Software Will Take Over The World

[Formerly YB-2]

As long as "it" (whatever "it" is) drives my RV to Chincoteague for me I'll be good.

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by bart

Serge, your insights are very convincing.
We'd better start thinking about what advice we can give to our (grand)children regarding which profession to choose...

Hard to resist, so I am going with the advice given Dustin Hoffman in the 'Graduate': "Plastics"


I like this thread... thought provoking posts....

[SCAudiophile]

Originally Posted by PHC1

First let me say that none of this will happen overnight... But let's analyze this.

Where does the federal government's revenue come from? Individual taxpayers like you and I provide most of it.

The U.S. government's total revenue is estimated to be $3.654 trillion for*fiscal year*2018.

Income taxes contribute $1.836 trillion, half of the total. Another third ($1.224 trillion) comes from your*payroll taxes. This includes $892 billion for*Social Security,*$270 billion for*Medicare and $50 billion for unemployment insurance.*
Corporate taxes*add $355 billion, only 10 percent. Customs excise taxes and*tariffs*on imports contribute $146 billion, just 4 percent.

Ok, so we know that half the revenue comes from individual income taxes...
Now, let's consider this.

Besides the technological progress and the resulting job displacement and skill and trade loss over time and history, look at what happened to mom and pop stores such as hardware, pharmacy, bakery, grocery, just as an example. These small stores have virtually disappeared after Home Depot, Lowes, CVS, Starbucks, Giant, Acme, Wholefoods and the likes have popping up all over the place displacing them all.

Many malls are either closing or have closed because the online shopping giants like Amazon and the like has virtually killed them. Sears, RadioShack JCPenney, Kmart, Macy's , Payless Shoe just to name a few are all closing many stores and may be completely gone in a few years time. For 2017 alone, there are 3200 stores planning on closing. How many jobs lost is that?

It is hard for me to say what the ratio is of the likes of Amazon, in terms of what it creates in new jobs VS. the stores that it has driven out of business and resulting job loss. I know one thing, Amazon is investing heavy into automation and robotics and I suspect the ratio of jobs displaced to jobs created is not anywhere near equilibrium, I would bet it is far, far less in job creation vs disruption and displacement. The mega corporations also tend to pay much less tax than one would think. Amazon paid 13% effective tax rate in 2016.

Now throw in the AI, robotics, automation, 3D printing on top of that which would create a few highly technological and skilled jobs but displace much more of unskilled workers... where will the government get the money so you and I can enjoy our lives without the work BS as you put it if we are unemployed ??? By taxing the mega corporations at the paltry tax rate they pay? You think they will cover all the expenses?

+1 on this....Universal Basic Income is a nifty idea but someone has to pay or it....then there is medical care for all affected people....at least in the US the system has been corrupted by insurance and pharma/med-equipment suppliers, etc...other countries are much further along...

In short, we have been and will continue to replace humans in jobs where we are not yet ready to give them real and useful alternatives IMHO or truly support their transition and a new productive life...obvious risks for society here. Makes what happened in the steel towns and garment towns in the 70s and 80s (drugs, lots of crime, etc...) in the US look tame due to the much larger scale.


This is a great and very thought-provoking thread.

[eljr]

Originally Posted by GaryProtein

That's a great photo but I dunno.

Many things look terrific from a distance.

The galaxies seen from the Hubble telescope are magnificent, the earth seen from space is a spectacular sight, the Grand Canyon is gorgeous, I love living in a wooded area, the NYC skyline magnificent and a tribute to the people who built it, but when you get close up, the stars will burn you to a crisp in a second, the woods I love require a degree of maintenance so the house stays clean, the Grand Canyon is a big hole in the ground with some water at the bottom that will get you all muddy if you step in it and the NYC skyline is just a bit too far from the ground to see the rats feasting on the garbage strewn in the streets.

No place is perfect. They all have their pros and cons.

The cynic has spoken.

The skyline is but the ornament on the cake! The richness of it's batter has yielded a magnificence of tastes. Layer upon layer of rewards for the palate.

There is no correctness to what one prefers but my post spoke to what I quoted and it's a bit inane of the author to assume that all what to move to far off areas. In fact, if this were true, the far off areas would be expensive rather than an urban area like NYC.

I knows tons of folks that moved to the furthest suburbs, all did it because they could not afford the same in the city or closer suburbs.

Nothing cynical about a preference. Mine nor yours.

[SCAudiophile]

This is one of those great threads that borders on benifitting from this...harkens back to college daze having those "deep" conversations...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9splyD35cII
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9splyD35cII

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

+1 on this....Universal Basic Income is a nifty idea but someone has to pay or it....then there is medical care for all affected people....at least in the US the system has been corrupted by insurance and pharma/med-equipment suppliers, etc...other countries are much further along...

