The world’s first robot “citizen” was born in Saudi Arabia——

In the era of artificial intelligence, will you be robbed of your “job”?

Host of this issue: Cao Yaxin Guest commentator:

President of Udacity: Sebastian Thrun

Chairman of Sinovation Ventures: Kaifu Li

Media Person: Yang Lan

Baidu President: Zhang Yaqin

Zhihu User: Mianmian Client: Mr. Gao Method: Reader Call Topic: Artificial Intelligence has taken over It has changed our lives: mobile phones, watches, sweeping robots and even smart refrigerators, as well as applications in more advanced fields. With the emergence of unmanned supermarkets, cashier positions will be reduced; with the emergence of driverless cars, there may be no full-time drivers in the future... The news says that in the next 20 years, more robots may be put into production. We living with robots will no longer be a plot only seen on TV or in novels, so will robots take away our jobs?

Can you imagine? The robot also has a legal identity! On October 25, at the Future Investment Plan Conference held in Saudi Arabia, Sophia became the first female robot to hold Saudi nationality. She was also the first robot in the world to be granted legal citizenship. Sophia can not only answer various questions, but also adjust the atmosphere with humorous words. When she first appeared, she even said the words "destroy humanity".

With the deepening of human exploration in the field of artificial intelligence, and as "Alpha Dog" has successively defeated the world's major chess champions, people have begun to look forward to when there will be a robot with a completely independent personality like humans. appeared; at the same time, they also began to worry about whether such robots would become a threat to mankind like the "Terminator" in the movie. Artificial intelligence is getting closer and closer to our lives. Can we choose a robot to be a friend? Will they take away human jobs?

Optimistic artificial intelligence makes life more efficient

The emergence of Sophia has once again pushed artificial intelligence to the forefront of people's attention. Although people are still judging Saudi Arabia’s true intentions, the industry generally believes that the role of artificial intelligence will be pivotal in the fourth industrial revolution. The first areas to be disrupted by artificial intelligence will include manufacturing, retail, healthcare and finance, and will create new winners and losers in each industry.

Sebastian Thrun, President of Udacity

In the future, artificial intelligence will change human life just like the changes brought about by the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, allowing us to become more intelligent. To be strong. It will liberate us from mindless repetitive tasks, such as many of the tasks you do repeatedly in the office every day. In the future, lawyers can waste less time looking for information and spend more time thinking creatively; doctors' misdiagnosis will be greatly reduced, they can better diagnose human diseases, and can spend more time communicating with patients. Not for staring at skin tissue samples.

The title given by Saudi Arabia is more of an honorary nature and does not mean that artificial intelligence has really reached such a high level. Sophia looks very realistic, but in the final analysis it is just a combination of engineering and chip technology.

The mechanical dog that everyone is familiar with can run like a dog, kick it, and even react like a dog in the real world. Its appearance is scary, but in terms of its scientific principles, It's not mysterious. No matter how sophisticated a mobile phone is, it is still a mobile phone; no matter how realistic a robot is, it is still a machine. Therefore, there is no need to worry too much. We might as well change our mentality to appreciate the shock brought by Sophia. This is an achievement of human civilization. It is not an affirmation of robots, but an affirmation of human abilities.

Pessimistic robots lead to mass unemployment

The chatting and laughing Sophia does look like a human being, with skin that is almost exactly the same as a human being: it is made of a malleable material called Frubber, and her face The size of the pores on the skin can reach 4 to 40 nanometers (one billionth of a meter), which is basically the same as that of humans. The computer algorithm in the "brain" can help it quickly recognize faces and make eye contact with people. Not only that, Sophia can understand language and remember interactions with humans, including faces. With such "intelligence", how many human jobs will be replaced?

Chairman of Sinovation Ventures Kai-fu Lee

With the further development of artificial intelligence, it will inevitably have an impact on employment. Many jobs and professions will gradually disappear, such as bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, etc. Even jobs such as paralegals and radiologists will be replaced by this type of software. Different from the industrial revolution and information revolution, the impact of artificial intelligence technology is not simply directed at certain specific positions and occupations. For example, craftsmen in traditional manufacturing industries are replaced by assembly line workers; or secretaries who only use paper and typewriters are replaced by assembly line workers. Replacement by personal assistants who are proficient in computers; artificial intelligence will bring massive disruption to existing careers and work landscapes. Needless to say, most of these are low-wage jobs, but some high-wage jobs will also face challenges.

Hawking wrote in a column in the British "Guardian": "Factory automation has made many traditional manufacturing workers unemployed, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to spread the unemployment wave to the middle class. In the end, only Leaving care, creation and supervision jobs to humans. “AI has greatly improved industrial production efficiency, but for ordinary people, it means unemployment and uncertainty as their jobs are gradually replaced by machines.

Technology has destroyed many traditional manufacturing and blue-collar jobs, and the next step may bring a similar disaster to the middle class. According to a report released in February this year by Citibank and the University of Oxford, 47 jobs in the United States may be replaced by robots. In the UK, the ratio is 35. In China, the ratio is as high as 77, while in OECD countries, an average of 57 jobs will be automated.

