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airdvr

Universal Basic Income...Folly

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https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/guaranteed-basic-income/

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Last year, The Fiscal Times ranked 116 cities with populations greater than 200,000 for their fiscal soundness. Chicago ranked dead last. Just like the state of Illinois, it is broke. And the current incompetent regime seems to think that raising taxes to stratospheric levels and spending more is how to fix the problem.



Nice to see more people enslaved by giving them free money.
Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

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I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.
Never try to eat more than you can lift

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Stumpy

I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.



I saw an article awhile back that's saying the opposite. That is, outfits that were going to go with automation realized that if you move your factory to places where you can exploit your workers mercilessly then they're much cheaper than automation. After all, when they break down you don't have to fix them, just get more.
I'll see if I can dig it up.

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Stumpy

I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.



Tell that to Elon Musk: https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-foot-by-trying-to-hyper-automate-its-factory/
"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

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ryoder

***I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.



Tell that to Elon Musk: https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-foot-by-trying-to-hyper-automate-its-factory/

It reminds me of the promise of AI in the 80s. "Yes sir, General, or CEO, or whoever's writing the checks. We have the concept of AI whipped we just don't have the hardware yet."
Then we got the hardware and it suddenly got really quiet.

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airdvr

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/guaranteed-basic-income/

Quote

Last year, The Fiscal Times ranked 116 cities with populations greater than 200,000 for their fiscal soundness. Chicago ranked dead last. Just like the state of Illinois, it is broke. And the current incompetent regime seems to think that raising taxes to stratospheric levels and spending more is how to fix the problem.



Nice to see more people enslaved by giving them free money.



We want universal health care, universal basic income and open borders.
Yeh, that's gonna work.

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Bob_Church

******I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.



Tell that to Elon Musk: https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-foot-by-trying-to-hyper-automate-its-factory/

It reminds me of the promise of AI in the 80s. "Yes sir, General, or CEO, or whoever's writing the checks. We have the concept of AI whipped we just don't have the hardware yet."
Then we got the hardware and it suddenly got really quiet.

Part of the problem is that people STILL don't really understand what AI is. I've just spent a year working on a number of projects for the NHS looking at the use of AI. AI (and more specifically ML) is already better than humans at things like identifying cancerous moles, or recommending drug regimes for chronic illness based on a number of symptoms.
Planes can pretty much fly themselves, trucks could drive themselves (especially the big ones that just follow the main arteries round the country), there are AI bots to do certain legal profession activities. Anything that is largely repeatable and following a number of rules, is susceptible. Even the programming of the machines itself is at risk, which is when things do get a bit "terminator".
Never try to eat more than you can lift

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ryoder

***I think UBI is inevitable in the long run, (Or a similar idea) based on the fact that a lot of jobs, due to AI and automation, are never coming back.
It's a way off yet but at some point, there is very little that won't be done better and more cheaply by machines.



Tell that to Elon Musk: https://qz.com/1261214/how-exactly-tesla-shot-itself-in-the-foot-by-trying-to-hyper-automate-its-factory/

Yep - point taken, however look at the car factories of today vs those of the past. I suspect the numbers of people involved have generally dropped precipitously vs build speed.

Plus - while I admire Elon for his vision in some respects, I have it on good authority he can be a bit of a prick ;)
Never try to eat more than you can lift

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Stumpy



Plus - while I admire Elon for his vision in some respects, I have it on good authority he can be a bit of a prick ;)



This news came out today which really has me scratching my head: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/tesla-shares-drop-after-carmaker-reportedly-asking-for-partial-cash-re.html
WTF???:S

I've been a Musk fan, but over the past year I've been modifying my opinion. One big issue is this bullshit: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware

Nobody, (not even the screwups at Uber), think you can do self-driving without LiDAR. Cameras give good resolution, but no ranging. Radar/sonar give ranging, but poor resolution. Only LiDAR gives you both resolution and ranging.

Selling cars without the hardware needed, but bullshitting the customers that the car they bought can do it with just a software upgrade is going to bite him in the ass with a big class-action lawsuit. It is not if, but when.
"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

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>I saw an article awhile back that's saying the opposite. That is, outfits that were going
>to go with automation realized that if you move your factory to places where you can
>exploit your workers mercilessly then they're much cheaper than automation.

