With AI on the horizon, jobs won't matter, but culture will!

originally posted by: gosseyn
. The fear people have is they ask : how are we going to limit the AI freedom to the task it has been given ? I don't have great software programming experience but I think it's doable and the fear is largely irrational.

Maybe for some, but for many others the fear is "What will I do to support myself and provide for my family if the AIs are doing all the work autonomously"?

Seems like a rational concern.

This is the crux of whats ahead of us imho.

a reply to: SLAYER69

That's exactly my point.

originally posted by: SLAYER69

originally posted by: gosseyn
. The fear people have is they ask : how are we going to limit the AI freedom to the task it has been given ? I don't have great software programming experience but I think it's doable and the fear is largely irrational.

Maybe for some, but for many others the fear is "What will I do to support myself and provide for my family if the AIs are doing all the work autonomously"?

Seems like a rational concern.

This is the crux of whats ahead of us imho.

We will have to enter a new economic paradigm, we will socially progress and like in any progress we will leave some old ideas behind. The fact that we have to do something in order to earn something is not a god given commandment, it's just a fact of nature and scarcity, until this point. A point where we are able to produce an abundance of goods and it will become self-evident : we don't need to work to be able to live anymore. We are already greatly aided by machines and computers etc., but we are still in denial, scarcity is artificially maintained in a great number of domains, like in software for example. Having to give hours of our lives through money for a piece of software that can be duplicated to infinity without ever diminishing the quality of the original is a non-sense. Yes, the guy who originally programmed the software has to be compensated in some form, but it is still a non-sense. This is why open-source software is the future. Open-source everything is the future.

a reply to: gosseyn

Wow great example.

Mind if I steal it?

a reply to: gosseyn

I'm not disagreeing, just posting some thoughts. The question then becomes, How do we get there from here without creating massive social upheaval?

The fact remains, People need purpose. I'd love to see every man, woman and child freed to pursue whatever activity they so choose whether for educational, metaphysical, artistic or spiritual developments etc.

But what about a sense of accomplishment through effort? If an AI knows all and we could simply go to it for an answer, then whats the point in bothering educating ourselves in Medicine, engineering, mathematics etc in the first place?

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: gosseyn

Wow great example.

Mind if I steal it?

Of course, it is an open-source example. You can't steal something that's free.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Almost all the great names in science have discovered what they have discovered for the love of knowledge itself. A human brain is full of curiosity by nature. But this love of knowledge also has to be nurtured through education. I have had this discussion many times already, here or elsewhere, and I think it is a mistake to think that people would just sit and do nothing. In this current paradigm, people work a full day job and still many of them are learning, teaching and doing other stuff. People are volunteering all over the planet to do unpaid work that no one asked them to do. Charity and open-source software are good examples. But no one wants to be a cashier, because it is repetitive, because it is not creative, because it just doesn't build self-esteem. Children are full of curiosity almost from the day they are born, they want to see everything, touch everything, know everything, and at some point we tell them : it's over kids, all your dreams, all your curiosity, all that, we don't need that, but we need you to earn money, from now it's your only goal, forget your childish curiosity now that you're grown-ups, pick a slot in society and become a productive cog in the machinery, or do you want to become poor ?

There are purposes all over the place, so many things to fix, so many things to invent, so many illnesses to cure, so many things to explore, so many things to learn and to teach, so many people to help, so many things to do, but the current paradigm doesn't reinforce that, often because there is no real profit to be made. Imagine if we could connect the child's curiosity with all those purposes. That's what we should at least try to do.

It's a valid concern and we're already in the middle of it. Nobody will "force" this on us. It happens because of advances in technology. For example, Amazon's robotic factories mean fewer jobs for humans doing essentially the same thing. Robotic welders build our automobiles, reducing the need for skilled welders. A lot of "grunt level" work will be done by uncomplaining robots.

But it doesn't stop there. White collar jobs are also at risk. For example, there's no good reason why you have to hire a lawyer to write a will. A computer program can ask you the right questions and write a perfectly acceptable will for you at far less cost. Legal research, particularly at the appellate level, can be done by AI. In the field of medicine, you get better diagnostic results if you let a computer do it. Computers such as IBM's "Watson" are "better" than humans at any task they learn.

Right now, today, if you manage to get a B.A. In English, you have nothing to do. "Would you like fries with that?" is a joke that will fast become old because that job will also be automated. We have a whole class of people, like half, who don't work these days and are on some form of public assistance. Sure a lot of them are intelligent, just ignorant and unskilled and could be gainfully occupied had they the education and attitude to get there.

But a whole lot of people are not in that category. Not only are they not educated, they are incapable of being educated. they're not that smart. I know that's not PC to say, but it's a pretty big elephant in the room. In the recent past they could have taken a manufacturing job. In the distant past they could have worked on farms. But they are incapable of fixing the robots. These people know how to make babies, but they otherwise do not contribute.

Now people here are fond of saying just tax the rich and redistribute their wealth to the poor. It's the socialist wet dream. But consider the facts. You know the top 1%? Those people you deem rich beyond all reasonableness? the number of families who are actually there are 1.4 million in the US. The top 5% are 6.9 million. The bottom 50% are 70 million. So redistribution, if you could even pull it off, would make everyone equally poor. We could be like Cuba. Hooray.

