14. Paul Ehrlich
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He later
went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would
starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them
would be Americans, that crowded India was
essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will
not exist in the year 2000.”
Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in
1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end
will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter
breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support
humanity.”
As you may have noticed, England is still with us.
NY Times https://goo.gl/DRdr6q
25. Peak oil
For every barrel of oil consumed over the past
35 years, two new barrels have been
discovered
BP https://goo.gl/Dks4Kc
https://goo.gl/j4Ef64
28. New ice age
An increase by only a factor of 4 in global aerosol
background concentration may be sufficient to
reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5°K.
If sustained over a period of several years, such a
temperature decrease over the whole globe is
believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age.
"Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate".
Science, 1971
29. New ice age
The longer the planners (politicians) delay, the more
difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once
the results become grim reality...
resulting famines could be catastrophic...drought and
desolation...the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes
ever recorded...droughts, floods, extended dry spells,
long freezes, delayed monsoons...impossible for
starving peoples to migrate...
the present decline has taken the planet about
a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age.
Newsweek, 1975
36. Acid rain
… will cost Europe 118 million cubic metres of wood
worth Pounds sterling 16 billion – every year for the
next century. Western Europe will lose 48 million
cubic metres of timber a year.
Eastern Europe will lose 35 million cubic metres and
the European part of the Soviet Union 35 million
cubic metres.
The total losses are equivalent
to about 30 times the timber Britain produces each
year.
New Scientist, 1990
55. Extrapolation fallacy
• limiting factors:
• cultural resistance (e.g. Google Glass)
• cost of implementation (e.g. electric cars)
• environmental impact (e.g. wind power)
• lack of resources (e.g. solar power, batteries)
• social impact (e.g. self-driving trucks)
• danger (e.g. hydrogen fueled cars)
• fear (e.g. nuclear power)
• antiscience (e.g. GMO) Do you think that people
will just sit and let this
happen? Truckers will
shut down US highways.
Wendell Wallach
https://goo.gl/kQxUtp
61. Complex systems
• Have more factors (“active agents”) than can be
understood
• Must be modelled
• Models are only accurate within the known data.
They are no better at extrapolation than a simple
formula.
• It is the same fallacy.
• The only way to find out is to “suck it and see”.
63. Automation and AI
Robots will master us!!
our technology will match and
then vastly exceed the
refinement and suppleness of
what we regard as the best of
human traits.
Ray Kurzweil
64. Automation and AI
Robots are taking our jobs!!
Productivity is at record levels, innovation has
never been faster, and yet at the same time,
we have a falling median income and we have
fewer jobs. People are falling behind because
technology is advancing so fast
Erik Brynjolfsson
We used to need very intelligent, very well-
trained people called doctors to do medical
diagnostic work. And now, we have
technologies that are really, really good at it.
Andrew McAfee
65. Automation and AI
Robots will destroy us!!
With artificial intelligence, we are
summoning the demon.
There’s maybe a five to 10 percent
chance of success of creating safe AI.
Elon Musk
66. Automation and AI
Robots will replace us!!
The real risk with AI isn’t malice
but competence,’ he said. ‘A
superintelligent AI will be
extremely good at accomplishing
its goals, and if those goals aren’t
aligned with ours, we’re in trouble
Stephen Hawking
68. Kurzweil’s singularity
I have set the date 2045 for
the ‘Singularity’ which is
when we will multiply our
effective intelligence a billion
fold by merging with the
intelligence we have created.
Kurzweil https://goo.gl/XcNwyC
69. How accurate is Kurzweil anyway?
Ray Kurzweil missed the Cloud, Facebook, Twitter,
SaaS, phone apps, and Angry Birds.
He rates himself 85-95% accurate.
LessWrong rates him 54% https://goo.gl/YQEJCA
I rate him 50/50. https://goo.gl/rNFaYT
Even a blind squirrel finds a few nuts.
70. (BTW)
Supercomputers will achieve one human
brain capacity by 2010, and personal
computers will do so by about 2020.
