I hadn’t realized it was due to a quantum leap in software.īut if Google’s translation algorithm was better, did that mean its voice recognition was better too? And its ability to answer queries? Hmm. I had noticed some improvement myself but had chalked it up to the usual incremental progress these kinds of things go through. Almost overnight, the quality of its translations skyrocketed.
It turns out that a few weeks previously, without telling anyone, Google had switched over to a new machine-learning algorithm. So here’s one for you: Last year at Christmas, I was over at my mother’s house and mentioned that I had recently read an article about Google Translate. The idea is that this allows readers to ease slowly into daunting material. That’s kind of a buzzkill, isn’t it? Luckily, it’s traditional that stories about difficult or technical subjects open with an entertaining or provocative anecdote. We Already Have a Solution for the Robot Apocalypse. Along with global warming, the transition to a workless future is the biggest challenge by far that progressive politics-not to mention all of humanity-faces. Working-class job losses played a big role in the 2016 election, and if we don’t want a long succession of demagogues blustering their way into office because machines are taking away people’s livelihoods, this needs to change, and fast.
Until we figure out how to fairly distribute the fruits of robot labor, it will be an era of mass joblessness and mass poverty. Until we figure out how to fairly distribute the fruits of robot labor, it will be an era of mass joblessness and mass poverty.īut what about 20 years from now? Or 30? We won’t all be out of jobs by then, but a lot of us will-and it will be no golden age. And a century from now, this is most likely how things will turn out.
We’ll be free to read or write poetry or play video games or whatever we want to do. Let the robots have the damn jobs! No more dragging yourself out of bed at 6 a.m. A couple of decades after that, most of the rest of you will be out of jobs. Within 20 years, maybe half of you will be out of jobs. Think you have social skills that no robot can match? Yes, they can. Artistic types? Robots will paint and write and sculpt better than you. Robots will run companies better than you do. It will just be a better doctor than you.Īnd CEOs? Sorry. If you’re a doctor, IBM’s Watson will no longer “ assist” you in finding the right diagnosis from its database of millions of case studies and journal articles.
If you’re a magazine writer, a robot will write your articles better. If you dig ditches, a robot will dig them better. I want to tell you straight off what this story is about: Sometime in the next 40 years, robots are going to take your job. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter.