AI will eliminate 6 percent of jobs in five years, says report
Web Publication: CNBC, Technology, by Harriet Taylor
Meet your robot replacement
Keep your eye on the tiger. We can be distracted by a lot of things that have secondary importance, but this article is a signal of significant economic pain already in play.
The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is going to be bigger than the industrial revolution – that 19th century thing that put millions of laborers out of work. In the long run, it was all for the good, but not before it severely disrupted several generations of workers. This is described well in a History Future Now article, which points out the “disastrous, multi-generational, consequences that rapid industrialization had for the have-nots, not just in societies that were experiencing industrialization, but also for countries that did not industrialize at all.”
Meanwhile we go about our daily business while tech people plunge ahead with AI development, and the vast American majority of workers – both blue and white collar – are mostly unaware of what is coming down the pike at them; or really, they are just preoccupied with the challenges they’re currently facing. Very few people are talking practically about how we’ll negotiate the transition. Retraining? Economic, demographic, and huge generational shifts in labor on top of pre-existing trends such as off-shore positioning of jobs already challenge the workforce. Not everybody can retrain for tech. AI will be taking some of those jobs as well. AI is unstoppable, so pre-planning by those interested in avoiding a return to a serf economy needs to begin now.
9/15/16 Postscript, see also: As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers become a reality
9/18/16 Postscript, see also: Houston invention Artificial Intelligence to read mammograms