That works for a decade or so. Then the massive influx of foreign capital raises the standard of living and it's not cheaper than automation any more. And eventually you have to find another third world country. Eventually, you run out.

>It reminds me of the promise of AI in the 80s. "Yes sir, General, or CEO, or whoever's
>writing the checks. We have the concept of AI whipped we just don't have the hardware
>yet." Then we got the hardware and it suddenly got really quiet.

We don't have the hardware yet. Today's NPU's are pretty primitive.

Even so, AI has come pretty far, even running on Von Neumann/Harvard architecture machines. Imagine if you went back to 1983 and demo'd a device that you could plug in, then say "hey Alexa, play some early David Bowie" or "hey Alexa, what are the effects of tariffs on the economy?" or "hey Alexa, tell me a joke." It would have blown that CEO's socks off.

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Nobody, (not even the screwups at Uber), think you can do self-driving without LiDAR. Cameras give good resolution, but no ranging. Radar/sonar give ranging, but poor resolution. Only LiDAR gives you both resolution and ranging.


Well, people do it with nothing but their eyes and inner ears, so it's certainly doable. So the argument "it's impossible" doesn't fly.

That being said, LIDAR gives you more capable self driving vehicles much earlier. I agree it's a mistake to pursue SAE level 5 autonomous driving without it, at least for the next 3-4 years. Eventually it won't be needed as synthetic vision and ranging algorithms improve.

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"Part of the problem is that people STILL don't really understand what AI is. I've just spent a year working on a number of projects for the NHS looking at the use of AI. AI (and more specifically ML) is already better than humans at things like identifying cancerous moles, or recommending drug regimes for chronic illness based on a number of symptoms. "

I think the biggest problem is that we're trying to create an artificial version of something when we still don't have a clue about the original version.

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"Even so, AI has come pretty far, even running on Von Neumann/Harvard architecture machines. Imagine if you went back to 1983 and demo'd a device that you could plug in, then say "hey Alexa, play some early David Bowie" or "hey Alexa, what are the effects of tariffs on the economy?" or "hey Alexa, tell me a joke." It would have blown that CEO's socks off. "

It still wouldn't be intelligence. It's a sensor system with a complex decision tree. A decision tree created for it, not by it. Pretending that it's AI or anywhere near it is like those guys who used to argue that a television was just one step away from a Star Trek transporter.
When Alexa's descendant decides that it doesn't like Bowie and lies about having it available then we can talk intelligence.

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>It still wouldn't be intelligence. It's a sensor system with a complex decision tree.

Along with self-learning and independent goal seeking; that decision tree can modify itself over time as it learns what's available on the web, what you ask it for most often and what its environment is like.

However, if you are saying it's not strong AI, I agree. It's a form of "weak AI" that is intended as a limited assistant. Most AI over the next decade or so will take this form - an assistant for people both at home and at work to simplify their interface to the growing cloud of networks and devices around us.

>When Alexa's descendant decides that it doesn't like Bowie and lies about having
>it available then we can talk intelligence.

Alexa never will; that would make it sort of suck as an assistant. But other AI's will form such opinions.

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"However, if you are saying it's not strong AI, I agree. It's a form of "weak AI" that is intended as a limited assistant. Most AI over the next decade or so will take this form - an assistant for people both at home and at work to simplify their interface to the growing cloud of networks and devices around us. "

This is all about taking what you have and twisting words to the point that they say it is what you want it to be.

This explains a lot.

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airdvr

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/guaranteed-basic-income/

Quote

Last year, The Fiscal Times ranked 116 cities with populations greater than 200,000 for their fiscal soundness. Chicago ranked dead last. Just like the state of Illinois, it is broke. And the current incompetent regime seems to think that raising taxes to stratospheric levels and spending more is how to fix the problem.



Nice to see more people enslaved by giving them free money.



If we don't destroy ourselves and our planet and if we find a way to keep the Luddites under control is it not likely that something akin to the Star Trek economy will, some day, take the place of our current system? I don't know if a guaranteed basic income is a good idea right now. But it seems to me that it's a forward looking idea that may seem prescient some day. That alone should protect the thought from derision.

