[ExI] The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2017 at 6:23 am, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence
> By KAI-FU LEE  JUNE 24, 2017
>
> <
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-economic-inequality.html
> >
>
> Quotes:
>
> BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial
> intelligence?
>
> Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi
> thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the
> “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human
> intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs.
> Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial
> intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs.
>
> On the contrary, the A.I. products that now exist are improving faster
> than most people realize and promise to radically transform our world,
> not always for the better. They are only tools, not a competing form
> of intelligence. But they will reshape what work means and how wealth
> is created, leading to unprecedented economic inequalities and even
> altering the global balance of power.
>
> Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I.
> revolution is not taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants
> who use paper and typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs
> (assembly-line workers, personal assistants conversant with
> computers). Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale
> decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying
> ones, too.
>
> This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies
> that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it.
>
> We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together:
> enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous
> numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?


"Decimation" is not the right word. It means elimination of one in ten,
which would not be that bad.

I don't see AI as  necessarily bad if it eliminates human jobs. It is
essentially a way of continuing the increase in human productivity and
wealth that technology has been responsible for over thousands of years.
The challenge will be to distribute the increased wealth. If goods and
services become very cheap due to AI, it will be possible to do this
without resorting to crippling public debt or taxation.
-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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