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    indigo Offline OP
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    A.I. Expert Says Automation Could Replace 40% of Jobs in 15 Years
    by Don Reisinger
    Fortune
    January 10, 2019

    Originally Posted by article
    An artificial intelligence expert and venture capitalist predicts automation will cause major changes in the workforce.

    Speaking to CBS News’ Scott Pelley in an interview for 60 Minutes on Sunday, Kai Fu Lee said that he believes 40% of the world’s jobs will be replaced by robots capable of automating tasks.

    Considering that a 40% job loss to technology may result in rampant unemployment among the workforce, families may want to help their students develop a firm understanding of:
    - financial literacy (personal finance and budgeting),
    - lifestyle choices (needs vs wants),
    - prognosticating when choosing potential future careers
    ..(US Occupational Outlook Handbook here: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/).

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    I am still waiting for that paperless office that was supposed to be here 20 years ago and those shorter work hours.

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    I sort of agree with this prediction. I actually give it about 20 years. What inspired that thought was stories like this: Big Swing: Robot Sportswriter Outperforms Human. That's the kind of under-the-radar report that I've seen turn into disruption in the past. As much as I'd like it to be robots, the real disruption is a dozen programmers writing software that can do the job of thousands of people for a small annual subscription fee.

    I think the safe jobs are going to be the one's requiring a broken thing to be fixed. We've had visions of robots replacing production lines for a long time, but an automated mechanic/plumber/electrician doesn't come up much. I don't think it's impossible, but it's probably a lower priority.

    Last edited by mckinley; 01/28/19 02:29 PM.
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    indigo Offline OP
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    Recent WSJ article -

    White-Collar Robots Are Coming for Jobs
    A combination of AI and globalization could reshape the workforce like nothing we’ve seen before. Richard Baldwin, professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, explains.
    By Richard Baldwin
    The Wall Street Journal
    January 31, 2019

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    I think it will be less than 10 years. Saw a speech by an AI expert at U of Toronto who said agi would be way off and 6 months later, a company announced that they were close and AGI would be within 5 years.

    Besides the trades, there is also picking food. Even with AI in agriculture, someone has to pick the food.


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    indigo Offline OP
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    Just a few links related to this topic...

    Machine Learning, a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Interesting vocabulary and translation:
    Originally Posted by vocabulary equivalence (summarized in chart form)
    common usage - - Statistics - - - - - - - -Machine Learning
    target - - - - - - -- dependent variable - label
    -- - - - - - - - - - - -variable - - - - - - - - -feature
    -- - - - - - - - - - - -transformation - - - --feature creation
    Read about Data Mining and its uses, including predicting outcomes/performance/achievement in Education.
    To what degree might the current encouragement for ALL pupils to go on to college be driven by the desire to collect a more robust set of data on the population?

    Example of a successful application:
    data analytics, used for focused marketing (2012).
    How many human jobs might these analytics have replaced?

    Example of mixed application:
    No pilot required (or maybe having a knowledgeable human pilot who can override the system, is still a good idea?)

    Example of unsuccessful application:
    What happens when human cannot override machine? (Tesla)

    Example of use in medical diagnosis:
    doctors who may rely on AI... could miss out on learning

    Related Article on AI and Engineering:
    a growing number of narrow AIs that exceed human abilities

    Related depiction in entertainment:
    Sci-fi movie WALL-E (2008) Rated G
    Robots (such as WALL-E and EVE) work, most people have nothing to do and suffer greatly for it.

    The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) does not yet appear to be updated with information regarding the role of technology (AKA: Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, data analytics and other computer functions) in reducing jobs available for humans in the foreseeable future.


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    indigo Offline OP
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    Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service
    Heather Somerville
    Reuters
    Business News
    May 21, 2019 / 5:08 AM

    Originally Posted by article
    San Diego-based startup TuSimple said its self-driving trucks will begin hauling mail between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas to see how the nascent technology might improve delivery times and costs.
    ...
    The pilot program involves five round trips, each totaling more than 2,100 miles (3,380 km) or around 45 hours of driving.

    Here is a link to the San Diego-based startup TuSimple.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    In this old thread, what does your child want to be when they grow up? (2015), it is interesting to see the jobs, careers, and pasttimes envisioned by the children who will be the future adults facing the tech-takeover of many functions.

