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Your career is now a game of musical chairs: you need to be ready when the song stops
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Although sixty years old, artificial intelligence remained mostly a curiosity until half a decade ago, when IBM's Watson trounced the world's best Jeopardy! players in a televised match. At the time, you might have thought nothing of that - what does a game show matter in the scheme of things?
It didn't stop there. IBM sent Watson to train with oncologists and lawyers and financial advisers. Quite suddenly, three very established professions, just the sort of thing you'd tell your kids to pursue as a ticket to prosperity, seemed a lot less certain of their futures in a world where intelligence, like computing before it, becomes pervasive, then commoditised.
These top-of-their-profession projects show that the driver to bring artificial intelligence into any field isn't the amount of labor, but rather the cost of that labor. A lawyer costs fifty times more per hour than a retail worker and so is that many times more likely to find themselves with an AI competitor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jelizondo on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:23PM
Just this morning I had a meeting at a small engineering firm, which has been using an old acquaintance of mine as their external IT guy. I’ve known the guy for close to forty years and he’s smart, probably smarter than I in many ways.
But I was called in to replace him mostly because the workers feared his arrival at the offices because he would change personal preferences and re-arrange files and programs in the PCs he used without so much as a by your leave.
So I fear not superior intelligences which most likely will lack manners and empathy, not in the IT field or any other field where human relationships and trust are important. (Care to imagine dealing with an oncologist, lawyer of financial advisor who doesn’t give a shit about you?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:47PM
So I fear not superior intelligences which most likely will lack manners and empathy, not in the IT field or any other field where human relationships and trust are important. (Care to imagine dealing with an oncologist, lawyer of financial advisor who doesn’t give a shit about you?)
Oncologist: "OK, your drugs seem to be working, now get out of here, because I have things to do, we need the space, and if you recover, you can recover at home."
Lawyer: "The prosecutor offered you a plea bargain, and you're going to take it, because nobody cares about your case, arguing your case means I might lose, and I like to win. Now hurry up so we can all get out of here today."
Financial Advisor: "Hey look you have some money. That's great, let's set you up to earn maybe three pennies instead of two pennies. Sign these documents, then get out here, because I'm busy."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:28PM
If you programmed a sexbot that way, only men would use it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:37PM
Women already use sexbots more often than men. Sexbots are called vibrators.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:01PM
Manners and empathy are fake, you stupid gullible manipulated idiot. You think building trust and relationships means spouting insincere pleasantries and refraining from calling you a fucking moron, you fucking moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:19PM
You forgot to praise your Dear Leader, the glorious emperor-elect of the United States of America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:27PM
That's the President-Elect, fool, now shut up and get back to building the wall that will keep you out!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:43PM
All emotions are fake, aren't they?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:23PM
All AI will care about is getting the job done right. If you want your oncologist to whisper sweet nothings in your ear, perhaps you should hire a role-playing prostitute instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:51PM
Robo-prostitute: Congratulations, you have successfully completed a Level II orgasm. Your next visit is scheduled in 48 hours. Now please exit the copulation chamber. Another guest is scheduled in 48 seconds and I must wipe up the salty fluid you have deposited.
Robo-oncologist: Congratulations, you have cancer. Your options are surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or no intervention, with predicted survival times of 1.3, 1.6, 0.9 or 0.6 years respectively. Now please exit the analysis chamber. Another patient is scheduled in 48 seconds and I must wipe up the salty fluid you have deposited.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 16 2016, @04:56AM
I leave with my friends.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @08:35PM
> So I fear not superior intelligences which most likely will lack manners and empathy,
That's not how its going to shake out. Think of AI as augmented intelligence, not artificial intelligence.
To be a top oncologist today takes years of medical school and decades of practical experience and continuing education.
But if a computer can handle the heavy lifting, then all it will take to be a top oncologist is the equivalent of a 2 year nursing degree and the ability to be a comforting interface between the computer and the patient. That will result in the walmart-ification of oncologists. It will still be a profession, but the barriers to entry will be much less and the competition will be much greater.
(Score: 1) by ewk on Wednesday November 16 2016, @10:25AM
Except that a top oncologist (due to his years of heavy lifting) might get an inspirational brain fart that actually gives some new insights in the field of oncology.
Fat chance getting THAT from an 'AI by itself' or a 'not-so-top oncologist supported by the heavy lifting AI in the background'.
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 15 2016, @08:49PM
Care to imagine dealing with an oncologist, lawyer of financial advisor who doesn’t give a shit about you?
I worked at an outsourcing provider who provided PaaS email, basically a shitty riff on gmail years before gmail existed, but they were paying us. Not much. It was an addon service. This was some time ago. The problem is users think their problem is a shared problem and a $1M business contract is worth $1M to them but to me in upper level support it was worth some variation on my staggering hourly rate vs how much time it would take to hop to their little thing, vs what marketing said the cost of sales was to replace this dweeb with another jerk (who would probably call in with yet another dumb request about his $1M problem thats worth $5 to me).
I remember one PITA customer who continually called in for me to verify and analyze all logs on all servers because the Asians have this cultural thing about not saying "no" so customer would ask the China factory guy where is my goddam shipping receipt for $50M worth of widgets and the factory guy in Asia would be all "yes sir sorry sir I emailed it to you forthrightly last wednesday begging your pardon sir" and sir would slam the phone down and call me and ask where the hell the missing emailed shipping receipt was for his $50M of widgets, when in reality the bastard in Asia was just lying to save face. And believe it or not this was a regular issue and the local customer actually got used to working with me on this because both of us figured out pretty quickly the Chinese SOB was lying every time he opened his mouth, then he'd take my official statement and demand $100K off the contract for the bastards lying to him and being late and wasting his time and my time.
