[ExI] The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2017 at 3:56 pm, Anthony Papillion <anthony at cajuntechie.org>
wrote:

> On Jun 25, 2017, at 5:27 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>> Then what happens when those displaced by A.I have no money left to
>> purchase even these amazingly cheap goods? Companies are still going to
>> want to make money on the fruits of their AI labor. What happens when
>> there's simply nobody left able to purchase those goods?
>>
>
Public services and a guaranteed basic income for all.
-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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