Anyone ridden in a driverless taxi?

Yaaang Gaaaang!!

I followed his campaign with great interest, and still listen to his podcast. Quite a few cities and other municipalities around the world have done Ubi studies since then, and they've had great success with them.

Despite certain people thinking that poor people spend would spend all their UBI money on sneakers and drugs, the vast majority of people spent their money to pay bills, further their education, pay down debt, etc.

Andrew has mentioned though that even he was surprised by the quickness of the rise of AI, he was worried about jobs such as truck driving being automated away, turns out a lot of the more traditional white collar jobs are going to be automated away first.

 

The studies are interesting. I've heard (but have not read) studies have shown a redistribution of wealth would put it all back into the hands of the few who know what they are doing. Essentially, the poor would remain poor due to their poor decisions (no pun intended).

White collar jobs being first to be cannibalized by AI is something I've read about before and was a bit unexpected. There are very smart people who are good with numbers who don't want to hear this but accounting is probably a job that could be automated away, simply because they operate under a finite set of rules easily programmed (forgetting the "creative accounting" practices).

Honestly, a lot of the middle management I've worked under over the years could be replaced with a well maintained task scheduler spreadsheet, and most didn't even bother to maintain one. And they were some of the first to jump on the AI bandwagon, thinking it would simply wipe out low wage worker jobs and boost their budget (or salary).

Scary and interesting times we live in. Everyone holds on to your butt's

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s7wBSkyJgQ

 

Is this where I get to point up thread and say "SEE?!!?!?!?!"

 

In this case, the Waymo is smarter than this robbery suspect.

Suspect robbed a grocery store, assaulted the security guard, and got a Waymo to get away.

cops followed him and Waymo stopped.

“According to Waymo, its software is designed to recognize police sirens and lights and “will pull over as appropriate.”

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/ro...fornia-flees-in-driverless-waymo-vehicle/amp/

 

UBI will be the same as it is now with the gov and the fed. Certain demographics will simply be penalized for non compliance or a bad social credit score, not taxed and inflated into poverty. SS different name.
Studies are only accurate and favorable for those that fund them.

 

The poor remaining poor is a feature, not a big. Funnelling money to the top is how the system is designed.

I loved /s/ when one of those billionaires A-holes said "people should choose to net be poor". Being poor is not a choice, nor is it always a result of bad choices. One can be doing everything right and still be poor. Granted, yes there are people that just continue to make horrible choices, but I think those are outliers. It's a shame that they don't teach financial literacy in high school (by design, I'm sure). Learning about budgeting and how interest works would have done me a lot more good than a whole year of geometry.

It seems like we're just getting fleeced more and more. Income inequality is at an all-time high as corporate profits and investor dividends grow and grow. We'd all be about $1,200 richer every month if wage growth had kept pace with productivity gains over the last 5 decades. It's estimated that 50 TRILLION has effectively been stolen from the middle & lower class due to this.

And like you said, the middle management couldn't wait to get rid of the lower wage workers to boost their own pay. I bet they're singing a different tune now that it's potentially THEIR heads on the chopping block.

 

There won't be as many jobs for Americans in a few years due to AI and etc. .... and the unskilled and the illegals will be on the welfare rolls for the

rest of their lives. Even planting the farm crops and harvesting the crops are becoming more automated with AI.

Many of the companies have become too top heavy in middle and upper management also ... where will these folks go ?

Federal Gov't employment is overloaded too ... what is going to happen there ?

The disparity between the rich and the poor has widened.

The next big gov't insurance ripoff is being exposed now ... Medicare Advantage Plans ... good article in the Wall Street Journal last week on this.

 

Well if the tsunami of job displacements due to AI (or just automation in general) is coming, then the planning of how we can handle it needs to begin now. It's not an easy topic and will probably set a lot of people off but as you pointed out, the only way to stem or support what is coming is taxation of the automation and redistribution of those funds to people who cant find work. If there aren't enough jobs to go around, that is an issue that could lead to some very bad consequences when people get into a dire enough situation.

We are in the beginnings of a major shift, although I'm not convinced it will happen as fast as many predicted. Taxis have essentially been replaced by an app and Uber drivers (to an extent). Uber drivers themselves may be replaced with self-driving vehicles, along with truckers in the long term. For trucking, I think the automation will still require drivers present for emergency situations for a while (I think CA may have already mandated that?). But at some point, there will be enough trust in the systems to eliminate those jobs completely.

It's interesting that you bring up farming, as I think that industry has an explosive potential for automation and job loss.

 

China and Gates will be happy to take over farming operations from us. Besides, bug farms will be much easier to maintain and automate.
Also can't wait to see how AI cars deal with weather, road closures, sick passengers, bathroom emergencies, etc.
Enjoy what's coming techy folks. I can't wait to see all the complaints.

 

I was just reading a report yesterday that testing shows "self-driving" cars cannot distinguish humans in reflective clothing, such as tow truck drivers, construction workers, pedestrians, etc.

I put self-driving in quotes, because I still do not believe that that's a real thing yet. Especially Tesla, it should be against the law for them to call their cars full self drive, since they're constantly crashing into things while in that mode.

And Elon can't wait to get rid of all the departments that can actually regulate that, so I'm sure it will be happening much more often.

 

Musk can't get rid of all the lawyers that would love to sue Tesla.
Imo, if the alphabet gov agencies weren't there in the first place, making ridiculous mandates on automakers, pushing ev, and energy policies, there wouldn't be a market for his cars in the first place.

 

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... ^^^... You are right on your thoughts and assessments.

I just did a video chat with my young female friend (AI engineer) yesterday, who was making the big money. She got laid off as GM is winding down Cruise (the SF company owned by GM that is doing the most self-driving cars in that area)

She just took out a mortgage on a less than 1,100 sq ft house ($1.61 mill cost) and now has a $10,000+ a month mortgage payment. She is lucky that she has money saved and can weather the storm.

She said AI is also eating the AI engineers with "machine learning" ... lol

She will survive and go to work for another tech company.

The money $$$ numbers that are thrown around in the SF area are difficult for me to comprehend ...

The WSJ has many articles on AI and what's it's doing to the economy (both good and bad).
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