The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions

Date: 06-10-2017
Source: Technology Review by Rodney Brooks

Mistaken extrapolations, limited imagination, and other common mistakes that distract us from thinking more productively about the future.

We are surrounded by hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence and robotics—hysteria about how powerful they will become, how quickly, and what they will do to jobs.

I recently saw a story in ­MarketWatch that said robots will take half of today’s jobs in 10 to 20 years. It even had a graphic to prove the numbers.

The claims are ludicrous. (I try to maintain professional language, but sometimes …) For instance, the story appears to say that we will go from one million grounds and maintenance workers in the U.S. to only 50,000 in 10 to 20 years, because robots will take over those jobs. How many robots are currently operational in those jobs? Zero. How many realistic demonstrations have there been of robots working in this arena? Zero. Similar stories apply to all the other categories where it is suggested that we will see the end of more than 90 percent of jobs that currently require physical presence at some particular site.

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Don’t Blame the Robots

Date: 01-09-2017
Source: Foreign Affairs

How Housing Prices and Market Power Explain Wage Stagnation
By Sahil Mahtani and Chris Miller

Six months ago, Microsoft’s Bill Gates proposed a robot tax, on the grounds that if workers pay taxes, so too should the machines that take their jobs. Such a policy would, in Gates’s words, “slow down the speed” of automation, thereby allowing societies to “manage [the] displacement” of workers. The idea speaks to a widespread sense that the labor market isn’t working like it used to.

But since Gates made his statement, it has become clear that taxing technology entails a comically large number of problems. One is that robots can both reduce and increase the demand for human labor. Search algorithms reduced the need for travel agents, but Uber increased demand for drivers. It is impossible to determine ex ante which robots to tax.

Career of the Future: Robot Psychologist

Date: 10-07-2017
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Engineers are using cognitive psychology to figure out how AIs think and make them more accountable

Artificial-intelligence engineers have a problem: They often don’t know what their creations are thinking.

As artificial intelligence grows in complexity and prevalence, it also grows more powerful. AI already has factored into decisions about who goes to jail and who receives a loan. There are suggestions AI should determine who gets the best chance to live when a self-driving car faces an unavoidable crash.

Defining AI is slippery and growing more so, as startups slather the buzzword over whatever they are doing. It is generally accepted as any attempt to ape human intelligence and abilities.

Shipping Giants Are Looking to Self-Piloting Boats to Shift Cargo

Date: 12-06-2017
Source: Technology Review

Millions of containers could be hauled by robotic ships within the next decade.

Forget Uber’s autonomous 18-wheelers: if you want a robot to haul a heavy load in the future, it might be worth considering a self-piloting container ship instead.

Plenty of people have been building modest autonomous boats in recent years, but the real payoff is in something much larger. As the Economist has pointed out in the past, fully robotic cargo ships could be faster, safer, and ultimately cheaper to run than their crewed counterparts. And that promise obviously hasn’t escaped the attention of some of the world’s largest users of maritime freight.

The Nikkei Asian Review reports that a consortium of Japan’s shipbuilders and freight companies are working together to build technology that will enable new ships to chart their own courses. The vision: an onboard artificial intelligence that will gather data from sensors and external sources—to ascertain, say, weather conditions and ocean traffic—in order to constantly plot the safest and most efficient route. The consortium is expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the technology, which it hopes will be ready to build into ships as soon as 2025.

Date: 12-06-2017

Source: Technology Review

Subject: In Buying Boston Dynamics, SoftBank Is Betting Big on Walking Robots

Can the company make a go of the automatons that never did fit in at Google?

The technology conglomerate Softbank has acquired Boston Dynamics, the firm known for its often terrifying animal- and human-like robots, from Alphabet.

Back in 2013, Alphabet went on somewhat of a robot-buying binge. Led by Android creator Andy Rubin, the company covered all the bases, making acquisitions that included: Boston Dynamics and Schaft (which both make legged robots); Redwood Robotics and Meka (robots that grasp objects); Industrial Perception (computer vision for warehouse robots); Holomni (wheeled robots); and Bot & Dolly (movie-set robots).

Labor Markets in the Age of Automation

Laura Tyson

Laura Tyson, a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, a senior adviser at the Rock Creek Group, and a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Gender Parity.

JUN 7, 2017 Project Syndicate

BERKELEY – Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are powering a new wave of automation, with machines matching or outperforming humans in a fast-growing range of tasks, including some that require complex cognitive capabilities and advanced degrees. This process has outpaced the expectations of experts; not surprisingly, its possible adverse effects on both the quantity and quality of employment have raised serious concerns.

