Poetry – Robots for good!

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Robots for good!

Let us bring in robots!

Do away with work!

Then quarter the population.

A new age of fairness and prosperity!

Let us have a new age

Of unity with nature,

Of reverence for all,

Of oneness with respect and dignity!

Opher 26.11.2019

The world is being ravaged by mankind. We are destroyed nature. Our greed and numbers are killing everything in our path.

Time to change.

Maybe AI can be a force for great good – if we harness it for the good of all, and not just the wealthy few, we can all become prosperous. We can work less.

But we will need to bring our numbers down so that our impact is less. Nature cannot stand the strain. We are changing the climate; we are causing extinctions on a catastrophic level.

Time to change.

AI could be the solution (or it could be the final straw).

Poetry – In the New Age

Posted on by Opher

In the New Age

In the new age

When automation robs the need for work

We must devise a new way of operating.

No more the long, sapping hours

For we must create something better.

There will be no need for workers

Or their skills

When machines can do the toil

And mimic the skills

As finely as the most exquisite artisan.

It will be a time to share –

A time of great creativity.

For surely it is not right

That a minority

Should glean

The rewards

While the majority

Languish.

We must learn to share the spoils more evenly

To reduce the load

So that none will be left behind.

For it is time for a new future –

To identify the needs

To teach, to care, to heal and provide

So that none are left behind.

Not this time.

This is the time.

We should all have the time.

Opher 1.2.2017

In the New Age

If only we could get it right for once. If only we could stop all the selfishness, greed, hatred and arrogance and learn to care, love and look after each other and the world.

If only the world was not ruled by arrogance, fear and ego.

If we could put aside the lust for power and wealth and treat everyone as equals; if only we looked after the planet.

Imagine what the world would be like if everyone bought into that ideal. No war, no theft, no racism, sexism or inequality. No need for police, security at airports or armies. All that money and energy used to create a better world, to solve poverty and overpopulation and protect the natural world.

OK – we can but dream.

A/I will change your life!

Posted on by Opher

The social models we are living in are dead.

Just as the industrial revolution swept away a way of life that had lasted centuries the A/I revolution will cause our way of life to be severed.

Back in the industrial revolution the rural way of life was swept away. The machines could do the work of many men. They were cheaper and more efficient. Millions moved off the land into the cities to get jobs in factories.

A/I will automate the factories, the mines, the car-plants, steelworks and shipyards.

It’s already happening.

The once well-paid workers are now working in supermarkets stacking shelves and serving customers or else zooming around the country delivering goods.

They have lost a career that was respected and gave their families a good standard of living for a zero-hours contract, uncertainty, low pay and no security.

But that is the tip of the ice-berg.

A/I will mean that robots become ever more sophisticated and will start taking over even the most skills jobs such as brain surgery or flying planes and they will do it with more skill than our present surgeons and pilots.

Our streets will be cleaned by machines, our planes flown by machines, our factories operated by machines.

Soon we will have driverless uber. We will have automated delivery, automated checking out, automated stacking, automated crop sowing and harvesting.

It is quite conceivable that a machine will sow seeds in a field the other side of the world. Another machine will harvest the crop. A driverless lorry will take the wheat seed to a factory where a machine will process it and package it. A driverless lorry will deliver it to a supermarket where an automatic shelf-stacker will place it on a shelf. An intelligent robot will check stock, note what is selling and order to restock as needed. You will order on line and a driverless delivery van will deliver your cereal to your door.

No human hand will be necessary in the entire operation. Even repairs and maintenance will be automated and carried out by machines.

No job will be secure. There will be even the most complex procedures carried out by machines – the money markets, health diagnostics, design, art, music, education. There is no job that will be unaffected, completely replaced or at least greatly impacted.

Even your lawn will be cut by a robot, your floors hoovered, clothes washed and windows cleaned.

Just think – we could end up with an effective government that is a machine! Some things might be a big improvement!

