28-Jan-16 World View -- China's game of Go beaten by Google's AI software, bringing the Singularity closer

[John]

> As a life-long student of AI, I find myself in a camp that lies
> somewhat between John's (and Ray Kurzweil's) position (that the
> Singularity is somewhat near) and the various naysayers
> doubtfulness that it will come to fruition.

> For instance, having just completed the IBM-sponsored 'Introducing
> Watson' college course, I can say that the hard part of Watson is
> finding and curating the documents (source material) - so that
> perhaps X jobs doing some task might be replaced with Y jobs
> curating the data so that Watson can do the task (where presumably
> Y < X but Y is not asymptotically approaching zero).

You suggest that there will be thousands of people curating documents,
and that these will replace the jobs of people displaced by Watson.

The general rule is that if you have thousands of people doing
something, then they'll be replaced by computers.

In the 80s, word processors and spreadsheets eliminated millions of
jobs for secretaries, typists, and financial clerks. In the 90s,
systems like SAP and Oracle replaced millions of jobs related to
logistics and order processing. In the 00s, many HR jobs were
eliminated using systems that evaluate resumes.

Your example is curating documents. If you have thousands of people
curating documents, then you can't just send them off and tell them
"Go use your natural instincts to curate documents." You have to
train them how to decide which documents are important and which
aren't. That means you have to come up with a set of rules,
procedures and processes that the thousands of humans can follow to do
the curating.

Well, once you've done that, then you can have a computer follow the
same rules, procedures and processes. Once the process of curating is
understood, then Watson can be enhanced to do its own curating. This
will become easier and easier, as computers become more powerful.

I haven't yet found anyone besides myself who believes that most
computer programming jobs will be eliminated by computers in the next
5-10 years, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Tom Mazanec]

I haven't yet found anyone besides myself who believes that most
computer programming jobs will be eliminated by computers in the next
5-10 years, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Well, you found me, a former computer programmer, for what I'm worth

[shoshin]

Me too, John. Plus you can add poetry, art, and music. What will people do? I'm reminded of Pixar's brilliant "Wall-E" where the human population just spent all their time shopping. Buy Amazon!