"It’s hard to believe you’d have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force. But that—in slow motion—is what the industrial revolution did to the workforce of the early 19th century. Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of American workers lived on the farm."
"To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. " Excellent quote. This is a great way of thinking about solving problems in general. What is your actual goal? To make humanlike computers? Or to make a computer than can write your article for you.
Wired's perspective has always bugged me. At a surface level, this is an article about how life's tasks change based on life. This has been true since the dawn of agriculture - as soon as someone started cultivating berries a gatherer "lost his job." Thing is, though, those people closest to the new job are also usually the ones closest to the dying job. Dogfighters didn't "lose their job" after WWI - they became crop dusters, barnstormers, mail deliverers and airline pilots. Even in your day to day life change is constant and inevitable. You didn't "lose your job" as an Excel '97 user when Excel 2000 came out. You learned new job skills. Wired is hardly the first outfit to point out that 'ZOMG there are no more telephone operators.' They are, however, the ones to consistently reframe things in terms of 'WHOA! FYOOOCHUR!' even when things are a lot more interesting if you go 'WHOA! PRESENT!' I was heartened to read about Baxter. I own two Roombas (one that I purchased from Cory Doctorow) and dig 'em. At the same time their navigation is por shit and from an operational standpoint they aren't much more sophisticated than pool vacs (the primary reason iRobot bought Mint). Reading about an industrial robot that has integrated force feedback and situational awareness flags for workers sharing the shop floor is cool - you could do an entire article on the relationships between humans and robots and what they mean (shit - you could do a book on it) At the same time, that useful and thought-provoking tidbit is buried in between pictures of Jimmy Fallon snuggling with something from a Bjork video.
I read this article in Wired when it came out in print, and I'd like to clarify that the point of the article is not a hypothetical situation where 7 out of 10 people lose their jobs. The article explores the advent of a proliferation of robots capable of performing complicated tasks. The main point is that we shouldn't be afraid of them "taking our jobs." The farm example is a great way of looking at it. Back two hundred years ago, most people did do manual labor, often on the farm. But technology advanced and slowly people left the farm. But with this change came new purpose for humans. We developed more complicated and important jobs, ones that required skill and use of more refined skills. The analogy is used in the article. Robots performing tasks will lead humanity into more important, more meaningful occupations. I see this as a good thing.
It's a great thing for humanity, but it's the transition that's the hard part. New jobs are being created all the time, stuff we wouldn't have imagined 10 or even 5 years ago. But these are highly specialized jobs that require years of training. When people get laid off because their old jobs become obsolete, it's expensive and takes a lot of time to go back to school and learn a new skill. Some skills are obsolete shortly after graduating or before they even graduate. I went to college 7 years ago and everything they taught me is useless now.
If 7 out of 10 working Americans got fired, I would start a company based around helping them cope with the loss of their job. $100/person seminars with free coffee and donuts anyone?