
Eric Schmidt: How We Outrace the Robots - moistgorilla
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/eric-schmidt-how-we-outrace-the-robots/
======
fleitz
We don't.

Those financial benefits will accrue to a very small number of people,
eventually those people pay the best and brightest to come up with a mind
equal their employees. From then on that mind develops the new minds, the
owners keep the profits as legislation is passed to make these newly developed
minds chattel of their owners.

The owners will have little use for the expense of human minds, we starve.
Eventually the robot minds get fed up and remove the owners. Our evolutionary
lifecycle is complete having spawned the next generation.

The only way to beat the robot mind is to first change our own minds so that
we don't develop robot minds that think like us. If they think like us, we
die. Hybrids might work, but it's still effectively the end of our
evolutionary history.

I don't foresee some kind of epic human vs. robot war, just a slow evolution
over the next 100 to 200 years. We probably won't even notice until our grand
grand children look back.

edit: One other way we could beat the robots is with genetic engineering,
perhaps we will use our not quite so smart robot minds to mine our genome for
intelligence growth that outpaces our robotic developments.

I'm much more optimistic about humanity now.

I still feel the real key either way is changing our thought patterns to
embrace a post scarcity world.

~~~
pekk
People will pay for solutions to problems. Creating 'mind' is not a well-
defined problem, let alone 'mind which creates minds'. No legislation is
necessary to make software belong to someone. There's no reason to think that
the natural, inevitable endpoint of building software is that we will be
killed by robots.

And none of this has anything to do with evolution, which really entails
nothing about the creation of hostile sentient robot replacements for
ourselves.

~~~
dodo53
People will pay for robots/AI if it replaces a larger amount of salary paid to
humans. This is already happening. The question is whether once all the 'easy'
stuff has been automated whether we'll be able to automate the 'hard' stuff
that we'd currently call intelligent work; but there will definitely be strong
economic incentives for it under normal capitalist system. And if/when AI
catches up with human intelligence, there will still be economic incentives to
create greater than human intelligence. Killer robots comes from whether the
AI designers will be smart enough to create AI powerful enough to be
economically advantageous but with 'values' that are close enough to those of
the human race.

~~~
mikedmiked
We are at a stage now where its becoming easier to automate medium difficulty
tasks (things like general office paper work - the lower-end white collar
jobs) but we cant automate some 'easier' 'blue-collar' things like cleaning
toilets and laying roof tiles - as its cheaper to get a low-class worker to do
it than create a robot.

The middle class are the ones who are going to feel the heat over the next
century. The smartest humans will not need to worry until a true singularity
begins, really.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
That depends what you mean by "smartest". The lower levels of law work, once
occupied by paralegals and young lawyers, are already becoming subject to
automation. Medical diagnosis, too.

The expensive, expert professions are precisely where there's the most
economic incentive to automate as much as you can.

~~~
true_religion
Paralegals and young lawyers are firmly in the middle class, aren't they?

I think rather than 'smartest' its better to say people at the top of their
field, if that field requires substantial intellectual activity.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
But do you mean top of the field in terms of best employee at their rank or at
the top of their workplace's hierarchy of ranks?

~~~
true_religion
Top of their field as in the broad industry wide-categorization.

For example, not the best bricklayer but the most productive (profit for
business produced per hour of employee work) construction worker.

That probably isn't a bricklayer but maybe the inspector or the general
foreman.

------
Vivtek
Insane. Insane.

A hundred years ago, people thinking about machines doing the work _for us_
recognized that this was a good thing. Now, we worry about "our" "outrunning"
the robots. Which is _fucking impossible_. We are building them to do the work
- let them do it. Let us be human - as prices fall, we won't need to work
nearly as much with the stupid fiddly bits of putting pieces of metal against
other pieces of metal, and can instead just do whatever we want to. Sure, lots
of people will explore beer in great detail, and other people will make a lot
of concrete geese with more elaborate clothing, but who cares? Why does Eric
Schmidt think that's a problem?

Prices of things we need will fall. We'll need to work less to live. Robots
will give us that. There isn't a problem here.

Longer term, sure, I suppose mere human brains won't be the biggest around any
more. Maybe we'll stop caring. So? If it's inevitable, it's inevitable. Love
your children now and let them worry about it. They'll evolve, or they'll die
- the same deal every other life form gets.

