No, Robots are not taking your job.

[gdboijason]

So about a year later from the OP time, with the whole "AlphaGo beating the best Go player in the world" and DeepMind's general artificial intelligence being able to play games from Space Invaders to Doom, what do you think about robots taking over our jobs now?

That combined with these guys would be interesting for the world, to say the least:

 

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[Jon L]

For the most part, this will all take a very long time to happen (maybe with the exception of driverless cars, etc). Just look at my custom software clients as an example (and every other company I've worked for).

A typical 20-person office will be able to let go of 1 or 2 employees after we're finished building a custom software system for them. The rest of the employees will have parts of their jobs changed, for the better. Those employees will be able to focus on higher-value tasks instead of doing inefficient things like double or triple entering the same information into multiple systems.

We are also not talking about software that 'thinks' either. The clients we see have horribly inefficient systems that run their businesses. The stuff we set up improves efficiency. It takes the place of employees that simply come to work to press the same button day in and day out. (yeah, if you're that employee, you better be figuring out how to make yourself more useful)

The vast majority of businesses in America are like this. It will take many, many decades to upgrade all of them to be a little more efficient, and you can forget about replacing them with AI. For many decades to come.

You can also think about it another way: How long does it take to train a human to do a particular job? Training a computer to do that job will take considerably more effort for a long time to come. If that computer is only going to replace 5 jobs at a company, its not worth the effort. At a big company, there are hundreds of small teams with specialized functions. Those jobs are pretty safe. The ones that aren't are the ones where hundreds of people do the same menial task...with that kind of job, its worth it to the company to spend a few million or so to develop software that makes those jobs redundant.

 

[matt007]

The robot age will be the dawn of a new age of human creativity (I hope).

Imagine a world where, not only are household chores like grass mowing, vacuuming, dish washing, etc, handled by autonomous machines, but now you have a weeded and maintained garden in a self-regulating greenhouse full of perfectly grown produce picked and served fresh to your table everyday.

Machines will make your family's clothes (to exact body specifications) from cotton or hemp grown from your garden. Your plates, forks, knives, cups, glasses, all made by machines ... in your home. Home repair, car repair ... every action purposeful and done to free up your time and energy to focus on art, love, the pursuit of knowledge, raising the collective human intelligence. The possibilities are endless. I hope to see some of it within the next forty or so years I have left on this planet.

(Of course, the machines could also have the opposite effect and lower the average IQ and dull the ambition of the population. At which point, our robot overlords will turn us all into sex slaves and force us to call them "daddy". )

 

[gdboijason]

The robot age will be the dawn of a new age of human creativity (I hope).

Imagine a world where, not only are household chores like grass mowing, vacuuming, dish washing, etc, handled by autonomous machines, but now you have a weeded and maintained garden in a self-regulating greenhouse full of perfectly grown produce picked and served fresh to your table everyday.

Machines will make your family's clothes (to exact body specifications) from cotton or hemp grown from your garden. Your plates, forks, knives, cups, glasses, all made by machines ... in your home. Home repair, car repair ... every action purposeful and done to free up your time and energy to focus on art, love, the pursuit of knowledge, raising the collective human intelligence. The possibilities are endless. I hope to see some of it within the next forty or so years I have left on this planet.

(Of course, the machines could also have the opposite effect and lower the average IQ and dull the ambition of the population. At which point, our robot overlords will turn us all into sex slaves and force us to call them "daddy". )

Counted at least 21 opportunities in that post alone
We won't have any more excuses to do what we love is what I'm hearing. Travel, meditation, playing ding dong ditch on the next street down. The only troubling thing that comes to mind would be how obvious inequality would become for those without robots. Ahh well, at least they'll have love

 

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[Schradea]

its coming faster than most people think, IMO. The human brain has grown by ~2% in the last couple hundred thousand years, while computers double in computing power every few years. They're simply evolving far faster than we are.

One of my favorite articles on the subject:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html

 

[Dave510]

Before AlphaGo defeated the European Go champion, it was a widely held belief that computers would not beat the world's best players for at least 1 or 2 decades. After the European Go champion was defeated, many believed that one of the world's best Go players would not lose to AlphaGo in this first set of 5 matches. Turns out a lot of people were wrong.

Deep learning, Bayesian inference, deductive reasoning and other AI techniques are being developed at a truly amazing speed every day. I don't think too many jobs will be secured, even in the next 10-20 years, and anyone who's just entering the job market today will find having a career until retirement extremely challenging.