The Problem

The problem with this development is quite clear. The workforce will, for the first time in history, not be required. So what does society do with all these surplus people? What do the people do to ‘earn’ a living? What do we do with all our free time?

If we continue to follow our present model we end up with a gigantic inequality. The wealthy minority who own the farms, factories and retail outlets will maximise their profits and ‘earn’ a fortune. The workforce will firstly be working for peanuts and then thrown on the dole.

Countries will be thrown into chaos. Unemployment will be rife. The richer countries will try to retrain people for whatever new jobs are required – maybe in the caring professions. They will support people on the dole. The poorer countries will have mass starvation leading to mass immigration and desperate people.

The world will be divided into the super-rich and the desperate poor.

We are already beginning to see this. It has led to Brexit and Trump and a wave of fascism and populism.

It’s going to get a lot worse.

The Remedy

We have to move to a global perspective.

The wealthy have to be taxed to provide money for the rest. This would be for their own good as much as anyone else. This gross inequality is already creating much anger and hate. Soon that would be directed at the wealthy and result in violence.

There has to be a drastic shortening of working hours with job sharing.

There has to be education and training to produce a skilled workforce to carry out the jobs that will be created by A/I.

There has to be a move to moving people into the caring and leisure industries where human contact is more desirable – nursing, caring, teaching, counselling…………………

There has to be a guaranteed basic income for all people that would afford them a good standard of life. It is no good the wealthy churning out goods with few being able to afford to buy any of them.

The Future

The future could be an age of comfort and leisure where machines have taken over the drudgery and everybody has time and income to do what they want.

It could become an Orwellian future where the proles are kept in little boxes – surplus to requirements.

It could become a chaotic, violent period where anger mounts and the world’s poor wreck the machine and kill the wealthy elite who have caused their misery.

An age of plenty – An age of misery – An age of violent revolution and death.

We are at a crossroads.

What happens when the machines are intelligent enough, powerful enough and decide that we are all surplus to requirements?

The Future is upon us

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The Future is upon us!

Some laugh at Jeremy Corbyn when he promotes the 4 day week. It will not be a four day week we will be grappling with. It will be the three or even two day week. For the majority of us it may well be the no day week.

The future is here. The world is changing. We are in the winter of the old ways. Artificial Intelligence is coming fast. We have to prepare.

Corbyn is right. We need rapid change. We have to ensure that this tsunami of change will carry all of us along, not just the few.

Automation will displace people from factories as it is more efficient. A machine does not need pay, sleep, holidays, meals and rest periods. It can work 24/7. Productivity will go through the roof. Wage bills will go down. Profits will soar – but will they be flowing into the pockets of workers or into the pockets of bosses and profiteers?

Do we really want a society of billionaires and paupers?

The age of driverless cars is coming. Car ownership is hugely expensive – purchase cost, insurance, tax, fuel, and repairs. The days of owning a car are limited. Driving will soon be a minority leisure pursuit.

It is also inefficient. For much of the day cars sit in traffic jams or are parked in drives, streets and massive car parks.

The future is here. We will summon up an Uber. A driverless electric cab will pick us up, drop us off and drive away to collect someone else. It will be cheap and efficient. There will be no driver to pay, no cars clogging up our streets, no need for carparks, garages, traffic lights, traffic cops, or traffic jams. No-one will break the speed limit or make dangerous manoeuvres. The roads will be safe and efficient. Travel will be cheap. Traffic pollution will be a thing of the past. Already some cars and trucks are driverless. The industry is getting us used to automation. Some cars can park themselves in tight gaps and have automatic lights and windscreen washers. We are gradually becoming accustomed.

Instead of an army of drivers delivering goods there will be an efficient fleet of driverless trucks taking cargo from ports to warehouses where machines will unload. Convoys of lorries will take merchandise to stores where machines will unload and stack shelves. No more drivers, shelf stackers or loaders.

