Will artificial intelligence take all our jobs or will it create more jobs for people?

Communities Science, Engineering, & Security
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Not at all. Those things are not mutually exclusive domains on a Venn diagram. Algorithms are used to make AI, and AI is increasingly used in automation.

AI existed for thousands of years before Turing. So “real ai” is the problematic, ever-changing definition I talked/warned about earlier. Ask anyone what “real ai” is and you’ll get a different answer. It is difficult to have a meaningful discussion about a topic if people can’t even agree on the definition of key terms.

That’s a nice definition you invented right there, just then. It doesn’t match any other definition I’ve ever come across though. Arbitrarily redefining terms to suit a particular world-view isn’t really a valid strategy, though.

One dictionary defines AI as “the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior”. There are no restrictions on how that is accomplished. There are no tests that need to be passed beyond that of superficial imitation — if the machine behaves like a Human, it’s AI. Very simple, and very low bar.

An abacus that performs mathematical addition is AI. A robot that welds a satisfactory joint is AI. A kettle that heats water to precisely the right temperature for Earl Grey tea is AI.

A conveyor powered by a motor that is turned on by a Human, and runs at full speed until turned off by a Human, is (non-AI) automation. A hand drill is (non-AI) automation. A toaster that runs for a predefined time is (non-AI) automation. Pure, non-AI automation is when machines do not perform anything resembling Human thought. They do; they don’t think.

Take the toaster from above and add sensors to it that detect how brown the toast is, and have control circuitry terminate the cycle when a certain ‘brown-ness’ is achieved, and you have AI. “Popping the toast at a specific level of brown-ness” is what a Human would have done.

Yup.

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lol im the one inventing new definitions for ai?
OK! :smiley:
Why general artificial intelligence will not be realized

i guess all them physicist’s are wrong too.
and the likes of lex freedman. who you can follow on youtube :wink:

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Obligatory xkcd:

That’s kind of what’s already happening, but the end results don’t seem to be all that great depending on what you use as an example. :rofl:

AI in drug discovery used to accelerate research that might otherwise take people years to finish. Awesome.

AI used to elevate shitty social media to never before seen levels of shitty-ness while ignoring everything else. Yeah, maybe not so much.

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Assuming AI is successfully regulated and constrained (highly unlikely, but theoretically possible), one can safely assume that there will be an economic incentive to get AI to do jobs/tasks that humans are unwilling (or less willing) to do. The dirty jobs, the dangerous jobs, the dull jobs.

If you take out all the dirty/dangerous/dull jobs from the job market, what do you have left? Well, a bunch of clean/safe/interesting jobs, obviously.

That would appeal to a lot of folks, I’m sure.

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i heard suggestions of ubi for the unemployed a few years back as a solution to automation…
sounds pretty good in theory, but then you look a little deeper.
i cant see it working as imagined.

to me, it would be pretty divisive over time.
short term you would see an increase in profits as you get more man hours out of the machines. but in the mid to long term?..

with a smaller and smaller jobs market, the value placed on them jobs will increase as would the requirements to get them.
over time this would breed an ever decreasing educated elite who have jobs so can afford to meet the costs of the higher education requirements for there kids to get jobs when they grow up.

the under educated?, they quickly become surplus other than a consumer base and a constant drain of revenue as
they still have to be fed and housed with there basic needs met.

ok cool you give them 1000 a week.
every one gets 1000 a week to cover the basics.
which it will short term.
the problem comes when they want to buy the luxury goods that they once worked to produce. which are now rolling out the factory’s at ever increasing rates. but not at ever decreasing costs. because they are having to pay taxes extra to cover the costs of increased unemployment and increased wages to the few workers they still have, to cover there living costs. so reduced profits. less tax gathered mid term.

the unemployed wont be able to afford the goods because they are now on a fixed income that meets there needs and no more. because tax revenue is limited they cant give more than you need.

and thats where it breaks…
your customers can no-longer afford the goods you produce in great enough quantity’s. to cycle the economy.
reduced sales, less taxes gathered, with an end result of not enough money in the kitty to pay ubi.

oh they can do there own thing and earn a bit extra?.
maybe sell there artisanal goods to the comparatively rich educated elites?.
which in essence would be restarting free market capitalism again but this time the gap between rich and poor would be even wider.

needless to say i dont think ubi is an answer.
as ive lived through mass unemployment in the 80’s and 90’s when it was no-longer viable to produce ships where i live.
70% unemployment … after 10 years of living in abject poverty the estate i was living on collapsed into rioting and 25 years + later its still under 24/7 cctv.
uk unemployment at the time covered your rent and you got money in hand to pay your living expenses that was comparable to having a low wage job of the time - 20%. yet despite having there basic needs met. people wanted more. they needed more. but couldn’t get it.

like i said eventually after 10-15 years things started to break down. crime went up as generational poverty set in. and like i say that estate is still paying the price of 70% unemployment at one time in its past decades later. sure the reasons for the unemployment were different. the outcome would likely be the same. from what iv seen, generational unemployment is destructive and not something we should allow as a society.
if we have any sense.

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I’m not sure on that.
Automation has come in where a robot can do a human task as good, or better, for less money.
Companies are not altruistic.

If companies can get AI/automation to do the more advanced / fun jobs, for less than a human, they will.

And more advanced tasks currently demand a higher wage, so would be more attractive.

In fact, AGI would be better suited To the more fun jobs humans desire, because it might take more mental range/freedom to do them.

Also, computers are already Quicker at mental problems, they are just currently limited.

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sorry mods for all the edits :scream:

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Oh, sure. Currently AI is unregulated, so companies can do what they want, so evil will do what evil always does — with complete disregard for the impact on society.

Eventually, however, the impact will be so severe that there will be votes to be had by pandering to the suffering masses, and politicians will then regulate the industry. Following regulation companies will probably only be permitted to deploy AI in ways that “are in the interest of the public good”. It’s at that point that dirty/dangerous/dull jobs become the prime candidates for replacement.

I fully expect an AI crisis to have occurred, followed by a politically opportunistic response (“never let a good crisis go to waste”), before the OP’s 2050-2100 time-frame.

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