Jobs in the future will only architects and waiters

[DARPA]

Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - about whether computerization will lead to mass unemployment and what will be the economic revolution of the future.
- If cyn today tell parents: "I ​​want to become a bus driver," he say to that? "When you grow up, the bus drivers are no longer needed?"

- It is obvious that even relatively soon means of transport will be able to do without a man at the wheel. I have no doubt that one day I can ride around Manhattan in a taxi without a driver.

- You predict the new machine age, which in the coming years will put upside down and the economy, and the world of work. Who was the first to fall victim to technical progress: cashiers? Librarians? Tax consultants?

- Growth technologizing world still accepted underestimated. Obviously, the most vulnerable to automate routine profession.

- Drive a taxi or bus - it is not always routine.

- It is true, at least for now. But the boundaries of what is considered to be a chore, all the while expanding. Machines with their software under the force more and more things, yesterday assumed by a man with his abilities. For a long time we believed that the game of chess is the highest manifestation of human intelligence. Today they say: "Well, chess - a computer is not difficult." Or take the medicine if now the computer has not yet had time to become the world's best diagnostician, this will happen in the near future.

- In his new book, you quote the idea of the Nobel Prize in Economics Wassily Leontief that machines displace people as well as the tractor replaced the horse. You agree with him?

- Leontiev has meant that the work horse was generally not relevant to the economy. And I fully admit that human labor will also make less significant contribution to the economic process.

- Our working world in its present form will disappear?

- Of course, not quite. With accurate predictions of the distant future should be very careful. When I talk to my friends in Silicon Valley, they say, "What are you, after 20 years of normal operation will not be none." I think this forecast is very bold. But there are many indications that even in our century science fiction becomes a reality, the economy will undergo a deep automation and hordes of robots replacing humans in a variety of professions.

- That is the structural mass unemployment inevitable?

- During the transition period, probably yes - as much as I would like to make a mistake. Let's not confuse the two things. On the one hand, one may ask: Do we want to live in this remote high-tech world? Well, of course! It is a world without the hassle, the world of plenty. I was really worried about another question: how to get into it? After all, the way there is full of tough decisions and challenges.
- Until now, technological advances, usually leads to the fact that instead of one "obsolete" Jobs are two new ones. Why such dynamics are not preserved?

- Of course, you can seek solace in history. But it seems to me that this time things will be different. After all, look what happened in the last five or six years: computer learned to play "his game" a better person, and my smartphone - to give good advice!

- Do you think that these innovations will actually be more important than the technical breakthroughs of the past: the phone, the airplane, television?

- At all times, there were striking examples of progress. Nevertheless, none of the inventions of mankind did not lead to such deep intervention into what people can and what it can be useful to the employer. The plane itself is not a substitute for the pilot. And let simple computers save us from having to add numbers, they do not become an alternative to our senses, our perception, our thinking. But today, technology is encroaching on this core human abilities.

- The computer revolution began decades ago. Why, it seems, the implications for the labor market in full force and effect appear only today?

- For these breakthroughs are needed huge computing power. Until recently, they did not exist. However, the dynamics of Moore's Law ...

- ... Which states that the performance of chip doubles approximately every two years ...

- ... To turn the tide. Supercomputers were suddenly available to billions of people. Looks like we went for the second half of the chessboard.

- You are appealing to the history of the invention of chess, which like to recall the adherents of high-tech Silicon Valley.

- That's right. According to legend, the inventor of chess as an agreement with the ruler of India Remuneration: "All I want - it's a bit of rice. How much? Let's put on the first square one grain of rice on the second - two on the third - four, the fourth - eight, and so on, until we reach the last 64 minutes the cells. "In the first cells lay quite a bit of rice.

- But the most interesting thing started in the second half of the chessboard.

- After 32 cells accumulated several billion grains of rice. It would seem a lot, but for a country that is not a catastrophe. But in the second half of the board progression gave impressive results so that our brain can not fully imagine such numbers.
- At this stage of our computers only come out?

- If we take as the starting point of Moore's Law in 1958, and the period-doubling performance - 18 months, it turns out that we have passed the second half of the chessboard in 2006.

- However, many economists doubt that the new machine age will immediately lead to an economic revolution in the industrialized countries.

- Hardly any of economists would deny that information technologies permeate all sectors of our economy. It is debatable whether they have exhausted their potential. Some colleagues say: "Yes, computers - it is a wonderful invention, for half a century they were a source of enormous change. But the golden age of the computer comes to an end. "With this, I strongly disagree.

