the future of jobs ai, robotics and professor janna anderson, elon university, [email protected]...

The FUTURE of Jobs

AI,Robotics and

Professor Janna Anderson, Elon University, [email protected] Conference, San Francisco, July 26 2015

Robot

Takeover

Humans in most positions in the world of work will be, nearly 100%, either partnered with or replaced by machines in far less than 40 years if current trends prevail.

Highly likely considering the types of human-algorithm partnerships already in play today …

Harvard Computer Lab, 1800s

70 years – from ENIAC, 1946,

…to 2015

IETF: What The Future Holds These technologies, which have been so successful in

perceptual tasks, are coming to networking…now Extremely powerful deep neural nets (DNNs)

Remember, conventional statistical models learn simple patterns or clusters OTOH, large DNNs learn a computation (function)

More emphasis on control e.g., RNN/Memory Nets, Reinforcement learning Can analyze sophisticated time-series/long range dependencies

ML will be doing unexpected network (CSNSE) tasks Who thought we’d be this close to self-driving cars? DNNs already write code

The weight matrix W (this is what is learned) DNNs solve the selectivity-invariance dilemma

We will see progressively more ML in networking Predictive and reactive roles in management, control and data planes This will change the nature of how we design, build and operate networks

We haven’t begun to scratch the surface of what is possible We are at the very beginning of a ML revolution

weights wi,j

See full video of Dave Meyer IETF talk

In1964, less than 20 years after ENIAC’s arrival, 35 scientists and social activists including several Nobel Prize winners sent a letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson warning that “the cybernation revolution” would create “a separate nation of the poor, the unskilled, the jobless.”

“The Triple Revolution,” Linus Pauling, et al

Proof of employment challenges• Firms born over the past 25 years have been

net job destroyers.• Management practices based on shareholder value theory

are not human-worker friendly.• Large organizations continue to implement

less-than-innovative management practices.• The financial sector is directing investment and talent away

from human-driven products and services toward ends that do not develop economies or jobs.

• The middle class is fading as jobs disappear and white-collar jobs are also taken on by algorithms.

• While many part-time or freelance jobs are being created now, these are threatened by algorithms

• There are no policies or projects in place to find the best future for nonworkers.

OECD reports the gap between rich and poor is hitting highs.

• 10.5% in the U.S. have given up looking for work or are working part-time but wish to work full-time. (June 2015 employment report)

• The share of U.S. economic output paid as wages stands at its lowest level since the government started keeping track in the mid‑20th century.

• 1 of 6 American men in the 25-54 age group are either not working or not looking for work; this number has doubled since the 1970s.

• More people are attending college but the real wages of recent college graduates have fallen by 7.7 percent since 2000 (Economic Policy Institute). Economists at the University of Chicago (Karabarounis and Neiman) estimate that almost half of this decline is the result of businesses replacing workers with computers and software.

AT&T was worth $267 billion in 1964 (in 2015 dollars) and employed 785,611 people

Google is worth $468 billion in mid-July 2015 and employs < 56,000

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that just 5% of the jobs generated between 1993 and 2013 came from “high tech” – the computing, software and telecommunications – sectors.

The Economist: Future of Employment

NPR graphic based on Oxford study…

• Intuit estimates more than 40 percent of the workforce will consist of freelancers by 2020.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the number of “temporary-help services” workers has grown by 50 percent since 2010.

• Hilton, founded in 1919: has 530 hotels in 78 countries; employs 152,000 people.

• Airbnb, founded in 2008: has morethan 1 million listings in 34,000 cities in 190

countries; its offices employ 800

• Uber (2009): has160,000 independent contractors and 2,000 employees; 1 in 80 of Uber’s workers receives full pay and benefits. The 160,000 may soon be replaced by autonomous vehicles.

Elon Musk: AI is “our greatest existential threat.”

Stephen Hawking: “Full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

Bill Gates: Is “concerned about superintelligence.”

