China, the United States, Vietnam, South Korea, and Europe are rushing to replace human intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI). Recent magazine articles try to reassure readers that they need not fear being replaced by robots, but the evidence is far from conclusive.
An article in The Economist magazine (January 12, 2019) claimed China can cushion falling employment in export-related industries and its tech sector by increasing jobs in labor-intensive services "from restaurants to couriers." But the December 2018/January 2019 issue of the AARP magazine arrived with news that the vending machine business grew 26% in 2018. Sales went up once machines began accepting payments for beverages and snacks by processing credit cards and other cashless payments. The same magazine also touted the "Starship delivery robot," tested in 100 cities around the world, that uses cameras and sensors, not couriers, to avoid traffic by using sidewalks to deliver meals.
According to "The Truth about Robots," an article in TIME magazine (February 4-11, 2019), AI will not replace some jobs: creative jobs performed by inventors, scientists, novelists, artists; complex, strategic jobs of executives, diplomats, economists; and empathetic and compassionate jobs of teachers, nannies, and doctors. Considering there are a limited number of these positions, automation is making inroads into many of them, and others are low-paid, I am not reassured.
AI tells consumers, if you like that, you'll also like this. It suggests more things to buy but not more ways to make money to buy them. Unemployment raises the specter of modern Luddites, civil unrest, and fear of death by unmanned weapons attacking from land, sea, and space. Jobless, frightened humans are going to protest at home, to cause refugee disease and terrorist problems when they migrate to look for work elsewhere, and to prove vulnerable to scams.
Retraining the workforce seems a key path to the future. When executives in any field spot a new direction their business is going, trendwatching.com suggests they form alliances with academic institutions to help teachers train students for future opportunities. The 3M company, for example, created a free, 110-hour college course to help teachers prepare elementary and middle school students for a science competition that opened young eyes to future careers.
At the very least, countries need to focus on educating the public. Left to themselves, the untethered elite will go on blissfully making fortunes and inventing and doing things without considering the consequences as a helpless majority stands by. John Gray's critique of modern secular humanism identifies the mismatch between the human need for income-producing employment and technology's rush to replace human labor. In his new book, Seven Types of Atheism, he writes, "The cumulative increase of knowledge in science has no parallel in ethics or politics, philosophy or the arts."
There was a time when well-educated folks looked out at the world and decided they could help the sick with "Doctors without Borders" or field a Peace Corps to teach all sorts of skills. Dr. Lorna Hahn organized an association that brought together newly-independent countries with experts who knew how to do things like write constitutions.-
We are at a crossroads, where humanity needs the wisdom, for example, to use CRISPR-Cas9 technology to develop uniform crops machines can harvest to feed the human race, while refraining from using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to edit genes that can eliminate all or part of the human race. (Also see the earlier post, "The Where Did I Come From? Game.") We need experts with ideas about how to engage the billions of workers robots are rushing to replace.
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