Some people worry that if the machines get smart we will end up in a Terminator sort of scenario. But I think a far greater danger is that most of us could become unemployed.
What if a robot could do the job of a janitor? What if a robot could be a truck driver? Sounds a bit unlikely? The beginnings of such development are already happening.
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There is still a long way to go. While machines can do some mental tasks better than humans, such as playing chess, some things that seem simple or routine for us are very difficult for machines so far. Your dog or cat has a much easier time navigating through your house than any current robot.
But these things have a way of reaching a take off point where progress becomes very rapid. Integrated circuits got dense enough to put a whole processor on a chip, and the personal computer explosion occurred. The World Wide Web introduced hyper text links and images, and the Internet went from an obscure academic network to a dominant medium in people's lives.
Some believe that a technological singularity will cause machines to far surpass human intelligence. But it does not require such a level of improvement for the sort of thing I am talking about to happen. The ability to see the world and navigate through it as well as your pet would make a huge difference. The ability to assemble or disassemble simple devices would be big. It is not very far from a robot that could assemble a bicycle from a box full of parts to one that could assemble a car, or a space craft, not to mentions building many of the things that cheap foreign labor produce for us now. Vast number of jobs would become obsolete. Janitors, truck drivers, fast food workers, most factory workers, could all be replaced by machine. It may be that more skilled workers, such as auto mechanics, plumbers, and electricians, could be replaced by machines. And don't think that white collar workers are immune. Already jobs like draftsman and bookkeeper are far fewer. Most of you have already been frustrated calling automated customer support lines. If companies are willing to deploy such systems now, when they do not work very well, how much more will they do so if they actually work better?
Automation has been a problem before, but worker displacement by machines could be taken to a whole new level. The stock answer to this sort of concern is that new types of jobs will be created to take the place of the old. That has been largely true for most of history. But I am not so sure this time. What will these new jobs be? Do you expect everybody to become marketing executives, all marketing to each other?
I cannot guarantee when this will happen, or even if it will happen. But I think it is very possible, maybe within a couple of decades. If it does happen, I do not believe that our society has any idea how to deal with the situation.
If it does happen, and we make no provision for it, we will probably end up with an exaggerated version of the scenario that is already developing, with an plutocratic oligarchy and a mass of people just getting by. The middle class will be small, since most people's labor will have little value. Conservatives will probably blame the victim, and just say that you have to work harder for whatever scraps you can get. The sad thing is, with productivity increasing greatly, most people might end up poorer.
What can be done? How do we run an economy where most people's labor has little value? We could try to prevent the technology from being deployed, but that scenario is very unlikely to work. History shows that if a technology is developed, people will use it. Another possibility would be for workers to work much fewer hours, dividing up the remaining jobs among more people. To do this would require major changes in society, the sort of changes that would frighten many people and spur resistance from those who would lose money and power.
Can smart machines become a boon to mankind, eliminating poverty, or will it be a curse leading to poor unemployed masses? How could we make it work?