The potential of AI is frightening, I have assisted a talk in Viva technology in Paris 2 weeks ago, that pointed out the risk of being replaced by the machine in our jobs.
In a new study published on the 30th of May 2017, researchers from Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, Yale University and AI Impacts surveyed 352 machine learning experts to forecast the progress of AI in the next few decades.
The experts were asked about the timing of specific capabilities and occupations, as well as their predictions on when AI will become superior over humans in all tasks – and what the social implications of this might be. So, what were the results?
According to this study, machines will be better than humans at translating languages by 2024, writing high-school essays by 2026, driving a truck by 2027, and working in retail by 2031.
Not only that, according to this study, we wouldn’t need surgeons anymore in less than 50 years! In fact, there are now some specialties such as dermatology and ophthalmology where the machine is already more accurate in its diagnosis of pathologies than the doctors.
This study also predicted that machines will be able to carry out all job tasks of humans in less than 125 years!
We can say that 125 years is far from now, but this threat exists even now! Indeed, according to the well-known magazine fortune, Blackrock which is the world biggest money manager announced that it would cut this year more than 40 jobs replacing some of its human portfolio managers with artificially intelligent, computerized stock-trading algorithms. This represents 30 billion of dollars managed by machines.
If a manager in Blackrock is already replaceable, it goes without saying that our jobs are under threat. I would love to have your opinions about this!
Do you think taxing robots could be a solution to this problem? I would speak about this in another post if you are interested in this topic.
Sources:
When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts Katja Grace1,2, John Salvatier2 , Allan Dafoe1,3, Baobao Zhang3 , and Owain Evans1 1Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University 2AI Impacts 3Department of Political Science, Yale University
Http://fortune.com/2017/03/30/blackrock-robots-layoffs-artificial-intelligence-ai-hedge-fund/