July 8, 2015 – Who needs evil AI? Failures said to be glitches…

http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org - Click for video introduction

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/1314

Prediction: In the next few decades, likely well before 2055, work in most conventional settings will be nearly 100% accomplished by either 1) algorithm-driven software/machines in the sort of solo or machine-to-machine interactions already accomplishing a great deal of work or 2) human and algorithm-based partnerships, many mostly unseen, including the use of digital agents and software-driven tools. It is in many places now...

From the Elon University/Pew Research Digital Life in 2025 Report… released in 2014

• 83% said the Internet of Things, embedded M2M, and wearable computing will progress significantly between now and 2025.

• Experts: The biggest impact by 2025 will be in machine-to-machine interfaces, where devices talk to each other and accomplish programmed tasks. The IoT centralizes information, and therefore power, and may become predominantly negative in its overall impact.

• They say the daily lives of many will be enhanced by embedded sensors and wearable, networked devices, especially in regard to personal health.

• Expansive predictive statements covered a multitude of potential aspects and impacts of the Internet of Things in 2025. People need to take a step back and recognize the potential negatives as well as the positives of this future.

http://www.elon.edu/e-web/imagining/surveys/2014_survey/default.xhtml

More from the Digital Life 2025 report…

Most experts believe there will be:

•A global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment built through the continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things.

•“Augmented reality” enhancements to the real-world input that people perceive through the use of portable/wearable/implantable technologies.

•Further disruption of business models established in the 20th century (most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts, and education).

•Tagging, databasing, and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms.


• Due to accelerating change in computing, storage, power, interfaces, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, information delivery is under a constant state of change and challenge.

• People will surrender privacy to facilitate convenience. Privacy, as it is defined by most today, may already be dead.

• Embedded technologies provide “tempting opportunities for abuse.” With everyday activities being monitored and creating informational outputs, the level of profiling and targeting will grow and amplify social, economic and political struggles.

•The IoT centralizes information, and therefore power, and may become predominantly negative in its overall impact.

• Big data will reduce people to numbers, often inaccurately.



• The all-pervasive Internet allows sanctioned spyware into every aspect of people’s lives: “The IoT will demand, and we will give willingly, our souls.”

• The workplace plugged into the IoT will be more productive and prisonlike – “an ankle monitor of the mind,” one said.

• The IoT enables social engineering and emotional manipulation (as we have seen in the Facebook revelations).

• Only the elites will escape its challenges: “There will be a small class of ‘watchers’ and a much larger class of ‘the watched.’”

• People will want to be able to "switch off.”



• Crackdowns by nation-states on citizens’ freedoms.

• More-intense surveillance due to threats and a loss of trust in online culture.

• Commercial pressures.

• The downsides of algorithm-determined information flows.


Most-predicted Net Threats …


Quotations from AI, Robotics and the Future of Work, Digital Life 2025 survey


AI, Robotics and the Future of Work


AI, Robotics and the Future of WorkFuturist author David Brin: “Galbraith’s prediction of the 30-hour work week will finally come true.”

Tech journalist John Markoff: “The blurring of the line between humans and their machines is well underway.”

Futures strategist Jamais Cascio: “We’ll know they’re there, we’ll interact with them, but they will less and less often be seen as noticeable.”

David Weinberger: “Everything is a sensor for everything else.”

Prof. Alex Halavais: “It will change how we tackle problems and remember things.”

Internet law Prof. Greg Lastowka: “Technology will serve those offering the devices and controlling the algorithms.”

EPIC director Marc Rotenberg: “The problem with the Internet of Things is that the users are just another category of things.”


AI, Robotics and the Future of WorkProf. Paul Jones: “I for one welcome my new robot masters. They will force us to refocus on what makes us human. Where does our personhood reside? In our bodies or in the robots that may become the housing? The division of society into Morlocks and Elois is a continuing danger.”