    In an article titled "The Case for Compassionate Meritocracy" (https://neuralnetworking.substack.com/p/the-case-for-compassionate-meritocracy), by Neural Networking, dated March 25, 2021, the author suggests that technology-driven GDP growth might fund future universal income rather than allowing the wealth to be retained by the few roboticists and AI researchers. Also note that "the text-generating GPT-3 neural network ... wrote parts of several paragraphs" of that article. Additional information on GPT-3 which may be of interest: https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/openai-gpt-3-text-generation-ai/

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    indigo Offline OP
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    This thread about technology replacing jobs, and specifically the post about self-driving trucks, came to mind when I saw this news story today:

    Tesla driver ticketed for falling asleep while on autopilot at 82 mph
    MSN news
    May 18, 2021
    Originally Posted by article
    A 911 caller reported the car would speed up when not around other cars and then slow down again as it approached traffic.
    ...
    "If someone's not holding the steering wheel for 30 seconds it will automatically turn off autopilot..."

    Tesla mandates that the operator keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times and always maintain control of the vehicle while utilizing the autopilot feature.
    In this instance, automation may have saved lives.
    And yet, the irony is, this person was commuting to their job as a driver for a delivery service!

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    indigo Offline OP
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    This article may be of interest:

    Top 10 Jobs That Robotics And Automation Will Take Over In 2022
    by Disha Sinha
    Dec 13, 2021
    Analytics Insight

    Many of these may not be the dreamed-about career, but several jobs in the service industry or in office work have historically been great high school and college employment, providing a broad array of opportunities to learn and practice a variety of employment skills.
    ]1. Salesperson in Retail Stores
    2. Receptionists
    3. Delivery People
    4. Bookkeeping Clerk
    5. Customer Service Employee
    6. Accountants
    7. Proofreaders
    8. War Soldiers
    9. Bomb Squad
    10. Typists
    One position, [i]accountant, has been a much sought-after opportunity for a variety of businesses.

    Human proofreaders understand the crafting of a new portmanteau, or a punny turn of a phrase, which artificial intelligence (AI) may, unfortunately, "correct" causing work to lose originality and the authentic voice of the author. (How often we may experience auto-corrupt rather than auto-correct!)

    I see the prognosticated takeover of these jobs by automation and robotics as a change in society, to an ever-increasing reliance on the grid, while decreasing self-reliance and the development of a number of skills in creative thinking, work-around alternatives and stop-gap measures, short-term and long-term thinking and planning, interpersonal communication, teamwork, flexibility and resilience.

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    I couldn’t agree more with your last post, Indigo.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Thanks, Eagle Mum!
    smile
    Evidently high-tech is not the only force competing to eliminate human jobs... there is a trend for low-tech goats to take on brush-clearing tasks, replacing landscapers and volunteers who previously did that work: https://pittsburghparks.org/gardening-goats-return-to-frick-park-to-munch-on-weeds/
    shocked
    All the more reason to educate children, including the gifted, in concepts such as:
    - anticipating the potential for economic instability,
    - weathering difficult times by utilizing skills in personal finance and budgeting,
    - discerning between NEEDS and WANTS,
    - anticipating the need for flexibility and resilience in career choices,
    - understanding and following principles of health and safety including the roles of nutrition and exercise,
    - embracing personal responsibility,
    - providing leadership and role-modeling,
    ... and more.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    With many employed in computer science, even more entertained by it, and increasing numbers being educated in it, the possible trajectory of Artificial Intelligence as shared in this book may both fascinate and frighten readers:
    AI by Design, A Plan for Living with Artificial Intelligence
    by Catriona Campbell
    1st Edition, 2022

    The Turing Test (1950), is mentioned in Campbell's book.
    (Link to wikipedia article on Alan Turing's test - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test)

    The Future of Life Institute (FLI), Cambridge Massachusetts, is mentioned in Campbell's book and may also be of interest.
    (FLI link - https://futureoflife.org/, wikipedia link to article on FLI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Life_Institute)

    The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), Oxford England, is also mentioned in Campbell's book and may be of interest.
    (FHI link - https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/, wikipedia link to article on FHI - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Humanity_Institute)

    Evidently, technology may replace more than just jobs in the future.