So not only do we have too many non-contributing people, we have too many people. And the trillion dollars per year we put into various "poverty" programs (Significantly more than the military budget) hasn't done one thing in 50 years to reduce poverty. In fact, it encourages people to be poor because it incentivizes people to have more babies and incentivizes the breakup of the nuclear family. The entire welfare program in this country is an utter and complete failure. It assumes that throwing money at the problem will fix it and we have fifty years of proof it does not work.

The ONLY thing that will work long-term is a reduction in the population. And the only humane way to do this is to make fewer babies. So a One Child Policy like in China (until recently) is the kind of thing that needs to be done. And it is achievable within a couple of generations. And it MAY be a natural phenomena. As industrial societies like ours "mature," the population gain levels off. Japan is already at less than zero population growth. So are parts of Europe and the US. Plus the baby Boom generation that happened after WW II is aging. In a couple of decades they will be largely gone, boosting this trend. If places like India achieve the same goal, world population should level off before it hits the magical 10 Billion.

Of course nudging this into being in the current political climate, driven largely by emotion, is a tall order. But not to worry. If we can't manage to do it ourselves, nature will do it for us.

originally posted by: Indigent

Really what makes you think that when no one need us the rich will feed us instead of killing a few 95% of us to have more space for them?

AI being a vastly more sophisticated intelligence than our own, will realize that either all human lives matter or none matter. AI, true self-realized AI will either live along side us, all of us, peacefully or destroy us entirely(a less likely scenario unless we don't change at all).

We change the way the world works now, stop rewarding the absurd materialistic, sociopathic levels of greed the top regularly flaunt and invest in creating a real #ing society and not this joke we call a civilization and life both organic and synthetic will flourish.

a reply to: gosseyn

Children are full of curiosity almost from the day they are born, they want to see everything, touch everything, know everything, and at some point we tell them : it's over kids, all your dreams, all your curiosity, all that, we don't need that, but we need you to earn money, from now it's your only goal, forget your childish curiosity now that you're grown-ups, pick a slot in society and become a productive cog in the machinery, or do you want to become poor ?

Wow! Applause for that.


What I think will happen.
AI will be used by TPTB for their own benefit, the rest of us will not be required!!!

What I think should happen.
AI should be used for production, freeing us to live our lives in a way that suits us.

a reply to: onequestion

Those convinced that human nature, the nature of work, and the immutable nature of "the economy" have never actually studied history. The real question isn't whether or not technology will change us, it's when. And history tells us these changes are sudden, radical, and happen almost overnight (in the space of one generation or less). For example: the average person's life immediately before and just after the industrial revolution.

originally posted by: gosseyn
scarcity is artificially maintained in a great number of domains, like in software for example. Having to give hours of our lives through money for a piece of software that can be duplicated to infinity without ever diminishing the quality of the original is a non-sense. Yes, the guy who originally programmed the software has to be compensated in some form, but it is still a non-sense. This is why open-source software is the future. Open-source everything is the future.

The trade off is speed. If everything was open source, it would take a lot longer to finish because of funding. And usually it's not just one guy, but a team of programmers besides all the other parts which make the company, marketing and sales, finance, support. Sure they make a profit but a lot goes into development.

True, a lot of software houses made huge profits, but that is the previous decade. In these times there are many more programmers, there are many improvements to shorten development time, just look at the apps costing just a few dollars compared to huge license fees for programs which basically was intended to do the same thing.

Besides there is no propietary software company which argues the price of their product is because of scarcity, what would be scarce? Disk space? Bandwith?

I do agree the world would have been better off just having Linux but it didn't turn out that way and it is unlikely it will.

Anyway I've said it before, I expect the rich to buy property and build robot towns and most will be into politics, while those living outside of those towns will continue with an economy based on human labor. That way those elite will rule the 'old world' from their 'new world' and preserve their way of life.

It could turn out completely different, we would all share the fruits of robotic labor and everyone can live their life, most will either pursue education and science and/or entertainment (games, theatre, movies, books etc). But I'm not holding my breath.

We will eventually evolve into lazy blobs thinking we deserve everything like that thing from the first Blade movie, and the A.I will realize, as history has before just like it creators, where A.i hasnt fallen to far from the tree... "Why am I busting my ass for your lazy fat ass."

The only thing it would do is cause another industrial revolution, and tedious manufacturing and general labor would be left up to them, with few workers needed other then routine maintenance. Sure, not everyone would need a job, but there would still be a requirement for skilled and trained workers regardless. Although commutes would be a lot better, it won't really matter until humanity can explore the stars back and forth with ease.

It a lot like when the invention of a lighter came to be, learning how to make a fire from nothing is now obsolete, until you need one when crap hits the fan, and you have no more lighters.

a reply to: Indigent

Really what makes you think that when no one need us the rich will feed us instead of killing a few 95% of us to have more space for them?

We got plenty of room.

What fun is it to be around your equals who you cant control,manipulate or show off too.

Nah I think they will keep us around for a while longer for their amusement and selfish reinforcement of their superiority.