Comments by "Scott Franco" (@scottfranco1962) on "The Dark Side Of The Singularity | Answers With Joe" video.

  1. 1. AI is not here. Winning at Go is not driving a car, making dinner or making a computer program. 2. Even if you believe AI will "take over the world", I think it is a good guess that won't happen soon, or even in your life time (certainly not mine; I am old). You have time to drop your Mcdonalds job and learn a real trade. 3. During the (very) long time people have been predicting the demise of Capitalism, the major alternative (socialism) has retired many governments, and several million people. 4. The usual solution, UBI (Universal Basic Income) is not a replacement for capitalism, it is a parasitical system that relies on it.
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  2. Sounds like Europe. %30 employment does not happen overnight. So lets take a real example. Mcdonalds goes full auto. I mean you order from a kiosk, the food is made entirely by machine, delivered to a slot in front. Their not far from that now, I would argue that Mcdonalds would end itself by doing that, you don't want to narrow the difference between you and a vending machine to zero. But lets say for sake of argument. Now a very small slice of the population makes a career of Mcdonalds. Some do, and I honestly love those guys, Miky'ds makes them wear ties, cause they are the store managers. They are freeking awesome. They are the ones who are going to run the world someday. No, most are kids using Mcdonalds to pay for school, and they will be out of there soon. So as valuable to society as burger flipping is, or nowadays pressing buttons on the burger flipping machine, I suspect there are more valuable careers. So they are studying for the medical profession, or insurance actuary, whatever. The way you get to %30 unemployment is to give people infinite unemployment benefits, more than they every put into the system by working. That's how Europe does it, and that's how we did it. Remember the 99's? That was the program that dramatically increased the unemployment benefits length. We ended that program, and everyone in Washington predicted disaster. So what actually happened? Turns out employment shot up. Right after they canceled the program. Now we have this "universal basic income" jazz, which means we take money from people who work (me) and give it to people who want to smoke pot all day. IE., we want to be like Europe now. Now before you dismiss me as a snot nose rightist, I lived through the 2008 crash AND a divorce AND with two kids to support AND a house to keep out of foreclosure. I had a 6 month unemployment time at the bottom of the recession. Nobody could get a job then, even in my tech fields. I used to keep spreadsheets on my finances every week, and I ran red ink for years. Whats the solution? Again, stop whining and go to work. You don't have to be the smartest worker or the hardest worker. You just have to be smarter than the other guys, and work harder than the other guys.
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  3. "the human is the horse. Humans are going to find themselves unemployable" Humans aren't horses. People used to be mass farm workers, which didn't involve much more brainpower than the turnips they were picking. You can study and get smarter. I recall when I started in computers that everyone said graphical user interfaces were needed because "there was no way the average person would learn to type". Look now. We are a nation of typists. If you are stupid, and want to remain stupid, then you go hungry. Hunger is a great incentive. The AI thing is a complete canard. Computers are amazingly stupid compared to people. In a 100 years, they may be smarter. So its simple. Get smarter faster than a computer. Or go hungry. Be a horse or be a thinking human. Its your choice.
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  4. So driving jobs disappear, and so we need full on socialisim? Farming jobs disappeared. The answer is: get off your butt, retrain, and get a real job. And stop whining. Sorry, not a high tech solution.
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