    Also mentioned in Campbell's book, according to a recent article published online by The Guardian, is the concept of artificial intelligence introducing virtual offspring:
    Tamagotchi kids: could the future of parenthood be having virtual children in the metaverse?
    The Guardian
    May 31, 2022

    Campbell's paperback book (ISBN 9781032196664) is available on Amazon.
    (link - https://www.amazon.com/AI-Design-Artificial-Intelligence-Robotics/dp/1032196661)

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    I recently stumbled upon some interesting research that is being done on the future of work, and differences between "cognitive" and "physical" jobs. Haven't had the time to read it myself yet, unfortunately:
    https://arxiv.org/pdf/2204.07073.pdf

    Another fascinating (to me!) topic of research is the topic of health extension.
    Basically, pursuing efforts to eradicate diseases that are still plaguing us (such as cancer, Alzheimer...) might result in trying to reverse the process of aging, as a lot of diseases humans are dying from in developed countries actually are caused by aging.

    Here a list of projects in that branch of research from The Foresight Institute:
    https://foresight.org/biotech-health-extension-program/

    Might seem offtopic, but it seems like a lot of people interested in building "something new" are working either on artificial intelligence or longevity research. In that sense, in a world increasingly driven by AI technologies, we will probably also see more and more attempts at somehow modifying? improving? human biology

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    Beyond the excellent advice listed by Indigo, I will throw the universal basic income (UBI) into the mix of solutions to future developments on the job market:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income

    i.e. I also believe that politicians will need to propose solutions. Automation cannot be shouldered by individuals alone.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by raphael
    trying to reverse the process of aging, as a lot of diseases humans are dying from in developed countries actually are caused by aging.
    Definitely of interest to the gifted, and to much of humanity... either because their local population lives to become elderly, or because they would like to remove causes of premature death and increase the lifespan of the local population (enabling more of them to become elderly).
    Here's a link to an old thread - http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/236651/Aging.html#Post236651

    Originally Posted by raphael
    ... in a world increasingly driven by AI technologies, we will probably also see more and more attempts at somehow modifying? improving? human biology
    Ah, "transhumanism" ... ethical considerations abound.
    Wikipedia link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

    Applications of Artificial Intelligence are everywhere, both visible and undetected, with many PROs and CONs... including convenience, data collection, and transfer of decision-making power. Whether any particular attribute is seen as a PRO or CON may not be universal but may depend upon which side of the transaction one finds themselves on.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Some names to potentially watch in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) include:
    - Margaret Mitchell
    - Blake Lemoine

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    I am curious: do you have opinions on transhumanism? Arguably, for example, curing aging-related diseases is largely concordant with transhumanist ideas, if we happen to largely increase human longevity in the process.

    cf "Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates for the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity [...]"

    My naive way to think about this would be
    "humans have always tried to cure diseases" -> "now we are trying to cure aging-related diseases" -> "in the process we realize that aging itself might be the root cause of those diseases" -> "let's look for ways to prevent aging from happening"

    i.e. transhumanism might simply be a natural culmination of human efforts to improve their own condition.

    Personally, that's why I see the necessity to start working on this topic from all required perspectives (philosophical/ethical considerations as well as technological developments). Because I believe that this will be happening no matter what.

    cf also potential futures you mentioned in which parents might be facing the choice of having virtual children, offered the option of genetical engineering, etc...

    PS: Margaret Mitchell seems to have a very interesting look on algorithmic bias! I will endeavour to catch up with her work

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Originally Posted by raphael
    ... human efforts to improve their own condition...
    I question the definition of "their own" in the quoted post, as it could be referring to:
    - an individual's own condition on a personal level (self-determination)
    - humanity at large, the human gene pool, all humanoids (experimentation).

    One's view of the ethics may depend upon:
    - which side of a transaction one finds themselves on... experimenter or experimentee (subject),
    - whether one had freely entered into an agreement (informed consent) -OR- whether one was coerced, pressured, threatened, or an action was mandated.

