Comments by "Tony L" (@tlangdon12) on "Labour is forcing people into work when AI’s eliminating jobs" video.

  1.  @fylbike  Imagine an advice worker who knows all the benefit rules. That's going to cost the government a lot of money!
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  2. One has to wonder if the employment legislation is forcing employers to become super-selective because they feel they are penalised if they make a mistake in hiring someone. I don't think the employment legislation in the UK is wrong, but it might be driving some undesirable behaviours from employers. Hope you are successful in your job hunting.
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  3. Good points, especially about the balance between paying people who have to cope with a disability and funding the services that would minimise or eliminate the disability.
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  4. That's a good point. If the majority of working age people cannot work because there are no jobs, then if the Universal Income that is paid to them is not enough to allow them to buy very much other than food, fuel and a few clothes, the economy will shrink.
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  5. I agree. One growth area is going to be in security response. AI can help spot problems, but it is not going to stop theives stealing copper from battery banks or wind turbines, or stop Trump turning up on your doorstep with his pocket army. Nor will it actually rehabilite offenders when they are caught. That is going to need real empathetic humans that can lead people in a better direction.
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  6. I think that "Giving people purpose, pride, hope, and happiness" is a great phrase that should be taken up by all of us as a civil duty to our young, our old and ourselves.
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  7. There is a risk that moving to a new model in the UK makes the UK more attractive to economic immigrants who don't want to work. We may need to prioritise giving work to immigrants so that they can earn the right to the Universal Income, if this is the route we go down.
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  8. A good education has potential. Even AI systems need someone to set the goal and what can be changed to achieve the goal. We will also be needing people who can understand what AI has learned, to make sure that the AI is applying sensible rules. It would be perfectly possible for an AI system to apparently determine the severity of someone's disability by counting the number of letters in their surname! This approach might, even with a large sample size, product 'perfect' results, but is this a lesson that we want AI to apply or do we want it to figure out an approach that is better? Someone has to watch over the AI to check that the goal is set correctly, and that the lessons it is learning are appropriate.
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  9. We will probably end up with a society where there are no employees. Society will stratify into two layers; the people that own the access to AI (those people who are allowed to tell the AI to learn something new) and those people who are only allowed to consume the AI proided to them.
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  10. I'm sorry to hear you have been struggling to find work.
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  11. You know how bad things have got when a Conservative MP says we need a "Modern Workhouse" for the first time!
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  12. You are so wrong. The UK isn't finished. The UK has a history of leading the changes. We have some incredible thinkers in the UK. We can solve this problem, but the government has to engage with the problem, rather than repeating what has been tried before.
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  13. So have you restarted your business?
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  14. When the benefit rates are so low, it is forcing people either to work or to steal.
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  15. It should be quite promising for able-bodied people. Much of the green economy requires construction and electrical skills for installations, and will produce on-going needs for maintenance and security responses. The majority of jobs don't require a university degree, but do require intelligence, common sense, adaptability, physical fitness and some basic mathematics.
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  16. Have you considered self-employment?
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  17. The government really needs to be looking at the reasons small businesses fail, because the statitics are frightening. Self-employent is another area that schools don't team children about. If you were not allowed to start a self-employed business until you had demonstrated some knowledge and ability to manage such a business, the economy would be saved a vast amount of waste.
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  18.  @swojnowski453  Sel-employment can be a blessing, but starting a business at 18, before you have experience of how businss works, is very risky. Better to start working in another small business and learn what you can from the owner about how to make it work.
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  19. People currently claiming disability benefits might be forced to look for work, but when they cannot find work (because the pool of jobs is reducing) then they will claim a means-tested benefit instead. So they will still be fed, housed and heated by the state, but will have a much lower quality of life. Is this what we want for our citizens? Perhaps the answer is, as Richard has suggested, to accept much lower levels of productivity in the workplace, so that as many people can be employed as possible, even if they need support to do so. Paying for this support seems to need the state to provide a means by which it can pay for the support, otherwise employers will not hire people that will be harder to manage.
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  20. There are many people who hold the counter-view. The shadow needs to be fought off. It is a time when leadership is key.
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  21.  @OneAndOnlyMe  MPs aren't underpaid. I agree that they should have their costs of being an MP funded, e.g. their essential staff, and their rent for a property in London (or wherever their parliament building is), and travel to an from their constituency and in relation to their parliamentary/government role. I do feel their pensions are somewhat gold plated. If I was in charge, I would make the rule that MPs can only get the WORST pension that anyone in the UK gets - so if MPs want to have a better pension, they have to improve the lot of everyone else before they can do so AND this has to be economically viable. They can't just give people better pensions if there is no way that the country or employers can afford to do so.
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  22. All the new Data Centre space creates opportunities for a green transition for heating. They reject a lot of heat (I used to fit-out build data centres for a living). The government could mandate that you can't build a data centre unless the heat is supplied to homes and not rejected into the environment.
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  23.  @billB101  This Labour government seems to be quite poor at communicating and engaging the public. The Tories were worse, because they were autocrats, but Labour appear to be working in the same way.
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  24.  @billB101  No. I accept that, but I do wish they would do more to communicate, and try to engage with people that have the sorts of skills Richard has. People are inclined to assume the worst if there doesn't appear to be aything happening.
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  25. @ Perhaps none, but the government is not doing a good job of telling us who is advising them.
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  26. The younger generation is not being taught to do the things that AI will find difficult, such as how to paint their front door to stop it rotting, or trace the source of damp coming into their house. Part of a coordinated response to AI is to look at what it and robotics cannot do and make sure that schools are preparing people to do those jobs. Caring for people is a prime example.
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  27. That's a fair question. In previous times, even children could manage money when there was not much of it around. Perhaps the issue is that there has been no incentive to become good with money.
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