Apr 4, 2021
People studying in science like to picture such a utopia, in which, with the advance of artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and the like, humans live in eternal happiness, being served by machines, and not having to work.
I just don’t understand the unlimited optimism. Any optimist, pray tell me where I get it wrong. As machines and robots replace our jobs, there will be less and less jobs, and more and more poor people. It only takes some one third of people to be unemployed, to make our society collapse into chaos. While machines do produce more products, these products can’t be sold, because most people have got no money.
I find it strange that most of my friends in the undergraduate school are optimistic about this, perhaps because we study engineering, but I somehow am excluded from the atmosphere. Some say that there will be novel, irreplaceable jobs unimaginable to us, yet when asked of how we create such jobs, they have no idea.
Maybe it is clearer to rephrase that way: Labor is the only peace means by which we allocate resource. The invisible hand distribute money for us, perhaps not ideally but better than nothing. After the tech companies destroys traditional jobs, violence is the only remaining way of distribution. There will be upheavals both domestic and international. Domestically, with inequality of income leads to crime rate and riot. Internationally, periphery countries will resort to Fascism as they have no choice. We either starve and suffer, or sin and die.
Still some say, and rightly so, that UBI (unconditional basic income) is the only solution, but I do not expect something like that will come any soon. Democracy took about 150 years to mature, 75 years ago peace were unknown to us. If UBI is something worth pursuing, it is hard to see there is any peaceful means to make the change happen. Tech companies controls representatives, they will not pass the law, and cruel revolution might take place. Perhaps only after a most violent war, chaos unheard of before, human beings finally agree UBI is the only solution to humanity.
Technology is a express train, which we think will arrive for the heaven, but falls into hell, and we are too scared to look out of the window. With such risk unparalleled in history, people are like, “the ship will cross the bridge when it comes over”, is that a responsible attitude which departments in science should have?
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