Ray Kurzweil https://goo.gl/CNGjHJ
71. The mechanical model fallacy
The most complex known object
in the universe: a custom-made
analogue processor with 20 year
setup, multiple parallel
processing mechanisms, both
electrical and chemical,
specialised "hardware" areas, and
active biological self-modification
• Physical
• More nodes than stars in the
galaxy
• 100 trillion nerve connections
• Electrical
• Chemical
• Hormonal
• DNA and growth
Researchers at the
University of North Carolina
have shown that dendrites
do more than relay
information from one
neuron to the next. They
actively process
information, multiplying the
brain's computing power.
"Suddenly, it's as if the
processing power of the
brain is much greater than
we had originally thought”
https://goo.gl/y4z8Kk
73. The helpless herd fallacy
• Acid rain levels have dropped 65% since 1976
• The Green Revolution continues to feed the world.
• Fracking dropped the price of oil and broke the
OPEC cartel
• Electric cars are a thing.
• Our food is so clean and healthy we obsess about
almost undetectable fears.
• We sure fixed that ice age problem.
74. The static world fallacy
by 2030, many of the
world's largest economies
will have more jobs than
adult citizens to do those
jobs
Rainer Strack, BCG
https://goo.gl/oSbYq4
“My grandfather wouldn’t
recognize what I do as
work.”
Google chief economist Hal Varian
https://goo.gl/hghz8p
75. The social change fallacy
• We need to worry about sociological change, and
society can't change faster than society can change.
• There is no singularity here. Technology will fly off
into unrealised potential, while we eat up that
potential as fast as we can AND NO FASTER.
81. Bring data
In contrast to other studies, we take into account the
heterogeneity of workers’ tasks within occupations.
Overall, we find that, on average across the 21 OECD
countries, 9 % of jobs are automatable. The threat
from technological advances thus seems much less
pronounced.
OECD https://goo.gl/gZqagi
82. Robots are simpletons
Google’s self-driving cars can only
operate on roads that humans have
mapped by hand, manually marking
every piece of street-furniture.
The NSA can’t point to a single
terrorist plot that mass-surveillance
has disrupted.
Ad personalization sucks so hard you
can hear it from orbit.
Cory Doctorow
https://goo.gl/saLhYr
83. It’s an illusion
Asking whether a
computer can
think is a bit like
asking whether
submarines can
swim
Edsger Dijkstra, pioneer
of AI,
IBM’s Watson
(and others)
provide the
*illusion* of
cognitive
computing
John Brand, Forrester
https://goo.gl/AP1Crk
84. The analyst/vendor hype complex
Two words: venture capital
With “the internet” no longer a
credible vehicle for Silicon Valley’s
wild fantasies and intellectual
bullying of other industries, “AI”
has taken its place.
Almost everything you read about
AI is fake news. The AI coverage
comes from a media willing itself
into the mind of a three year old
child, in order to be impressed.
Andrew Orlowski
https://goo.gl/4GRLvy
85. Where’s Watson?
Watson AI panned, 5¼ years of
sales decline
Not only has its Watson offering been
skewered by Wall Street analysts, it's also
just reported its 21st straight quarter of
revenue decline
The Register, 2017
IBM Watson Adoption
Accelerates Globally
IBM, 2014
ANZ Turns to IBM's Watson to
Customize Wealthy Client Services
2013
88. Apocalypse when
We are nowhere near peak employment. We are
nowhere near a plateau in how much work our
economy requires to function. Thinking of a post-
work world is incredibly premature.
Andrew McAfee
There is no shortage of work that only people can do.
We are moving very, very fast, but it’s decades before
we get to that kind of world.
Erik Brynjolfsson
https://goo.gl/5mQHBG
90. Optimism
• World is ‘astonishingly pessimistic,’ says EU
research commissioner Carlos Moedas
• Media are too full of ‘alarmist, hysterical’
doomsday scenarios
• Alarmist and panicked, sometimes even hysterical.
• fearing what is arguably one of the most exciting
new technologies of our generation and denying
ourselves its amazing benefits is not the answer
https://goo.gl/93N7Na
91. Age old issue With these new-
fangled "wheels" they
can drag a sled with a
fraction the number of
people. Where will
sled-draggers find
new jobs?
