SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son said he envisions the project, which runs the gamut from power generation to panel and equipment manufacturing, as a way to help wean Saudi Arabia off its dependence on oil for electricity, create as many as 100,000 jobs and shave $40 billion off power costs. The total capacity to be built under its umbrella will be 200 gigawatts by 2030, the company said.
Saudi Arabia and SoftBank Group Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding to build a $200 billion solar power development that’s exponentially larger than any other project.
There are several ways we can deal with the troubles that lie ahead during the transition to full automation. Some experts and companies are exploring basic income, the centuries-old idea of giving unconditional money to all citizens, enough for them to live their lives. Other thought leaders such as Bill Gates are proposing robot taxes, where companies that use automation pay certain fees for the jobs they take away from humans. Other solutions might emerge.
Automation will continue to move forward at an accelerating pace. We don’t need to fear about the destination. Instead, we must prepare ourselves for the rocky road ahead. I’m not worried about the robots taking all the jobs. I’m worried about them leaving some to the humans.
Hundreds of millions of jobs affected. Trillions of dollars of wealth created. These are the potential impacts of a coming wave of automation. In this episode of Moving Upstream, we travelled to Asia to see the next generation of industrial robots, what they’re capable of, and whether they’re friend or foe to low-skilled workers.
Everyone is worried about robots stealing manufacturing jobs, but the real value (and threat) in robots may lie in whether they can become smart enough to actually think on their own.
One of the major milestones in creating human level intelligence is for machines to attain self-awareness. And Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab may have already done it. “These robots learn overtime, to stimulate themselves in a future situation they haven’t actually experienced.” said Dr. Hod Lipson, the mechanical engineering professor leading the lab’s push to create self-aware robots.
“In other words, they don’t have to learn by doing,” Lipson told VICE News. “They can learn by thinking.”
The robotics department at UC Berkley has made similar advancements with their self-teaching robot BRETT. Using trial and error, BRETT can learn how to fold laundry, assemble LEGO blocks and fit pegs into a hole.
From a technological standpoint, these advancements are exciting, but they raise an important philosophical question: If humans create machines whose intelligence surpasses our own, will we be able to control them?
VICE’s Hamilton Morris explores how robotics and the computers that power them are poised for an extraordinary leap forward with the emergence of artificial intelligence, and how humanity can reconcile the huge risks and possibilities that will follow.
The vast majority of Americans expect artificial intelligence to lead to job losses in the coming decade, but few see it coming for their own position.
The other findings, released in January, show that more than three in four Americans believe that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change how the public works and lives in the coming decade.
A new study reveals how widely Americans use and welcome technologies featuring artificial intelligence.
AUSTIN, Texas — Mining asteroids for water and other resources could someday become a trillion-dollar business, but not without astronomers to point the way.
At least that’s the view of Martin Elvis, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who’s been taking a close look at the science behind asteroid mining.
In many ways, the future is unpredictable. A report by the World Economic Forum reveals that almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even exist yet. Combined with technological automation and the disappearance of traditional jobs, this leaves us with a critical question: how can we survive such a world?
The answer may be imagination.
Initially coined by Rita J. King, the imagination age is a theoretical period beyond the information age where creativity and imagination will become the primary creators of economic value. This is driven by technological trends like virtual reality and the rise of digital platforms like YouTube, all of which increase demand for user-generated content and creativity. It is also driven by automation, which will take away a lot of monotonous and routine jobs, leaving more higher-ordered and creative jobs.
That candidate is Andrew Yang, a well-connected New York businessman who is mounting a longer-than-long-shot bid for the White House. Mr. Yang, a former tech executive who started the nonprofit organization Venture for America, believes that automation and advanced artificial intelligence will soon make millions of jobs obsolete — yours, mine, those of our accountants and radiologists and grocery store cashiers.
He says America needs to take radical steps to prevent Great Depression-level unemployment and a total societal meltdown, including handing out trillions of dollars in cash.
Andrew Yang, a former tech executive, is mounting a longer-than-long-shot bid for the White House by warning of economic calamity ahead.
