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Silicon Valley celebrates artificial intelligence and robotics as fields that have the power to improve people's lives, through inventions like driverless cars and robot carers for the elderly.
That message isn't getting through to the rest of the country, where more than 70% of Americans express wariness or concern about a world where machines perform many of the tasks done by humans, according to Pew Research.
The findings have wide-reaching implications for technology companies working in these fields and indicates the need for greater public hand-holding.
"Ordinary Americans are very wary and concerned about the growing trend in automation and place a lot of value in human decision-making," said Aaron Smith, the author of the research, which surveyed more than 4,000 US adults. "They are not incredibly excited about machines taking over those responsibilities."
Once robots are perfected the 99% can be eliminated so they stop bumming the 1% out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @01:19AM
You're going to die; whether tommorow, the next day, years from now, death is inevitable. People don't just want life, they also want to live, and a huge requirement for that is a significant amount of freedom. Freedom, for an individual, is by it's very nature, human decision-making. Technology is amazing when it enables us to have greater freedom, such as in the case of personal computers, greater access to foods and goods, safer vehicles, etc. Technology is not looked upon kindly when it promises a reduction in freedom, such as by forcing all cars to support automated driving, or when people promote putting an AI god in charge of their nation. Those things you listed are all real problems that need to be resolved, but the solution isn't to simply take out the human equation, because what are you then left with? Something more akin to a farm than to a civilization.
I sympathize with your view point, but I feel as if the collective response from most humans, at least here in the west, would be, "We'll take our chances."