92. Don’t fear the robot
The law of comparative
advantage has not been
repealed. Machines
take away some jobs and
create others, while
producing more output
overall.
Tyler Cowen
https://goo.gl/yvTBvW
93. Robots augment people
the best way to think about AI is to
see it as simply the latest in a long
line of cognitive enhancements that
humans have invented to augment
the abilities of their brains
The Economist
https://goo.gl/6CGs12
94. Robots augment people
the story is more nuanced. While automation will eliminate
very few occupations entirely in the next decade, it will affect
portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree
McKinsey Quarterly
https://goo.gl/HvTGWQ
95. Robots augment people
we as humans should continue to focus on what
we do best — thinking creatively, building
empathy for other humans — in order to guide
machines in the right directions.
Yue Wu, Yelp
https://goo.gl/BLUWt4
97. The real value of automation
Automation supports
• Faster lead times
• More frequent releases
• Less turbulent releases
• Fewer errors
• Higher quality
• Faster recovery
Automation gives rote tasks
to computers and allows
people to
• Weigh evidence
• Solve problems
• Make decisions based
on feedback
• Use their skills,
experience and judgment
It is tasks that are automated, not the jobs
98. Free the people
If a robot took your job, it
was a cruel job.
Machines will take away
the jobs of sewer
cleaners and miners and
filing clerks and shelf
packers.
Roll on robots.
It is tasks that are automated, not the jobs
If I had to do it over again, I
would put more emphasis on
the way technology leads to
structural changes in the
economy, and less on jobs,
jobs, jobs. The central
phenomenon is not net job
loss. It’s the shift in the kinds of
jobs that are available.
Andrew McAfee https://goo.gl/HNFd9L
99. Free the people
60-percent of occupations today are currently seeing
their practitioners wasting 30-percent of their time
on tasks that could be automated.
Less than 5-percent of all jobs are able to be
completely replaced by a computer or machine.
Even among this small number, the replaceable jobs
are mostly confined to physical labor in very
structured and predictable environments.
https://goo.gl/8k1Ped
•Meat packers
•Plasterers and stucco masons
•Ophthalmic lab technicians
100. People want people • Advisors
• Sales
• Service desk
• Nurses
• Editors
• Musicians
• Companions
• Coaches
• Teachers
• Masseurs
• Guides
• Designers
• Commentators
• Artists
• Hairdressers
• Religion
• ….
In retail, there will always be
a need for human workers
The Guardian
https://goo.gl/4tPm6D
101. Stop underestimating mankind
200 years ago, the majority of the human race
worked on the land. 100 years ago the majority
worked in heavy industry. Those people aren't
unemployed.
The human race is anti-fragile: we thrive on change,
stress, discontinuities. Germany and Japan after
WWII. Christchurch after the quake.
98% of the manual labor
performed in ancient
Egypt is now automated
Keith Swenson
https://goo.gl/hTP7Mq
103. Adapt, reinvent
Not every employee will adapt and innovate, but we
believe most will.
Those that do adapt will go in two directions: one
group will focus on becoming more productive by
doing more of the same kind of work they did in the
past with the assistance of digital labor.
The other will move on to more value-added
activities
ISG https://goo.gl/5HvJXe
104. If opinion matters to you…
1,896 experts divided:
52% expect that technology will not displace more jobs
than it creates by 2025
• Advances in technology may displace certain types of
work, but historically they have been a net creator of
jobs.
• We will adapt to these changes by inventing entirely
new types of work, and by taking advantage of uniquely
human capabilities.
• Technology will free us from day-to-day drudgery, and
allow us to define our relationship with “work” in a
more positive and socially beneficial way.
• Ultimately, we as a society control our own destiny
through the choices we make.
Pew Research https://goo.gl/z55szF
105. Robots augment people
What will new technology let us do
that was previously impossible?
This is the true opportunity of
technology: it extends human
capability.