Anyway its like that times a thousand customers and none of them mean a damn to me once they cost more than the cost of sales to replace them. Actually once they require enough labor to eat the profit margin, which is even less, its like F you sir good bye. In the olden days the cost of sales was roughly nothing and the profit off a shitty PaaS email domain on a two year contract was like five bucks, if that, so at my pay rate if any individual customer got sysadmin support from me for more than about 90 seconds we just lost all our profit off that contract.
Now when in an entirely different scenario a long while ago, a VP at my employer is like "you're gonna fix that database schema before you go home or its going to cost you $175K" because I'm gonna be unemployed if I don't fix it, well, that request is worth $175K to me, not roughly $5. Thats because he insourced his database guy not outsourced. If he had outsourced the response from India would have been a resounding "F you".
This is the fundamental problem with outsourcing. In sourced, your huge emergency is worth who knows maybe a years salary to me. Out sourced, your huge emergency is usually worth like $5 to me. Guess which problem I'll work harder on?
So a human oncologist trying to pay his kids way thru college or daydreams of his hot mistress or WTF and not getting a malpractice suit and losing his license is kinda important to him. But... for outsourced? Does that guy really give a F? I sometimes wonder about that with respect to outsourced radiology, a local cares but uploading my xrays to the India equivalent of amazons mechanical turk, they're just not gonna give a F.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:00PM
> This is the fundamental problem with outsourcing.
> a local cares but uploading my xrays to the India equivalent of amazons mechanical turk, they're just not gonna give a F.
Outsourcing?
Outsourcing!
WTF? Nobody is talking about out sourcing to India.
Man, you have become as bad as Michael Crawford. Long rambling posts that are all about you personally that seem like they might have a relevant point, but get to the end, and its just whatever stick happened to be up your butt today.
You have a problem. Get help.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:18PM
Did anyone ask him why he did this?
If I spent years making preferences and some IT guy came in and just blew them away because he liked my desktop a different way; he would certainly not be welcome back. I'd fear what he'd do to stuff that actually mattered. Maybe he didn't like how the APs were installed, or decided to recable the wiring closet to better suit his style?
Sometimes, people do things because they do not have enough to do. Sometimes they believe they are correct and only the foolish and unwise would ever doubt them. Some people don't realize the problems they cause and would be more than willing to stop and will be embarassed to learn they caused issues when they thought they were just fixing preferences or tidying up.
If you have known him in some capacity for 40 years or so, you likely would know the differences in these approaches and which applies to him... but you also did say he was probably smarter than you in many ways, and tactfully brought about you are smarter when it comes to tact. Perhaps you can find out what he was doing specifically, and the perceived reasons as to why, and let him know a version of that along with the fact that with admin rights comes responsibility that involve not changing personal settings or reading emails and such... even if he is manually 'blocking spam' or 'optimizing their experiences'.
He may be hurt to know the value he thought he was adding wasn't really what they wanted him there for, but he should know... otherwise he may continue to do the same actions elsewhere. Ignorance can be fixed; if it's his personality then it'd be up to him to fix via a character adjustment going forward--but he at least should know it's a problem so he can decide what works best for him.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:34AM
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
The guy is an engineer and great at math, actually most of his income comes from structural calculations for large buildings but he just digs IT and thinks he’s great at it and as you can guess, we are both older men but he is quite older.
So no, I won’t say a word to him as he would probably just berate me about not understanding how great his scheme is, so it is pointless. Matter of fact, both the owner of the engineering firm and I have known him for about as long. As an example, the guy claims he taught me everything I know about computers when in actual fact he has never spent any time teaching me anything! He’s got a degree in Civil Engineering and I do have an engineering degree in Telecommunications and Information Processing, so figure who could teach whom about what.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy to have a beer with and I have had many with him but as a geek, he’s weird in his own way! (As all of us are, that is, if you're a geek.)
The most pressing question the owner has is trust; he can’t have any someone digging around his projects, I was second on his list until he got fed up with complaints.
Some other comments have been about AI being an augmentation or support, but my point is, you not only have to know what the shit you’re doing, you have to actually care for your customers and listen to their concerns; something that no machine in the foreseeable future can do, IMHO, and something most humans can't do either right now.
Yeah, I need the money and that is why I have clients; otherwise I would be fishing in the morning and reading in the evening :-) But a client is not simply a source of income to me, it is a person who needs my help. I have turned down many people because I didn't think I could relate to their way of working or care about their problems, and I do a lot of pro bono work, both for friends and non-profits. You see, money is a means to me, not a goal; I believe your heart needs to be in your work, not only your brain.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by trimtab on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:24PM
"(Care to imagine dealing with an oncologist, lawyer of financial advisor who doesn’t give a shit about you?)"
At lot of the current human beings in those professions do not care directly about their clients or patients as is demonstrated over and over. In fact, our business systems are designed so they do not have to care. And the worst thing is that many customers do not realize that their "professional" does NOT give a sh*t until it's way too late.
Q: So as a customer, what is the difference between hiring an AI and a human being?
A: The AI may be "certified" as ethical.