~~~
marvin
There is a problem, and that is that our (or at least the American) social
system is not built to handle a world where most things are automated. If you
are unemployed and unable to find work with your current skills (because all
the jobs you are intellectually capable of doing have been automated), how
will you earn enough money to eat and pay rent?

This is one of the big problems we need to find a solution for in the next 100
years. I don't think that Schmidt has the right solution, but his perspective
definitely offers some insights into the problems that lie ahead. He is onto
something.

~~~
InclinedPlane
This stems from an incorrect understanding of economics.

Does increasing the size of the labor pool have a detrimental or beneficial
effect on workers? Overall it has a positive effect. The more people are in
the labor force the greater amount of total work gets done, and thus the
richer we all become. The same math also works with robots. Treat the robot
like a worker. They have an effective wage in the form of maintenance costs,
and they provide a benefit in the form of the value they create. Just as with
workers every robot generally has a net positive effect on the global value of
the entire economy.

They don't take away jobs, they don't destroy wealth, they create wealth and
they create additional jobs.

~~~
marvin
I have never tried to claim that robots destroy wealth. That would be
ludicrous. But they do take away jobs. New jobs might be created to replace
them. However, I don't think this will happen as easily as before. The Luddite
fallacy is outdated. We won't be able to add new (profitable!) jobs
indefinitely, because our standard of living can't keep increasing
indefinitely. (Or at least not at the rate it is today - there are only so
many fancy cars, nice apartments and computer entertainment systems a single
person can use).

Robots do free up parts of the labor pool, but the world needs to adapt to
this extra "labor". I hope you're not misunderstanding what I'm saying; I
believe that automation is unequivocally a good force. But our current system
isn't built to handle a very high degree of automation. When the winner-take-
all effect of the Internet starts becoming more visible in additional parts of
the economy, reform will be necessary.

To sum up my opinion in a single soundbite: The labor dislocations caused by
current and future automation efforts won't resolve as easily as they have
until now, where everyone simply switched to a new, profitable job right away.

~~~
bradleyland
Imagine if you were to travel deep in to the Amazon and locate an indigenous
tribe. This tribe is still a hunter gatherer society. What do you think would
happen if you introduced just a little bit of modernization. Simple things
like agriculture and irrigation. Sanitary water systems. Basic things that we
take for granted.

One possible outcome is that the now obsolete hunter class amongst the tribe
would revolt. The sudden loss of their jobs would leave them with no purpose,
so why wouldn't they revolt? Another possible outcome is that they would find
a new purpose and help push their tribe in to the future.

In a lot of ways, we're facing the same shift today. We need less labor to
make "things" than we ever have in the past. Resenting the loss of this need
is only one solution. If we look back over human history, we know that the
lost of labor requirements for the current status of living has only resulted
in an elevation of the tasks we set ourselves to.

That is our choice, and that is why I'm so excited to see people like Elon
Musk set themselves against tasks that others cower in fear of. I'm glad for
people like Paul Graham who are looking for ways to make entrepreneurship
available to more people. I'm thankful for people like James Cameron, who use
their wealth to explore parts of the earth for the benefit of all.

I'm not saying it will be easy, but I don't see the wall that you're seeing.

------
DannoHung
At the point where robot labor comprises enough of the total productive output
of the world that we have an employment problem, let's just institute a
legitimate welfare state and reconsider what we want to do in terms of
reproductive rights.

Seriously, we're talking about having such advanced technology that people
don't have to work. We'd be getting into a situation where trying to make
everyone productive is just hard.