You might head to a fast food joint where, after you have placed your order in an automated machine, a machine will flip your burger. Your meal will be delivered quickly and efficiently, perfectly cooked, with no sight of an unhygienic human hand.

You ring up the doctor and find Alexa at the other end. She will ask a series of questions, consult her ever increasing data base and dispense drugs to treat your ailment. I doubt you will get an appointment. In most cases there will be no need.

The days of receptionists are already almost over. Alexa will have many names, genders and personalities and her voice will always be comprehensible.

You are insulted by Kim Jong Un and decide to go to war. You deploy your drones, launch missiles, and have a new batch of fearless automatons armed with the latest weapons, who never miss, do not duck or run away, and are programmed to take out all enemy combatants efficiently, quickly and cheaply. They are backed up by automated tanks while a fleet of automated ships and drones deliver the new robosoldiers to the battle front without a real flesh and blood soldier in sight.

When there is another Grenfell it will be a robofireman who will tirelessly bound up the stairwells at great speed, impervious to heat, not having to breathe the smoke. He will gather you up, encase you in a heat resistant envelop and bound back down to safety. And you know what? You will be grateful. You will be grateful because you will know that no human, no flesh and blood fireman, no matter how strong and brave, could have rescued you from those flames.

Brain surgery is already being carried out by robots. Planes are being flown by computers. In Japan the elderly are companioned by robots. We will have robotic nursing in hospitals. No patient will be left unattended, without food or drink – or a soothing voice. Their biometrics will be automatically assessed – continuously.

So what is going to happen to these tens of millions of factory workers, drivers, receptionists, carers, shelf stackers, burger flippers, brain surgeons, police officers, nurses and all manner of other workers who are surplus to requirements?

Do a small number of people continue working 60 hour weeks while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs? Or do we organise a shorter working week and apportion the new jobs created, more fairly?

Do we share the fruit of this increased productivity? Do we find a way of limiting the pay of the bosses, create a fair taxation system and increased pay for the workforce, or do we end up with gross inequality – a country of billionaires and homeless?

We may not like it but Artificial Intelligence is surely coming and it will sweep the past away.

We are in the winter of our discontent. Where is the sun coming from? Jeremy Corbyn is shedding light on a bold new future – a time of plenty for all, of leisure and freedom, fun and frolics – a more equal society with a shorter working week and better pay. Corbyn is surely the glorious sun.

Automation – A threat or a boon?

Posted on by Opher

In the recent past we needed a large workforce. It took many men to build a ship, mine coal, clear snow, lay railway track, plant crops, harvest crops, build bridges, make steel, work in factories and wage war.

Not any more.

Automation has taken over. All these things are now carried out by machines. Automation has displaced the workforce. AI does things better. Even operations are carried out by robots. Wars are carried out by drones.

So what happens to all those displaced people – you know – the ones who were doing all that well-paid, often dangerous, hard work? What do they do? They are now surplus to requirements.

Presently they are doing low-pay jobs stacking shelves or driving around the country delivering parcels.

What happens when the shelves are stacked by machines and driverless trucks, vans and taxis displace all of those people?

This little video was sent to me by my friend Graham. Thanks Graham.

It appears to me that we are heading for a major change in society. The owners and managers will still be needed and they will be extremely wealthy. There will be a need for a small skilled workforce who will be paid well. Then there will be a huge number of people who are no longer required.

This could be a disaster or a boon.

A Disaster

We have an elite of extremely wealthy multibillionaire owners; a small number of wealthy managers; a larger number of well-paid skilled workers and a mass of people thrown on the dole.

A Boon

We have a progressive tax system so that the wealth created by Automation and AI will be spread more evenly. That surplus workforce is retrained into the caring professions – nurses, social workers, care workers, teachers etc. We can then reduce the working hours and case loads of these people – maybe go to a three day week – and provide more leisure and pleasure centres which will provide even more work for those surplus people.

Alternative Solution

The elite can simply kill off the poor.

