I know the title is a bit gloomy, but believe me, things are going into that direction. I don't know if you read about the first robot who got an official identity, Sophia. Sophia is now an official citizen of Saudi Arabia.
There's a lot of PR in this, there's a lot of lateral information in all the AI and robot news (meaning it's a hot topic and media outlets are trying to sell themselves with hot topics, so what else is new, right?) but the truth is that a harsh is reality coming closer and closer to us.
We're on the verge of a huge disruption. Industrial revolution created the assembly line, information revolution created the connected human hive (also knows as the Internet), the robots revolution will create a world in which tedious, repetitive tasks will be handled by pre-programmed machines. It's all good but, hey, most of what we call jobs nowadays are consisting of tedious, repetitive tasks. I'm not talking about "wedges" factories. I'm talking about jobs like customer support, flight search and checking, online groceries shopping and so on.
It's a bit frightening if you take 5 minutes off and start to write down all the tasks that can be automated in your life. You'll be left with a very small number of "human-only", "irreplaceable" activities.
The Key Word: Unpredictability
While I did this exercise, I realized a surprising detail: all the jobs that cannot be handled over to robots are actually unpredictable tasks. AI, and robots, are based on average results calculated on a huge universe of input data. If they see that 1000 questions got the same response 800 times, they will give a higher chance of accuracy to that answer broadcasted 800 times. So AI is based on "initial data".
That finding was a bit of a relief, to be honest. I'm not afraid for myself, I think I could do relatively well in a world full of robots, but it's not only about me. As you get older, you realize the importance of a healthy social circle. It's not enough that you're ok, in your own little bubble. It's important that you have healthy social interactions outside your bubble too.
And if this "outside" is turned upside down by a big disruption, you'll feel quite lonely.
So, what exactly can we do, as humans, to survive this revolution?
The short answer: whatever is unpredictable. Whatever cannot be formalized into mathematical structures. Whatever strange, ineffable and unexplainable stuff we can come up with.
Tango teaching.
Sculpting. Especially Picasso-like stuff.
Anything that involves one-to-one counseling, as humans will always be able to understand other humans beyond the standard answers provided by an AI software.
Psychology. Dance therapy. Professional traveler consultants. Singing.
And, probably, why not, Highly Unpredictable Bloggers.
originally published at http://dragosroua.com
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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A chilling article. We are now experiencing the first wave of the AI paradigm shift. Have you read any of Ray Kurzweil's works? I recommend looking into it as futurology and AI are topics he is most passionate about.
I know Kurzweil for quite some time. Yes, his articles are always thought provoking.
Great, I imagined you would be familiar with him :)
The future for humans is in servicing, repairing and cleaning up after robots. They won't be perfect most of the time, so the more of them there are, the more mess they will make (at least in the short to medium term) so the more they will need looking after.
Once they become self-aware and self managing, then we will truly have no use. We will have created our replacements, and so, we will be replaced.
But All of us now will be long dead by then.
I think the secret to surviving in this world is, as Dragos says, doing things robots can't, like content creation, and like it or not, becoming a cleaner of robots.
such a big topic this and one we need to be more aware of. what do we humans do, what jobs can't robots do, who will re-tool and re-skill, it's certainly going be a hell of a roadblock and crash when all these things come together at once and i think they are gonna be fast too.
This one is good. I am really afraid that in time AI will evolve so much that it will be able to perform even the unpredictable task that are now ony assigned to humans...
The unpredictibility is the key, however, not a lot of people are high in creativity and doing things that automated machines cannot mimic.
Drivers are one of the most common employers in modern society, and with an explosion of TESLA and huge reducibility in the number of accidents by introducing driver-free vehicles is going to be a threat to these people who probably won't know what to do, or have an alternative either.
I would like your opinion on what should people who don't have the capacity to engage in unprodictable work do?
Adapt or die. It's not an opinion, it's just how life works.
There was a very well paid job once, lamplighter. More than 100 years ago. The job itself disappeared but lamplighers adjusted.
I've been saying much the same thing for some time now if in slightly different words.
the time will come...REAL SOON NOW...when all jobs that do not require innovation will be automated
In other words... creativity.
I also don't think we're likely to see human level AI anytime soon, if ever. I don't think it's possible. If it IS possible it's a HARD problem.
Its crazy, I was reading about the citizen ship the other day.
I have watched a few videos and she seems very smart!
I think we're going to see them more often from now on. They will evolve way faster than humans. We need at least 20 years to create new iterations of ourselves, they can iterate probably every few years. Or months. Or weeks.
Ahah funny title
Well she is kind of cute and I dont agree with citizenship anyway so doesn't bother me :))
Yes. Cute she is. Scary that is, too.
I don't care if the AIs are able to do all the things better than a human, I'm still going to keep writing and drawing ;D
That's the spirit!
This is what people like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are trying to say. We need to be cautious not soon but from this very moment.
AI is nothing without the data that humans generate, so it all depends on what data we, humans, feed to AI. If we feed good data, AI will help us in the long run, otherwise an apocalypse is near.
The only way is to stay human and be symphasizing to each other
A.I . is going to leave everyone behind hehe