Consultant Jerry Michalski: “Automation is Voldemort, the terrible force no one must name… Humans will fall out of the system in droves. Consumer capitalism will tumble. In its place we’ll figure out how to share the value we create.”

Law expert Andrew Bridges: “Governments and powerful incumbent business groups will seek to limit the power of individuals.”

Google economist Hal Varian: “We will expect computers to know us and our history of interaction with them. They will infer what we want.”

Ed. futurist Bryan Alexander: “The education system is not well positioned to transform itself to shape graduates who can ‘race against the machines.’”


Big takeaways from Killer Apps in theGigabit Age, Digital Life 2025 survey

• Telepresence will enhance collaboration.

• Networked augmented reality will extend people’s capabilities.

• VR will create rich, rewarding spaces.

• Human-technology connections will tighten as machines impact everything.

Two most important things to do now:

1) Immediately identify and begin implementing workable solutions.

2) Concentrate more-significant resources on better understanding potential impacts of our ever-more-complex, fast-evolving human-machine systems, focusing more energy on pre-testing changes before fully engaging in them.

Scenarios Thinking is Crucial

- What are the second- and third-order effects (and beyond) in a world with fewer jobs and more people all the time? What happens to people’s everyday lives? - When jobs are taken over by technology that trumps people what happens to the companies that depend upon people’s purchasing power? - What happens to the communities and public infrastructure dependent upon tax revenues from those people and companies?

S1: Algorithms handle hiring and HR

More and more it is algorithms deciding today, (at least in the first sorting) who gets the job.

When algorithms truly take over most of the work of hiring humans they may find that the more robot-like a human is the higher her or his job execution intelligence, or XQ, is likely to be. (Look at the Silicon Valley today.) When the algorithms are doing the hiring and executing data-based annual evaluations will you be deemed to be a valuable employee?

S2: Women are ‘downsized’

The dystopian 2015 film “Advantageous” shows a future in which the few jobs still available for humans are generally awarded only to men because unemployed women are less of a threat to turn into a violent mob than a large contingent of unemployed men. The overwhelmingly dismal theme of the film is that in a future with low employment, high economic insecurity and overpopulation women may not have work or motherhood to sustain themselves or give their lives meaning.

Scenarios should examine the mixed and brighter futures we want to seeDystopian scenarios have value but it is dangerous to prime people to expect only the worst because it can prevail over them, preconditioning them to surrender to a negative future, becoming passive participants who allow such outcomes because these are the future images they have repeatedly had embedded in their minds. We need to create and popularize through storytelling more realistic images of what a positive or mixed future can look like so we have those images in our minds to work toward.

A world with fewer jobs for humans

We know:There will be more people on Earth.There are likely to be fewer “jobs” for humans.

Some proposed solutions from those with faith in regulation/government (please note that I am not saying these

are actually workable ideas; I have no faith they will):- The provision of a basic income to all or to all who are unemployed.- The establishment of government work programs (along the lines of the WPA) in which people are employed to perform public service.- Government requirements forcing companies to employ a standardized number of humans.

People are talking but little action is being taken nor is it likely soon on…

Redefining work parameters – Mass introduction of expectation of the 30-hour work week or four-day week to create more positions for humans.

Re-inventing education – It is necessary to prepare humans to be capable of partnering effectively with the autonomous work systems we are evolving. Today mostly 1800s and 1900s education methods are being used to teach people to work in the 2000s. Revolutionary change will require a vast paradigm shift and the funding of inspirational, imaginative people tasked to develop the tools and approaches of change.

Algorithms can help with jobs problem

Vint Cerf and David Nordfors propose AI software that matches people globally to vocations, volunteer or otherwise, that fit their passions. Related link

Another AI solution: Augmented-reality tools and immersive virtual-reality worlds. These can be tasked specifically to provide employment opportunities and education and enhance humans’ capabilities for living a satisfyingly productive life. Alternate worlds can be created in which people without a traditional job in “real life” can go to work every day to earn a salary and self-esteem. It remains to be seen if commercial interests will develop VR that is uplifting, educational and allows for self-actualization in a mature sense, allowing people to find life fulfillment.

