[News] Tech will not replace humans ? we are not that stupid

[StyM]

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/44709-t...ot-that-stupid

Technology will never replace human beings, insisted self-made billionaire Jacky Ma, in a keynote speech at Alibaba Cloud's Computing Conference in Hangzhou.

Ma said that humans possessed wisdom and would never allow robots to get the upper hand.

"People are getting more worried about the future, about technology replacing humans, eliminating jobs and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. But I think these are empty worries. Technology exists for people. We worry about technology because we lack confidence in ourselves, and imagination for the future."

Ma said that humans are the only things on Earth that are wise.

"People will always surpass machines because people possess wisdom", he said.

Referencing AlphaGo, the Google artificial intelligence program that beat the world's top Go player at his own game, Ma said that there was no reason humanity should be saddened by the defeat.

"AlphaGo? So what? AlphaGo should compete against AlphaGo 2.0, not us. There's no need to be upset that we lost. It shows that we're smart, because we created it."

Philosophically, though, humans did create some really stupid things so we are not sure he is right. Humans created global warming, put antibiotics in every consumer product, invented capital punishment, reality television, soap operas, gender discrimination, zoos and circuses, organised religion, the nation state, the concept of the trickledown effect, nuclear warfare, Justin Bieber and Apple computers.

[bluestang]

"we are not that stupid" lol. Who is currently the President of the United States?...Yes, people are stupid.

[StyM]

lol

[AliG]

"we are not that stupid" lol. Who is currently the President of the United States?...Yes, people are stupid.

lol can't disagree there.

But I do think there's a valid point that tech still needs to be programmed by humans. There's no such thing as true AI - even the most sophisticated, deep learning based recurrent neural nets are given their rule set by humans.

[iddqd]

Technology has been replacing humans for 100s of years now. For instance, we no longer need to have 80% of our population be busy producing food - with technological advances, 1% can feed the rest of the world. The other 79% have been replaced.

[AliG]

Technology has been replacing humans for 100s of years now. For instance, we no longer need to have 80% of our population be busy producing food - with technological advances, 1% can feed the rest of the world. The other 79% have been replaced.

I think that's a matter of viewpoint. Engineers have been looking to reduce production costs for decades. I don't think it's a flaw that manufacturing has been simplified - that was the ultimate goal.

The fact of the matter is there will always be a need for people who can create and invent. Unskilled labor might be crossfire, but I frankly don't feel bad for people who refuse to put in the time to compete in modern society. That doesn't necessarily mean a college degree - but you do need a skill society deems necessary.

[adamsleath]

technology is created by humans, to serve humans. it is an enhancement tool that has allowed massive human population, and production.

technocracy. science and technology drive economies.

trumpocracy - typical example of an undeserving elite, totally reliant on the technical elite, and just as dependent and ignorant as the rest of the human cattle.

[drmrlordx]

I think that's a matter of viewpoint. Engineers have been looking to reduce production costs for decades. I don't think it's a flaw that manufacturing has been simplified - that was the ultimate goal.

The fact of the matter is there will always be a need for people who can create and invent. Unskilled labor might be crossfire, but I frankly don't feel bad for people who refuse to put in the time to compete in modern society. That doesn't necessarily mean a college degree - but you do need a skill society deems necessary.

The problem is that most humans, throughout history, do well to learn a small skill set and practice it diligently. This behavior was once praised as "hard work"; in fact, the entire Protestant work ethic is based around the idea.

When society changes its minds about what is valuable, it is those people who are left in the dark. What if society, as a whole, deems only a narrow skill set to have any value? And more-importantly, what if society only needs maybe 40% of the total population to work in order to produce goods and services at the availability level we enjoy today?

[adamsleath]

arent we already at that point?
what percentage of the workforce is occupied directly with the manufacture of products/ produce? right now.

western economies have vast service based sector in terms of gdp. much less of it is generated by manufacturing.

but you say services as well.
then there are the arts and crafts, learning, recreation. some people will "work" at their own projects similar to right now.

the 40% who do work will be, as they probably are already a class unto themselves. people socialise, amuse themselves, spend time with family, the list of activities is endless.

[drmrlordx]

We obfuscate that number with the vague set of value-added activities known as "services", yes. For now, it has to be a service that is directly demanded by somebody-or-other. But automation is starting to eliminate those positions as well. Investment managers are apparently the next ones to go.

[AliG]

We obfuscate that number with the vague set of value-added activities known as "services", yes. For now, it has to be a service that is directly demanded by somebody-or-other. But automation is starting to eliminate those positions as well. Investment managers are apparently the next ones to go.