To listen to President Donald Trump’s administration, one might think that trade remains the primary reason for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has declared that the possible technological displacement of workers is “not even on [the administration’s] radar screen.”

Among economists, however, the consensus is that about 80% of the loss in US manufacturing jobs over the last three decades was a result of labor-saving and productivity-enhancing technological change, with trade coming a distant second. The question, then, is whether we are headed toward a jobless future, in which technology leaves many unemployed, or a “good-jobless future,” in which a growing number of workers can no longer earn a middle-class income, regardless of their education and skills.

Robots Aren’t Destroying Enough Jobs

Date: 11-05-2017
Source: The Wall Street Journal By Greg Ip

Economic predictions of massive job losses to automation are missing indicators that show just the opposite

Robots are growing increasingly sophisticated, but productivity data suggest automation isn’t displacing human workers fast enough.

From Silicon Valley to Davos, pundits have been warning that millions of individuals will be thrown out of work by the rapid advance of automation and artificial intelligence. As economic forecasts go, this idea of a robot apocalypse is certainly chilling. It’s also baffling and misguided.

Baffling because it’s starkly at odds with the evidence, and misguided because it completely misses the problem: robots aren’t destroying enough jobs. Too many sectors, such as health care or personal services, are so resistant to automation that they are holding back the entire country’s standard of living.

“Robot” is shorthand for any device or algorithm that does what humans once did, from mechanical combines and thermostats to dishwashers and airfare search sites. In the long run these advancements are good. By enabling society to produce more with the same workers, automation is a major driver of rising standards of living.

Robots won’t just take our jobs – they’ll make the rich even richer

Date: 24-04-2017
Source: The Guardian

Robotics and artificial intelligence will continue to improve – but without political change such as a tax, the outcome will range from bad to apocalyptic

Instead of making it possible to create more wealth with less labor, automation might make it possible to create more wealth without labor.

Should robots pay taxes?

It may sound strange, but a number of prominent people have been asking this question lately. As fears about the impact of automation grow, calls for a “robot tax” are gaining momentum. Earlier this month, the European parliament considered one for the EU. Benoît Hamon, the French Socialist party presidential candidate who is often described as his country’s Bernie Sanders, has put a robot tax in his platform. Even Bill Gates recently endorsed the idea.

Find Out If a Robot Will Take Your Job

Date: 20-04-2017
Source: TIME

At a community college in upstate New York, 12 cafeteria workers recently learned that they will lose their jobs — and be replaced by self-serve machines. It’s an issue that has played out in communities across the country, as robots get better and better at doing jobs — from taking fast food orders to mining coal — that once belonged to humans.

Is your job next? The answer to that question is complicated, according to a report by management consultant McKinsey, but most workers don’t need to worry. Experts found that less than 5% of jobs can be completely replaced by technology, though nearly every job involves tasks that robots could learn to do.
Enter your occupation below to see how much of your work may someday be done by machines.

Jobs with predictable activities in structured environments are the easiest to replicate with robots, a process known as automation. McKinsey estimates that 51% of all job-related activities in the U.S. economy fit this description, largely in manufacturing, food service and retail trade sectors.

ARBEIT IM DIGITALEN ZEITALTER

FURCHE-Kolumne 210 9. März 2017, Wilfried Stadler

Eine der vielen Fragen, über die sich Ökonomen nicht einig werden können, ist die nach den Folgen des Vordringens von Robotern und der Digitalisierung für die Beschäftigung. Während die einen steigende Arbeitslosigkeit erwarten, sehen andere nur einen weiteren jener Technologiesprünge, die zwar zunächst Verluste von Arbeitsplätzen in bisher ausgeübten, traditionellen Tätigkeiten nach sich ziehen, dafür aber in anderen, bisher unbekannten Bereichen ganz neue Erwerbsmöglichkeiten eröffnen.
Die Sorge, dass unser Gesellschaft die Arbeit ausgehen könnte, begleitet uns jedenfalls, seit es technischen Fortschritt gibt. Auf einen eindrücklichen Beleg dafür stieß ich vor kurzem ganz zufällig bei der Lektüre des Programmheftes zur Oper „Peer Gynt“ im Theater an der Wien. Dort fand sich das folgende Zitat von Hannah Arendt aus ihrem 1960 veröffentlichten Hauptwerk „Vita Activa oder Das tätige Leben“: Was uns bevorsteht, ist die Aussicht auf eine Arbeitsgesellschaft, der die Arbeit ausgegangen ist, also die einzige Tätigkeit, auf die sie sich noch versteht. Was könnte verhängnisvoller sein?