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Prof David West

journalists

I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

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Pieter Steenekamp

Re: journalists

I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Tom Johnson

Re: journalists

Pieter:

Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data

============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Pieter Steenekamp

Re: journalists

Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Russ Abbott

Re: journalists

I suspect there will be no end to service jobs. We will always (at least for a long time) need nurses. No AI is going to provide a good enough human touch. Similarly for other health-care jobs. Many are low-tech, like changing bedpans in nursing homes, but they require people to do them.

More generally, I suspect it will be a long time before AI conquers physicality. Computers can do lots of symbolic stuff. But when it comes to dealing with the physical (and biological and human) world, that's a different story.

What is likely to happen, though, is that we will re-architect our world so that it requires less physical touch. It would be a real challenge to replace sanitation workers with today's robots. But it wouldn't be that hard to design a sanitation system that worked pretty well without people--as long as we could train ourselves to feed it garbage properly.

What about plumbers? It's hard to imagine today's robots making a house call to fix a broken water pipe -- somewhere in the house. But perhaps if houses were differently designed, and equipped with enough sensors, etc. we could get along with a lot fewer repair people.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:59 PM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Pieter Steenekamp

Re: journalists

I think we are talking about different things.

I agree that all jobs will not be replaced by AI and automation. Not in the near future in any case.

My point is not that there will not be any jobs in the near future. There will be jobs for many people. We will need nurses and plumbers. My question is whether it is possible that in ten years there won't be employment opportunities for say 20% of the people wanting employment? I'm not making a prediction, I'm sketching a scenario and asking how likely it is. If yes, then Houston we have a problem. I'm confident in the ingenuity of humanity to solve the problem.

My question is what is the possibility that in say the next ten years the job losses caused by the Amazons and Teslas will be sufficiently more than the additional jobs for nurses and plumbers and additional other new jobs to cause social problems?

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 08:17, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

I suspect there will be no end to service jobs. We will always (at least for a long time) need nurses. No AI is going to provide a good enough human touch. Similarly for other health-care jobs. Many are low-tech, like changing bedpans in nursing homes, but they require people to do them.

More generally, I suspect it will be a long time before AI conquers physicality. Computers can do lots of symbolic stuff. But when it comes to dealing with the physical (and biological and human) world, that's a different story.

What is likely to happen, though, is that we will re-architect our world so that it requires less physical touch. It would be a real challenge to replace sanitation workers with today's robots. But it wouldn't be that hard to design a sanitation system that worked pretty well without people--as long as we could train ourselves to feed it garbage properly.

What about plumbers? It's hard to imagine today's robots making a house call to fix a broken water pipe -- somewhere in the house. But perhaps if houses were differently designed, and equipped with enough sensors, etc. we could get along with a lot fewer repair people.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:59 PM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

-- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ...
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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Russ Abbott

Re: journalists

I suspect that there is no limit to the kinds of services we will want. How about personal shoppers, which has become a thing these days. I can't think of all the services we may come up with, but I doubt we won't be able to think of enough to keep everyone busy.

What I'd be more interested in is an analysis of how we all pay for it. There used to be a joke when people started moving en-mass to California. What will they all do? They will do each other's laundry.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 12:52 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think we are talking about different things.

I agree that all jobs will not be replaced by AI and automation. Not in the near future in any case.

My point is not that there will not be any jobs in the near future. There will be jobs for many people. We will need nurses and plumbers. My question is whether it is possible that in ten years there won't be employment opportunities for say 20% of the people wanting employment? I'm not making a prediction, I'm sketching a scenario and asking how likely it is. If yes, then Houston we have a problem. I'm confident in the ingenuity of humanity to solve the problem.

My question is what is the possibility that in say the next ten years the job losses caused by the Amazons and Teslas will be sufficiently more than the additional jobs for nurses and plumbers and additional other new jobs to cause social problems?

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 08:17, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
I suspect there will be no end to service jobs. We will always (at least for a long time) need nurses. No AI is going to provide a good enough human touch. Similarly for other health-care jobs. Many are low-tech, like changing bedpans in nursing homes, but they require people to do them.

More generally, I suspect it will be a long time before AI conquers physicality. Computers can do lots of symbolic stuff. But when it comes to dealing with the physical (and biological and human) world, that's a different story.

What is likely to happen, though, is that we will re-architect our world so that it requires less physical touch. It would be a real challenge to replace sanitation workers with today's robots. But it wouldn't be that hard to design a sanitation system that worked pretty well without people--as long as we could train ourselves to feed it garbage properly.

What about plumbers? It's hard to imagine today's robots making a house call to fix a broken water pipe -- somewhere in the house. But perhaps if houses were differently designed, and equipped with enough sensors, etc. we could get along with a lot fewer repair people.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:59 PM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)               505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

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Russ Abbott

Re: journalists

Along those lines, my email included this.

Join today's Big Think Live session, where Ernst & Young's Orlan Boston and The Vanguard Group's Ken Banta present the ultimate strategic guide to building a side gig. Understand the hows and whys, learn how to make the time to get it done and how to align your side gig with your career goals and integrate it into your workplace culture. Join via YouTube or Facebook at 2 pm ET.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 9:11 AM Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

I suspect that there is no limit to the kinds of services we will want. How about personal shoppers, which has become a thing these days. I can't think of all the services we may come up with, but I doubt we won't be able to think of enough to keep everyone busy.

What I'd be more interested in is an analysis of how we all pay for it. There used to be a joke when people started moving en-mass to California. What will they all do? They will do each other's laundry.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 12:52 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I think we are talking about different things.

I agree that all jobs will not be replaced by AI and automation. Not in the near future in any case.

