Should I fear the future?

 Today, most media are infected with the myth that cars will soon replace us all. The myth of its popularity is due to the fears characteristic of society in the transitional technological stage and not the understanding of technology. 

History is created right before our eyes. Experience and history in the conditions of technological revolution are unlikely to help us. It is necessary to understand the basic forces.

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The rate of labor automation is constantly growing. Every day, the software that controls robots and information processing is being improved. It is impossible to stop this, because people, as a rule, do not give up what makes life easier and more comfortable.

While robots are not trying to enslave the human race, but the model from Boston Dynamics can walk and store goods on shelves. The development of this technology threatens jobs in numerous warehouses. As for the creative professions, they are also under technological pressure. Software based on machine learning already writes in unlimited quantities of not copyrighted music.

Crushing ethical and political obstacles, the development of unmanned vehicles can not be stopped. Without resistance and error on this path is not complete, but apparently it makes technology only more reliable and "smarter".

After the acclaimed road accident with the Tesla autopilot, progress was expected to slow down and a number of restrictions. But these events indicate that the "unmanned era" will be:

• The plans to release drones by 2021, said the company Ford;
• Uber bought a company to develop unmanned trucks and began to bring passengers to robotaxi in Pittsburgh;
• Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz at the event Consumer Electronics Show 2017 announced that they will release a smart car within a year;
• Unmanned buses began to run between the stations of Paris.

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Why are we preparing for the worst?

The editor-in-chief of Wired magazine in his book "Inevitably" predicts the automation of 70% of professions until the end of the 21st century.

According to the study of the consulting company McKinsey, 1.1 billion people in the world perform functions that can be automated with today's emerging technologies. If we consider a specific example, today only in the United States work:

• 600 thousand drivers Uber;
• 181 thousand taxi drivers;
• 168 thousand drivers of intercity buses;
• 505 thousand school bus drivers;
• About a million truck drivers. Truckers have a very strong trade union in America.

It is possible that the autocontrol of the car will become only the privilege of true connoisseurs of driving.

But who will win?

Unmanned trucks drive to the US roads, doing the job of a trucker is not worse than a person - they do not need rest, the delivery time is accelerated, and gasoline is saved. As a result, the goods will become cheaper. Consider reducing prices, as an increase in wages. Good for everyone, except a trucker.

In view of the uncontrollable development of technology, the issue of protecting social groups at risk of facing the rink of progress remains acute and is in the hands of those who rule the society and the economy.

Because of accelerating automation, we need a new economic model. According to Robert, now the future is being realized in which the owners of automation technologies will be able to provide quality comprehensive services to billions without needing significant human resources that will allow them to control the dominant amounts of wealth.

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Bill Gates suggested that states levy taxes on robots in the same way as taxes on people workers. "We remove restrictions on the replacement of a variety of different types of work. Thus, workers of warehouses, drivers, cleaners and workers of many other categories will not be needed for 20 years. " However, the idea of a "tax on robots" was rejected.

Ilon Mask at the World Summit in Dubai said: "What can we do with mass unemployment? It will become a very serious social problem. Gradually, the robots will learn to do all kinds of new jobs, and do it better than people. I would not want these things to become reality. But I think that probably they will happen. "

As a result of discussions, at the last conference on the problems of artificial intelligence of the future, principles were formulated to ensure its safe development, taking into account ethical consequences.

Positive theses about the future.

• The development of information technology leads to rapid development of the whole sphere, generating more jobs. According to a study by US economists, productivity growth in IT is slowing and soon more hands will be needed than we expect.
• Automation will raise the average level of well-being, and ultimately create more jobs of better quality instead of those taken away. Firstly, low-skilled labor is automated, raising the professional bar for specialists and cleaning the labor exchange from routine work, and new interesting forms of employment will appear.
• As a solution to the conflict of interests regarding jobs, Ilon Mask suggests introducing a basic income so that each person receives enough money to live without fear of unemployment. This will help to avoid depression and its economic consequences, when hundreds of thousands of people will start giving jobs to robots.
• Also, solutions based on the psychological characteristics of people are proposed in order to make the transition invisible and even enjoyable. In January 2017, a two-year revolutionary experiment began in Finland. Two thousand participants were paid 560 euros - the minimum basic income of the country. The purpose of the experiment, the Prime Minister of Finland calls the stimulation of people to accept the offers of employers in more flexible conditions, being released from forced uncomfortable work for survival. The government, in turn, is exempt from the need to subsidize the unemployed. Opponents of the experiment are afraid of the opposite result - loss of motivation. The results of the experiment will show us the degree of readiness of one of the developed societies for such measures.

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Fear not follows technology, but a man who does not always apply technology only with good intentions. Ilon Mask sees a strategy to prevent the worst scenarios of using artificial intelligence technology in the concept of technology accessibility for everyone. Neither to stop their development, nor to exclude the possibility of getting into bad hands is impossible. But if we make technology accessible and understandable to the majority - we can control it and together withstand negative applications.

Facebook begins to share generously with the developments, and NASA laid out a whole catalog of its software. Knowledge of machine learning and data analysis is made more accessible by communities.

Perhaps soon mankind will be able to nullify its fear of technology by merging with machine intelligence. Quite developed neurocomputer interfaces will allow people to increase their capabilities massively, and, using the added intelligence, help in making decisions and realize the best scenario of the future. Billionaire and his company Neuralink promise in 4 years to release a device that allows you to connect the brain and computer.

Who will be to blame for everything?

Opinions on the issue of responsibility vary greatly. Sometimes they even confront each other. One of the reasons is the lack of a holistic view of what is happening. We do not have enough quality data about workplaces. So now we, for the most part, are wondering what kind of work the person will lose, for what reason and what it will lead to.

Perhaps, to successfully solve the problem of automation, one needs to use all of the above ideas in varying degrees. The automation of a large number of jobs is inevitable, but it is up to us, not machines, to decide how it will pass and what the development of technologies will lead to. The process can not be stopped, but we can control it. For this we should not turn a blind eye to the problems, on the contrary - we should conduct a public dialogue so that the decision is not made for us.

The possession of smart, powerful technologies requires responsibility, especially in today's unstable transition stage of development, when it is possible to turn the course of history. In everyone's power to learn more about the changing world.

• introduce a tax for robots;
• unconditional income for people;
• investment in education for mastering advanced technologies.

It is important to begin to act now, so that we can fully enter the era of full automation, preventing the negative consequences of the new "Prometheus fire" in the hands of people.

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