What do you think????

Automation and AI – the challenge!

Posted on by Opher

What is going to happen to careers and jobs in the future. We are on the brink of major changes. In a short period of time many more jobs will be gone.

a. Transport – when driverless technology comes in the whole haulage industry will no longer require drivers. Public transport  will not require drivers. Taxi’s will be driverless, The need for private cars will be less. There may well be a pool of cars available to be summoned as required. Even planes will be pilotless.

b. Goods and Production – assembly lines will become more and more automated. Quality control will be automated.

c. Deliveries – goods will be delivered through driverless vehicles or drones.

d. Defence – warfare will be increasingly carried out by drones and guided missiles. The need for feet on the ground will be less.

e. Mining/tunnels – huge automated machines are now used.

f. Health – first port of call will be an automated assessment and response. Even many procedures and operations will be carried out by automation.

g. Design – AI will design the next generation of AI.

h. Nanotechnology will deal with many aspects of  diagnosis or repair.

I. Sex Industry – sex workers will offer a range of services.

j. Service industry – much will be automated.

I could go on. There will be no need for a large workforce. All the miners, ship-builders, designers, bankers, accountants, prostitutes, factory workers, drivers, pilots, soldiers, nurses, surgeons will no longer be required.

All the wealth will be concentrated in a small elite of the wealthy. What will the rest of us do?

The Answers to Globalisation, Automation and the Demise of Outmoded Industry.

Posted on by Opher

There is a storm coming. I can smell it in the wind.

There is an anger brewing. I can taste it in the blood.

The truth is that we are at a crossroads and nobody is making the decision on the road to go. We have problems that need solving and nobody is solving them. People have lost their faith in politicians and experts. They do not believe anything. It is all fake news. They have turned to the witchcraft of populism and Brexit looking for salvation. It only makes matters worse. The division and fury grow.

The politicians deflect the blame on to terrorists and immigrants, to bureaucrats and Brussels. But the real problem is them – the politicians. They are not addressing the real problems. All they seem interested in is themselves and power.

Automation, globalisation and the demise of outmoded industry has created a monster. We no longer need a large workforce. There are no longer a large number of well-paid jobs. A large chunk of the population are surplus to requirements. They are being thrown on the scrapheap. Worse than that is the fact that all the wealth is being channelled into a small elite who have never had it so good. The sportspeople, entertainers, bankers and businessmen are exploiting the global media to extract more loot than they know what to do with. They give themselves massive bonuses and stash it away in tax avoiding companies and off-shore havens. The multinationals and wealthy hold the governments to ransom by threatening to take their money elsewhere.

Here’s what we should do:

a. Plug all the tax evasion loopholes

b. Put in place a fair but progressive tax regime to create greater equality

c. Limit bonuses and salaries

d. Reduce the working week to 3 days for the same pay and get full employment

e. Use the added tax income to employ more teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers, old people carers, police, council workers, counsellors and get public services working to a high quality (these are the jobs we need)

f. Retrain people to take up these roles

g. Have a huge infrastructure development – road, rail, internet, bridges, schools, hospitals, housing, old people’s havens

h. Invest heavily in new technology – alternative energy, internet, biochemistry, genetics, computing, robots, medicines, food technology

I. Invest heavily in the environment.

J. Invest heavily in leisure and health.

k. Invest in the arts, music, dance and culture

L. Move on from the old ways into a brave new world.

 

If we do not move on and embrace the future the hopelessness, fury, hatred and division will destroy us all.

Automation needs addressing or it will cause major problems!

Posted on by Opher

While previous waves of mechanisation caused huge social upheaval (first chucking people off the land into factories and then out of factories into other work) They still left the need for the masses to be employed – this current wave of automation will do away with the need for any large workforce. There will not be enough employment just building drones and robots to employ everybody. Those robots will replace huge swathes of people and be far more efficient and productive. A whole mass of people will have no gainful employment.

