Violence Against Tech Firms May Only Be Beginning

For the past few weeks, protests have been building against a private bus system used by Google and others in Silicon Valley. The action took a menacing turn yesterday when one Google worker was followed home.

Google and other Silicon Valley tech companies have attracted the protesters' ire because sky-high tech salaries have led to sky-high real estate prices in San Francisco, pricing out poorer residents. They're also in the cross-hairs for their role in assisting NSA surveillance. The private bus system (which used public bus stops) was seen as another kick in teeth by, in the words of Kevin Roose, "coddled 22-year-olds with Stanford BAs."

But recent protests against tech firms aren't confined to Silicon Valley. In France, for instance, striking taxi workers attacked and vandalized cars booked through Uber.

Taken together these protests are small, uncoordinated and may ultimately fizzle out. Or, like the early tremors from a massive earthquake, they may be a significant harbinger of things to come. In fact, we may be nearing not one but two waves of violence directed at technology companies in the United States and abroad.

The first wave may prove to be nothing more than an unfortunate product of social resentment. The second wave could be catastrophic.

Many technological revolutions inspire fear and often violence when they displace workers -- the Luddite riots in Britain in the 1800s being the most famous example.

A recent, widely-cited study by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne of Oxford's Program on the Impacts of Future Technology, put the matter starkly. In their analysis of over 700 different jobs, almost half could be done by a computer in the future. This wave of computerization will destroy not simply low-wage, low-skill jobs (though those are in acute danger) but some white collar and service-sector jobs previously thought to be immune as well.

If the researchers are correct, there are, broadly speaking, two possible outcomes. The first is that society, as it historically has, finds a new equilibrium that manages to satisfy (almost) everyone. Low skilled workers and those with a mismatch in skills eventually train themselves into fields with better employment prospects. Some people, industries, and towns are displaced, but the macro economy and the social and political structures that rest on it, carries on. Meanwhile, new technologies continue to enrich our lives, enhance our productivity and produce a safer, cleaner world.

Alternatively, the jobs lost to computerization and robots are never replaced and workers caught in the transition never find a way back to the work force (some fear we could be seeing signs of this today). As the pace and scope of automation and roboticization accelerates, millions more find themselves unemployed, under-employed and increasingly desperate while those who own the robots, create the algorithms or otherwise work in technology reap immense benefits. Technology firms may ceased to be viewed as beneficial innovators and instead be viewed suspiciously as architects of greater inequality.

In this second, darker scenario, it's quite easy to see individuals or potentially even organized movements venting their frustration and desperation against technology firms (and their sometimes ostentatiously wealthy owners) using violence. The Occupy Wall Street protests sparked by the financial collapse and the accumulation of huge piles of wealth by a tiny fraction of humanity has primed the pump for such unrest. Discussing the Google protests in Salon, Natasha Lennard wrote approvingly that while such intimidation could be seen as terrorism, "it works" and should therefore continue.

But as challenging and uncertain as this scenario is, it's still comprehendible. Human society has dealt successfully with technological job displacement before. If it does come to pass, it could be met with more aggressive wealth distribution, repression or some clever policy of mass education (or make-work).

One of the crucial dynamics driving the computerization of human jobs is the evolution of machines intelligent enough to do work formerly consigned to humans. Beyond the rote, mechanical and dangerous work that robots are already beginning to do today (on factory floors, in war zones, etc.) lies the next wave of more sophisticated human skills, a wave that requires artificial intelligence to master.

Yet the development of ever-more intelligent machines carries with it immense danger beyond simply the loss of human jobs. These dangers have been spelled out most recently by documentarian James Barrat in his book Our Final Invention (which we reviewed here) and more recently by MIT physicist Max Tegmark. Put simply, the rise of machines as intelligent (and eventually more intelligent) than humans could potentially put human life and civilization at risk of extinction.

The creations of super-intelligent machines has been dubbed the Singularity by computer scientist Vernor Vinge, so named because, like the edge of a Black Hole, it is the point at which it is impossible to predict the course of human events because humans will no longer be masters of their destiny. Machines will.

