Technology will in the next fifty years make everybody unemployed. It is due to a phenomena called exponential growth. It means that computers and computing power will become so advanced that all of the industry and jobs that we now do will be automated or done by machines.
another problem with this growth in technology will be the inevitable introduction of a AI or artificial Intelligence. Predictions for this can be found to be in the year 2045 by a man called Ray Kurzweil. Predictions like this seem a bit far fetched to us nowadays but this man is the holder of a huge number of patents and has and extremely accurate track record when it comes to making predictions of this nature. He predicted correctly the exact year that a computer would beat a person at chess. More worryingly still he is the director of engineering at a little tech start up called Google.
with the introduction of AI in the mid to short term future it brings into question a number of different challenging questions. What does it actually mean to be human? if the AI can think and talk and reason like us will they also have the ability to feel; emotional pain like us. One can take it for granted that they wont necessarily feel pain unless we program them to physical pain that is. However if we locked it in a cage all day and only allowed it out to do our bidding would this be seen as cruel, if it can indeed reason and think in much the same way as we do.
Will robots have rights? should they? are they not setting being like you and me capable of experiencing the world as we do? maybe not in the early models but certainly down the road it is a equation we will be confronted with whether we like it or not. the video below explores the topic in greater detail feel free to check it out.
The question of whether the future will be a dystopian or a utopian one.
A dystopian outlook would see computers becoming sentient and believing humans are a cancer on the earth or a danger to their existence. This would lead them to enslave us or to try to us as batteries to fuel their society.
The utopian view would see them working for us and serving our every whim and need. It would see a drop in the price and cost to produce goods and services and would mean that we would all be rich with the introduction of universal basic income.
Where does this leave us for now or how do we deal with this. Well being aware of its existence is the first step. Then working out a viable Universal Basic Income (UBI) strategy would be the next. Encouraging people to create and follow creative endeavours would be another. To choose and follow a career path that does not involve repetitive tasks but encourages or asks us to be creative is the best advice. As these industries seem to be the furthest away from automation.
If computers do take over or at least become sentient, then what constitutes a human? If AI can traverse the uncanny valley and an AI can pass the touring test what then? Do they then enjoy human rights?
Automation is already here! And there’s more to come Much more!
It’s already upon us really, and we can look to automation’s already clear and present in our supermarkets as well as our fast food stores, Tesco and Mc Donalds are prime examples.
I spoke to Shannon from Mc Donalds in northside and she was able to explain that she actually prefers it when i us the automated machine when I come to her location. “it means you take a step out of the process for me which makes my life easier”. Little does she know she is automating herself out of a job.
We have to realise that this is going to be a good thing though. this automation will drive down the cost of goods and services and ultimately make our lives easier. Whether making our lives easier is a net good in the long term but at least thew intention is to make our lives better. the path to hell though is usually paved with good intentions.
So the cost of good will drop and we will then move into what is being dubbed the star trek economy or the fourth industrial revolution.
The automotive industry is months away from rolling out driver-less vehicles known as “Autos” across the board. With Google backed Waymo leading the charge. Way back in October they announced that their autonomous vehicles clocked up an impressive 10 million miles on public roads in the US, that’s up from 8 million back in July of 2018.
In order to give this some context its important to understand the concept of exponential growth. Which was first observed by Gordon Moore (founder of Intel) in 1965. Simply put it states that the processing speeds, or overall processing power of computers will double every 2 years. This can be tricky to get your head around so here is an analogy to help explain and contextualise.
So let’s say you can make Wembley stadium waterproof, and you are going to add a drop of water to the stadium every minute. How long do you think it would take for the stadium to fill up? Most people would say days months or years, when in actual fact due to the profound nature of exponential growth it would be full in just 49 minutes. What makes this so insidious is that after 45 minutes it would only start to cover the people in the first row of seats. So much in the same way as the old myth of the frog in a boiling pot of water by the time you realise you have a problem it is already too late.
