Kurzweil: Technology is not going to steal your job

Posted on Monday, September 25 2017 @ 13:25 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
These days a lot of people are concerned that the ongoing trends in the field of automation and artificial intelligence will make a lot of current jobs redundant. Humanity has been through this process in the past, before the industrial revolution farmers accounted for about 90 of the labor force but these days farmers make up a small single-digit figure. Machines have made a lot of farmers redundant and nowadays a lot of people are sitting in offices all day long doing God knows what.

The big worry this time is that there may be no new jobs to replace the ones that are eliminated by new technology. For example, we can look at self-driving car technology and predict that sometime in our lifetime, this technology will put millions of truck drivers, cab drivers and delivery men out of work. Famous futurist Ray Kurzweil, who joined Google in 2012, offers some more nuance and believes AI will do far more good than harm.

Kurzweil argues that for every job that gets eliminated, more jobs will be created at the top of the skill ladder. But he admits the situation creates a difficult political issue because as of right now nobody knows what those new jobs will be, because they don't exist yet:
How will artificial intelligence and other technologies impact jobs?
We have already eliminated all jobs several times in human history. How many jobs circa 1900 exist today? If I were a prescient futurist in 1900, I would say, “Okay, 38% of you work on farms; 25% of you work in factories. That’s two-thirds of the population. I predict that by the year 2015, that will be 2% on farms and 9% in factories.” And everybody would go, “Oh, my God, we’re going to be out of work.” I would say, “Well, don’t worry, for every job we eliminate, we’re going to create more jobs at the top of the skill ladder.” And people would say, “What new jobs?” And I’d say, “Well, I don’t know. We haven’t invented them yet.”

That continues to be the case, and it creates a difficult political issue because you can look at people driving cars and trucks, and you can be pretty confident those jobs will go away. And you can’t describe the new jobs, because they’re in industries and concepts that don’t exist yet.
You can read more about his views at Fortune.

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About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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