Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’

[OnlinePoker]

If you wanted relief from stories about tyre factories and steel plants closing, you could try relaxing with a new 300-page report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which looks at the likely effects of a robot revolution.

But you might not end up reassured. Though it promises robot carers for an ageing population, it also forecasts huge numbers of jobs being wiped out: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs, seeing their livelihoods taken away by machines.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/07/artificial-intelligence-homo-sapiens-split-handful-gods

I haven't read the actual report yet, but this article is chilling.

[applegrove]

1. Yup. The world is being divided up and how taxes are collected and dispurced is the main battle.

The GOP would like the US to be like Pakistan where people don't pay income taxes if they don't feel like it, rich people are followed on shopping trips with their own private ambulances, and the military is strong. The left should be studying and promoting the idea of progressive income taxes worldwide. I'm sure some group somewhere is doing it. I hope.

[AZ Progressive]

2. The elephant in the room on jobs is that many of the people who have lost jobs more recently...

cannot simply be retrained for the new jobs as the new jobs either require a lot of people skills, a lot of technical proficiency, or are for highly talented, highly intelligent people. You can't reeducate someone for that. A lot of the newer jobs simply are in a level that is above the reach of much of the population.