Are you concerned that your job may be displaced by artificial intelligence?

[ChrissyRyan]

Are you concerned that your job may be displaced by artificial intelligence?

Computers and robots have caused some jobs to go away.  Do you think that advanced  artificial intelligence will cause your job to go away?

Clerical, cashier, and bank teller jobs seem to be at risk of not being needed as much.

[Northern Star Girl]

Are you concerned that your job may be displaced by artificial intelligence?
    - - - - -
      {snipped}
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For my business, my answer is a resounding NO

For many years there have been various websites that offer "some" of the same advice
and tasks that I can offer....
          HOWEVER
My clients want a personal and private face to face meeting to discuss
their financial plans and tax issues.

[MaryT]

I'm retired now.  I've done a few jobs but analysis and programming were the main ones.  I would like to think that because AI was initially designed by software engineers, some software engineering and analysis/programming jobs are safe.  However, AI is already self-evolving and there is no reason why it can't be self-programming.

I think that all jobs are potentially replacable by intelligent computers and robots.  When that happens, will human beings really have any material purpose?  I think that we should focus on becoming really affectionate pets.  Scratch that, robots will undoubtably do even that better than we can.  Anyway, I don't want to compete with real doggies and pussycats.  AI will probably treat them better.

Consciousness itself is still something of a mystery.  Occasionally, a scientist or even amateur claims to have solved the mystery but never so far in a way that it makes sense to other scientists.  We aren't even sure what consciousness is for, as we now know that we make all our decisions several seconds before we are aware of it, even though we have the illusion that consciousness precedes decision-making.  For whatever consciousness is worth, though, I think that it could be achieved by AI.

Now Microsoft has announced its topological conductor and Majorana 1 chip, making practical quantum computers potentially available within yesrs.  In effect, an infinite number of computers in an infinite number of universes will be working in harmony to solve the same problem.  It is not within human or even current AI capacity to conceive what differences that will make to our world.

[MaryT]

For my business, my answer is a resounding NO

For many years there have been various websites that offer "some" of the same advice
and tasks that I can offer....
          HOWEVER
My clients want a personal and private face to face meeting to discuss
their financial plans and tax issues.

That's great but that's what they want now.  If, hypothetically of course, AI offered the same advice at almost no cost, would it have no impact on your business as you currently practice it?

Still, I have no doubt that in the foreseeable future, you would be able to adapt to any such changes.

[ChrissyRyan]

There are investment management systems which are "AI driven."   Wealth management is personal though.

However, good salespeople may be hard to replace by computers, for the time being, plus other jobs for which people want to interact with a human.

These jobs too make be safe for now:  Physicians, Psychologists, health care workers, fire fighters, police, personal trainers, veterinarians, child care workers, tradespeople, clergy, jobs that require complex problem solving creativity, leadership, and other specialized skills.  Others can be added to this list.

However remember that workers in many of these jobs may use AI to help them.  Times and jobs and technology change.  Some jobs will become obsolete for one reason or another.

[MaryT]

There are investment management systems which are "AI driven."   Wealth management is personal though.

However, good salespeople may be hard to replace by computers, for the time being, plus other jobs for which people want to interact with a human.

These jobs too make be safe for now:  Physicians, Psychologists, health care workers, fire fighters, police, personal trainers, veterinarians, child care workers, tradespeople, clergy, jobs that require complex problem solving creativity, leadership, and other specialized skills.  Others can be added to this list.

However remember that workers in many of these jobs may use AI to help them.  Times and jobs and technology change.  Some jobs will become obsolete for one reason or another.

What that means is that people need other sympathetic and empathetic people for their happiness and wellbeing.  However, that need can be satisfied even if those people have no great expertise in a particular field.  For instance, a friendly receptionist plus AI might conceivably do a job as well as a medical doctor using the same AI, if the AI can perform better than the doctor's personal judgment.

[MaryT]

What that means is that people need other sympathetic and empathetic people for their happiness and wellbeing.  However, that need can be satisfied even if those people have no great expertise in a particular field.  For instance, a friendly receptionist plus AI might conceivably do a job as well as a medical doctor using the same AI, if the AI can perform better than the doctor's personal judgment.

Of course, that might mean that people will lose the need for intelligence.  Have you seen the movie Idiocracy?

More likely is that some humans will choose to become cybernetic with implanted quantum computers.  If so, the biological aspect of humanity might fade away altogether.

[ChrissyRyan]

I need and desire warm, sympathetic, empathetic, caring, kind, smart, intelligent, and appropriately trained and experienced people.

I do not want a highway engineer with a highly trained generative AI expert system constructing my lower area from male to female, doing brain surgery on me, or even putting in a central line.

I want the properly trained expert physician doing all of that.

Could others do some of that?  Perhaps in a paraphysician way, assisting and supervised. 

I want the real expert.

Chrissy

[Lori Dee]

If I could find an AI that can locate gold deposits, go into the frozen creek, extract it, and give it to me without demanding a cut, I think I would invest.

My mining buddy and I have many times discussed our age and the amount of labor needed for such a small reward. So far, our best solution is to hire a couple of young studs to dig the gold shirtless for us while we sit in the shade sipping iced tea. But humans are greedy and can't be trusted, so we made a pact long ago that neither of us would reveal our location without the other's knowledge and consent.

We have yet to reach a consensus, so no one knows but us two. 

[ChrissyRyan]

If I could find an AI that can locate gold deposits, go into the frozen creek, extract it, and give it to me without demanding a cut, I think I would invest.

