#AI - Getting ready for the change

AI is here and affecting our lives now. 

There is no stopping this tidal wave of change, but we can shape it. AI will challenge everything we know about our jobs, our bodies, our spirituality, the physics of the universe and our moral values. The good or bad of AI will indeed come from our intentions. This puts the responsibility back onto us to educate ourselves and be clear on our own moral compass. Not everyone is going to use AI for the good of humanity and some will be against AI outright.

Prepare for the backlash

Many humans hate “automation.”

In the 1800 and early 1900’s there were a sometimes-organized group of people who self-identified as “Anti-Autoists.” They believed that the motor vehicle or as the French would call an automobile was destructive to the general social fabric. There are some randomly reported instances of violence by Anti-Autoists and in fact the city of Nantucket successfully passed a law forbidding motorized vehicles.

“For nearly twenty years, from 1900 to 1918, Nantucket was the only place in the nation that successfully fought encroachment of the automobile within its limits. Opposing politicians on the mainland and large property owners, mostly non-residents, Nantucketers kept the island free of the "gasoline buggy" until the final vote of the town on May 15, 1918. By the narrow margin of forty - 326 to 286 - the automobile was allowed entry.” -Nantucket Historical Society

There are some small pockets of an Anti AI movement today like the "Anti Robot League". I would expect this to grow in size and voice in the coming years.

There will be people who are against Androids and AI and there will be those who seek to protect and possibly “liberate” the Androids as envisioned by Karel Capek in Rossum’s Universal Robots when Helena declared that she had come to Rossum’s factory to free the Robots on behalf of the “League of Humanity”

Re-training humans

One of the greatest missed opportunities from a Social, Political and Economic perspective may be the lack of re-education and new skills training for the American middle class manual laborer. As off shoring and automation decimated many “middle-American” jobs, the American Information Technology sector was limited by a shortage of about one million qualified workers.

As jobs, education and social services left these communities national populism and addiction became rampant.

We cannot let that scenario happen again.

Especially when the AI induced job transitions coming will affect tens of millions of Americans.

If your job is a repetitive manual task or doing data input and data analysis with little human interaction, your job will be gone in less than ten years.

We all need to take an honest look at ourselves and our organizations and accept the challenge to get more educated and clear about our intentions. You don’t have to go into technology or AI. In fact, my recommendation is to follow first your passion and get an education in that area. Build skills around working with people.

You have little over five years from 2018 to learn or retire.

Know what you want

As we discussed in (What will humans do?) and (What do you want from AI?) the most important thing affecting the output of any AI system is the intention put into it. You need to have a clear intention that is articulated by a vision based on ethical values. This so important because AI will be able to deliver what we ask for.

What’s Next?

Change is coming. Being prepared means knowing yourself and knowing your environment. AI has great peril and potential for positive change. We need to educate ourselves, our leaders and our students on how to use AI as a benefit for all humanity.

Let’s get a dialogue going! 

How are you getting ready for an AI future? Is your job AI proof? What do you think you need to learn to get ready for an AI world?

I look forward to reading people’s thoughts, questions and feedback.

Here is a link to the previous article in this series: Safeguards for AI are necessary

#ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #AI #Ethics #anitrobotleague #whatwillhumansdo