- Scary consequences of computer innovations are compounded by a certain feature of digital products.

- Digital solutions really have a surprising property: we can use them, but we can not exhaust their resources. With that one and the same product can use a large number of people simultaneously. And if someone optimizes the software product, the following has been using for the improved version.

- What seems to be a boon to many users, threatens the future of a number of professions. In which specialties are most likely to survive?

- I think it is still quite a long time will remain a sufficient number of reliable jobs. The problem is that most of them require either very high or very low pay. On the one hand, without work will remain the people of creative professions, such as architects, and representatives of the professions that require a sense of taste. They automation hardly threatened. While there is no robots, which, even in the first approximation, could maneuver between the tables and clean dirty dishes, not scaring away visitors. Here are just a busboy - this is hardly a dream job.

- If the work becomes less a salary competition will inevitably worsen. Didzhitalizatsiya widening the gap between rich and poor?

- Of course. All most of the wealth is in the hands of a minority of the population. This process is accelerated by technological advances. Themselves untold riches select few I do not think the moral issue. It occurs only when those who are working tirelessly, losing ground.

- And the middle class is shrinking.

- Yes, it gets less and less sustainable. Such dynamics really concerns me. By the way, it began in the 80s of the last century, and probably not by chance that in that time the march of the PC.
- Why are you so sure that the "istonchanii" middle-class information technology to blame?

- Need for well-paid accountants and head of production has been steadily declining. Not all technologies are equally useful for different segments of society. Some innovations improve the situation of people with a good education, while others favor the capital. Still others contribute to the emergence of new super-rich and superstars.

- In your book, you cite an example of service Instagram: his work provides a handful of employees. A small company has replaced the concern Kodak, which in its heyday worked 145 000 people. And this is progress?

- There are two sides to progress. When billions of people are able to make an unlimited number of photos and put them on display all over the world, is not that progress? The flip side - jobs and salaries. You're right, Instagram, even in the first approximation, could not create so many jobs that have been cut in the concern Kodak. But if I had to choose between these two worlds, I was chosen peace Instagram.

- You know those uncomfortable with such radical change?

- When jobs disappear suddenly, it's very, very scary. But we must not forget what great opportunities that every innovation. If a person living in a third world country, is seriously ill, he can take photos and upload them to the cloud. This makes it without a visit to the doctor has a chance to get an accurate diagnosis. And what, to give up all of these opportunities in order to preserve jobs in Kodak?

- And yet, the world of Instagram, how do you describe it, threatens to cause unemployment, widespread poverty and blatant social injustice.

- But nothing prevents us to resist, rather than passively watch the changes.
- What are your recommendations in this regard does not contain a sensation: it is necessary to stimulate science and business, increase investment in education and infrastructure.

- We really need to urgently reform the education system, even if it does not seem like the original. The question is how to encourage children creativity, entrepreneurship, how to teach them not to be afraid to change the world? Modern education system was not created for such tasks. Do not think it will be a great cynicism to say that it is designed to produce a more or less educated and docile workers. But such employees are no longer needed.

- But need ideas about how to mitigate future shocks to labor.

- Alternatively, you can set a minimum level of income. If we are concerned that people will not be able to maintain a normal standard of living, because they can not find jobs, it is necessary to ensure their livelihood, regardless of employment.

- But the payment of the minimum income will not lead to discount the labor?

- We do not have empirical knowledge on this subject. Yes, there are fears that many then do not want to work. But I'm not really sad. Among my friends there is no one who would say, "Wow, the state will pay me $ 15 000 per year. Now you can finally relax and do nothing. "

- Here we are, rather, not about your friends, and those who for little money injected in construction or gets up at 5 am to wash the floors in the office.

- Well, have to live with the fact that the dinner at the restaurant will be more expensive; then the owner of the restaurant will be able to motivate the waiters money.

- If a substantial part of the population will be living on a minimum income, creditworthy consumers will be in short supply.

- The meaning of a minimum income is to ensure that all these people were not completely lost to the economy. Purchasing power of living on welfare will not be too big, but they will be able to afford more than if the government did not pay them anything.

- If the acceleration of technological progress continues, what awaits us in the coming years: thinking robots? Artificial Intelligence?

- If I knew the answer, I would have to create the future, and not involved in analytics. I would be an entrepreneur, not a scientist. But one thing is certain: we are waiting for a lot of big surprises.