Clever Geek Handbook

Ray Kurzweil: you lose your job, but there's nothing to fear

Futurologist Ray Kurzweil, now director of engineering at Google, was interviewed by Fortune , where he expressed some interesting thoughts. In particular, he expressed a new argument about the general fears that robots will replace people in most professions. According to Kurzweil, humanity has gone through this a few times, and that's okay.



“We have already destroyed all jobs several times in human history,” says Kurzweil. - How many jobs since 1900 exist today? If I had been a foreseeing futurist in 1900, I would say: “Ok, 38% of you work in agriculture; 25% in factories. This is two thirds of the population. I think that by 2015 there will be 2% in agriculture and 9% in factories [the way it is in the modern American economy] ”. And everyone would run in horror: “Oh my God, we will remain without work!” And I would answer: “Do not worry, for each missing workplace we will create even more jobs higher on the skills ladder”. And people would ask: “What kind of work, what professions?” And I would say: “I don’t know. We haven't invented them yet. ”



Ray Kurzweil says that people tend to react sharply to bad news and look for new fears (AI, biotechnology, nanotechnology - all this carries certain risks). In fact, history shows that new technologies often make life better than worse.



Of course, at first, the state will have some problems, because now we see professions that will most likely disappear, like car drivers. This is a lot of people. Across America, there are tens of millions of people who will become unemployed (truckers are the most popular profession in the US). But over time, the situation will correct itself, as it has repeatedly happened in human history. Maybe this generation will finish its term on old jobs, and the next one will already be doing other things in other professions that we have not yet invented.



Here you can dream up about the professions that may be in demand in the future.



For example, a study from Microsoft Surface and The Future Laboratory calls the following nine professions:





If you show imagination, you can come up with hundreds more of these professions that do not exist yet: artificial intelligence operator, designer of internal organs, germ surgery specialist, digital detective (Internet investigations), dream visualizer, adviser on genetic sets for future children, specialist on holographic teleportation and so on. These are just examples of technologies evolving, and with them the labor market. A new technology is developing - the corresponding profession appears. This process is inevitable in the same way as the disappearance of existing professions.



In general, people will not remain without work. In addition, there are relatively safe professions where robots will find it very difficult to replace people. The University of Oxford conducted a mathematical calculation taking into account nine variables - and calculated the probability of the disappearance of each profession . Accordingly, they have compiled a list of the safest professions protected from the revolution of robots and AI.





A list of nine factors and the probability of their automation, from a study at Oxford University



According to the calculation, there are 109 professions that have a computerization probability of less than 3%, of which 49 professions with a computerization probability of less than 1%.





30 safest professions of the future, according to a study from Oxford University



In an interview with Fortune, Ray Kurzweil said that the "political" events of the 20th century, such as the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War and the Great Depression did not have a significant impact on the overall trend of technological development. That is, nothing can stop scientific and technical progress. Therefore, we move further to the singularity.


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