Related link of interest: the Metaverse Roadmap

The Algorithm Age: Invisible ComplexityTechnology innovators must do more and better strategic thinking about the accelerating impacts of algorithms. A few weeks ago in “Open Letter on the Digital Economy” Steve Jurvetson, Andrew McAfee and dozens of others recommended: a set of public policy changes; a mobilization of business leaders to develop new models and approaches to “inclusive prosperity”; more research into implications of the digital revolution, with “increased efforts to develop long-term solutions that go beyond current thinking.”

Remember the letter warning LBJ back in 1964 about the impacts of the cyber nation? How much influence did it have on where we stand today?

Algorithms are the future of economics, politics and society… - Even WE are information.- EVERYTHING is code. - We are becoming dependent upon and even merging with our machines in the Algo Age.

Advancing the rights of the individual in this vast, complex network is difficult and crucial. We can’t wait around to see what happens.

How are we and our brains changing as we converge with information in cyberspace?

How will we live and work in a future that will definitely be very different from today?

Economic inequality in Silicon Valley: Companies here are valued at $3 trillion. A few hundred feet away from where we are sitting in the Hilton Hotel people stand in line every day for a free meal.

See related story in The Economist

Vinod Khosla: While the future is promising … the process of getting there raises all sorts of questions about the changing nature of work and the likely increase in income disparity. With less need for human labor and judgment, labor will be devalued relative to capital and even more so relative to ideas and machine learning technology. In an era of abundance and increasing income disparity we may need a version of capitalism that is focused on more than just efficient production and also places a greater prioritization on the less desirable side effects of capitalism.

See related story in Forbes

Advances in foresight science crucial

Complexity challenges our ability to detect, project and respond to issues. We must invest far more fully in the careful study of the emerging and likely future impacts of the Algorithm Age. We need more formalized and empowered foresight units.

We need to further develop systems science focused on finding the best weave of closed and open system synergies – both types have flaws in flows. How do we work to partner with and within our systems and enhance, globally, autonomous, human and shared work processes? A refocusing on systems science – on understanding, designing and evolving effective systems at a time of accelerating change – is needed.

Select quotes from Elon University’s Early 1990s Internet Predictions Database

William Gibson: “We are being shoved up against futurity with such violence that science fiction may become a historical term.”

http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/early90s/

Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow: “What is free speech and what is merely data? What is a free press without paper and ink? What is a ‘place’ in the world without tangible dimensions? How does one protect property which has no physical form and can be infinitely and easily reproduced? …Can anyone morally own knowledge itself?”


Ken Goffman, futurist and editor of Mondo 2020 (aka RU Sirius): “Who’s going to control all this technology? The corporations of course. And will that mean that your brain implant is going to come complete with a corporate logo, and 20 percent of the time you’re going to be hearing commercials?”


AI/robotics researcher Rodney Brooks: “There will be an alteration of our view of ourselves as a species; we will begin to see ourselves as simply part of the infrastructure of industry. While all the scientific and technical work proceeds, we will again be confronted with the same constellation of disturbing questions: What is it to be alive? What makes something ‘human’? What makes something ‘subhuman’? What is a superhuman? What changes can we accept in humanity?”


Questions?

[email protected]@JannaQ

Robot-human conflict in the 1927 Fritz Lang silent film “Metropolis”

Jimmy Fallon and friend grace Wired magazine’s 2012 Robots/Jobs cover.

the future of jobs ai, robotics and professor janna anderson, elon university, [email protected]...

Documents

1800s70 years

freelance jobs

whitecollar jobs

world of work

large dnns

types of human

humanworker friendly

best future