I feel like that's a fancy way of saying engineers know how to optimize. And as an engineer who optimizes, I concur.

[bluestang]

In my experience, it's the people after the engineer that do the optimizing. The ones doing the buying, machining, fabrication, assembly or what have you.

[kromosto]

"Tech will not replace humans ? we are not that stupid" this is such a stupid sentence that only an ignorant who does not know what is going on can say. Like the ones who believe AI will conquer the world.

Tech will not replace us because we are stupid but because we are inefficient compared to tech. And it will replace us on every field that we fall behind its efficiency.

[drmrlordx]

I feel like that's a fancy way of saying engineers know how to optimize. And as an engineer who optimizes, I concur.

It's a form of optimization. Hell Jack Welch popularized the trend back in the 80s at GE. He noticed large swaths of people that could be eliminated without (apparently) affecting performance of the company overall, so eliminate he did. He was and still is the layoff king. There's a reason why they called him "Neutron Jack".

"Tech will not replace humans ? we are not that stupid" this is such a stupid sentence that only an ignorant who does not know what is going on can say. Like the ones who believe AI will conquer the world.

Tech will not replace us because we are stupid but because we are inefficient compared to tech. And it will replace us on every field that we fall behind its efficiency.

It is true that people are inefficient as units of labor. We've been pushing the idea that people need to offer up their labor on a free market as a way to motivate people to maximize their contributions to society while also securing for themselves a livelihood. And to the extent that people's labor has had any value, the idea is generally meritorious. Generally. Not to say that people haven't manipulated labor markets to abuse those who sell their labor.

But reduce the free market value of human labor to 0, and you have a problem. Lots of those people become corporate customers once they take home their pay. No more pay means reduced customers, which means more layoffs . . . and a feedback loop ensues.

What surprises me is the current US labor market. It almost makes no sense. We were seeing the early stages of that scenario maybe ten years ago. It's unclear why unemployment numbers, as well as U6 numbers (those out of work + those no longer in the market; read "long term unemployed", plus those who are distinctly underemployed) got better recently. We're even starting to see moderate signs of wage stagnation ending on the low income side which has been a chronic problem since the 1970s (though we still aren't seeing improvements along the lines that would bring minimum wage earners up to speed with the pace of inflation). I don't know if it's a temporary trend along the lines of a "dead cat bounce" or if we're seeing the realization of new ways to assign market value to human labor. Or maybe it's due to economic and political manipulation of the job market in "developed" countries like the US.

By all rights, the Jack Welches of the world ought to have destroyed entire labor sectors by now, or at least ought to have done enough irreparable damage to them that vast quantities of people selling their services in that segment of the labor market should be perpetually underemployed.

[adamsleath]

'labor market', like people over time, constantly evolves.
the"perpetually underemployed" dont really exist. If some particular job (and the person doing it) becomes redundant, the person either gives up or finds something else to do....in either case, that person is no longer the job they were doing, and therefore "underemployment" becomes 'workforce evolution'

humans are quite clever at adapting to changing environments. "what can i do for someone else that they dont want to do" or some crazy entrepreneureal (can never spell that word) idea or venture.

just saying. the labor market of today is nothing like that of yesteryear. except maybe if you're a waitress or a bellboy, taxi driver or someuch low skill job that has yet to be roboticised. Robotics in manufacturing. yeah. bye bye factory workers.

[kromosto]

'or some crazy entrepreneureal (can never spell that word) idea or venture.

At least you have the courage to write it. If I cant find a way to speak or write my idea without it I prefer changing my idea.

[drmrlordx]

The general thought is that humans may be running out of effective (read: profitable) ways to evolve as units of labor. People will give up more than they will find something else to do. If they do find something else to do, their ability to command wages equal to what they had 5-10 years ago will probably be diminished.

[AliG]

I think the reality is labor just is not a competitive skillset anymore. It doesn't matter how smart you are, the assembly line works at one pace, where you repeatedly perform the same task.

There's 7.5 billion people in this world. Even if automoation weren't phasing out humans, you really think companies couldn't find someone willing to shoot the same bolt for half in a 3rd world country? China and India alone have millions of people begging to make $10/day.

[AliG]

I think the future remains in creative thinking. You're seeing the value of traditional hands on roles, including doctors, diminish over time as technology enables 1 person to do the role of multiple. At the end of the day, it'll boil down to how can we advance what's already out there, and less about who will build/use it.