[ExI] ai and job loss

John Clark johnkclark at gmail.com
Thu Jan 5 19:40:21 UTC 2017


On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 10:24 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:



> >
>> ​> ​
>> …We can expect to see more and more of this sort of thing in the
>> immediate future, and job loss won't be limited just to unskilled workers,
>> it will effect everyone. The gap between rich and poor is HUGE and it's
>> increasing. In 2010 the richest 388 people had as much wealth as half of
>> the entire human race, that's 3.6 Billion people. …  John K Clark
>>
>
>
> ​> ​
> John, the way you placed these two disparate concepts in the same
> paragraph suggests that job loss and wealth concentration are the same
> thing.  I would suggest the two concepts do not belong in the same
> paragraph.
>
>
​I
f the job loss
​ ​
is caused by improvements in AI then it has to accelerate the widening of
the wealth gap unless violent revolution or government action pushes
​
 very hard in the opposite direction. And by government action I don't mean
lowering taxes on the rich, eliminating the inheritance tax
​,​
and scrapping
​ ​
healthcare for the poor. Owners will not replace workers with AIs in their
wealth generating machine
​s​
unless it will produce more wealth for them
​ than id did before​
. So owners will get richer and workers will get poorer
​,​
and there are a lot more workers than owners so the growth in the wealth
gap will accelerate.


> ​> ​
> We know that job loss is a huge and growing problem, and we know that
> advancing technology does not necessarily compensate for the jobs it
> eliminates.  It is past time we technophiles face that reality.
>
>
​Very true.

​> ​
> But having wealth in the hands of a few is in a way a solution rather than
> a problem.  Reason: people with grand piles of money have grand visions. These
> grand visions employ people, and in some cases build great things far more
> effectively than any government can.
>
>
Yes that can happen, but sometimes their grand vision can look rather
sordid if you're looking at in from the bottom up. India's richest man and
the fifth richest in the world spent 1.5 Billion dollars in his new house
​;​
and he decided to tear down a
​n​
orphanage
​ in Mumbai ​and build it there, right in the middle of one of the worst
slums in India's poorest city. That very stupid man will probably end up
getting his head chopped off someday because it's just a fact that
astronomical differences in wealth causes resentment; I think that's the
cause of the odd behavior of the electorate in both Europe and the USA in
2016


> ​> ​
> Consider all the things the Gates Foundation is doing.
>
>
​The ​
Gates Foundation
​ is great no doubt about it, but they're not all like that, consider what
the Trump Foundation did.
 I have nothing against billionaires ​and everybody shouldn't have the same
amount of wealth or anything close to
​it​
, but there is a limit. 62 people having as much wealth as 3.6 Billion must
be getting very close to that limit
​.​

​
And the rate of increase is just terrifying, even worse all the scientific
and political trends I can see point to an acceleration of the acceleration of
that
​wealth ​
gap.
​If governments don't start redistributing some of that vast increase in
wealth ​i
n 3 or 4 years the number will probably drop from 62 into the teens, and
​1​
 or
​2​
 years after than into single digits. This trend can not and will not
continue
​ indefinitely​
,
​one way or another it will end ​
it's only a question of
​how violent that end will be.​

 John K Clark
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