Tim O’Reilly
https://goo.gl/BxLTqs
By Jashuah - Own work by uploader, data from BP workbook of historical data, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20745151
By Jashuah - Own work by uploader, data from BP workbook of historical data, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20745151
Dogs and cats living together
But then again we also have this, so… you know
Life isn’t a movie
"Wow man, imagine if..." "Far out! You're freaking me out man. It could be real!"
We don’t teach enough science or critical thought
By Skeptical Science; Based on data published in Peterson, Thomas C., William M. Connolley, and John Fleck. "The myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 89.9 (2008): 1325-1337. - http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22915488
What Ray fails to mention is that long before you get to the second half of the chessboard you have wheat pissing everywhere, pouring off the sides of the board, making it impossible to count let alone pile it. The pile would be bigger than Mt Everest - you couldn't find the chessboard. Even if you could, there isn't enough rice on Earth to do this. Every simple extrapolation hits physical constraints that slow and eventually cap an increase. Welcome to the real world. Kurzweil and Brynjolfsson and McAfee and all the other abusers of practical science can indulge in all the "oh wow man" intellectual masturbation they want, the real world just doesn't work like that. The graph doesn't rocket off the top, and the sky doesn't fall.
in 12 years or so we might hypothetically have enough processing power - if the extraordinary and historically unprecedented curve of this graph is sustainable into new orders of magnitude for another decade and a half and if no other factor intervenes such as economic collapse - to run a simulation with the same CPU instruction rate as the overly simplistic model of the human brain.
This does not say we will know how to model the human brain. Only that we can run a model with the same number of operations per second as we think might maybe be happening in the human brain. What that model will actually DO is completely unknown and this curve tells us nothing about that.
Even if we come up with some sort of brain model to use up all these FLOPS, there is zero evidence that it will behave as an intelligence of any sort, only that it will have the same horsepower as our simplistic neuron models of the brain suggest we might have. I can build a fire that releases the same energy as a car, but it won't tell me much about how cars work.
We aren't helpless and we aren't mindless. We adjust, we respond, we correct, we react
Forget all the sci-fi your brains have been addled with. Current real-world robots are dedicated machines that can do one task better than a human can, over and over. They're not general thinking machines, not even Watson. AI is still so far away it's ridiculous. Artificial intelligence is like nuclear fusion: it has been 10 years off for the last fifty years. And McKinsey predict it will stay that way: the future of robotics will continue to be dedicated to specialised tasks.
"Oh sure it can recognise the video image of a cat. Ask it how to make a cat happy."- me
IBM have to recover some of that R&D, and they have to brand as innovators. So too do a small number of clients with more money than sense. Watson will disappear too, after they've generated a few brochure case studies. Remember Big Blue?
Watson is just a fancy IVR answer-phone. Sure it can learn the answers you like to hear, pulling them from known data. But it does not truly understand. It has no experience, no context. It no more understands WHAT it is answering than your IVR does. John Brand at Forrester has similar things to say about Watson. Stop anthropomorphising a dumb machine.
It is tasks that are automated, not the jobs
It is tasks that are automated, not the jobs
It is tasks that are automated, not the jobs
it's no different to the factory: if your job involves mindless drudgery then maybe Watson the robot can do it more reliably and cheaply. But if you are replace-able that's because you are doing a robot job - get out of it. If your job is to be a real human and a knowledge-worker then relax, your job isn't going to a robot. An Indian, Filipino, or Nigerian maybe, but not a machine.
If a robot replaces someone now or in the foreseeable future (based on real facts not wild extrapolations) it is because that person was doing a job I wouldnt wish on them. If you free people from slavery, they find new things to do. History has shown that over and over. We should embrace their liberation, not set them quaking in fear.
So what happens when robots take more and more drudge jobs? Same as has been happening for the last 30 years as robotics expanded. People find new jobs. Entrepreneurs work out how to use available talent to deliver value. We are resilient, resourceful, intelligent. We turn situations to our advantage. We find new opportunities. Heck, we CREATE and INVENT new opportunities. We legislate against negative effects (when we're smart enough).