An incredible prediction of an entirely believable future!

[jonny jeez]

So when Elon Musk owns the power grid that charges the cars, Page and Bryn own the maps that steer the cars, Donald Trump controls the satellites that tells the cars where they are, Bill Gates owns the computer networks that enables the cars to talk to each other and Mark Zuckerberg owns the advertising screens in the cars, what's left for democratic control?

There's a lot of potentially exciting stuff, and I'm really quite impressed by Tesla for its vision, but there's more than a hint of corporate dystopia in this sort of vision of the future.


(Despite appearances, this isn't a series of personal digs - but whenever anyone is quite excited about technology I'm programmed to look for the issues.)

Its a really good point.

I find this issue really fascinating. I'm not that experienced with gates or page but do find it telling that tesla prefer to refer to its objectives as its Mission, which sounds more exciting and pioneering...rather than just a hugely scalable business plan. Zukerberg also trades on his preppy, friendly image and dislikes being portrayed as the multi zillionarre owner of a huge corporate beast.

These new superpowers all understand that we folk find corporate stuff a little threatening and distasteful but happily buy into ...or pay into a friendly, personable"real" person. Musk has even appeared on episodes of the big bang theory to help soften his image and appear as one of us.

Compare that to the dislike and mistrust of say Goldman Sachs (not a great example as they are a genuinely corrupt organisation in my opinion)

We happily ignore the potential threat of monopoly and transfer of control if we just kinda like the guy!

 

[Salad Dodger]

Some of those predictions seem eerily familiar. I remember 40 Years ago on Tomorrow's World when they said robots would be doing a lot of jobs and that as a result people would have far more time in their hands. Back then they didn't say how people were going to live or where they would get the money from to do nothing either.

I can see a lot of those things happening. They can be seen already IE. 3d printers, people living longer, self driving cars, solar power etc but I am highly sceptical about the "people won't have to or have a job to do".

In 1995 I was working for a big high street bank, and was drafted into a project which involved reviewing personal pensions advice, and offering redress to clients who had been advised incorrectly.

When I went for the job interview, the man in charge of the project told me we would be an entirely paperless office, using cutting edge computer and imaging technology to view files, generate correspondence and record the progress of each file.

Within about a week we were swamped with paper files for 30,000 clients...... and all thoughts of a paperless office were shelved!

 

[jonny jeez]

In 1995 I was working for a big high street bank, and was drafted into a project which involved reviewing personal pensions advice, and offering redress to clients who had been advised incorrectly.

When I went for the job interview, the man in charge of the project told me we would be an entirely paperless office, using cutting edge computer and imaging technology to view files, generate correspondence and record the progress of each file.

Within about a week we were swamped with paper files for 30,000 clients...... and all thoughts of a paperless office were shelved!

Paperless is still two words.

 

[swee'pea99]

This just in...

Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI

From halfway down the article:

"According to a 2015 report by the Nomura Research Institute, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots by 2035."

 

[Blue Hills]

Have long suspected that a fair proportion of the posts by high posting avatars on the politics thread are actually robots. No one has that many opinions/so much expertise surely?

 

[srw]

This just in...

Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AI

From halfway down the article:

"According to a 2015 report by the Nomura Research Institute, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots by 2035."

The "AI" task in the article isn't really about intelligence - it's a combination of OCR and a standardised form of data transfer. It's the same as providing an online form for an insurance claim rather than sending out a paper form that someone has to key in. That process of taking costs out of insurance companies, whether by getting a customer to do the work, by electronic data transfer or by taking work out of high-cost locations to low-cost, offshore locations, has been going on for at least the last twenty years.

And a lot of "robotisation" going on in service companies is much the same - it's the sort of thing manufacturing companies have been doing for years.

 

[Wobblers]

Totally

But the accommodation of that person isn't defined. How they do what they are paid to do, when and where they do it, what contractual commitments they agree are all in a huge state of change.

Many firms, particularly in the IT sector employ and re employ the same staff over and over, allowing them (encouraging) them to work elsewhere in the interim to acquire skills and allow a refresh upon each rehire. This isn't zero hours but very flexible contracting that provides for increase in salary to reflects real and current skill levels.

It might be illuminating to look at the actions of one of the companies mentioned: Uber.

Uber's business model is to be the intermediary between customer and taxi driver - taking a generous cut out of the proceedings. They're relying on several things. They're deskilling the job of taxi driver: a sat nav can replace the much vaunted "knowledge". Meaning that the drivers will no longer be able to command such high wages. But they're also shifting the risks onto their drivers: there's no guaranteed income, and insurance is the driver's responsibility - and cost. So is maintenance. Nor do their drivers have many employment rights. Uber also use demand pricing so they jack up prices during busy times. So a customer is likely to see prices rise.

If this is the business model of the future we are in trouble. The consumer is unlikely to see much benefit, but employees will experience very significant erosions in rights and wages. This will be coupled with diminshed job security. I think the point @srw is getting at is, if wages are going to fall, who exactly is going to be able to afford these services?