In short, we have been and will continue to replace humans in jobs where we are not yet ready to give them real and useful alternatives IMHO or truly support their transition and a new productive life...obvious risks for society here. Makes what happened in the steel towns and garment towns in the 70s and 80s (drugs, lots of crime, etc...) in the US look tame due to the much larger scale.


This is a great and very thought-provoking thread.

Yep. This is why the NFL, MLB, NASCAR, etc., are all so important. Gotta give the masses something to do, even if it is identifying with, watching, arguing, fighting over something as useless and ephemeral as sports (not to neglect the good sports does for one if played at a moderate level). Not new. Remember the gladiators.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by SCAudiophile

+1 on this....Universal Basic Income is a nifty idea but someone has to pay or it....then there is medical care for all affected people....at least in the US the system has been corrupted by insurance and pharma/med-equipment suppliers, etc...other countries are much further along...

In short, we have been and will continue to replace humans in jobs where we are not yet ready to give them real and useful alternatives IMHO or truly support their transition and a new productive life...obvious risks for society here. Makes what happened in the steel towns and garment towns in the 70s and 80s (drugs, lots of crime, etc...) in the US look tame due to the much larger scale.


This is a great and very thought-provoking thread.

I think we can pretty much forget about a Universal Basic Income idea under our current structure. We are talking about global financial collapse and end of lifestyle as we know it if this proves to be true. No government on this planet can sustain its population if hardly anyone is working. Therefore I have doubts as to how all of this will play out.

Let's hypothetically say "technology/AI/robots" are readily available, feasible and implementable to carry out tasks of all kinds that replace human labor for better efficiency and profits for businesses. In no time, masses will be unemployed looking for government hand outs or that Universal Basic Income... What will that mean? Surely UBI will not be enough to sustain a house in the burbs and a Mercedes in the driveway... Will it be enough to buy any of those products that those robot implementing businesses are offering? Will that cook that was replaced by a food prepping robot be able to walk back into that restaurant that replaced him and buy a meal on a consistent basis or will UBI be barely enough to get a bowl of rice??? All very interesting questions...

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

Yep. This is why the NFL, MLB, NASCAR, etc., are all so important. Gotta give the masses something to do, even if it is identifying with, watching, arguing, fighting over something as useless and ephemeral as sports (not to neglect the good sports does for one if played at a moderate level). Not new. Remember the gladiators.

One must assume the Universal Basic Income will be enough to buy tickets to these venues... I doubt very much there will be contracts in the millions for the athletes at that point as well and perhaps not much incentive to even put the effort into being an athlete. That's right Gladiators. History tells us gladiators were a distraction from all the problems the Roman Empire was facing at that point. History does have a tendency to repeat itself.

Escapism and Distraction https://localinternetmarketinggroup....-roman-empire/

[PHC1]

Humanity was dealt a decisive blow by a poker-playing artificial intelligence program called Polaris during the Man-Machine Poker Competition in Las Vegas.
The key to Polaris' poker prowess last weekend was a tactical shift in midstream designed to prevent human's from exploiting perceived weaknesses. Add to that, Polaris learned from experience.
"There are two really big changes in Polaris over last year," said professor Michael Bowling, who supervised graduate students who programmed Polaris. "First of all, our poker model is much expanded over last year--its much harder for humans to exploit weaknesses. And secondly, we have added an element of learning, where Polaris identifies which common poker strategy a human is using and switches its own strategy to counter. This complicated the human players ability to compare notes, since Polaris chose a different strategy to use against each of the humans it played. That was in 2008.

Fast forward to 2017.

"The best AI’s ability to do strategic reasoning with imperfect information has now surpassed that of the best humans,”

Libratus, an artificial intelligence developed by Carnegie Mellon University, made history by defeating four of the world’s best professional poker players in a marathon 20-day poker competition, called “Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence: Upping the Ante” at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.

In a nutshell, Libratus played TRILLIONS of games against itself, in the process analyzing statistics and developing betting strategies. Oh, it also learned how to bluff... How can we trust AI that learns to lie???

This new milestone in artificial intelligence has implications for any realm in which information is incomplete and opponents sow misinformation, said Frank Pfenning, head of the Computer Science Department in CMU’s School of Computer Science. Business negotiation, military strategy, cybersecurity and medical treatment planning could all benefit from automated decision-making using a Libratus-like AI.

https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/arc...oker-pros.html

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by PHC1

......

Libratus, an artificial intelligence developed by Carnegie Mellon University, made history by defeating four of the world’s best professional poker players in a marathon 20-day poker competition, called “Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence: Upping the Ante” at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.


This new milestone in artificial intelligence has implications for any realm in which information is incomplete and opponents sow misinformation, said Frank Pfenning, head of the Computer Science Department in CMU’s School of Computer Science. Business negotiation, military strategy, cybersecurity and medical treatment planning could all benefit from automated decision-making using a Libratus-like AI.

https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/arc...oker-pros.html

A good book on the vagaries and biases in human decision making is "The Undoing Project" by Michael Lewis (MoneyBall, The Big Short, etc.).