Exactly when (or even if) the Singularity will occur is a matter of debate. Our efforts to build intelligent machines may hit a brick wall. But if progress towards intelligent machines continues unabated, you can be sure the debate regarding a "post-human" future that is currently a peripheral concern (at best) will take on increasing urgency. In such an environment, how will society react? Will people accept the fact that their destiny -- the destiny of their species -- may cease to be in their hands? Will they wish to pursue research that could destroy human life as we know it?

Some futurists think we'll happily welcome the prospect. Ray Kurzweil -- a popular proponent of the Singularity's benefits who is currently directing Google's artificial intelligence efforts -- has argued that since progress toward the Singularity will be incremental, people will be gradually socialized to the idea that the human race as we have known it for centuries will eventually be replaced by human-machine hybrids or simply conscious machines. The Singularity will come bearing gifts. First Google Glass, then Google Eyeballs, then Google Brain, then the uploading of "you" into the cloud for a life immortal, with nary a complaint along the way.

The less optimistic take sees at least some segment of humanity reacting negatively, and violently, against the coming Singularity. This scenario has been anticipated by computer scientists working in artificial intelligence. AI researcher Hugo de Garis for instance, wrote a book of speculative fiction positing a war between "Cosmists" and "Terrans" -- the former devoted to advancing the Singularity and the latter dedicated to stopping it at all costs.

Could such a war happen in the future? It's impossible to predict. But violent acts of sabotage and assassination directed at those working in companies and institutions deemed instrumental to creating a "post-human" future seem highly plausible -- even inevitable -- if progress continues. If Kurzweil is wrong and the rise of super-intelligent machines is viewed as more alien than benign, it won't be hard to convince people that their lives and the future of human civilization rest on stopping this work. People have killed over much less.

States, too, would take a keen interest in the progress of AI (indeed, they already have). In the scramble for geopolitical power and position, powerful states may view the race for AI as a new arms race, and take measures, such as preemptive war, to disadvantage their rivals.

So keep an eye on the Google bus fracas. It may symbolize a tragic irony: the "disruption" that so many tech firms pride themselves on may be coming. And it might not be pretty.

AI will eliminate even those jobs.

How many people do you think can earn a living just fixing machines, until AI replaces them anyways?

What do you propose doing with the rest of humanity? The ones with IQ’s less than 100. Kill them? Starve them? Sterilize them? Inquiring minds would like to know...

Why do you think the elites are obsessed with population control. Specifically YOUR population control. Most of the rabid population control preachers have MORE than the 2 replacement kids. Ever wonder why? Ever wonder who they want to ‘save the planet’ for?

I’ve occasionally wondered what would happen if the machines became sufficiently-advanced to do “everything”.

Not just building new machines and repairing existing machines, but producing food, energy, building/fixing shelter, etc.

A society in which every need was met, with zero need for any human effort.

Sounds idyllic, but somehow I suspect it wouldn’t work out as well as it might sound.

The technology to replace the entire human species wasn’t on the cusp of reality in the 1800’s. Displaced jacquard weavers could find employment in any number of new industrial technologies.

The 19th century elites, by and large, really didn’t care if the peasants lived or died. Our elites would prefer we all died. And they’re developing the technology that will allow them to continue to live comfortably when we eventually do just that.

I ask again. Most of the rabid population control wackjobs have more than 2 kids. Clearly they’re not really concerned about overpopulation. Just OUR overpopulation. Who do you think we’re saving the planet for?

What will you feed your family when your job is replaced by AI and the welfare state collapses?

The elites aren’t developing this technology to make money, unlike the jacquard automation guys. They’re developing it to eliminate their need for US. ALL of US.

Perhaps the right approach is to be the machine builder. That has been my niche since the early 80's. The robot builder/maintainer is the new wave of jobs replacing the manual laborer. Washing machines freed people from standing by the river with a scrub board all day.

The current wave of software inside business is "work flow" related. Specialized rule/inferencing engines doing expert work, then passing the product to the next node in the workflow. Twenty years ago I radically updated a computer system to perform a task in 3 days that took 6 months in a prior generation. Faster computers have shaved that to one day.

We adapt to a changing world.