We either address this or just blame the people who have been chucked on the scrapheap.

I would suggest:

a. A three day week

b. Retraining into caring and support industries – teaching, nursing, social care, counselling, etc.

c. Retraining into improved leisure activities

d. Restructuring of taxation system to provide for a more equal society.

I’m afraid the present work ethic went out with the dinosaurs. This is the threshold of a new world. We either accommodate it and create a fair society in which all people profit from the automation bonanza or we get a divided society of billionaires and paupers and huge social unrest.

Automation – Good or Evil?

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Automation – Good or Evil?

It seems to me that every innovation that comes along heralds in a new age of possibility and a new age of problems.

Just like the start of the industrial revolution, which spawned the Luddites of yore, these developments threaten existing jobs and ways of life. They are usually seen as a bad thing but gradually we adjust to them. The old ways never survive. Once the new age comes in the old is shunted out.

We saw this with the new machines of the industrial age that threw people out of work and ripped apart communities that had existed for centuries. No longer were masses of labour required to farm the land; machines could do the work more efficiently. The workers poured into the cities and ended up slaves to machines in the factories. Trains, trams, cars, diesel engine ships and planes replaced the horse and cart and old wooden clippers. The world changed.

We’ve recently seen it with IT which was meant to lessen our load.

We are now seeing it again with globalization and automation. We are seeing it with the death of the old industries of coal, steel, oil and dirty power production.

We no longer need a huge workforce. Robots are more efficient and productive. The profits are greater.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing?

To me that depends on how it is done.

If the workforce is simply dumped and the profits siphoned off into the pockets of a wealthy elite then it is terrible.

If the profits are used for the good of society it could be wonderful. The workforce could be retrained to do all those vital jobs that cannot be carried out by robots – nursing, medicine, teaching, social care, plumbing, electricians, IT technicians – everyone could have a three day week on the same pay which could give them a better quality of life.

To me we can either embrace the changes and demand that the wealth is used wisely for a better quality life or we can fight it and lose – and see the rich and wealthy walk off with the spoils while everyone else is thrown on the scrapheap.

What do you think?

The Plight of the Poor Whites

Posted on by Opher

The working class whites used to have a good income from dangerous, dirty well-paid jobs in industries such as mining, ship-building, car manufacture, oil, steel and components industries. These jobs have largely gone. Automation and globalisation have taken these jobs away. They are either operating in countries where the workforce is paid a great deal less or automation has reduced the need for workers. Bosses have maximised their profits by cutting the wage-bill.

 

The working men and women not only used to receive a good wage for their hard work but also had the respect of the community who recognised the arduous and dangerous nature of their work. Consequently those working communities had great self-respect.

 

The world has moved on. Some of these industries are in terminal decline. We no longer need oil, gas and coal with its pollution and global warming. We need renewable energy.

 

While the new industries require labour a lot of the work is skilled or automated.

 

The working class has been left high and dry. They are unemployed or doing low-level, poorly paid work, delivering or stacking shelves.

 

Many white blue-collar workers feel desperate and totally let down by the system. They look for scapegoats and blame immigrants for taking their jobs. They have turned to Brexit and Trump – both running campaigns focussed on cutting immigration with lashings of blatant xenophobia and overt racism – both claiming that these policies will solve the problems and make the country great again. Neither will.

 

What is needed is an overhaul of the way society works.

 

Firstly we need to build new industries to replace the old ones. China has seen this. Their renewable energy programme has made them a world leader while the USA, under Trump, is vainly hanging on to old industries and the UK sits on the fence.

 

Secondly we need to seize the opportunities presented to create a better society. At present huge profits are going into the pockets of fewer and fewer. We need to provide a progressive taxation system so that these profits are share more uniformly. With the taxes gathered we should revitalise our infrastructure, provide quality education, health care and social care. This will provide quality jobs.

 

The desperate plight of the displaced workers requires urgently addressing before their anger turns to hatred and violence.