And then what shall we do?

The company that pits its labor against another’s use of technology loses.  The worker who pits his labor against technology loses. – The John Henry Law & Corollary

George Rebane

[This is the linked transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 31 January 2018.]

Let’s take a break from the political goings on in Washington and Sacramento, and consider something that will really change our lives in the not too distant future.  In previous commentaries we have visited the approaching Singularity, when machines, the so-called AIs, surpass human intelligence. (more here, here, and here)  Many people already are aware that we live in the pre-Singularity years as we hear daily reports of smart machines and robots displacing humans in another area of expertise or somewhere new in the workplace.

It wasn’t that long ago when even well-read people still used the ‘never’ word – ‘machines will never be able to do this, or they’ll never best humans doing that.’  Well, today we are already on a slippery slope, and witness machines beating the best humans in the most sophisticated games, outperforming the most knowledgeable humans in more and more areas of medicine (such as diagnostics, prescribing treatments, and even in delicate surgical procedures); machines are already world-class masters in finance and manufacturing.  And autonomous vehicles are taking to the highways, our airspace, and distant battlefields.

The old shibboleth that new technologies will always create more jobs than they destroy has given us hope since John Henry the Steel Driving Man of the 19^th century (here and here), but sadly that no longer holds true.  Today human employment has become more selective than ever, and our current high employment rate is maintained almost entirely by low participation in the workforce, and an expanding economy which itself is driven by increased uses of advanced technologies.

What work humans will do in the next decade or two is anyone’s guess, but you can bet the farm that we all will be competing with tireless, strong, extremely agile, very smart, and much less expensive workers with silicon brains.  And talk about income inequality – you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

As an example, let’s turn to a pursuit that almost all of us still think will forever be reserved for humans - making music.  Specifically, composing, producing, and performing it.  Before you write off silicon artists, both unembodied and humanoid, consider how second-best performances already fare in the entertainment and sports markets.  Why do women’s athletics have such a hard time competing with the men for media audiences?  Who today would be interested in following a man vs machine match in which the machine is the guaranteed winner?  And who would even watch a human vs human contest where it is known that they are second rate competitors – an intelligent machine has and would again beat either of them.  In short, consider that we might soon attend human-only competitions with the compassion that today motivates us to watch the Special Olympics or foot races for amputees.

Now imagine watching a perfectly fashioned, fully conversant, pre-sentient android virtuoso violinist or pianist play a difficult classical concerto or some newly composed music that no human could master.  How would we accept such artistry with the knowledge that even the best human virtuoso is not up to the art of the possible?  And beyond that beckon conceivable musics in new audio formats that can only be synthesized by machines, conceived by other machines which have learned to compose aural presentations that are siren-like to the human auditory system, and therefore overwhelmingly pleasing above the consumption of all other previously offered recreational sounds.

In such a fast approaching world, what then will we humans do to challenge, amuse, and entertain ourselves - in short, what shall we do to maintain a purposeful existence?  Today we already see some answers to what people will do when they see themselves as without hope and irrelevant to the established social order.  For the rest of us, our best defense and greatest comfort against such far out notions come from simply ignoring the possibilities, or holding fast to the belief that it will never happen.  But wait a minute, there’s that ‘never’ word again.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

Comments

[Scenes]

You can argue that one of the interesting side effects is to find out how many human occupations take little in the way of higher brain function. The tendency is to think in terms of moonshots like self driving cars, sexbots, and fully automated production facilities (or robot Presidents and radio newsmen).

Just to take a mundane example...grocery cashiers. At this point, their main value is that they provide a cheap robot arm to take items from a moving belt and run them over a scanner. That really is the hardest part of their job to automate.

I just mention this because people have this notion that the work will roll up from the very bottom. Instead, you'll see chunks of work bitten out of everyday jobs. Computers can do better jobs of diagnosing medical patients, I can see where pharmacies could be totally automated, etc.

It's all a continuum really. It isn't like jobs haven't been eliminated by pre-recorded music, travel agencies haven't died, income tax preparation is feeling the hurt. I'm afraid that underemployment is in our future.

As a side note, an interesting bit of machine training that is going on is the mapping of faces on video. Check it out.

[George Rebane]

Scenes 432pm - Points well made. It is though worth noting that RR readership is not all that much concerned about the near-term fate of Man as they are about flinging mudballs at each other for their take on the Nunes memo and Trump's SOTUS. Go for what you know.

[Account Deleted]

"Let’s take a break from the political goings on in Washington and Sacramento,..."
Can't. Washington to some extent and Sac-O-Tomatoes to a large extent are hastening the arrival of automation replacing jobs. In California, they are happy to brag about the Golden State being a hot bed of high tech and AI advances. And they are also happy to artificially drive up the cost of hiring humans via the govt gun. This hastens the bottom line answer to the cost of change over vs simply increasing the worker's pay question. Oh noes! What to do? The Dems have the ready answer. Tax the companies an extra amount that 'replace' humans with automation. Besides being another reason for a company to re-locate to another state, the money confiscated will supposedly be used to re-train the newly out of work workers. Re-trained to do what is the un-answered question.
Another important driver in the race to produce human like automatons is the porn industry. Remember the role porn played in the Betamax vs VHS war and the rapid adoption of CD ROMS with the resultant huge drop in price of that tech when the pornos saw the advantages of that medium. I was astonished when visiting the computer shows at Cal-Expo in the 90's to see that a lot of the larger dealers of 'software' were simply selling porn. Porn addicts are abundant and are quick to open their wallets as well as their zippers for the latest to satisfy their urges. The big money right now in developing human-like robots is in sex-bots. Make no mistake. A lot of what the porn industry is developing right now will accelerate the state of the art of AI humanoids in ways that will cross over into mainstream production and acceptance of human like automation in daily commerce. We already accept robo-calls and play the game of wading through automated choices when using the phone. Why will it be much different when confronted with a robot receptionist at the front counter?
Now - there is also the rising spectre of who will decide the sex, appearance, tone of voice and attitude of all of these robots. But that is a discussion for another day.

[George Rebane]

ScottO 611pm - Good points, and much discussed (almost). The point least discussed has been retraining workers. And as you correctly ask, 'Retrained to do what is the unanswered question.' It's as if when machines take over one area, another one manned by humans will suddenly open up and demand the addition of thousands of newly retrained humans. That scenario is not plausible, and most certainly nothing on which to bet tomorrow's workforce.

[Russ]

Here is a list of the top 50 jobs in 2018.

http://time.com/money/5114734/the-50-best-jobs-in-america-and-how-much-they-pay/

As you look through this list ask yourself could an intelligent machine do this job? What in the jobs listed requires the unique abilities that only humans have? Would you go to school, invest $60-100K, to learn a profession that in ten years would be done better by an intelligent machine? Students in school today are going to face some tough choices as they compete with the machines.