> Artificial Intelligence will completely reshape our society very soon. If a universal income is not provided in a timely fashion (as AI makes many workers no longer relevant) we are going to be in big trouble.
I think about that very often these days. Governments worldwide must act on that now. Because even if they'll start a legislative process to implement it, it will take a long time and we are running out of time.
But seriously. It's just change, it's always happening.
I dunno, we seem to be struggling with a lot of kids who don't fit into an academic school run, and who no longer have lots of options in the form of practical jobs they can do instead when they're 16 and fed up with school.
I talked to someone running a warehouse a couple of years ago. They got containers packed with cans from abroad. The cans had to be put on pallets so the warehouse robots could store them.
So they had one guy who's sole job was to pack the individual cans from the containers and pack them on pallets. The guy doing it loved it. He put on his music and packed those cans, not having to interact with anyone for most of the day. The mindless job left him free to ponder (he read lots of academic articles at home). So, great for him that he found that job.
However, the warehouse robot means there's like 10 people working that giant warehouse instead of several dozen...
Leaps in productivity never lead to increased unemployment or reduced standards of living.
Which people are you thinking of? The 22yo who just got out of college? Or the 50yo whose entire career and experience are getting automated away? Is the idea that they'd all pick up Python in a couple weeks in some bootcamp if their expected careers didn't work out?
- Bertrand Russell
As we do away with the easy dumb jobs, we condemn more people to poverty. We surely need to figure something out, specially if we are going to keep raising the bar.