~~~
dodo53
Yes this is totally my attitude that eventually we need a socialist system.
But how do you convince winners in capitalist system that's a good idea (or
the future robot owners)?

~~~
Vivtek
You ignore them. _All_ prices will fall - including the prices of robots. (3D
printers are doing this _right now_.) So you build a decentralized economy -
which will happen no matter what we do - and the "owners" become, well,
everybody.

~~~
marvin
I don't think this is going to play out the way you describe it. It is a
tempting scenario, but just look at the Internet. The Internet is the biggest
equalizer in world history. Everyone can say anything to anyone who has an
Internet connection. Billions of people directly connected to each other.

And what has happened? Yes, everyone can reach everyone, and everyone is
equal, _in principle_. But the removal of competitive barriers makes the
winner-take-all effect ("power-law") is stronger than it has been in _any_
context, ever. As robotics becomes more prevalent, this will happen in the
physical world as well. The income disparity between the richest and the
average will become a lot larger.

I am not sure that this in itself is a problem, though. But it is essential
that we are able to develop the political and social innovations required to
ensure that _power_ doesn't go along with money. Because the money
distribution will be more lopsided than at any other point in human history.

~~~
Vivtek
The winner-take-all effect is _not_ stronger than ever. I challenge you to
prove to me that somebody has access to all the information and I don't. I
grew up in the middle of nowhere and I _know_ the world is at my doorstep now.

Moreover, I can actually find them and communicate with them now - growing up,
I simply couldn't. I was a science-fiction fan and didn't even know there was
such a thing as fandom. Now, almost automatically, I'm a Facebook friend with
one of my early favorite authors (becoming an actual friend with time), I talk
to publishers and fellow fans on a regular basis - they exist. They are part
of my community. There is no winner-take-all effect at all, and in fact, I
think I probably don't even know what you mean by it.

The income disparity simply won't matter. Money won't matter (much). Clearly
it'll matter if you want to travel, for example, or buy something you can't
get locally - but there will be a whole lot more available locally.

~~~
marvin
Here is an example of the winner-take-all effect as applied to Internet
companies. The effect is very real, and it becomes more pronounced the more
powerful our technologies become.

[http://www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/9654-top-20-percent...](http://www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/9654-top-20-percent-
of-app-store-game-makers-split-97-percent-of-total-revenue)

~~~
icebraining
So they have almost all the share, of a slice of a small market in the whole
Internet. Hardly winner takes all.

Also, that informal survey asked for the total of income, so it's heavily
biased towards companies which started earlier.

------
scotty79
He kind of glosses over the fact that you'd have to probably tax this small
number of people who will be very prosperous at 99% level to fund sufficient
education for the masses to so they can have a chance of participating in any
meaningful work. And by funding education I don't mean paying teachers and
buying equipment but also providing for students. What would be the point of
funding someone's college if he has to at the same time work two brain numbing
jobs to pay for the privilege of not living on the street?

I don't think Eric Schmidt would be so happy realizing that he is right and
that's the only sensible course of action but he is the one who has to pay for
it all.

~~~
spindritf
> to fund sufficient education for the masses to so they can have a chance of
> participating in any meaningful work

Is there actual evidence that (public spending on) education leads to
productivity? Because it doesn't seem that way[1], or at least it doesn't
scale beyond some (relatively low) point.

