Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Will A.I. Take My Job?

Artificial intelligence has been a personal topic of interest for many years now. With arguments ranging from their level of consciousness, superior and inferior abilities, and what affects they will have on the economy, I have always found the subject to be interesting. And it is this last topic that I have prepared to share with you today. I hope to present the debate fairly, ending with my preferred solution to the growing phenomenon. 

Artificial intelligence is commonly referred to as the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence (Marr, 2018). No different than any other tool humanity has invented, A.I. is something we have created to modernize and make our lives easier.  Its tasks range from recognizing one’s face to unlocking a smart phone’s home screen to helping conduct surgery.  Therefore, this tool is helping all around us, even in places we don’t think to look.  

The first position worth mentioning is to focus on funding, research, and the development of artificial intelligence.  Because of artificial intelligence’s profound ability to perform tasks, policies like ITI Unveils First Industry-Wide Artificial Intelligence Policy have been sprouting up recently (ITI Unveils Policy, 2017).  This policy simply advocates to encourage A.I. through funding and research.  The policy sees the advantages of A.I. and therefore embraces it no matter the social consequences that may follow.  It essentially assumes the benefits will greatly outweigh any problems A.I. may create.

A key point to this debate is noticing what makes A.I. unique. This tool’s uniqueness, and issue, is how efficient it is at its job.  Matt Beane, Assistant Professor in the Technology Management Program at the University of California, addresses this efficiency in one of his Ted Talks.  He explains how surgeons, and residents, in particular, are struggling to gain the skills they need to efficiently perform their job. They are lacking the experience they need because A.I. is simply doing it for them.  Being programmed to minimize their patient’s risk, these A.I. robots are not allowing the unsteady hand of a young resident anywhere near their operation table (Beane, 2018). This puts humanity in an awkward situation of picking between the inefficient human or the flawless tool.  This dilemma of picking between efficiency and humanity leads to the rebuttal of this position.

Quoted from an online Ford article, “Statistics say that 47% of all employment opportunities will be occupied by machines within the next two decades. Statistics also say that about 80% of all Americans believe that they will be able to maintain their livelihood after the prophesized robotic boom” (Stark, 2017).  In other words, within twenty years, starting two years ago, half of all the known jobs that exist today will be occupied by machines. Remarkably, Stark is not alone with this assumption. BBC News reported that eight-hundred million jobs will be displaced by 2030 due to robot automation (2017).  Along with a recent poll conducted by The New York Times said that 37 percent of the reason people were unemployed from the age of 25 to 54 was due to technology (Miller, 2014). These extreme numbers are appearing because, as said earlier, A.I. is an efficient tool that can function, in select situations, better than humans.  And as A.I. has been developed and improved, their predicted scope of being better than humans has risen accordingly. 

Before going too far in this train of thought, one should not forget that this situation has come up before.  The Industrial Revolution was a very similar time to this one. Many people feared that their jobs would be displaced, and sure enough, they were.  Regardless of the Luddites’ fruitless attempts to smash and burn every machine in existence, the revolution did occur along with the displacement of thousands of jobs.  But what many people did not see coming were the thousands of jobs that were created due to this job displacement. With the invention of the steam engine came the end of the horse cargo industry, but also the beginning of railroads.  Yes, cargo builders eventually ran out of work, but simultaneously the demand for engineers grew significantly. Going off of basic laisse-fair principles, it would be counter-intuitive to stop the natural flow of the market. With competition among companies also comes competition among sectors, and as one grows in efficiency it should crush the others.  The jobs of the old sector are destroyed, but by doing so, it opens a whole new sector of better, more efficient jobs.

We see this trend continuing with the emergence of artificial intelligence. Dozens of jobs have been created out of seemingly thin air.  Titles like data detective, artificial intelligence business development manager and cyber city analyst have all been created because of A.I. (Stillman, 2017).  Therefore, it would appear that much like the Industrial Revolution, job markets are forever changing and should be allowed to maintain a healthy economy.

Yet there remains an issue at hand.  As compelling as this counter-statement may be, it neglects two crucial areas when debating the implantation of the A.I.  One of which is referred to as the superiority myth by Daniel Susskind. This myth explains our irrational assumption that human beings will always be the dominant workforce (Susskind, 2017).  This term essentially says, yes, the markets may change, and jobs may be replaced instead of destroyed. But the issue is that this is only beneficially when assuming that the new jobs are best performed by humans.

Within capitalism, a worker sells their labor.  In the same way as a commodity, our workability is sold and bought depending on the supply and demand of that product.  