Making Sense of It All
What does all this mean well in short, in the very near future we will see the automation of a number of different industries. From the food industry to the transport, even the accounting, legal and recruitment industries are not safe. With intelligent algorithms designed to work harder for longer and be more accurate avoiding such things as alert fatigue. Even the construction industry is not safe as evidenced with the bricklaying robot below. even journalism is not safe with websites such as ai-writer.com where one is able to get a robot to write an article for them, all that is required is the search terms and it will do the rest.
What does all this mean, and how does this change the price of eggs? Well in the short term it mean a massive loss of jobs as this economic revolution takes place. this so called 4th industrial revolution is known as the digital revolution.
The implications of this 4th industrial revolution will mean large scale job loss for many. On the flip side of that coin there will be massive savings, this in turn brings up the question of what to don with all of these unemployed people?
Universal Basic Income is one of the solutions being forwarded by many experts. Basically it is a periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement.
- Unconditional: A Basic Income would vary with age, but with no other conditions, so everyone of the same age would receive the same Basic Income, whatever their gender, employment status, family structure, contribution to society, housing costs, or anything else.
- Automatic: Someone’s Basic Income would be paid weekly or monthly, automatically, into a bank account or similar.
- Non-withdraw-able: Basic Incomes would not be means-tested. Whether someone’s earnings increase, decrease, or stay the same, their Basic Income will not change.
- Individual: Basic Incomes would be paid on an individual basis, and not on the basis of a couple or household.
- As a right: Everybody legally resident would receive a Basic Income, subject to a minimum period of legal residency, and continuing residency for most of the year.
There are however a number of problems with UBI, the B part for a start. What constitutes basic income, and will people be happy with just a basic income. moreover in order to pay for this the taxes on the right will need to increase. this section of society having the financial freedom as well as insights to hide or evade high tax areas.
Elon Musk commented thusly on UBI “There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” Muskwent on to say . “Yeah, I am not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen.”
Similarly the great and powerful Mark Zuckerburg was typicaly frank when he observed “Let’s face it: There is something wrong with our system when I can leave [Harvard] and make billions of dollars in 10 years, while millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business,” Zuckerberg said in his May 2017 commencement address at his alma mater. “Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things.”
Irish context and what irish politicians know about this
In an interview with Aodhain O Riordhain a Labour Patrty politician at Costa Coffee in Raheny, I dicovered what the Irish politicians new about exponential growth and its implications by way of universal basic income.
Aodhain expressed an openness to the concept and explained that the current system was flawed. He explained that “in today’s society to incentivise the rich people it is thought that you must make them pay less tax and to incentives the poor people you must pay make them pay more”. He said that this the capitol model was fundamentally flawed and was in need of reform.
I would agree with this sentiment in principal in that the current system is in need of reform, he also made a sailent point as to what is considered wealth nowadays in our society. In Ireland specifically property and by extention property tax. There is a rampant need in ireland for people to own a house. This is prsesing on law makiers and planners and is as we have seen in the past open to corruption and even in some cases bad planning can become a public safety issie as seen in Brttain with the grenfell disater.
I was also able to get in touch with Jeff Johnston from Fine Gael who was able to provide me with his parties press release relating to UBI. He actually studied economics at trinity so he was in a uncilfy experinced postion to comment.
He cited the trial undertook by finland recently and while it did not spur the expected entreprneurial groeth it did see a a rise in the well being of the recepiants. Pointing to the possibility of the trail being of too short a duration to yeld any significant measurable resluts.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding the growth of technology and in particular the pace of the growth is casue for concern in the mid to short term future. Sopme expetrts point to the more creative industires being the last to go, by way of automation. so the ideal being that we should look to move into the more creative industires in order to maintin our income and economic growth.
I will leave you with the Inimitable captain jean Luke Picard to explain the Star Trek Economy and why I feel there is cause for hope, because after all we can achieve much more with a positive outlook than we ever can with a negative.
donalcarrollhack 