 

[jonny jeez]

It might be illuminating to look at the actions of one of the companies mentioned: Uber.

Uber's business model is to be the intermediary between customer and taxi driver - taking a generous cut out of the proceedings. They're relying on several things. They're deskilling the job of taxi driver: a sat nav can replace the much vaunted "knowledge". Meaning that the drivers will no longer be able to command such high wages. But they're also shifting the risks onto their drivers: there's no guaranteed income, and insurance is the driver's responsibility - and cost. So is maintenance. Nor do their drivers have many employment rights. Uber also use demand pricing so they jack up prices during busy times. So a customer is likely to see prices rise.

If this is the business model of the future we are in trouble. The consumer is unlikely to see much benefit, but employees will experience very significant erosions in rights and wages. This will be coupled with diminshed job security. I think the point @srw is getting at is, if wages are going to fall, who exactly is going to be able to afford these services?

That's just one business. And whether we like it or not businesses like uber and airbnb who own no assets yet have grown to become the largest operators in their field....are clearly filling a demand from customers and employees. There is much to be said for the flexibility of working for uber and not being tied to their car, insurance etc. It allows plenty of moonlighting or additional income streams.

It may not appeal to you and I but it may appeal to our grandkids

Firms like wework, dropbox, PayPal and of course snap chat, facebook, google and even nowadays Microsoft have high levels of peripatetic workers (this is all from my personal experience of working with them, not stats and the like) who enjoy earning a good sum for a short term contract and then move around often between theses same firms.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

I reckon we're close to an AI good enough to consign tens of thousands of call centre jobs to history.

 

[jonny jeez]

I reckon we're close to an AI good enough to consign tens of thousands of call centre jobs to history.

I agree and on a smaller scale, I rang my regular taxi firm over the holidays. The phone answered with an automatic message asking if I need a taxi from my current location, which it stated. I pressed 1 and a text arrived, addressed to me by name with a map showing where the driver was, his photo, eta and reg.

And this is a small station taxi rank in the suburbs

I was really impressed and was given a much better impression of the taxi firm than when I have previously spoken to Maureen (made up name) from south London (suspected location) who despite being efficient and pleasant sounded rushed, stressed and had an accent that probably wouldn't appeal to all.

Its only now as I type this, flushed with the warm glow of respect for the firms technological advancement...that I wonder where Maureen is nowdays.

 

[swee'pea99]

It might be illuminating to look at the actions of one of the companies mentioned: Uber.

Uber's business model is to be the intermediary between customer and taxi driver - taking a generous cut out of the proceedings. They're relying on several things. They're deskilling the job of taxi driver: a sat nav can replace the much vaunted "knowledge". Meaning that the drivers will no longer be able to command such high wages. But they're also shifting the risks onto their drivers: there's no guaranteed income, and insurance is the driver's responsibility - and cost. So is maintenance. Nor do their drivers have many employment rights. Uber also use demand pricing so they jack up prices during busy times. So a customer is likely to see prices rise.

If this is the business model of the future we are in trouble. The consumer is unlikely to see much benefit, but employees will experience very significant erosions in rights and wages. This will be coupled with diminshed job security. I think the point @srw is getting at is, if wages are going to fall, who exactly is going to be able to afford these services?

Reminds me of a reported conversation between a Ford CEO and a union boss back in the '80s, in which the CEO was extolling the virtues of robots on the assembly line: 'They don't make mistakes, they don't get tired, they don't take holidays, they don't get sick, they don't go on strike.' To which the union boss reportedly replied: 'True. They don't buy a lot of Fords either.'

 

[srw]

It may not appeal to you and I but it may appeal to our grandkids

I think the evidence is that it's more likely to appeal to unskilled immigrants holding down three or four non-jobs. Uber and Deliveroo are the 21st century equivalent of the cash-in-hand under-the-counter bar job of 20 years ago.

 

[ColinJ]

The real test of an AI is the ability to think and react when circumstances dictate that the predetermined pathway can't be followed.

Such as being able to deal with closing the bank account of a dead woman without insisting on her coming to the phone to authorise it ...?

I reckon a computer could have made a much better job of it!

 

[ColinJ]

Are you sure you weren't speaking to a computer..?

To be fair, most banks do actually ask for you to send proof that you are entitled to act on behalf of the estate - they can't simply accept someone phoning up.

Not unless they have programmed the computer to sound like it was really bored and desperately wanting to get back to its Facebook updates!

It would be perfectly reasonable to ask for written proof. My sister had copies of the death certificate etc. but rang up first to check on the procedure. She fell at the first hurdle - trying to get past young robo-woman!

My sister said that it was obvious that the woman was working to a script and not thinking about what she was doing - "Is the caller the account holder? If yes, proceed. If no, tell the caller that you must speak to the account holder before you can proceed."

 

[Stephenite]

Not unless they have programmed the computer to sound like it was really bored and desperately wanting to get back to its Facebook updates! 

A personality prototype perhaps.