AI-triggered unemployment may lead to rise of communism, says expert

AI beats human brain in reading test
An illustration of a robot and computer codes for representational purpose only Pixabay

Mark Carney, the governor of Bank of England, has warned that the impact of artificial intelligence could result in mass job loss and wage stagnation.

According to Carney, unemployment triggered by artificial intelligence will result in vast inequalities between workers who benefit from the technology and those whose careers are destroyed by it.

Carney, during the Canada Growth Summit, said that new industrial revolution led by artificial intelligence and robots had already begun, and he opined that these advancements could negatively affect almost all careers.

"If you substitute platforms for textile mills, machine learning for steam engines, Twitter for the telegraph, you have exactly the same dynamics as existed 150 years ago when Karl Marx was scribbling The Communist Manifesto," said Carney, Daily Star reports.

Carney, during the speech also listed some examples of unemployment created after the advent of artificial intelligence. He said law firms in the modern days are using AI to read through documents and evidence, a task which was previously done by junior lawyers. He also added that banks have computerized customer service departments which resulted in job losses.

The governor also warned that driver jobs will also be affected by the introduction of self-driving technology in cars and transportation vehicles.

Many experts believe that this mass unemployment could result in the rise of the right and left wing extremism in all corners of the world. To avoid a possible scenario like this, Carney suggested that workers should be trained for jobs which demand higher emotional intelligence, which a robot can never do.

Edward Bonham Carter, the city fund vice manager said that a significant number of jobs will be erased in the next 30 years. He argued that the educational system should be reshaped and it should focus on molding the child mind to retain information like a robot.

"I think the key things are analytical skills, communications skills, skills that robots are probably going to be behind humans on - empathy, dealing with other humans," said Carter.

This is not the first time that an eminent person is talking against the rise of artificial intelligence. Earlier, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said that artificial intelligence is more dangerous to humankind than nuclear weapons.

"This is a situation where you have a very serious danger to the public. There needs to be a public body that has insight and oversight so that everyone is delivering AI safely. This is extremely important. My point was AI is far more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight? It's insane," said Musk.

This article was first published on April 16, 2018
Related topics : Artificial intelligence
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