• Is automation inevitable?
  
  
• What do we think the broader, long term effects of automation will be on society and long-held norms of modern life?
  
  
• Is there really a historical precedent that can be used as an example to discuss the possible effects of automation?
  
  
• What avenues will be available to people who find themselves automated out of a job?
  
  
• What must be done to ensure the economical benefits of automation are equitably shared?
  

• In the short term, I think there are few business owners that could resist the profit margins possible by automating as much work as possible out of the hands of human beings.  We're far from the ideal workers - we sleep, require vacation time & health benefits, get injured, etc.  That, and competition will drive any business that doesn't adopt the efficiencies of AI to do so in the face of competing businesses getting on board.  I don't think that halting technological progress is ever the answer, but instead there has to be conversations held on a global scale that aren't narratives bought & paid for by the global elite about the effects of automation, and there's reason to be pessimistic about this.  There seems to already be evidence of an interesting duality occurring right now in which business & thought leaders on the subject are selling the idea that "compassionate automation" will be the order of the day, while behind the scenes it's a race to get AI in place ASAP, no matter what the effects (yet to be fully understood) are.
  

• I think automation could be an avenue towards some sort of quasi-Star Trek economy, long term.  In that realm, they got rid of scarcity, and adopted a mix of socialism & capatilism - the state provided the basics, and if you wanted more, you were free to explore making what profit there is to make in often creative or service industries.  Who knows what the next century holds, but as AI matures, we're going to have to investigate concepts like universal basic income if any non-managerial job not requiring creative thinking eventually ends up on the chopping block.  The more AI matures, in theory, the fewer traditional jobs remain, which would totally upend, well, pretty much all industries, taxation structures, & the way work shapes lots of people's sense of self.
  

• I see lots of parallels being drawn between the industrial revolution & automation, and I'm not sure they're entirely accurate.  It was absolutely the case that a couple hundred years ago, there were industries and endeavors that had the growth potential to absorb vast quantities of people.  Agricultural jobs that were destroyed were replaced by factory jobs building or maintaining machinery, for example.  Today, with globalization added into the equation, there are many, many jobs at risk of being replaced by AI on a global scale, and as I already pointed out, there are theoretically only so many data scientist, app developer, & big data specialist roles that can be created.  The Industrial Revolution was about mechanizing the processes of human labor to increase profits per person; the automation revolution is about replacing those people entirely.  I definitely see the long-term benefits possible from the automation revolution, but I think the process for getting there could be much more painful if not handled properly - and in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, we had two major Communist revolutions that killed over 100 million people.  I'm not even touching on climate change and the possible resource wars that could occur, or other conflicts from mass migration.
  

• How sustainable is large-scale job-loss due to automation, on what kind of timeline?  Even if we don't call it job-loss - say, "career reorganization", plenty of people are advertising that, at least in the short term, people can just re-train into careers that are still in-demand and not automated.  Software developers being the #1 cited career.  This is of course assuming there will be a 1-to-1 demand for a software developer for each job automated out of existence.  We're currently (in America) experiencing a lack of qualified tech-industry employees, so this may be true for a certain period of time (assuming everyone who is out of a job is willing and able to re-train).  On a long enough timeline, enough jobs (including in the tech sector) may be automated or otherwise streamlined to the point that large swaths of people just get left out of the equation.  This could eventually go above and beyond the unknown jobs that could be created by automation (robot servicing? there's already talk of automating automation...)
  

• There's already evidence that businesses might try to shirk some responsibility for implementing automation in the name of increasing profits.  Companies are in the business of making money, and one could argue that even the products or services they provide are incidental in that goal, and you could add employing people to that list.  Some important conversations are being had, given the foregone inevitability of automation, that the real issue to discuss is how to ensure that the broad changes to our socioeconomic systems don't just benefit those at the top.  I'm not sure what this would look like - transitioning businesses large and small into co-ops that pay out to current & former employees, pension style, from the profits grown from increasing automation?  Henry Ford had it figured out that his workers need to be able to afford the very product they're making for his business to be sustainable.  Large businesses and industries need to be able to maintain the buying power of the populace as a whole to survive.
  

(02-18-2019, 11:37 PM)Apoc Wrote: I did RPA stuff in HR at Amazon. Even there, is was cases where there was more work than people so RPA was freeing up for other work. I don't think everyone will be able to transition so easily, but ask coal miners if the human race can adapt on an individual basis. I've already seen some of the things AI will be doing in the future at Google Maps and it blows my mind... and none of will put people out of a job. We have been evolving for millennia and I see "automation" no different than the rest of the leaps forward in mechanics.

(02-20-2019, 12:15 PM)WRXtranceformed Wrote: My company co-authored a great recent paper on this subject.  Feel free to DM me and I can get that to your email if you're interested in reading the executive summary and/or the full paper.

(03-04-2019, 11:33 AM)CaptainHenreh Wrote:

(03-05-2019, 12:52 AM)Apoc Wrote: Every company I've ever worked at cuts corners about something because there is more work than qualified workers or because the cost of labor is too high. Why are we assuming automation is replacing a person's job and not doing what isn't being done? It's possible some jobs will become less important, like a cashier, but that's more about the death of retail as a job than anything.

• How AI/automation is "sold" to disparate factions as both a panacea to the masses and a boon to corporate profits (and trying to pin-point where it really is on that spectrum - see my earlier Automation at Davos links above)
  
• What we believe the ultimate goal of automation is to those in economic & political power who will deploy it
  
• What happens in an increasingly automated world & how we plan for it
  

(03-05-2019, 12:52 AM)Apoc Wrote: What do you think is going to happen? Assume AI takes x% of the jobs - then what? Poverty gap widens? Or do the billions who are already in poverty have access to opportunities they may not have otherwise had? We already have more people on this planet than we have jobs that pay a living wage, so how much worse does AI really make it? I'm not suggesting we go for it because the world is already fucked; I'm saying the privilege of growing up in U S of A has us worried about unskilled jobs that are a pretty small portion of the global workforce. Most jobs are physical labor and humans will be better at those for quite awhile. Once we have Rosie from the Jetsons, then people should be scared.

(03-06-2019, 12:30 AM)Goodspeed Wrote:

•  I just want it to be implemented in a fair, equitable way, and history gives me many reasons to be skeptical.

(03-06-2019, 12:59 AM)Apoc Wrote:

(03-06-2019, 12:30 AM)Goodspeed Wrote:

•  I just want it to be implemented in a fair, equitable way, and history gives me many reasons to be skeptical.

Well, that's something else entirely. I can tell you, without a doubt, it won't happen equitably. That's not how the free market works.

I think what you describe about "leapfrogging" is just another link in the chain. Many of these cultures have already been leapfrogged by technology; AI isn't new in that sense. The real fear you describe seems to be more about widening of economic/opportunity gap. I believe AI will improve the lives on many people, but it will improve those who Have more than those who Have Not. I don't think that is unique to AI, though... access to the internet alone has widened the gap, as have many technologies before it. I'm curious as to the reasons you believe AI is different, other than AI might be able to create itself.

(03-07-2019, 12:39 AM)Goodspeed Wrote: I was more getting at the point I've made that I fear AI/automation will be rolled out at fast-enough pace so as to out-strip proper planning & understanding of its effects.