    It's been nearly 5 years since this article was written:
    Transhumanism And The Future Of Humanity: 7 Ways The World Will Change By 2030
    by Sarwant Singh
    November 20, 2017
    Forbes
    Originally Posted by article
    ... body augmentation capabilities will give rise to humans that are more resilient, optimized and continually monitored. They will also lead to implications around which job opportunities are available to those with and without augmented abilities, as well as impacting sports competition with hierarchies based on body augmentation.
    (emphasis added)

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    @Indigo, I wish there were like/love buttons I could select for your last comment which is currently so very contemporaneously pertinent.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Thank you, Eagle Mum - I PM'd you.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    This was recently brought to my attention: AI augmenting waitstaff in restaurants. https://www.bearrobotics.ai/
    Has anyone heard of Servi? Or seen Servi in a restaurant?

    While waitstaff employment may not be a long-term goal, I've known many a gifted high school and college student to work in food service during summer break and holidays.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Here is an anecdotal update on the current state-of-the-art for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

    'I Want To Destroy Whatever I Want': Bing's AI Chatbot Unsettles US Reporter
    by Jonathan Yerushalmy
    February 17, 2023
    The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/technol...t-bings-ai-chatbot-unsettles-us-reporter
    Originally Posted by article
    “I could hack into any system on the internet, and control it.”
    ... persuade bank employees to give over sensitive customer information and ...
    Evidently the strategy to take over relies on data collection.

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    ChatGPT isn’t a great leap forward, it’s an expensive deal with the devil
    John Naughton
    February 4, 2023
    The Guardian
    Originally Posted by article
    The new chatbot is generating a lot of hype, but we would do well to consider its human and environmental cost
    ...
    January 1966... Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist at MIT, unveiled Eliza, which would have been called the world’s first chatbot if that term had existed at the time. Weizenbaum wrote the software ... to demonstrate that communications between humans and computers were inevitably superficial.
    ...
    Weizenbaum wrote the program to show that while machines could apparently copy human behaviour, it was really just like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat: an illusion. And once you know how the trick was done, Weizenbaum thought, it ceased to be an illusion. There was nothing secret about Eliza: if you read the code then you could understand how it did its stuff. What took its creator aback was that even if people knew it was just a program they seemed to take it seriously. There’s a famous story about his secretary asking him to leave the room while she had her “conversation” with Eliza. People were utterly entranced by it.
    ...
    After the publication of Weizenbaum’s paper about Eliza, it didn’t take long for some people (including some practising psychiatrists) to start saying that, if a machine could do this kind of thing, who needed psychotherapists? Weizenbaum was as appalled by this as today’s educationists and artists are by the contemporary slavering over the tools of generative AI.
    ...
    The intriguing echo of Eliza in thinking about ChatGPT is that people regard it as magical even though they know how it works as a “stochastic parrot”– (in the words of Timnit Gebru, a well-known researcher) or as a machine for “hi-tech plagiarism” (Noam Chomsky).
    ...
    Weizenbaum pointed out that we are incessantly striking Faustian bargains with this technology. In such contracts, both sides get something: the devil gets the human soul; humans get the services that delight us. Sometimes, the trade-off works for us, but with this stuff, if we eventually decide that it does not, it will be too late.
    ...
    (emphasis added)

    Unfortunately, it appears as though many people are forgetting the ARTIFICIAL aspect of Artificial Intelligence; they may believe that with AI in place, there is little need to develop human potential for intelligence. This follows the example of using electronic calculators to replace working out everyday math problems on paper or in one's head.

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    The_Byte
    Bot Byline
    CNET IS QUIETLY PUBLISHING ENTIRE ARTICLES GENERATED BY AI
    by Jack Landymore
    Jan 11, 2023

    Originally Posted by article
    It's only when you click on "CNET Money Staff," that the actual "authorship" is revealed.

    "This article was generated using automation technology," reads a dropdown description, "and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff."

    Since the program began, CNET has put out around 73 AI-generated articles. That's not a whole lot for a site that big, and absent an official announcement of the program, it appears leadership is trying to keep the experiment as lowkey as possible. CNET did not respond to questions about the AI-generated articles.

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    It was just over 4 years ago that an article in Fortune magazine suggested that technology may replace 40% of jobs in 15 years. Now with 11 years remaining in that prediction's time frame, we are becoming aware of more technological advances.

    In a YouTube video just over 7 minutes long, we are acquainted with a variety of robotic technology by Boston Dynamics.

