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ijidak • today at 12:23 AM • 0 replies • view on HN

For me it's a mixed bag.

There will be a lot of job loss unquestionably, in the same way that automation reduced manufacturing jobs and farm payrolls.

At the same time we have to put what AI can do in perspective.

Intelligence is a broad grouping that includes concepts such as knowledge, skill, experience, and wisdom.

AI has incredible knowledge and in many areas approximates experience and wisdom.

But wisdom is harder to formalize than knowledge and skill.

For example certifying a college education relies mostly on the ease with which we can verify/test knowledge.

To some extent advanced degrees try to certify maybe wisdom and experience.

In my very personal opinion, wisdom and life experience should give humans an edge for a while to come.

Additionally, I do feel that the more an individual lacks better than average wisdom and experience, the harder it will be for that person to compete with AI.

Also, on the bright side, the average human will continue to prefer to interact with a fellow human in many spheres. That will also act as an upper bound on AI and robots taking every job.

Either way, I do think this transition will be painful. I don't feel it has to be apocalyptic.

But the world has been an especially volatile place over the last 10 years.

So when you add that existing volatility, to the upheaval from the AI transition, it would not surprise me if the transition results in violence.

But, without the pre-existing volatility, and if humans were capable of generosity and love at scale, I see no reason AI can not be absorbed into society with net gain.

I guess to summarize, I feel this tech should be a net gain and to the extent that it isn't, it will be because of flaws deep inside of humanity itself, not because it had to end in chaos.

In other words, I feel fear, greed, anxiety, and competition -- all our base instincts coming from all sides, will be what determine the end result of AI moreso than AI taking everyone's job.