[ExI] self driving truck

Sun Oct 30 14:46:41 UTC 2016

I'm starting to think it may be time to consider some form of the nanny
state.  john

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 9:43 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 12:53 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
>> > 
>> Cool!  So now we have a demonstration using an 18 wheeler:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2016/10/25/ottos-self-driving-se
>> mi-truck-made-beer-run.html
>>
>
> It is cool, but I got to thinking about the social implications of
> driver-less trucks and of AI in general. In the USA alone 4.1 million
> people make their living driving a vehicle, those jobs are likely to go
> away in the very near future. I think the next to go will likely be the 9.7
> million who work in restaurants. Traditionally the fast food industry was
> where somebody with no skills could still get a job, but not for long.
> After that its
>  bookkeepers, travel agents
>  and
> legal aids
> .
> And it's not just the unskilled that need to worry
>  about the increased power of AI
> ,  if I were a hedge fund manager I'd make as money now
> as I could 
> while I still
> had a job.
> 
>  
>
> From the start of the industrial revolution there has been a linear
> relationship between wages the average person received and the increased
> productivity cause by improved technology, but about 2002 that changed, the
> amount of wealth produced still increase but real wages plateaued, and
> since 2007 paychecks have actually declined. GDP has increased but median
> income has not because the increase in wealth went exclusively to the top,
> the richest 1% have as much money as the remaining 99%. And even among the
> 1% most of the increase in wealth went to the top 1% of the top 1% of the
> top 1%.
>
> As
>  recently as 2010 the richest 388 people in the world had as much money
> as the poorest 3.6 Billion people, by 2014 the richest 85 did, in 2015 it
> was 80, in the latest results made just this year the richest 62 people had
> as much wealth as half of the entire human species, 3.6 Billion people.
>
>
> Unless something is pushing in the opposite direction the advances in AI
> are likely to accelerate this trend so before long fewer than 62 will be
> required. But does anybody on this list think
> 
> nothing will push back? Does anybody think
>  
> this trend can continue without grave social unrest?  I don't. And I think
> 
> that
> 
> is the root cause of the anger
> 
> in
> 
> the electorate and the reason some bizarre
> 
> illogical
> 
> dangerous people may be voted into office in democracies all over the
> world.
>
> So what is to be done? I hate to say it because it stands
> against everything I've believed since I was a teenager but unless somebody
> has a better idea I'm starting to think it may be time to consider some
> form of the nanny state. After all, no matter what you job is sooner or
> later a machine will be able to do it better than you can. And it will
> probably happen sooner than you expect, that's why it's called a
> singularity.
>
>  John K Clark
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
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