I concur with Noah Smith here that the biggest dangers of machine learning, etc., are not on the labor but on the consumer side. They won't make us obsolete as producers. They could make us easier to grift as customers. Consider that nearly all of Silicon Valley these days is seeking not to make electrons get up and dance in circuits or to make circuits get up and dance in applications that accomplish tasks users wish done, but rather in trying to hack users' brains so their eyeballs will stay glued to screens: Noah Smith: Artificial Intelligence Still Isn’t All That Smart: "Machine learning will revolutionize white-collar jobs in much the same way that engines, electricity and machine tools revolutionized blue-collar jobs...
....Just like machine tools allow workers to skip some physical tasks and apply their muscle power only to a few essential things, machine learning tools will allow workers to skip some mental tasks and apply their brain power to only a select few things. The result, presumably, will be another big increase in productivity. On the downside, if the set of tasks amenable to machine learning increases at a very rapid clip, it could leave lots of workers displaced and adrift as they are constantly forced to change their job description.... This is a very simplified picture of the economics of machine learning.... In a new paper, legendary economist Hal Varian... briefly addresses some of the thornier questions....
Machine learning-enabled price discrimination might allow companies to figure out exactly how much customers are willing to pay for things, and gouge them for every penny. Machine learning-enabled network effects could aggravate the problem of big-company dominance. Algorithms could collude with each other to rig markets, without humans even realizing the collusion is happening. In the end, the only way to really know what machine learning will do to the economy is to wait and find out. It’s important to anticipate and be ready for possible problems... but... machine learning’s ultimate effects will probably surprise all of us....
#shouldread
#riseoftherobots
