AI is fundamentally different from all other advancements.
So then, let's compare it to several, especially the ones that "took away jobs".
1. The industrial revolution with trains, planes, cars and steam ships. -- It is easy to see how many jobs this created. Yes, the horse lost its job, and the donkey lost its job and the oxen lost their jobs. But you can point to a thousand jobs it created. It allowed us to do exponentially more work at a time when human population was growing exponentially.
Compare that with AI. What "new jobs" is AI projected to create? AI is designed to do the jobs that already exist.
2. NAFTA -- this clearly removed jobs from the US but it created jobs in the developing world. It also created more jobs in transporting goods in container ships. NAFTA didn't "eliminate" jobs it simply moved them from one country to another.
But AI will take jobs in every country. We can see the total destruction of China's export economy. It will destroy India's call centers. Europe, Russia, India, China, the US, the developing world, it is easy to see how in every single country on this planet jobs will be replaced by AI.
3. The internet -- this was a boom to the world's economy because it made communication cheaper and easier. Everything that made the globe smaller and improved communication was a big plus for the world's economy. This was true of the telegraph, and of the telephone, radio, TV, satellite communications and the World Wide Web.
But AI is not improving communication between people. It is improving the communication among computers.
You cannot put the genie back in the bottle, pandora's box has been opened. My point is don't get mesmerized by the "good" without seeing the "evil". Yes, AI will dramatically decrease the costs of many items as they can be made cheaper and far more efficiently than ever before. Things look very good for the stock market. The problem is AI accomplishes this by eliminating jobs. If it does not eliminate any jobs then it will not provide any economic advantage. Eliminating jobs eliminates the benefits as well as the pay, it eliminates the liability, and it eliminates the office space needed. You don't get any of those benefits without eliminating jobs.
In the past we saw this with farmers. Mechanization eliminated the small farms. In 1935 we had 6.8 million farms, today we have 2 million. We have less than a third the number of farms and yet we produce much more food. The amount of land being farmed has not increased since 1935, yet we produce much more food and do it with far fewer people.
We have also seen this with machine learning tools and 3d printers eliminating the number of factory workers.
Previously one industry would be affected and people would have to go and get jobs in other industries. But Elon Musk is making a robot that costs 120k, can work four shifts a week, will pay for itself in six months, and can do any manual labor job, any blue collar job. Meanwhile we have AI which is designed to replace any white collar job. This will be true in every country.
Think about this, we are on the verge of WW3, enlistment in the military is way down, and yet the military does not seem desperate. Why not? They have a simple fix, allow them to use AI to fly the drones. Allow them to use killer robots on the battlefield and killer bots, and killer drones. Manufacture a crisis so that you can institute the solution you always wanted to institute.
So then, let's compare it to several, especially the ones that "took away jobs".
1. The industrial revolution with trains, planes, cars and steam ships. -- It is easy to see how many jobs this created. Yes, the horse lost its job, and the donkey lost its job and the oxen lost their jobs. But you can point to a thousand jobs it created. It allowed us to do exponentially more work at a time when human population was growing exponentially.
Compare that with AI. What "new jobs" is AI projected to create? AI is designed to do the jobs that already exist.
2. NAFTA -- this clearly removed jobs from the US but it created jobs in the developing world. It also created more jobs in transporting goods in container ships. NAFTA didn't "eliminate" jobs it simply moved them from one country to another.
But AI will take jobs in every country. We can see the total destruction of China's export economy. It will destroy India's call centers. Europe, Russia, India, China, the US, the developing world, it is easy to see how in every single country on this planet jobs will be replaced by AI.
3. The internet -- this was a boom to the world's economy because it made communication cheaper and easier. Everything that made the globe smaller and improved communication was a big plus for the world's economy. This was true of the telegraph, and of the telephone, radio, TV, satellite communications and the World Wide Web.
But AI is not improving communication between people. It is improving the communication among computers.
You cannot put the genie back in the bottle, pandora's box has been opened. My point is don't get mesmerized by the "good" without seeing the "evil". Yes, AI will dramatically decrease the costs of many items as they can be made cheaper and far more efficiently than ever before. Things look very good for the stock market. The problem is AI accomplishes this by eliminating jobs. If it does not eliminate any jobs then it will not provide any economic advantage. Eliminating jobs eliminates the benefits as well as the pay, it eliminates the liability, and it eliminates the office space needed. You don't get any of those benefits without eliminating jobs.
In the past we saw this with farmers. Mechanization eliminated the small farms. In 1935 we had 6.8 million farms, today we have 2 million. We have less than a third the number of farms and yet we produce much more food. The amount of land being farmed has not increased since 1935, yet we produce much more food and do it with far fewer people.
We have also seen this with machine learning tools and 3d printers eliminating the number of factory workers.
Previously one industry would be affected and people would have to go and get jobs in other industries. But Elon Musk is making a robot that costs 120k, can work four shifts a week, will pay for itself in six months, and can do any manual labor job, any blue collar job. Meanwhile we have AI which is designed to replace any white collar job. This will be true in every country.
Think about this, we are on the verge of WW3, enlistment in the military is way down, and yet the military does not seem desperate. Why not? They have a simple fix, allow them to use AI to fly the drones. Allow them to use killer robots on the battlefield and killer bots, and killer drones. Manufacture a crisis so that you can institute the solution you always wanted to institute.
