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#21
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#22
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I hope they will also be able to wave the device over the patient's face to cure them like in Star Trek. |
#23
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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. Last edited by GaryProtein; 10-08-2017 at 01:39 PM. |
#24
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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? Last edited by PHC1; 10-08-2017 at 02:00 PM. |
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#26
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Technology is replacing jobs. Are you ready?
An Oxford University study predicts that within 20 years, 47% of all the jobs will be at risk and replaced by technology. https://youtu.be/opdc8hQN0ew Last edited by PHC1; 10-08-2017 at 02:18 PM. |
#27
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Serge, you're right in certain aspects.
But we have seen technical evolutions before, each time with people telling us there would be massive unemployment. Yet, there have never been so much jobs as there are today. 2 centuries ago, more than 50% of the population was working in agriculture. Then the industrial revolution came, and that made employment shift towards factory jobs. Automation decimated the number of jobs in production and we saw another shift to jobs in services. What I do believe, just like you do, is that we'll see 2 levels of employment: the ones where you need very high skills, and then the 'simple' jobs (cleaning, maintenance, distribution). The jobs in between are rapidly disappearing (cf. banks, stores, ...). That might bring along (much) lower income taxes, as the middle class has always paid the highest amount of those (higher classes are often smart enough to 'avoid' paying taxes...).
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#28
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That mankind has been inventing tools to help with tasks since the dawn of time is a given. Of course we have had industrial revolutions and technological progress and of course some people found themselves displaced out of jobs only to learn a different skill and keep working until of course that skill no longer became necessary due to automation or obsolescence. We have even came up with terms describing the fear of technological unemployment such as "Luddite Fallacy". I think many are starting to realize, this is not the "Boy who cried Wolf" scenario anymore. Difference being that it is not only certain sectors are being affected by technological progress. Today cannot be compared to yesterday as we put the horses in the stables to drive our cars instead of wagons. This is not "some" robots replacing some of the assembly line workers. This is AI. AI that will replace not only the need for physical, repetitive tasks but replace the human mind in the workforce. That my friend is a totally different scenario. AI is the self driving car, taxi, truck, boat, airplane, replacing all those transportation careers. AI is the 3D printer creating a road or a bridge. You don't need 100 construction workers standing around with shovels as the 3D printers builds a bridge or a road or even a whole house in the future. AI is a computer program that replaced 350,000 billable attorney hours at JPMorgan. At JPMorgan, a learning machine is parsing financial deals that once kept legal teams busy for thousands of hours.The program, called COIN, for Contract Intelligence, does the mind-numbing job of interpreting commercial-loan agreements that, until the project went online in June, consumed 360,000 hours of lawyers’ time annually. The software reviews documents in seconds, is less error-prone and never asks for vacation. AI is the computer that beat the best veteran fighter pilot in a simulation. Shooting him out of the sky in a blink of an eye repeatedly. AI is machines communicating and negotiating with each other and coming up with a language of their own that is not human... AI is the computer that will read diagnostic images of a patient replacing a radiologist. AI is the robotic surgical station that will one day perform surgery much faster and more accurately than any human surgeon can. The examples are numerous. The attack will be real and on all fronts at once. There may not be enough time to retrain and reeducate all people displaced. Barack Obama warned Congress that robots will take over jobs that pay less than $20 an hour. Elon Musk and others are convinced that "Universal Basic Income" will be a necessity as people are replaced out of the workforce. I doubt we can be overly optimistic about the future of the workplace with the threat of machines and AI exponentially rising in computing power daily. Last edited by PHC1; 10-08-2017 at 03:25 PM. |
#29
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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...
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Stereo: Hegel H590, Grimm Audio MU1, Mola Mola Tambaqui, Burmester 948 - V3 & V6 racks, Vivid Audio G2 Giyas, REL Carbon Special (pair), Silent Angel Bonn N8 Ethernet Switch & Forester F1, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse IC and SE SC, Furutech Digiflux AV: Hegel C-53, Marantz AV8802A, Oppo BDP-203EU, Pioneer Kuro 60", Vivid Audio C1 & V1w's, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse, SE & E Second system (veranda): Halgorythme preamp and monoblocks, Burmester 061, Avalon Avatar, Sharkwire & Wireworld cables |
#30
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I guess the only good bet is to be right at the heart of all things AI related.
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