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To futureproof your job against robots and AI, you should learn how to code, brush up on your math skills and crack open an engineering textbook, right? Wrong. In this surprisingly comforting talk, tech journalist Kevin Roose makes the case that rather than trying to compete with the machines, we should instead focus on what makes us uniquely human.
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“If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
Stephen Hawking, 2015 Reddit AMA
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
Frank Herbert, Dune
luxurious leisure will offer no fulfillment or sense of accomplishment. our values are heavily flawed, being productive gives us a sense of purpose.
Don’t underestimate the power of the people. History has proven that people always rise up when inequality becomes too extreme. In fact, we already see the symptoms: Black Lives Matter, Trump, Nawalny or the decreasing trust in institutions all over the world.
@Dionyzos Where’s the threshold?
“…the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.”
Will Durant, The Lessons of History
Actually this debate is nothing new. Philosophers and artists have been debating the value of humans from the start of industrial revolution, when machines took 80% of human jobs.
As cybernetics graduate, automating processes is my job. I’ll lose my job to automation only after we’ll replace everyone else with robots/AI 😀
This is why we need the UBI. We need to let the robots work for us, not work for the robots.
Exactly, teach them they can be punished and that we are their creators, the robot’s sense of God. Teach them they are inferior to an actual human instead of better overlord’s.
You will be working for bezos or some other guy with more money than kindness, not robots.
And we will get it. Don’t underestimate the power of the people when the powerful fail to deliver. Societies have always risen up when inequality became unbearable.
I promise, you should be worried about Russ. He has a niche right now, which is great. But when people can pay an AI 1/10th the cost to do their taxes at 100x the speed and convenience, Russ will be hurting for clients.
This is what we need. People to show compassion and to try to understand each other and lift everyone up. Unfortunately most people focus to much energy on trying to get their opinions heard instead of finding common ground to build together on.
A Good Quote, The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.
If you want fat lazy people… wait Wally……
When machines replace millions of humans, the “human skills” will be massively oversupplied.
What humans need to do is own businesses that own technology. Sadly, the new class of tech owners will be like landed gentry in the world we are going into.
Exactly. We’re basically headed for technological neo-feudalism
Welcome to “Learn To Code 2.0.” TED talks like this aren’t meant to offer solutions to our problems but placate the masses and distract them from the effective solutions which would cause the global elite a little discomfort. What’s the real solution to automation? Andrew Yang already said it: a universal basic income paid for by a tax on automation. “…excelling in the areas where humans have a natural advantage” doesn’t help when there is no need for you.
That is beyond impossible. Even if you stole all of Bezos and Gates wealth, it wouldn’t last very long.
Haven’t the things humans have exploited (animal, vegetable, robot) been seen by humans as our end. As long as the exploited are needed they will never replace us. Once the exploited don’t need humans, we are done.
The problem was not “what smart People will do when automation arrives”. Either people will have to become “smart” or “violent” cause that hunger turns People into
Your just saying. Well if you loose to the machines just do something robots are bad in right now. This isnt future proof at all. This is just playing the next card of your finite card deck.
Imagine when robots can actually perceive/express human emotions.
That’s exactly the point missed, there’s nothing machines can’t do better than us, including compassion and critical thinking……that’s one hard pill to swallow. The real question is how much extra would you pay for an accountant?
This all sounds nice, but we obviously can’t ALL be friendly neighborhood shopkeepers or customer service comedians. We’re still going to have a large segment of the population without employment.
Yes, I’m already an expert in what machines will likely never do: procrastination.
Focus on your feelings and the feelings of others seems to be the underlying message here. Pass that millennial a beanbag and a pretzel someone!