OFC 13 May 2020: Robots
OFC Meetings --> here
ROBOTS
Since the invention of power looms in the 18th Century, people have been losing their jobs to automation and complaining bitterly about it. In the 21st Century the machines have been taught to behave "intelligently" and the new boogeyman is the robot that can not only clean your house and build your car but also drive your car — probably better than you can. So-called "AI"s have been taught to learn like a child, and as a result are now able to play Go better than any human, as well as create original poetry, music and art. Philosophers are already locked in debate over whether such simulations of human creativity are real creativity and whether a machine can be conscious (whatever that means).
Today a huge number of people have lost their jobs — usually because those jobs, by their very nature, make physical distancing difficult or impossible, and so have been shut down. Many such jobs could be done by robots, and perhaps should be done by robots, if they would do them at least as well and more economically.
But that would put people out of work! Well, they already are out of work.
But they would lose their income! Well, their income is presently being supplemented by what amounts to a Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI).
This situation is meant to be temporary, but what if it became permanent? What if the people who were doing jobs that would be better done by robots had a chance to train for better jobs while the robots took over their old ones? If the robots really did them better, “productivity” would go up and the government would collect more taxes to continue the GMI.
-- Jess