There is no need to avoid the general trend of artificial intelligence

Supporters are looking forward to the great convenience that artificial intelligence will bring to life and work, while opponents believe that artificial intelligence will be like the science fiction movie "Terminator" The "Skynet" and "Matrix" in "The Matrix" eventually rule mankind. Especially in recent years, artificial intelligence technology has developed rapidly, and artificial intelligence programs such as Google AlphaGo have appeared one after another, which has intensified this debate. The emergence of the controversy further proves that we cannot avoid the advent of the artificial intelligence era, and we should not avoid it.

Media person Yang Lan

I think of what Andrew Ng, associate professor of the Department of Computer Science and Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said when he interviewed him: "I think artificial intelligence It will have a huge impact on society. I sometimes use the metaphor that artificial intelligence is the electric energy of the future. "I very much agree with Professor Wu. In the future, artificial intelligence will affect our lives just like water and electricity. This is not just a problem. It’s just a media gimmick, but it’s my inner feelings after coming into contact with artificial intelligence. In the era of interconnection of everything and intelligence of everything, it will be integrated into our lives and be everywhere.

Zhihu user Mianmian

Let us recall the situation when the Internet first entered people's sight. Most people around me are still reading paper newspapers and think that reading large sections of content while staring at a computer screen will make them "dizzy". When buying things, they would go to several stores to compare prices and quality, thinking that buying things online was just a gimmick: "How dare you place an order without experiencing it in person?" Yes, in the era when the Internet was in its ascendancy, people were both impulsive and excited about its arrival. There is also a kind of resistance and resistance, because it comes so fast, and it completely changes the past life pattern down to the details.

Nowadays, artificial intelligence must be the keyword of the next era.

In the past, artificial intelligence was something in science fiction. Even a few years ago, I still remember talking to Siri on my iPhone and thinking it was such a stupid thing. However, when more and more incredible human-computer interactions appear in our real life, and when "Alpha dogs defeat" Go geniuses one after another, we can only say that the era of artificial intelligence has become the general trend.

Artificial intelligence will ultimately serve people

Based on the assumption that others can be equal to humans or even superior to humans, humans have created many science fiction works. For example, "Animal Farm" is about a group of animals driving humans out of society. In "Brave New World", humans become products of technology. An episode of the animated science fiction film "Rick and Mordy" also tells the story of pet dogs with artificial intelligence. After becoming intelligent, it conflicts with humans. But compared with the chaos in these works, robots may pose a more concrete threat, especially now that technology is advancing with each passing day, and humanity's sense of crisis has increased as never before. Are these worries really necessary?

Baidu President Zhang Yaqin

AI is the most transformative force of our time, and it is changing everything we do. "Intelligence" and "wisdom" are two concepts. The former is an extension of human brainpower, and the latter is the unique advantage of human beings as the spirit of all things. It is difficult for a machine as an inorganic substance to reach the level of intelligence. However, it is both possible and valuable to allow machines to simulate human emotions and expressions, and affective computing has become a strong branch of artificial intelligence research.

We should not be afraid of artificial intelligence, but we should consciously pay attention to its controllability. Like other technologies with both opportunities and risks, as long as you ensure that relevant research does not go astray, it will not have major negative consequences. Human wisdom creates artificial intelligence, so ultimately artificial intelligence must be used by humans.

Sebastian Thrun, President of Udacity

I will not give up my sense of autonomy just because AI can make better decisions. I think our purpose in creating AI is to make it serve humans, not replace humans. I think a very important point is that intelligent AI can make us smarter and better at our jobs. Machines and AI can help us make our knowledge richer, memory better, and information and experience faster. So I'm not pessimistic about AI, I'm actually optimistic. From this perspective, it will become increasingly important for us humans to maintain lifelong learning. AI will become smarter and smarter, and we must continue to learn so as not to be left behind.

In this era, what jobs are most likely to be eliminated by robots? What are you least likely to be eliminated for? Based on the data system of Cambridge University researchers Michael Orne and Carl Frey, the BBC analyzed the probability of 365 occupations being eliminated in the future.

If your job meets the following characteristics, then the possibility of you being replaced by a robot is very high: skills that can be mastered through training without talent; a lot of repetitive work, no need to think twice when you go to work every day, But I am familiar with my skills; my working space is small, I sit in a cubicle, and I don’t know anything about the world. The following are the most replaceable occupations (sorted by probability):

Telemarketer Typist Accountant Insurance Salesman Bank Clerk Operator Front Desk Customer Service Personnel Security Real Estate Agent 99.0 98.5 97.6 97.0 96.8 96.5 95.6 91.0 89.7 89.3 86

If your job requires the following three categories of skills, then the likelihood of you being replaced by a robot is very small: social skills, negotiation skills, and the art of being empathetic; empathy and sincerity towards others Assistance and concern; creativity and aesthetics. The following are the occupations that are least likely to be replaced (sorted by probability):

Nanny, fitness instructor, scientist, musician, artist, lawyer, judge, dentist, physiotherapist, architect, public relations, psychologist, teacher, hotel manager 8.0 7.5 6.2 4.5 3.8 3.5 2.1 1.8 1.4 0.7 0.4