My point is not that there will not be any jobs in the near future. There will be jobs for many people. We will need nurses and plumbers. My question is whether it is possible that in ten years there won't be employment opportunities for say 20% of the people wanting employment? I'm not making a prediction, I'm sketching a scenario and asking how likely it is. If yes, then Houston we have a problem. I'm confident in the ingenuity of humanity to solve the problem.

My question is what is the possibility that in say the next ten years the job losses caused by the Amazons and Teslas will be sufficiently more than the additional jobs for nurses and plumbers and additional other new jobs to cause social problems?

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 08:17, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
I suspect there will be no end to service jobs. We will always (at least for a long time) need nurses. No AI is going to provide a good enough human touch. Similarly for other health-care jobs. Many are low-tech, like changing bedpans in nursing homes, but they require people to do them.

More generally, I suspect it will be a long time before AI conquers physicality. Computers can do lots of symbolic stuff. But when it comes to dealing with the physical (and biological and human) world, that's a different story.

What is likely to happen, though, is that we will re-architect our world so that it requires less physical touch. It would be a real challenge to replace sanitation workers with today's robots. But it wouldn't be that hard to design a sanitation system that worked pretty well without people--as long as we could train ourselves to feed it garbage properly.

What about plumbers? It's hard to imagine today's robots making a house call to fix a broken water pipe -- somewhere in the house. But perhaps if houses were differently designed, and equipped with enough sensors, etc. we could get along with a lot fewer repair people.

-- Russ Abbott
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 9:59 PM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)               505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

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Tom Johnson

Re: journalists

In reply to this post by Pieter Steenekamp

Pieter:
Yes, I agree that there will be, overall, that it is likely there will be a net loss of what today we call jobs.

Tom

============================================

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 10:59 PM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

Tom,

I agree with you. I think the chances of AI and automation "taking over most jobs" within say 10 years are very slim indeed. Further, as AI and automation replaces some jobs, other jobs are created, so that with a healthy economy you can have full employment. But that's not my point. It's safe to say that as AI and automation replaces some jobs, new jobs are being created. The million dollar question is how many new jobs are being created for every one job loss. I argue that if that figure is less than one, society faces huge problems.

I don't make predictions, I look at possible future scenarios. For now I'll discuss only two:

a) After life returns to "normal" (whatever that is?), online shopping will replace many small and "Mom and Pop" retail businesses. There could be a significant nett loss in retail jobs. What are the owners and employees of the lost small businesses going to do? Amazon is not going to employ them.

b) Peter Thiel famously said don't bet against Elon Musk. Maybe Elon will not succeed this time, but there is certainly a reasonable chance that he will succeed in full self driving cars and trucks within say ten years, or very soon after that. I don't see enough other new jobs being created to offset the job losses in human drivers.

To come back to your point - I agree that in the near future AI will not be able to do everything. Even if AI does not do everything, society could still have big problems. All that needs to happen is that the ratio of new jobs to disappearing jobs to be less than one. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But I argue there is a reasonable chance of that happening.

Just to be clear, I'm not a Luddite. I am convinced there is enough meaningful work for unemployed people to do. Let AI and automation do the boring stuff, and let humans do the exciting creative stuff. We just need to work out the details of how to organise the economy when a fraction of the people are required to provide all the goods and services for all the people.

On Thu, 4 Jun 2020 at 01:19, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Pieter:
Sorry for the delay in responding.

The use of AI-type technologies has been around for 15-20 years as applied to constant, data-related topics, e.g. stock market stories ("The share price of X corporation rose Y on heavy trading today.") and sports stories -- football (yours and ours), baseball, horse racing, etc. In a similar manner, obituaries can also be written if someone plugs in the vital components: So-and-so died X. He was born Y in X and attended Z high school.

I think though, it's going to be a while before AI can do everything. For example, all phenomena/stories have Qualitative, Quantitative and Geographic aspects wrapped up in a Timeline to understand and reflect change(s). The journalist, ideally, has to determine where to get the best data -- and in what format(s) -- to understand the phenomena, then what tools are best for analyzing it and, finally, how will the findings be best presented (this could be presented in multiple formats, but each will have different requirements).

Or to take a current live example, if reporters are on the streets covering a demonstration, can AI be trained to "see" the best photo opportunity from infinite angles? I don't think so, at least not yet.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - [hidden email]
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data
============================================

On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 12:34 AM Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'm not a journalist, but offer my opinion in any case:

a) Accoriding to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2020/05/30/dozens-of-msn-journalists-to-be-replaced-by-robots/#14c9ff97333e , Microsoft does not produce their own stories, but uses editors to select and adapt stories from other sources. They are replacing staff with AI, but because they don't have journalists, they're not replacing journalists with AI.

b) I know it's opinion only, but IMO in a reasonably short time most services and products will be provided with a fraction of all humans, AI and automation will do the balance of the work.AI selecting news stories is one example, Another example is, although Elon is probably not going to meet his schedule with full self-driving cars, the probability is reasonably high that he will achieve it in say 5 years. This is going to cause massive unemployment - drivers are not going to learn to code, and coders are being replaced by AI in any case too. If you're not a top programmer, your employment prospects are not secure. Our challenge is to adapt. I'm not American, but if America should elect Andrew Yang (maybe 2024?) as president then America could lead the world in adapting for a world where there are not conventional employment opportunities for all.

On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 20:34, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:
I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

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Barry MacKichan

Re: journalists

In reply to this post by Prof David West

I assume that as people train a machine learning system to select/write articles, there will be another group training a system to game or exploit it. And so on …

Pretty much SEO taken to a new level.

—Barry

On 30 May 2020, at 14:33, Prof David West wrote:

I see that MSN is replacing human journalists with AIs. Curious as to the reaction from real journalists among FRIAM?

davew

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