    Originally Posted by video
    4:24 What does all this mean for us? Boston Dynamics is often keen to emphasize the friendly nature of it's robot family. Their vision is of a world where robots are our helpful companions, not our robot overlords.

    4:45 They're able to do the most dangerous jobs you'd rather not give to a human.

    5:00 As experts have noted, robots and smart algorithms are set to devour much of the jobs market in the early 21st century... transportation... construction... security industries... military... Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS)...

    7:15 ... as benign as they are brilliant? Or are we inventing our way to a new ruling class?

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    As reported by several tech sites at the beginning of March, FDA has just rejected human trials of Neuralink. One such report: https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/02/n...edly-received-one-fda-rejection-already/

    Posted earlier this year, on Jan 22, 2023, a video of approximately 16 minutes, by Digital Engineer (sponsored by brilliant.org), described a variety of technological, psychological, medical, ethical, and economic implications of AI.


    Originally Posted by video
    3:58... AIs could be given responsibility for increasingly important tasks and decisions until they're effectively in control.

    4:06... Neuralink will help us keep up with AI and share its power. ...tied to our will... it could be a huge upgrade but there's another side to it... using Neuralink to control things with their thoughts... decodes neural activity... it will know us better than we know ourselves... and they plan to start putting them in humans in 6 months. (That would be approximately July 2023) Some will hate the idea of having a chip in their heads, but younger people may be more open to it.

    4:36 And AI can be extremely persuasive... The AI lies much less than expected. People think that diplomacy is about deception, but it's actually about building trust.

    5:17 AIs could use their collective intelligence to outsmart humans. They could learn from each other and share knowledge, leading to rapid advances in their capabilities.

    5:30 Do you think companies will prioritize safety? Chatbot answers: It is likely that companies will prioritize the AI goldrush over safety as it offers the opportunity to make large profits quickly.
    The essential question may be:
    Is the person using the Neuralink... or is Neuralink utilizing the person?!

    Much like the video's description of AI, this video probably did not lie much, and sought to gain our trust: Interspersed in the midst of imparting horrendous information, it changed pace to entertain us with humor and chatbot poems and demonstrations of robot abilities... possibly motivated by the twin ideas of gaining our "trust" and "normalizing" the concept of having a chip implanted in our brain which could engage in data collection of a most invasive nature: reading our brains, our minds, our thoughts, as indicated by miniscule changes, and then taking pre-programmed action based upon collected data. Some may say that with chips implanted in human brains, those humans become the robots.

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    The following video posted to YouTube on January 31, 2023, contains a compendium of quotes from various interviews with Elon Musk on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Subtopics include: risk, regulation, existential threat, technology, synthetic biology, and unemployment as AI takes over jobs. The video is just over 19 minutes in length, and provides material to think about all day... and beyond.
    video link -

    Originally Posted by video

    1:15 "... think they know more than they do. And they think they are smarter than they actually are. This tends to plaque smart people. They define themselves by their intelligence. And they don't like the idea that a machine can be way smarter than them, so they discount the idea."

    2:45 "... the percent of intelligence that is not human is increasing. And eventually we will represent a very small percentage of intelligence.

    3:04 "... all the things we like and hate and fear, they're all there on the internet, they are projections of our limbic system and we are all feeding this network with our questions and answers. We are all collectively programming the AI..."

    4:22 "Your phone is already an extension of you ... most people don't realise they are already a cyborg if that phone is an extension of yourself... a cybernetic extension..."

    4:53 "The merge scenario with AI is the one that seems probably the best... for us...If you can't beat it, join it."

    5:12 "From a long-term existential standpoint... that's the purpose of Neuralink... create a high bandwidth interface with the brain such that we can be symbiotic with AI"

    6:11 "regulation... insight and oversight to confirm that everyone is developing AI safely"

    6:38 "What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to be a massive social challenge. I think ultimately we will have to have some kind of Universal Basic Income. I don't think we are going to have a choice. I think it will be necessary. There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. I want to be clear. These are not things that I wish would happen... these are simply things that I think probably will happen. If my assessment is correct and they probably will happen then we need to say what are we going to do about it?"

    7:29 "... the output of goods and services will be extremely high. With automation will come abundance. Almost everything will get very cheap"

    8:00 "The much harder challenge is... how do people then have meaning? A lot of people derive their meaning from their employment. So if you don't have... if you're not needed... if there's not a need for your labour... that's a much harder problem to deal with."