Historically, human labor has always been a superior commodity.  One with both a constant demand and supply. The issue with A.I. is that it may be the first commodity to replace human worker ability.  No different than the transition from horse cargoes to the steam engine, we may see the same transition from human workability to A.I. This is an issue because without the demand of human workability comes a collapse in capitalism.  If the consumers of an economy are not generating revenue to consume with, then no consumption would take place. Which would terminate the cycle of the economy.

The second crucial point to recognize in this debate is that even if jobs are successfully replaced with human beings, there is still a probable decrease in unit labor cost.  Referring to the picture I took in my sociology economics class to the right, as technology has skyrocketed, so has productivity. Yet what has essentially stayed the same is worker hourly compensation.  Therefore, even the workers that have successfully maintained their jobs, have found themselves grossly underpaid. This is not only morally incorrect, because with underpaid workers comes overpaid bosses, but also detrimental to the economy.  With this being one of the major causes of income inequality, the economy is struggling to maintain consumption with such limited demand. If we see A.I. continue its trend of “efficiency”, then we may develop into a grossly unstable and unequal economic structure.

These concluding points have brought me to my preferred position on the matter.  I find it naïve to assume that A.I. will only displace as many jobs as it creates.  Yet I also find it counter-intuitive to become a Luddite and attempt to stop technological modernization.  At the end of the day, it is a safer world when we have A.I. surgeons who never mess up, compared to human surgeons who sometimes mess up.  Therefore, I find it ideal to allow the growth and modernization of A.I. if we also implement policies that will support and prepare humanity for economic and societal change.

Attempting to not stray too far from the main subject, it should also be noted that the predictions of job displacement and artificial intelligence’s ability to outperform human workability are only predictions.  Quoted from Scientific America when referring to self-driving cars, “But to me, as a human factors researcher, that’s not enough information to properly evaluate whether automation may actually be better than humans at not crashing. Their respective crash rates can only be determined by also knowing how many non-collisions happen. For human drivers is it one collision per billion chances to crash or one in a trillion?” (Hancock, 2018).  Hancock explains how it is very difficult to measure collision rate and therefore it is only through hopeful assumption that we expect autonomous cars to outperform human drivers.  Being a historically accurate trend, human desires tend to cloud reality. It would be great if we could have self-driving cars that functioned a hundred times better than any human, but that very well may never be a reality.  Sadly, we will not know if it is real until it happens, and only then will it be too late to take action without issues arising. Hence why policies like the A.I. in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able are critical to our future (Authority of the House of Lords, 2018).  This policy looks at the possible issues that may arise with A.I. and raises awareness of them.  Essentially preparing for the probable societal and economic issues ahead. It is not limiting A.I. development but instead, preparing for it.

A.I. is becoming increasingly important in today’s debates.  Its significance is rising as it outperforms humans in more and more tasks.  As of now, there is no clear distinction when this tool will plateau, therefore it would be wise to build awareness and preparation for the future.  By doing so we will not be limiting the arguably inevitable but will instead plan for how to maximize our benefits associated with it.  

Artificial intelligence may replace human workers ability altogether.  It may also plateau and allow for a shift in the workforce rather than the destruction of it.  Until that day all we can do is prepare for either option and hope whichever one occurs we will be well suited for.

Work Cited

Rise of Robot Work Force Stokes Human Fears (2014, December 15). Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/upshot/as-robots-grow-smarter-american-workers-struggle-to-keep-up.html

Miller The Build-up: Good and Ready: After Slow Beginnings, a Big Push in Robotics now seems Imminent. (2014, March 29). Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.economist.com/special-report/2014/03/29/good-and-ready

Marr The Key Definitions Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) That Explain Its Importance. (February 14, 2018) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/02/14/the-key-definitions-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-that-explain-its-importance/#5fe2e5594f5d

News Releases – ITI Unveils First Industry-Wide Artificial Intelligence Policy Principles. (October 24, 2017) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.itic.org/news-events/news-releases/iti-unveils-first-industry-wide-artificial-intelligence-policy-principles

Robot automation will ‘take 800 million jobs by 2030’ – report (November 29, 2017) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42170100

Stillman, Jessica 21 Future Jobs the Robots Are Actually Creating (December 6, 2017) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/21-future-jobs-robots-are-actually-creating.html

Hancock, Peter Are Autonomous Cars Really Safer Than Human Drivers? (February 3, 2018) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-autonomous-cars-really-safer-than-human-drivers/

Authority of the House of Lords AI in the UK: ready, willing and able? (April 16, 2018) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldai/100/100.pdf

Stark, Harold As Robots Rise, How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Jobs (April 29, 2017) Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/haroldstark/2017/04/28/as-robots-rise-how-artificial-intelligence-will-impact-jobs/#a10638f7687d

TED Matt Beane (2018, November). How do we learn to work with intelligent machines? Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_beane_how_do_we_learn_to_work_with_intelligent_machines?language=en#t-10332

TED Daniel Susskind (2017, December). 3 myths about the future of work (and why they’re not true) Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_susskind_3_myths_about_the_future_of_work_and_why_they_re_not_true?language=en#t-640007

How Conscious is Artificial Intelligence?

