New Economic Thinking
Artificial intelligence promises to make our lives easier. But is the cost losing some of our humanity?
University of Virginia economist Anton Korinek talks about the implications of artificial intelligence for business, the economy, and the future of work.
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We don't have autonomy anyway, just middlemen.
IF facebook gets its way with Libra, then what interest rates apply to us, and what loans we get, also determined by AI. Welcome to "SOCIAL CREDIT": Credit card companies following you around with facial recognition, monitoring your social comments; Welcome to China.
Software has complete autonomy from Law. When was the last time TORT law applied to Software? Ever had a mobile phone with horrendous OS? (Even you pay $500 for Symbian OS phones that don't work reliably still NO TORT LIABILITY). PLanes crash due to S/W bug? No TORT LIABILITY. Data leaks due to S/W bug, NO TORT LIABILITY. The corporation just explains: "Oh it's a software bug, don't worry" NO TORT LIABILITY. How long this can go on?
This presentation is so completely dishonest and misleading it is not funny. At the beginning, Korinek makes the absurd argument that with AI, the economy has shifted to less physical labor intensive fields. Furthermore, He states that there is less of a need for brute physical strength. A complete lie, and completely misleading. He uses examples from the USA and France, neglecting for example to use one of the best examples in Europe, and that is Germany which has a considerable amount of physical and highly skilled labor. France on the other hand has become such a Social Democracy, that the incredible benefits and the government hiring/firing practices have actually depressed the ability of French companies from hiring people because it is so difficult to get rid of them.
The same thing has happened with Black Americans in the USA. Because Black Americans represent 13% of the American Population, and the constant charges of Racism any time a Black American feels disrespected, this has actually put a damper on the hiring of Black Americans because of fears if they do not work out, the company will be sued.
Also, Korinek CONVENIENTLY leaves out the reality that the USA has anywhere from 11 million to 22 million ILLEGALS in the USA, in addition to one of the most aggressive HB1 Foreign worker programs in the world, and it is now attacking the very bastions of "high demand jobs" which pay good money.
Korinek seems to live in His own ivory tower. The world, and the USA economy does not work the way He says it does.
As a matter of fact, it works just the opposite. There is still an incredible demand for low skilled labor in the USA. The Problem is that ILLEGALS have taken those jobs with the BLESSING of the Federal and State Governments.
While it is true as economies mature, there is a comparable DECREASE in low skilled jobs. The problem is with the definition of what is "low skilled." IRONICALLY, Korinek doesn't say. The reality is that many jobs that are designated as "low skilled" are really rather high skilled in the sense that they require experience and skill to perform. And some jobs that are designated "high skills" really are not all that high skilled, being protected by Unions and government mandated special licensing requirements.
I remember when there were no such things as Computers. Typewriters and adding machines were all we had. All records were kept on paper in file cabinets. We didn't melt. Computers allowed us to become more productive, and slightly more efficient, but not dramatically so. Today, what computers actually do is to reduce labor and inventory costs which allows us to lower the price. That is about all in normal industry. In the White Collar world, it has allowed us to reduce staffing and make individual workers more productive, but contrary to the goofy comments made by Korinek, Ai will not put people out of work.
It appears that Korinek has never had a real job nor managed personnel nor been responsible for a company, dept or division.
Almost all of the problems that the USA faces today are POLITICAL. Issues of lack of personnel are based on the fact that GOVERNMENT has gotten together with INDUSTRY to give special benefits and policies TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE AVERAGE WORKER.
The decline of real world growth in wages for the average "unskilled worker" in the USA that Korinek refers to is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to the POLICIES of the American Government. It has NOTHING to do with economics and SUPPLY and DEMAND.
I was there, for example when NAFTA was initiated. The government WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY wrote off various manufacturing jobs with the hope they would be able to sell more high tech products oversees. This was a GOVERNMENT decision.
The GOVERNMENT KNOWINGLY UNDERMINES low skilled entry level jobs and gives them to illegal aliens for POLITICAL REASONS. Again NOTHING to do with SUPPLY and DEMAND.
Complete Bullshit. Unlike this economics professor, I actually have real world experience.
We are AI in our best capabilities. People are trying to make AI an evil, scapegoating it. AI is us. We are responsible and it's done in our image. This is an extention of ourselves. We will have to learn to praise the new god that is hidding behind AI. Ourselves. We are enfatuated with ourselves and so we have began to praise us.
Get the Yang into office
Capitalism and critiques of it aside, any market economy will face the challenges discussed during his presentation: that goods where the use of the good (such as information technology) are tied to the intrinsic value of the good, there is a tendency to form monopolies which aren't broken by "market forces". So for example, something like Instagram or Twitter, in which their principal asset isn't how they do what they do, but that they are the platform hosting the most active users for that thing. Tack onto this the troubling evolution of patent law for tech monopolies, and you start seeing what we have now which is a technocratic economy where the focus of the technologies are not to burgeon societal development, but to lock society into using specific technologies so that wealth can be concentrated into the hands of the few. I have hope that at some point in the future ISPs, Google, Facebook/Twitter, etc will all be nationalized
that facebook had anything to do with affecting the outcome of the election is a lie and laughable deep state op. that was a bs dem hoax to make killary feel better about loosing and to attack the winner. it is sad that this meme is present in the minds of seemingly smart people as a truth. wow.. so sad.