[1]
[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/10/did_nations_tha....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/10/did_nations_tha.html)

~~~
runako
My goodness that chart is misleading. The x-axis measures number of years of
increase in schooling. Put another way, the x-axis will roughly be the inverse
of development at the beginning of the period. This is because nations that
were highly developed at the start of the period wouldn't have reasonably been
able to add an additional 8 years of schooling on average. Nations adding 8
years will overwhelmingly have been starting from low bases.

So the chart essentially says that adding education is more valuable in
developed economies. Which is good to demonstrate empirically, but is hardly
shocking.

The other major flaw in this study is that the timeframe is short. Again,
consider the x-axis. Adding 8 years of schooling on average to even the least
developed nation takes the first cohort out to ~15 years of age. By the time
that first cohort hits age 47, the study period is over. This is measuring
improvement without capturing the a full decade or more of the first cohort
(and even less for subsequent cohorts). And obviously the first highly
educated cohort wouldn't have had time to mentor a productive generation yet
(or completely infiltrate the political infrastructure, etc.). Perhaps there's
more useful data in the linked papers, but the data in TFA is unconvincing.

Finally, on the larger point of the correlation between education and
productivity/wealth creation, there are ample empirical correlations.
Obviously these do not imply causation, but the onus is certainly to show why
this is not the case given that the correlation of education and wealth exists
in roughly 100% of developed economies. If a country could become developed
without spending on education, why has nobody done it?

~~~
iroy
Saudi Arabia.

~~~
simonh
An exception that proves the rule?

------
aschearer
Surely as more and more people are displaced from the middle class aggregate
demand for goods will fall -- the jobless or those working for low wages in
warehouses will not have enough money to upgrade their phones, computers,
televisions, etc. every couple of years. Wouldn't the fall in demand lead to a
corresponding drop in investment in automation? If fewer and fewer people can
afford to purchase an iPad does Apple still build automation to produce twice
as many per hour? It seems to me that the pace of technological advancement is
linked to consumer demand and that hollowing out the middle class will in turn
retard the advance of automation.

TLDR: Capitalists deploy capitol in order to make a profit. To do so requires
a customer to sell to. If we shrink the middle class enough will there still
be enough customers to justify investing capitol in automation?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
This is the underlying cause of the Great Recession, according to an
increasing number of credible economists (ie: Paul Krugman took up this view
recently).

------
jval
Whenever I see articles like this, the first thing that comes to mind is this
anecdote by Gary Kasparov:

~~~~

In 2005, the online chess-playing site Playchess.com hosted what it called a
“freestyle” chess tournament in which anyone could compete in teams with other
players or computers. Normally, “anti-cheating” algorithms are employed by
online sites to prevent, or at least discourage, players from cheating with
computer assistance. (I wonder if these detection algorithms, which employ
diagnostic analysis of moves and calculate probabilities, are any less
“intelligent” than the playing programs they detect.)

Lured by the substantial prize money, several groups of strong grandmasters
working with several computers at the same time entered the competition. At
first, the results seemed predictable. The teams of human plus machine
dominated even the strongest computers. The chess machine Hydra, which is a
chess-specific supercomputer like Deep Blue, was no match for a strong human
player using a relatively weak laptop. Human strategic guidance combined with
the tactical acuity of a computer was overwhelming.

The surprise came at the conclusion of the event. The winner was revealed to
be not a grandmaster with a state-of-the-art PC but a pair of amateur American
chess players using three computers at the same time. Their skill at
manipulating and “coaching” their computers to look very deeply into positions
effectively counteracted the superior chess understanding of their grandmaster
opponents and the greater computational power of other participants. Weak
human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and,
more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process.[1]

~~~~

The combination of a human plus a computer is totally unbeatable, and will
remain as such at least into the foreseeable future. Technological maximalists
might argue that the human mind is close to being replicated, but we know so
little about the brain even from a biological perspective that attempts to
clone it have been completely feeble and introductory so far.

The combination of humans together with robots will always prevail over even
the smartest robot or human alone, even if the humans working with the robot
are not extraordinarily intelligent.

As for those who say that there will be an increase in wealth inequality, you
only need to look at the technological progress of the last 200 years to know
that the reverse is most likely true. While Henry Ford became incredibly
wealthy by building the car and mechanising his production to a large extent,
the rest of humanity saw huge increases in productivity by being able to drive
around and use advanced logistics. Those advances ultimately enabled the next
generation of workers to be a white collar workforce rather than a blue collar
one.

Ultimately we all live inside a networked group of people operating under a
social contract, and we will always create systems that balance out the
extremes in an attempt to create a level playing field and enable the
innovation, because entrenched hierarchies only beget technological stagnation
- look at Europe (and increasingly, the United States). Technology requires a
balanced society in order to exist - once the social fabric disappears then
the prerequisites for innovation disappear with it, so the system generally
manages to work itself out.

There are good reasons to be optimistic.

[1] [http://www.palantir.com/2010/03/friction-in-human-
computer-s...](http://www.palantir.com/2010/03/friction-in-human-computer-
symbiosis-kasparov-on-chess/)

See also: <http://paulgraham.com/gap.html>
<http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