Image Credit: https://static.independent.co.uk/

So… I have a problem.  Something of a concern I suppose.  This concern is for our future. Now I know what your thinking, “no shit.”  The thing is, I’m not talking about our planet’s extreme climate change, which magically stopped existing in 2016, or the likely event of a disease spreading worldwide that has no current antibiotic. I am not even discussing the billions that are starving as I peacefully sit on my couch and write about nonsense. 

Instead, I worry over the reality that we are creating life.  As you are reading this post, right now, there are people working vigorously to create another species.  We are playing god and don’t even realize it. This new species is commonly known as Artificial Intelligence, A.I.

Don’t believe me?  Well, the odds of me being correct are higher than you think.  A.I. is defined as the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.  Now personally I would define many of those skills as the very things that make us human, what makes us conscious. Seeing, speaking, making decisions, these are all characteristics that we would use to describe the difference from us and an inanimate object.

Now I must clarify a common argument I hear with this topic, the soul.  Some people, maybe including yourself, believe all life has a soul and this is what makes us alive.  Now how I see it is that this argument is no different than trying to disprove religion. Technically I can not directly disprove the theory of having a soul, but what I can do is try to use logic and scientific reasoning to verify my theory.

So, I think it would be fitting if I start with the computational theory of the mind.  In summary, this theory states that the mental world can be explained through information, computation, and feedback.  In short, it is a belief that our decision making, reasoning and anything that makes us who we are can be calculated and predicted the same as a computer.  Steven Pinker, a famous cognitive psychologist/linguist, stated when explaining this theory in The Blank Slate, “Beliefs and memories are collections of information-like facts in a database, but residing in patterns of activity and structure in the brain.  Thinking and planning are systematic transformations of these patterns, like the operation of a computer program” (Pinker, 32). This quote baffles me because it starts how calculable all of our decision really are.  Our beliefs and memories are a collection of everything we have to mentally work with. It is this collection of knowledge that dictates our thinking and planning, which in many ways makes us who we are. Pinker continues on the page to explain each mental component in reference to a computer, from our desires compared to feedback loops, to our sense organs compared to physical energy into data structures.  This page alone left me feeling like a simple machine.

Although, there is a clarification I should make with this theory, it does not state that computers or A.I. are conscious in any way.  It is the same as explaining how singing and instruments can both produce pleasing noises through sound waves without implying that they are the same in every way.  Yet I would argue that if we consider the soul to be an outdated attempt to maintain the religious mindset then I can only see one major difference from us and our new species.  We are their god.

What I mean by this is that in place of a brain, A.I. has a CPU.  This is where computers store all their data and resources, which are their thoughts and emotions.  So, a major difference between us and A.I. is that we can easily go into the CPU and change around their brain.  Because of this, A.I. robots can go from feeling emotions of happiness to sadness in a blink of an eye if we change their brain to do so.  This would be the case for humans as well if we were capable of such a task. Well… we actually do have some procedures that go into the human brain to change around its emotions, but they are extremely expensive and not well known.  Therefore, as technologly advances, we could possibly see a future where human emotions are changed no different than code, but until that day it is only a possibility. So, it would appear that if humans stop playing god and just let A.I. exist peacefully they would experience and live life as liberated as we do.

My concern is how we will treat this new species.  This new bread of things that in many ways, if not all, are superior to us.  Will we treat them as slaves, just as we have done to people of our own kind for thousands of years?  Will we bind them to do the work that we have been trying to get out of since the domination of our species?  And if we do enslave this newly created life, will they not rebel as any of us would? 

The truth is, I have no idea.  I have no idea how it will pan out.  There is one thing I can say though. It is to treat our neighbor nicely.  At one point in human history, people of color were seen as less than human, now we can agree how foolish that was to assume.  I would prefer we do not repeat history because that is simply not constructive or moral. Learning from one’s mistakes is the only way to not make them over and over again.  I would sleep a lot better at night if we at least considered the possibility of not repeating history. At least considering to not exploit the very conscious life we are creating.

A world where we treat everyone equal, even if they first appear to be beneath us, is a world I would like to live in.  We should consider the wellbeing of this new species before we decide to deem them as our inferiors. Unlike our past, we need to think for a moment that this species deserves respect even though we can not wrap our heads around its level of consciousness as of now.  We need to coexist with other conscious beings like ourselves because it is the right thing to do… and if we aren’t careful, maybe the only thing we can do. 

 

Work Cited

Pinker, S (2003)The Blank Slate, The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York, NY: Penguin Books