Entrepreneurs shouldn't be too horribly worried though, considering the breadth of knowledge and creativity this area requires, the amounts of human interaction and the fact that we're really quite good at finding ways to provide value in a constantly changing enviornment (instead of being locked down to a single "job", in a single industry, doing mostly repetitive stuff).

Also, I don't think people are just going to go broke as machines replace jobs. Most likely states will start giving some kind of guaranteed basic/minimum income to all citizens regardless of employment status, and the money will come from taxing huge corporations. And corps will need to pay the taxes, otherwise a country full of broke people won't be able to afford any products or services.

 

[Longinus]

I'd love to see a society where robots take over most of the work. Just one thought.

If people lose their jobs, how would they earn money? How would they consume and buy our products? If they stop consuming, our society will fall apart.

 

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[eekern]

The whole world would become Amish 8)

 

[hellolin]

The whole world would become Amish 8)

You need capitalism first, then once technology reaches a certain point that's when you switch to the other side. But we are still far away from that, steady changes is what we need. Evolution not revolution.

 

[healthstatus]

The vast majority of businesses in America are like this. It will take many, many decades to upgrade all of them to be a little more efficient, and you can forget about replacing them with AI. For many decades to come.

I think it is more likely that an army of smaller more nimble companies, that can do what the 20-50 people companies will do with 3-8 people and this smart automation.

 

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[hellolin]

I think it is more likely that an army of smaller more nimble companies, that can do what the 20-50 people companies will do with 3-8 people and this smart automation.

Despite what you might heard or see, we do not have that much smart developers around. For a company of that small of a size everyone needs to be the 1% of the coders alive today, chances are slim. Software development is a messy process, not as simple as you'd think. And if you ever worked as a developer in a team environment you should know this is true.

 

[7.62x51]

Imagine someone from 1820 trying to predict what life will be like in 2020.

Human level AI will take us to an entirely new world. It's hard to predict what will happen past that.

My guess is that jobs won't be the biggest issue. The ability to do unprecedented good (permanent life extension) and not so good (world-ending weaponry) will define that new world.

 

[OldFaithful]

I don't hear any complaints that we no longer have to:

Clear the land. Plant our own grains. Harvest & grind them to make our own bread.
Tend and raise our own animals, just to slaughter them by hand for our own meat.
Plant cotton, pick it by hand and make our own clothes. Or raise sheep for wool.
Cut trees. Then cut & shape the wood to build our homes by hand and live with dirt floors & bugs.
Keeping & tending horses for the improved transportation they provide over walking.
The list goes on & on...

Each of those tasks has been made obsolete by technology & capitalism! I'm sure that many people worried about what the future would hold for them, since these tasks were being replaced by a technological revolution. Everyone in 1st world countries still has the opportunity to work, or provide value to their fellow man, though the jobs are much different from those listed above. It's the same today, and will be the same tomorrow.

I for one, am grateful for the technological breakthroughs we enjoy and would not want to go back to a subsistence level of existence. Our kids and grand-kids will likely look back and say the same for our current lifestyles.

Just imagine the opportunities this will provide for business minded folks with a Fastlane mindset...

 

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[Jon L]

I don't hear any complaints that we no longer have to:

Clear the land. Plant our own grains. Harvest & grind them to make our own bread.
Tend and raise our own animals, just to slaughter them by hand for our own meat.
Plant cotton, pick it by hand and make our own clothes. Or raise sheep for wool.
Cut trees. Then cut & shape the wood to build our homes by hand and live with dirt floors & bugs.
Keeping & tending horses for the improved transportation they provide over walking.
The list goes on & on...

Each of those tasks has been made obsolete by technology & capitalism! I'm sure that many people worried about what the future would hold for them, since these tasks were being replaced by a technological revolution. Everyone in 1st world countries still has the opportunity to work, or provide value to their fellow man, though the jobs are much different from those listed above. It's the same today, and will be the same tomorrow.

I for one, am grateful for the technological breakthroughs we enjoy and would not want to go back to a subsistence level of existence. Our kids and grand-kids will likely look back and say the same for our current lifestyles.

Just imagine the opportunities this will provide for business minded folks with a Fastlane mindset...

Things our grandkids might say to us in 50 years:
"You mean you had to type on a keyboard to get your computer to do what you want?"
"Whats a computer? Oh...you mean an implant?"
"People back then had to pick fruit by hand on farms?"

 

[Longinus]

Things our grandkids might say to us in 50 years:
"You mean you had to type on a keyboard to get your computer to do what you want?"
"Whats a computer? Oh...you mean an implant?"
"People back then had to pick fruit by hand on farms?"

"Wait, you said people used their hands to masturbate?"