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A counter argument to the concept of loss of jobs is the issue of "replacement birth rate". Right now in developing countries the birth rate is still growing but in developed countries the birth rate is falling to levels under that of a sustained population limit. I was seeing that over all world wide population is expected to peak around 12 billion in another 50 years and then should start declining back to our current 9 billion in another 25 years after that. The situation is that for a population to remain stable (replacement worker for everyone retiring) you need a live birth rate of around 2100 per 1000 women. This allows for a direct replacement per person with the expected mortality rates until adulthood. The issue is in some countries the birthrate has dropped to less than 1500 per 1000. Two countries where this is really noticeable right now are Japan and South Korea. Japan is at 1400 and South Korea is at about 1250. This means that for every person that dies/retires and leaves a job opening there is only .5 persons available to replace them. People are literately going to have to do two jobs to keep everything at the same levels of production or those jobs will need to be replaced via technology. This is actually a great situation where automation and AI can help to replace that gap.

South Korea is really interesting when you look at the information on their birth rate and the impact on their median age: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-korea-population/ When you see the birth rate drop below about 1.8 the median age starts to climb fairly shortly after that. With a rapidly aging population while also having a time of extended life spans they are facing a situation where workers are going to have to work longer in their life to maintain their overall productivity levels as well as the need to defer the time that the population is able to access their social services. They just do not have enough replacement workers entering into the work force funding their pensions to cover the mass amount of money being withdrawn from it so it questions the entire stability of the pension system in the country in the next 15-20 years.

The US birthrate has dropped to about 1800 per 1000 women and is continuing to drop with every year so we will start to see some of the effects of this in the next 20 years or so when the current worker force that is the last of the baby boomers retires and there is no one to replace each of them in the workforce. Population can either grow organically - get out there and have more children or it can be sustained by immigrants entering into a country and being added to the population.
Yesterday is history
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>This is all about taking what you have and twisting words to the point that they say it
>is what you want it to be.

So when I disagree with you I am "twisting words." When I agree with you I am "twisting words."

You and RushMC should get together; you're two peas in a pod.

In the meantime, google weak AI and strong AI for an overview of both.

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"So when I disagree with you I am "twisting words." When I agree with you I am "twisting words." "

If I told you it was pouring the rain down you'd find a way to skip the umbrella then explain that water isn't really dripping from you.
That's what I mean by you twisting words.

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"In the meantime, google weak AI and strong AI for an overview of both. "

I don't need to google it, I'm quite aware of the terms and how they're used.

I just find it amusing to watch so many people realize that they can't provide what they said they could so they just rename what they can do.
There was a dog shelter in Marietta that always had whatever dog a caller wanted. Even if they only had one dog, it was whatever breed you were looking for.

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>I just find it amusing to watch so many people realize that they can't provide what they
>said they could so they just rename what they can do.

Weak AI - the "expert system" that Alexa exemplifies - IS the level of intelligence that Amazon set out to provide. They wanted a system that understands what you want and provides it; they did not want (as in your example) a system that decides it hates David Bowie and tells you that his music is not for sale.

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airdvr

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/guaranteed-basic-income/

Quote

Last year, The Fiscal Times ranked 116 cities with populations greater than 200,000 for their fiscal soundness. Chicago ranked dead last. Just like the state of Illinois, it is broke. And the current incompetent regime seems to think that raising taxes to stratospheric levels and spending more is how to fix the problem.



Nice to see more people enslaved by giving them free money.



Most of Trump's base will be in this category of needing UBI. It's not that technology is replacing jobs, it's simply that we have a population that is not adapting and learning the skills that society needs. It's supply and demand.

Most of the people are not lazy looking for handouts, they are just simply useless. The smart people already developed the technology and infrastructure to make the world work.

Without UBI we will force a larger and larger part of the workforce to work for lower and lower salaries. Sure, you can say no free handouts, but like all poverty, it will become a nuisance for the rich as well. It's in our own best interest to provide *something* for the poor, even if they are just lazy sacks of shit.

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Bob_Church

I just find it amusing to watch so many people realize that they can't provide what they said they could so they just rename what they can do.



Sure they have. AI has surpassed human intelligence at chess and, more recently, Go. Not many natural intelligence organisms can go from chess neophyte to grandmaster in four hours, teaching itself the rules along the way.

You seem to think that because AI is, fundamentally, algorithmic it isn't true intelligence. However, natural intelligence is also built from fundamentally algorithmic processes.
Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

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