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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-jump-the-shark dept.

Your career is now a game of musical chairs: you need to be ready when the song stops

...

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:34PM (#427140)

    The obvious rebuttal to your obvious rebuttal is that the summary says it has happened.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:56PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:56PM (#427152) Journal
    Actually, the summary says it hasn't happened.

    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.

    See? No actual product at this time in those areas.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by compro01 on Tuesday November 15 2016, @10:41PM

      by compro01 (2515) on Tuesday November 15 2016, @10:41PM (#427248)

      Actually, the lawyer bit is in-use at Baker & Hostetler right now [washingtonpost.com].

      And automated financial advisers are already in use, under the name "robo-advisors".

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:11PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:11PM (#427258) Journal
        Ok, that actually makes sense as a good use of AI.

        he AI machine, powered by IBM’s Watson technology, will serve as a legal researcher for the firm. It will be responsible for sifting through thousands of legal documents to bolster the firm’s cases. These legal researcher jobs are typically filled by fresh-out-of-school lawyers early on in their careers.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 17 2016, @02:36PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 17 2016, @02:36PM (#428109) Journal
        But OTOH, a variety of search engines both general and specialized do that too. Not really seeing the point to labeling Watson a "legal researcher" any more than any of these other tools.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:40PM (#427276)

      Sure looks like targeting to me. But that's not the goalpost anymore.