From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 12:44:45 MDT
The jobs soonest in danger are not the boring, repetitive physical ones,
but the boring, repetitive mental ones. And it's a toss-up whether the
next to go will be the boring physical jobs or the challenging mental
ones. Which is easier: to be a mathematician, or to be a janitor?
Surprisingly, there may not be that much difference in intrinsic
difficulty.
Maneuvering through crowded spaces, recognizing and manipulating objects
seems easy to us, because our minds have evolved to specialize in those
tasks over hundreds of millions of years. Abstract thought is difficult
because it is a relatively new capability. But for computers it is often
the other way around. A computer defeated the best chess player in the
world, while robots can barely even walk.
It's questionable to predict that machines will take over the menial jobs
while humans are left with the challenging ones. By the time computers
are smart enough to handle menial tasks, they may well also be smart
enough to take on the challenges as well.
Hal
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