Software Will Take Over The World

[eljr]

Originally Posted by BlueFox

So you are saying a few companies with AI and robotics will displace virtually all workers. Okay. Since AI and robotics are a one time fixed cost, then that means they will be incredibly profitable. Good for them. Just tax the Hades out of them to recover the cost of the unemployment they create. It's a win win for everyone. As someone who develops software to test software, I will be very happy to just enjoy my life without the work BS.

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[GaryProtein]

Originally Posted by James Tanner - Bryston

Really Thought Provoking

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

• Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world
• Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.
• Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
• In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.
• So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.
• Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
• Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's licence and will never own a car.
• It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.
• Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
• Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.
• Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
• Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.
• Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.
• Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can't last. Technology will take care of that strategy.
• With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.
• Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.
• 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.
• Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
• At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.
• In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.
• Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
• If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
• Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.
• Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.
• Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).
• There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you're in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they're telling the truth and when they're not
• Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency ... Of the world!
• Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.
• Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.

• Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries.

• There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English and that could happen within half a year.

I hope they will also be able to wave the device over the patient's face to cure them like in Star Trek.

[GaryProtein]

Originally Posted by eljr

A bit off subject but the idea that the further away you go (from a city/metro area, obviously implied) the more beautiful is ridiculous. . . .

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.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by BlueFox

So you are saying a few companies with AI and robotics will displace virtually all workers. Okay. Since AI and robotics are a one time fixed cost, then that means they will be incredibly profitable. Good for them. Just tax the Hades out of them to recover the cost of the unemployment they create. It's a win win for everyone. As someone who develops software to test software, I will be very happy to just enjoy my life without the work BS.

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Three 20 amp circuits.

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?

[PHC1]

Robotics and Job Displacement in the U.S.


https://youtu.be/SrwC_2smL8k

[PHC1]

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

[bart]

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...).

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by bart

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...).

Bart,
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.

[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...

[PHC1]

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...

I guess the only good bet is to be right at the heart of all things AI related.