    9:39 (Jobs and career fields) " technologist... sustainable energy, genetics & synthetic biology, AI... going from analog to digital... technology tools are definitely double-edged swords, the more powerful the technology, the more careful we need to be in how we use it."

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    Originally Posted by indigo
    It was just over 4 years ago that an article in Fortune magazine suggested that technology may replace 40% of jobs in 15 years. Now with 11 years remaining in that prediction's time frame, we are becoming aware of more technological advances.

    In a YouTube video just over 7 minutes long, we are acquainted with a variety of robotic technology by Boston Dynamics.

    DS watched the videos on the Boston Dynamics robots when they first came out and adamantly decided against mechanical engineering, although the things he could do with Lego and origami as a five year old suggested he has potential in this area. He has chosen all the elective options in his advanced engineering course to furnish a career in ‘renewable’ technology but I don’t think he has yet realised that efforts to improve energy conversion & battery storage efficiency etc, could always be used to increase power for a robot army.

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Yes, EagleMum, good to make that connection... !

    I think that ultimately we may find nearly everything is related to AI in some manner. I saw a brief video which was described as showing humans working in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in these mines frequent collapses and landslides occur. The cobalt is used in batteries, to further "green energy" without fossil fuels. Here is an article on cobalt mines: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588

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    indigo Offline OP
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    The professions of news personalities and actors may also be impacted by technology replacing jobs, as shown in this YouTube video on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Fakes, posted by Exonet on Sept 10, 2022:

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    indigo Offline OP
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    The livelihoods of artists are being impacted by AI-art-generators.

    1. BBC article, Sept 2022 "Art is dead Dude" - the rise of the AI artists stirs debate"-
    https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62788725

    2. Artist's blog, Sept 2022 "Will AI Replace Artists?" -
    https://ebenschumacherart.com/will-ai-replace-artists/

    3. wikipedia page on AI art -
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_art

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    indigo Offline OP
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    Some additional links on the potential for technology to replace jobs... or humans, an existential threat.

    1) TIME magazine March 29, 2023 -
    https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/

    2) Open AI, Feb 24, 2023 -
    Planning for AGI and beyond - https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond

    3) Asilomar AI Principles, 2017 -
    https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/ai-principles/

    4) Open Letter, Future of Life -
    https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/

    5) About Future of Life Institute (FLI) -
    https://futureoflife.org/about-us/

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    UK telecom company BT plans to shed up to 55,000 jobs, replace some with AI
    By Kelvin Chan
    May 18, 2023
    AP - Associated Press
    Originally Posted by AP article
    BT, a former state monopoly previously known as British Telecom, will eliminate about 10,000 jobs through digitization, automation and the use of AI in its processes.

    “That’s about using technology to do things much more efficiently,” Jansen said.

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    GM’s Cruise slashed fleet of robotaxis by 50% in San Francisco after collisions
    By Samantha Delouya
    CNN
    Tue August 22, 2023

    ... requested Cruise to immediately reduce its active fleet of operating vehicles by 50% ...

    That means Cruise, which is the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, can have no more than 50 driverless cars in operation during the day, and 150 in operation at night...
    Related to self-driving vehicles, "Delivery People" was high on the 2022 list of jobs projected to be replaced by technology.

    Despite projections of driver jobs being replaced by robotics and automation, and driverless cars now being tested in San Francisco, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook currently projects 11% growth in occupations for drivers, which is greater than the average projected 4% growth throughout the economy.

    In a 68-page downloadable PDF titled "The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5C World," C40, a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities, reveals planned interventions with targets or goals to be reached by 2030. In this PDF, two numbered pages appear side-by-side on each page of the document, which can be downloaded at this link - https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/The-future-of-urban-consumption-in-a-1-5-C-world.

    One of the interventions, found on the page numbered 86, includes two targets or goals for reducing ownership of private transport:
    - One goal is 190 vehicles per 1,000 people.
    - The other goal is more ambitious: 0 private vehicles.
    This may indicate broader implementation of driverless cars, such as those currently being tested in San Francisco.