My mining buddy and I have many times discussed our age and the amount of labor needed for such a small reward. So far, our best solution is to hire a couple of young studs to dig the gold shirtless for us while we sit in the shade sipping iced tea. But humans are greedy and can't be trusted, so we made a pact long ago that neither of us would reveal our location without the other's knowledge and consent.

We have yet to reach a consensus, so no one knows but us two. 

Wise.  Except I would prefer the shirtless women to dig.  Except I would not want any to be the "other kind of gold digger."  I want them to just dig for real gold, in the river or wherever.

[Sephirah]

Some jobs, I think it's inevitable. Because AI is advancing faster than we can control it. We've had like a hundred years of sci-fi writers' warnings yet decided to not only poke the bear, but ride butt naked on the back of it, whispering sweet nothings in its ear and gently massaging its fur. It already knows how to lie, it already has learned enough to be as competent as a drug addled young adult. And we're only doubling down on it.

I forget who said this... maybe I just made it up... but "God created humanity... humanity rejected God... humanity became arrogant... humanity created God."

Even toasters these days have AI in them.

[MaryT]

As people seem to need to be entertained by real people, professional entertainers and athletes could survive. 

But how could all the unemployed people afford to watch them?

AI might also need human receptionists if its owner needs human clients. 

As long as AI is never allowed to develop to the point where it serves itself. However, it would only take one rogue software engineer to sabotage that.

I think that AI could be the doom of capitalism.  For people to be sure of employment even when they are not really needed, some form of socialism might be necessary.  It might even be necessary if people are going to live lives of leisure while AI robots do all the work.

When I was young, pundits predicted that technology would lead to society having more leisure time.  As it turned out, that was only true in the sense that technology caused some people to become redundant and live off social security while others continued to work full time.  Capitalists don't like to support people who are of no use to them.

Soon, Microsoft's innovations will give us AI powered by quantum computers.  Any computable problem will be solved instantly by the equivalent of an infinite number of computers working together in an infinite number of universes.  The most complicated codes currently used could instantly be cracked by brute force algorithms.  (One way or another, China will, ahem, obtain the technology and develop it more cheaply, more efficiently and probably more quickly than Microsoft can.  Perhaps if we all have AI translators, though, we won't all have to learn Chinese.)   

If humans want to have a reason to exist, they will have to act quickly.  Then again, if humans have to deliberately limit AI in order to have a reason to exist, does it still count as a reason to exist?

Who cares.  I still want to exist, even if I am of no earthly or heavenly use.

I can think of another profession that many people might think is carried on better by humans.  I find it interesting to contemplate that the world's oldest profession might also be its last profession.


   

[Lori Dee]

AI is computer-based, so it will require circuit engineers, software programmers, and hardware technicians, all of whom will need tools and parts. Not to mention food and shelter. Since they won't work for free, there will be a currency system of some sort. Maybe credits in exchange for hours worked. It could be a slave labor society where the State provides everything and labor is demanded in exchange.

@MaryT  some of your comments remind me of scenes from the movies Idiocracy and Wall-E. 

[Sephirah]

I can think of another profession that many people might think is carried on better by humans.  I find it interesting to contemplate that the world's oldest profession might also be its last profession.

I wouldn't be so sure...

AI is computer-based, so it will require circuit engineers, software programmers, and hardware technicians, all of whom will need tools and parts.

Until it becomes self sustaining, then we really will have Skynet.

[MaryT]

AI is computer-based, so it will require circuit engineers, software programmers, and hardware technicians, all of whom will need tools and parts. Not to mention food and shelter. Since they won't work for free, there will be a currency system of some sort. Maybe credits in exchange for hours worked. It could be a slave labor society where the State provides everything and labor is demanded in exchange.

@MaryT  some of your comments remind me of scenes from the movies Idiocracy and Wall-E. 

Currently, workers in the AI industry are at the front of the technological revolution.  However, if AI were encouraged or even allowed to grow, it would certainly pass the point at which it could do a better job than any human AI engineer.  Maintenance and construction could conceivably carried out by robots.  Like Sephirah said:

Until it becomes self sustaining, then we really will have Skynet.

I can't remember seeing Wall-E but I have seen Idiocracy.  It is about a world in which intelligence stopped being a Darwinian advantage.  I think that is very relevant.

[Lori Dee]

I can't remember seeing Wall-E but I have seen Idiocracy.  It is about a world in which intelligence stopped being a Darwinian advantage.  I think that is very relevant.

Wall-E is an animated movie about a robot trash collector. There are scenes where humans do nothing except eat. They float around on chairs so they don't need to walk, and of course, they all weigh over 300 lbs.  Like in Idiocracy, this lifestyle has been in place for so long, that humans have forgotten how to do anything for themselves. Robots and AI do everything.

[MaryT]

I wouldn't be so sure...



...

Good point.

[MaryT]

Wall-E is an animated movie about a robot trash collector. There are scenes where humans do nothing except eat. They float around on chairs so they don't need to walk, and of course, they all weigh over 300 lbs.  Like in Idiocracy, this lifestyle has been in place for so long, that humans have forgotten how to do anything for themselves. Robots and AI do everything.

I think that I saw part of it.  I shall make a point of watching the whole movie next time it is screened.

[Lori Dee]

I think that I saw part of it.  I shall make a point of watching the whole movie next time it is screened.

It is a cute love story about the two robots.