that this time is different - despite all the insistence, I'm sure it seemed just as serious every other time before too.

"Forever" is before the space race, before everyone was driving instead of riding, before everyone had the Internet, TV or even radios in their home. Every step in industrialization has hurt a lot of people, and their number is increasing every time. This time it's going to be millions. I don't know if that's enough for a critical mass of sorts for some huge revolt, it may be.

Ultimately it's helped far more people than it's hurt. It's given us medicine, it's given us affordable food, clothing and incredible technology. To the extent that I can comfortably say I'd rather be lower class now than upper class just a few hundred years ago.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#67

Post by stuaxo »

crazy2be wrote: post #60
philipkglass wrote: post #43

That threat has many thinkers entertaining the idea of a universal basic income, a guaranteed living wage paid by the government to anyone left out of the workforce. But McAfee believes this would only make the problem worse, because it would eliminate the incentive for entrepreneurship and other activity that could create new jobs as the old ones fade away. Others question the psychological effects of the idea. “A u…

It does come up? In the case of pensions and royalties, it is wealth from prior work, so it's not really in the same category morally (for a culture that believes in the virtue of work). Social security and inherited wealth definately do have a sort of stigma attached to them though, precisely because of the lifestyles that "trust fund children" tend to live, and because the poor are already stigmatized in general. T…

The stigma that trust fund kids face is nothing compared to what people on benefits face.

In Britain channel 5 has a whole subgenre of programmes about people on benefits, while similarly the Daily Express runs articles about the most extreme cases.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#69

Post by ryandrake »

_m8fo wrote: post #59

Even though I am considered 'skilled labor', I hardly consider myself so skilled to be making the incredible AI machines that will be the ones to take over the jobs (in comparison to the competition, anyway). As for "less skilled folks" like myself, here's an abridged list of things you can do (in additional to software) to start hedging your bet against AI. - Real estate (Landlord): I'd suggest you save money and st…

I think the statement "AI/robots won't be able to do X" is incorrect for all X given a long enough time frame.

Re: The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet – It’s the End of the Middle Class

#70

Post by sologoub »

crazy2be wrote: post #60
philipkglass wrote: post #43

That threat has many thinkers entertaining the idea of a universal basic income, a guaranteed living wage paid by the government to anyone left out of the workforce. But McAfee believes this would only make the problem worse, because it would eliminate the incentive for entrepreneurship and other activity that could create new jobs as the old ones fade away. Others question the psychological effects of the idea. “A u…

It does come up? In the case of pensions and royalties, it is wealth from prior work, so it's not really in the same category morally (for a culture that believes in the virtue of work). Social security and inherited wealth definately do have a sort of stigma attached to them though, precisely because of the lifestyles that "trust fund children" tend to live, and because the poor are already stigmatized in general. T…

On "trust fund children", the lifestyle of a few loud examples is likely painting an unrepresentative picture to the masses. I'd love to see some real stats or study on people who inherited substantial wealth.

On one hand, society seems to argue that inherited privilege perpetuates itself, which means that wealthy offspring are succeeding, sometimes despite their abilities.

On the other, we have the stereotype of "trust fund babies" who by conventional wisdom don't amount to much and don't contribute to society.

So which is it - is inherited wealth a road to success or failure? Likely, both with outcome dependent on other factors then wealth.

If anyone has a good study to read on this that actually took more than anecdotal evidence, I'd love to read it.

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