[Keith_McClary]

http://dilbert.com/2014-12-24/
This is sort of my theory of AI. We won't recognise it when it happens. The notion that AI is something we deliberately build that can talk to us is total hubris.

[KaiserJeep]

No, the Dilbert strip makes perfect sense - we are indeed organizing as a collective organism connected with WiFi and cellphone neurons. However that has nothing to do with the automation of human jobs, it is a separate topic.

[KaiserJeep]

He had white horses and ladies by the score
All dressed in satin and waiting by the door

Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

White lace and feathers, they made up his bed
A gold covered mattress on which he was laid

Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

He went to fight wars for his country and his king
Of his honor and his glory, the people would sing

Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

A bullet had found him, his blood ran as he cried
No money could save him, so he laid down and died

Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was

From "A Time and a Place", by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer

[Keith_McClary]

So lustful before the vapors
You find sensuous visions beneath the clouds
Alass, alack! The King must continue
Evil and dream-like on the slime
You taste glowing rubes beyond the vapors
Be watchful. The fun has gone
Weird and evil beyond the mist
I lick dark teeth under the shadows
Tighten up your wig! The vision is good
flickering hungry
where the light comes from
an empty address book
For how long
the foreigner
leave his home
in the late light

[KaiserJeep]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

[Keith_McClary]

Tomorrow's Dilbert

BTW, the poetry I posted above is by AI.

[Pops]

So anyway, what happens at the juncture of AI & PO?

"The decades to come will see many things that are now done by machines handed back over to human beings, for the eminently pragmatic reason that it will again be cheaper to feed, house, clothe, and train a human being to do those things than it will be to make, fuel, and maintain a machine to do them."-John Michael Greer.

Yeah, that's kinda what I think too.

But I can't get my mind around exactly how that transition happens - or even how generally - or even whatever is more abstract than generally.

[Keith_McClary]

Dilbert

[lpetrich]

So anyway, what happens at the juncture of AI & PO?

"The decades to come will see many things that are now done by machines handed back over to human beings, for the eminently pragmatic reason that it will again be cheaper to feed, house, clothe, and train a human being to do those things than it will be to make, fuel, and maintain a machine to do them."-John Michael Greer.

That would be true if "peak oil" == "peak energy consumption", but that need not be the case. Non-hydroelectric renewable energy sources are becoming competitive with fossil fuels for electricity generation, even if not yet for vehicle fuels.

So does that mean that we have a future of coexisting horses and bullet trains?

[Keith_McClary]

Another 'toon on dilbert's theme:

Free Range
Does that make it a "meme"?
I bet there are already talking dollies that coach kids to nag their parents to buy accessories.

[Keith_McClary]

MATTA

[dinopello]

The robots are coming !

Robots have indeed eliminated a great deal of factory work and are rapidly moving on to product design, medical diagnostics, research, teaching, accounting, translating, copy editing, and a great deal more. Once-secure professions are no longer safe. From that, many economists conclude that we may just have to adjust to a high plateau of unemployment.

Half a century ago, the Nobel laureate economist Wassily Leontief posed a thought experiment in which the economy was so productive that there remained only a single human worker, and her job was to flip the switch. What then? The questions, Leontief said, were (1) how to allocate the fruits of all of that amazing productivity, and (2) what everyone else would do for a living.

The need for policies of social investment to keep the economy at full employment to bridge over technological displacement was also a theme of the economist Hyman Minsky, who observed that the problem was laissez-faire capitalism and its tendency toward periodic financial crises; it took activist government to keep the economy at its potential.

The problem is that market forces aren't competent to translate the productivity gains into new jobs, much less good jobs, because the demand is in the wrong place.