Putting Displaced People to Work

George Gilder presents an argument about A.I. that corresponds with what I posted at https://gordonfeil.blogspot.com/2019/06/ai-human.html. His point is that “replication is not consciousness.” He goes on to address the Elon Musk’s contention that A.I. will render a lot of people unemployable. Gilder states that Musk “is a fool in many ways” and then says that increasing our productive capacity, which is what A.I. does, is only good and frees up people for higher functioning work. In general, I agree, and have often said so. The problem is that many people are not capable of higher functionality. When the American army has determined that nobody with an IQ of less than 83 is to be inducted because there isn’t any way such a person could add value to the army, what does that tell you? I mean, if one in eight people are of such low potential that there is not even one task in the army that they could be trained to do effectively, what does Gilder think they will do when A.I. takes over whatever they are now doing? He refers back to the Luddites, which I have also done on occasion, to show the folly of the Musk’s contention, but I think Musk has a point.

I suppose that people who are displaced by A.I. and who do not have the capacity to learn advanced skills, could do domestic work for those who do. Having an abundance of personal masseurs and in-home cooks might make their employers more productive.

There is a huge social problem over the horizon….