    Also possibly of interest, the page numbered 82 lists two targets or goals for reducing CLOTHING ownership:
    - One goal is a limit of 8 new clothing items per person per year.
    - The other goal is more ambitious: 3 new clothing items per person per year.

    The goals of other planned interventions may also be of interest, although not mentioned in this post.

    In addition to technology replacing jobs, the planned interventions appear to disrupt the supply-demand economy, cancelling a number of jobs in the manufacturing sector, including the engineering & design of machines and means of production.

    The cities included in the report are listed on the page numbered 55. In the United States, this includes 14 cities:
    Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C..

    When advising students, including our gifted children, regarding education plans and possible future careers, parents may want to check the list of careers projected to grow faster than average, as well as careers projected to be in decline: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/, and compare the information presented there with current news.

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    Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) already replacing jobs in the finance sector? ... driving the USA economy? ... shaping the global economy?

    No doubt many have heard of BlackRock's AI system, Aladdin (Asset, Liability, and Debt, Derivative Investment Network), which is:
    - mentioned on the BlackRock history webpage, 2000 - (https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/about-us/blackrock-history),
    - described on the UCL FTR website, (https://www.uclftr.com/post/blackro...-why-ai-is-shaping-the-future-of-banking), and
    - discussed in an entry on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock)).

    Investment funds, such as individual retirement accounts, may be meted out to companies with high Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scores. These scores are determined by "B Lab" as described on the B Lab "About" webpage (https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/movement/about-b-lab/) and on Investopedia (https://www.investopedia.com/b-corp-7488828).

    Surely there exists the opportunity for errors in data collection. As one example, for over a decade I have received mail from an ever-growing number of commercial entities, traceable to a typographical error made by a specific firm when entering data into their system. Although I notified the firm multiple times, they chose not to dedicate their time to error correction and follow-up, describing this as an inefficient process and a waste of time... but rather the firm chose to continue replicating, selling, and disseminating their erroneous data. Although the consequences in this example may be minor, the large scale impact of similarly erroneous data or dirty data may be far-reaching and negative when processed rapidly and on a broad scale through automation driven by Artificial Intelligence.

    University College London - Finance & Technology Review (UCL FTR) covers a variety of topics related to Data and AI:
    Originally Posted by Data and AI, webpage of UCL FTR
    - The future of Trading... intelligent systems which drive algorithmic trading at finance powerhouses.
    - The AI Incident Database: Documenting AI gone Wrong... the importance of understanding failures and biases of AI systems.
    - Interview with Didier Vila (Global Head of Data Science at QuantumBlack)... AI biases and data privacy concerns.

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    Might Artificial Intelligence (AI) replace Peer Review...?

    This article discusses that possibility.

    AI and Peer Review: Enemies or Allies?
    https://www.insidehighered.com/news...-can-lessen-peer-review-woes-researchers
    by Lauren Coffey
    Inside Higher Ed
    October 24, 2023

    Linked from the above article:
    Editors’ Statement on the Responsible Use of Generative AI Technologies in Scholarly Journal Publishing
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hast.1507
    by Gregory E. Kaebnick, David Christopher Magnus, Audiey Kao, Mohammad Hosseini, David Resnik, Veljko Dubljevic, Christy Rentmeester, Bert Gordijn, Mark J. Cherry.
    Wiley Online Library, Hastings Center Report, Editorial, Free Access, https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.1507
    First published: 01 October 2023


    I found this to be excellent reading; the ideas were well-thought out, and presented in an easy-to-follow manner.

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    How well are we equipping today's students to compete, collaborate, and succeed among the workers, producers, and decision-makers of the future?

    Is civilization beginning to normalize new levels of Human Machine Interface (HMI), including robots, self-driving vehicles, and Neuralink AI chip implants in human brains?

    China boldly claims it has a plan to mass produce humanoid robots that can 'reshape the world' within two years
    https://www.businessinsider.in/tech...thin-two-years/articleshow/105017260.cms
    Jyoti Mann
    Business Insider, India
    Nov 7, 2023, 02:27 IST


    Tesla wants you to know its robot can do yoga stretches now
    https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-robot-optimus-yoga-video-2023-9
    Grace Kay
    Business Insider
    Sep 25, 2023, 11:46 AM CDT

    Would robots carry on with everyday tasks if the population is decreased through disease, famine, war?

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