kcknowlton@aol.com
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2017 22:14:17 -0500
[Note: Anthony Thorn suggested Marking's item in Dave Farber's IP "is a
political rant and has no business in RISKS." I originally considered not
including it, but then reflected on Lauren Weinstein's piece above. I'm
delighted Ken Knowlton rose to the occasion. PGN]
Michael Marking's RISKS-30.15 commentary stated basically that AI does nothing to ease, but exacerbates, the unbalance of benefits in our already stratified society, also that it's not a new phenomenon.
(I agree, and recall that as an 8-year old at the NYC 1939 Worlds Fair, my
most memorable take-away problem, undisputed I presumed, was: with
machines doing so much more of the work, how would we manage to deal with
all the leisure time?)
There is another ethical aspect to the-rich-getting-richer: things and services developed thus tend, more and more, to be luxuries - not very helpful to anyone's well-being - but entailing, of course, further drain on resources, thus increasingly detrimental to the environment. Thus, even if benefits of AI, robotics, etc. were more uniformly shared, new speeds and efficiencies would/will speed ecological collapse. Unless . . .