#8 More comments from Quora: Will AI destroy more jobs than it creates?

Yeah.  I'm not sure it's happening at breakneck speeds right now, but sometime in the next generation it will.  The moment a multi-purpose robot is created that can do most of what humans can physically do, we're in for a lot of trouble.

There just aren't nor will there ever be enough "thinking" or "humans only" jobs out there to occupy the previously displaced individuals.  It's the worst kept secret in recent history that somehow human labor will remain viable for much longer.  One of my key clients has the world "Automation" in its very name and I place about 12 people there a year.  Some are embedded systems developers, some are automation experts.  Every one of them acknowledges that they are literally inventing themselves out of jobs.

I placed an older man (developer) six months ago who said, "We're *this close* to having computers that can do all their own programming themselves.  There may still be human needs to teach them things, but those are small numbers of really high-end jobs.  Most developers will be gone by the mid 20's.  The machines we're making will self-service, self-repair and run with 1/10 as many humans as they do now.

Companies like Walmart and Amazon are already desperately looking to replace their truck loaders.  Most shipping companies (like the former Walmart arm, McClane) will jump at the first self-driving truck that demonstrates a less-than-human average error rate.  This says nothing about a "no error" error rate. 

These things aren't scifi ideas on the horizon.  They are being made right now and all that remains for several are to convince legislatures to begin licensing them.

No, it isn't. It's creating at least as many jobs as it's eliminating. The problem is it's eliminating jobs that don't require much in the way of education, intelligence, or talent and creating ones that require a high level of at least one of those things. Unfortunately, about half of everybody is never going to be able to do those new jobs.

Yes, jobs are disappearing faster than they are being created.  This trend will only increase as technological advances accelerate and compound.

This trend will create rising wealth inequality and social instability which we are already observing today.  Too many people, not enough well paying jobs.  Robots / computer assisted humans produce goods and services cheaper / more efficiently than humans alone.  In a capitalist system robots will win as the companies using technology will dominate in the marketplace as only the most profitable companies survive and grow.  The world's capital is flowing towards automation and away from investing in human labor simply because automation has a better ROI.  This is the tipping point economically speaking.  The point of no return.

In an engineering / technology business sense means you do not have to replace the worker with technology.  You simply have to make the worker more productive with technology, using less workers in total while increasing economic production.  The robot / computer / software works cooperatively with the worker.  So in the end where there used to be 1M jobs, it reduces to 800k then to 500k then to 250k etc ...  over time as technology advances.  All the while the production of goods and services is rising with lower costs.  When economic growth requires less people and jobs year after year you have an insurmountable problem.

This is happening at the present time.  This is why we have a "jobless" recovery.  No one wants to acknowledge the reason why.  The trend of technology replacing virtually every worker destroys the model of capitalism.  Capitalism assumes that economic production chiefly employees people not machines.  Workers derive personal wealth from employment.  When the majority of goods and services are produced by machines without human labor then the capitalist model falls completely apart.

Technology is a chief driver of growing wealth inequality in the USA and the world.  This has created a rich class of owners (the 5% that make and own the technology along with the minority that they employ) and an increasingly poorer class of workers scrambling for an ever decreasing number of low paying service jobs.

In Silicon Valley there is an elite relatively small economic class of ordinary citizens with a large amount of wealth derived solely from automation (also known as productivity technology / disruptive change which is tech speak for doing more output with less workers).

As for the argument that productivity technology only impacts low paying jobs is false.  Automation is first geared precisely towards high paying, high value jobs.  That is where the money and profits reside for automation.  Bill Gates is still the richest person in the world in part because he automated high paid office work with Microsoft office and email.  Yes CPAs, business and finance people use excel as their primary language.  What would take a CPA in the 1960's a month to do can be done in an hour today.  Most financial software automates jobs that accountants performed.

In fact venture capital and invested corporate capital deliberately targets those jobs / industries with the highest costs.  It will likely take a 100 years to maybe 200 years to completely replace most jobs with technology.   It may never fully complete perhaps leaving 1% or 10% of the population having to perform needed tasks (not work per se, not employment per se because these concepts may cease to exist in the post capitalist economic model).

Despite the claims to the contrary it is different this time.  We are not talking about horses, trains, assembly lines, etc ... We are talking about intelligent robots with advanced technology that learn quickly without limit in the end.  Robots are general purpose and will do any job better and faster as time marches on.  Most human work can be automated with certainty given enough time.  As new jobs are created they will be automated in short order as the training process only happens once for all robots.  Unlike humans which have to be individually trained in costly manner, training one robot is effectively training all robots for all of time.  Humans are inefficient in comparison, they die taking most if not all of their knowledge with them.

The future role for money, taxes and traditional jobs may likely not exist as we know it today.  These concepts are predicated on an economic system that will no longer likely exist.

The transition to a jobless economy where only a small number of robot designers are gainfully employed could be extremely problematic.  Rising wealth inequality might be inevitable unless we abandon our 19th century economic concepts and move into the 22nd century economy.

Equal number of new jobs will not be created. In fact, there will be very little job to be done. Don't be scared by this, it is a good thing.

AI that you see today uses Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI). This helps you to do specific set of tasks only. This has opened a whole new set of opportunities for people to work with.

In the near future, it is hoped that Artificial general intelligence (AGI) develops. This is related to human intelligence. This is also very good. Complex hard labor jobs like farming without using pesticides can be easily made a reality. This will surely put many people out of work. But, hey,  the price of commodities can go seriously low once AI is properly automated. Maybe the basic necessities of life will be available for free.

So, the number of people who will be jobless once AGI develops may not be equal to the number of jobs being created due to AGI. But, as I said, it will help humans to relax more and probably make basic necessities available for free.