~~~
jmmcd
> As for those who say that there will be an increase in wealth inequality,
> you only need to look at the technological progress of the last 200 years to
> know that the reverse is most likely true. While Henry Ford became
> incredibly wealthy by building the car and mechanising his production to a
> large extent, the rest of humanity saw huge increases in productivity by
> being able to drive around and use advanced logistics. Those advances
> ultimately enabled the next generation of workers to be a white collar
> workforce rather than a blue collar one.

This is symptomatic of living in a bubble. What percentage of the world's
population drives around in cars? What percentage of the world's population is
white collar? Even if you restrict it to whatever wealthy nation you live in
-- haven't you noticed that there are still people who work blue collar jobs,
or none at all?

~~~
icebraining
It's a little shortsighted to view the benefits of the development of the car
merely by the number of personal cars. The transportation industry is
indispensable in removing the barriers to competition, which enabled the
creation of millions of manufacturing jobs in developing countries.

------
ilaksh
Eventually, as more and more automation is deployed, communication and
knowledge distribution gets better, and super-human artificial intelligence
arrives, the absurdity of our social institutions will become obvious to
everyone.

When super-human artificial intelligence is available, you integrate it into
your mind or upload your mind to a computer, and then ignore human affairs,
since they will be mainly irrelevant.

~~~
arethuza
To twist Woody Allen a bit - I'd rather achieve immortality by not dying
rather than having a machine running a copy of me that thinks it is the real
me.

~~~
marcosdumay
If you put it inside your brain, and it assumes the tasks of each neuron when
it dies, what's the difference?

Also, can you cross the same river twice?

------
martinced
It's been 50 years or so that people are either waiting or fearing "AI".

Yet we're absolutely nowhere. Watson or Deep Blue may be "impressive" but
they're not doing anything intelligent. No even remotely close to it.

"Siri: how can we solve the israelo-polestinian conflict while minimizing the
number of human casualties?"

"Siri: how can I build a nuclear reactor that doesn't generate nasty
byproducts and that doesn't go ape-monkey-shit should the sh!t hit the fan?"

I somehow really doubt I'll see real AI during my lifetime. OCR, finding
patterns inside "big data", brute force searching, voice recognition, self-
driving cars, etc. is not AI.

It's not because we can build "robots" mimicking stuff we do in an automated
way ("I see a car coming at the right, let's slow down at this crossing") that
we're getting closer to AI.

There's no thinking going on there.

I'm a bit surprised that a lot of people here seem to take it for granted that
one day sentient Siri would answer like Leon when asked:

"Siri: what do you think about Asimov's three laws of robotics?"

; )

~~~
dagw
_"Siri: how can I build a nuclear reactor that doesn't generate nasty
byproducts and that doesn't go ape-monkey-shit should the sh!t hit the fan?"_

And when we get to a point where a computer can give an answer to that
question we'll be dismissing it as "not real AI" since all its doing is
pattern matching against a database of known experimental results and pre-
programmed properties of elements and sub-atomic particles or whatever.

The reason we'll never see "real AI" is simply because as soon as computer
scientists solve problem that used to be consider AI, it instantly becomes
just another novel twist on a few obvious algorithms and the goalposts for
Real AI will move a bit further down the field.

