Bill Gates (you know who he is, right?) is pictured above. He's the guy right in the center of the photo. Gates has written a twelve-page essay warning the world about the impacts of Artificial Intelligence. Gates' basic message is the following: "There Is No Plan."
Here's a link to The Wall Street Journal article that let me know about Gates' essay. The following link will take you directly to the essay itself, as published on Gates' personal website: "The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical." Online, headlines differ.
Gates is concerned that "companies are barreling ahead with the technology with no larger plan for the upheaval it would cause." In his essay, Gates promises to talk to lawmakers in Washington, and to tell them that "you have a chance to act now, before unemployment rises sharply, communities are hurt, and public trust has eroded."
As if to confirm the premise underlying Gates' essay, The Journal ran another article, by Kate Clark, immediately adjacent to its article about the Gates' essay. The Clark article had the following headline: "AI Assistant Instinct Wows Silicon Valley." Clicking that link (and/or the link to the article on Gates) should let you read those articles, even if you are not a subscriber to The Wall Street Journal. The Clark article pretty much says that huge unemployment is a likely outcome, based on what is happening with AI. The competence of AI agents is going to put people (lots of people) out of work. That is what I am gathering from the two articles I am referencing. So, what do we do? If Gates is right (and he probably is), unemployment will, sometime soon, "rise sharply," and the government won't have thought through what our response should be.
I am going to suggest that we become "self-employed," but thinking "collectively," not "individually." There are many things we need to do, and to have done for us (collectively). What if we started recognizing that one major governmental function ought to be to function as an "employment agency," working for all of us, for "we, the people"? If people can find jobs individually - jobs they like, and that support them, that's great. But what if they can't?
I am suggesting that our government, working for all of us - for "we, the people" - should gear up to be able to provide work opportunities for anyone who is not able to find such an opportunity individually. During the "New Deal" years under President Roosevelt, something like that was actually happening, through the Works Progress Administration - the WPA. Even artists and musicians got employed - and photographers. Let's pick up the ball, and make that work again. Do we need people to provide childcare, health care, housing, and maintenance of our public infrastructure at the local, state, and national level? Well, yep. We do. So, let's make sure that our government, working for all of us, provides jobs in those categories, and in other categories where things need to get done, to benefit the public, but where the private market isn't doing the job, and where public agencies are currently underperforming.
If AI turns out to be such a great economic windfall for the corporate and other entities that will employ it, and save money them that would otherwise go to individuals currently employed, then those "profits" can be taxed to be used by the public, for the public.
If that sounds like "self-government," with "self-government" meaning a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people," then that's because that is exactly what it is. That's what a genuine "self-government" is all about.
Image Credit:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/three-takeaways-from-bill-gatess-5-784-word-warning-on-ai-there-is-no-plan-aa0c3441
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!