IF the elites pushing this tech weren’t also pushing draconian population control I might agree it would be a good thing. It’s not their speech I’m paying attention to, it’s their actions. And despite their supposed ‘horror’ at the overpopulation problem they nearly all have MORE than the 2 ‘replacement’ kids. Because they’re special and their kids somehow won’t destroy the planet. But yours, wow, yours will just rape Gaia like nobody’s business. So you’d better think hard about having any. Maybe just try that homosex they’re pushing on the preteens in school now. Or the free abortions and birth control. Maybe just get a puppy instead.

I suspect it’s because they want to get rid of US to save the planet for THEM.

AI will replace that too eventually.

How many humans can support a family doing the machine building/support job until even those are mostly replace by AI? How many men could support a wife and 2 or 3 kids with those type of jobs? What do you do with the rest of humanity given that there probably isn’t the need for 6B of those jobs?

What about humans with IQ’s less than say, 120? Let them starve in the streets? Pay astronomical income taxes to let the state support them?

It’s not necessarily the tech I don’t trust. It’s the elites control of that. And their motives.

The push to raised the minimum wage will result in more automation at the lowest levels, displacing fast food workers with high-tech vending machines.

I worked at PacBell from 1980 to 1991. During the 1989 CWA strike, we made some monumental improvements. The 16 people hanging 9 track tapes in the IBM/Amdahl shops were replaced with two large tape robots. My own shop replaced 9 track tapes with 8mm Exabyte units. That allowed one manager to replace all the tapes in the room in 15 minutes each morning. The non-management tape/printer handlers were eliminated. I replace the error prone data extracts to tape with a unified extract via TCP/IP to a file server. No more system crashes from humans unmounting the audit tape instead of the data output volume. The switching offices eliminated multiple old SXS switches and crossbar in favor of digital remotes. A bunch of mechanical switch craftsmen were retired.

One of my automation projects focused on 3-way calling, call forwarding, speed call 8 and conference calling. Those were the 4 services with the highest utilization of service rep time. I was able to automate it with an interactive voice/response system in English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. The automated system took the human out of the loop and allowed add/remove of those services and a quote of the changed billing. System performance over the first six months showed activation of the new features in the CO switch within 29 minutes of dropping the customer switch hook...no service rep involvement. That was 1986. Imagine what could be done with the better computing resources available today.

We already have an issue with lots of college grads competing for burger flipped jobs. They squeeze out the less educated as the management looks for an employee with value that matches the forced minimum wage.

One of my ongoing concerns is what happens when my generation of innovators retires. The kids coming behind us don't understand the fundamentals that allowed building the current technocracy. When things break, they expect to toss an item in the trash and buy a replacement. They are appliance operators without the slight clue about how to recover the technology in the face of an event like EMP that destroys existing technology.

There is one small comfort...the "elites" are button pushing appliance operators with big bank accounts. Not everything is for sale. When the fancy toys break, they are helpless children.

This time it’s not quite like the jacquard making industry. Prior to mechanization, jacquard loomers were fairly intelligent. They had to be to memorize and execute the complicated patterns. Their IQ’s were likely higher than 100.

Mechanization eliminated the need for that knowledge set. And replaced them with employees whose IQ’s were less than 100 and simply changed the threads on the new looms. The hand weavers were smart enough to adapt. Many did. In Victorian England the rest just starved. The industrialization opened up opportunities for those with IQ less than 100 to earn a ‘decent’ and ‘stable’ living. Many of them had been stoop labor workers on the vast estates doing farming and other simple tasks.

Same with Henry Ford. Prior to the assembly line, cars were built, by hand, by experienced mechanics (IQ greater than 100) one at a time. The assembly line replaced them with a worker who only had to be smart enough to do one or a few simple repetitive tasks. The explosion in the numbers of ‘middle class’ in this country were people who had been small farmers or simply stoop laborers who found employment in the factories making middle class wages.

The industrial revolution created jobs for people who formerly had been unable to achieve the middle class. The tech revolution is doing just the opposite.

Baloney. Small manufacturing shops are outlawed in sparsely populated rural areas all over America by zoning laws and many other regulations. Relegating small operations to insanely expensive flooring in some lifeless industrial park in the middle of nowhere is corruptionm, thievery, and it’s not happening. There are also planning and building regulations in the middle of nowhere to keep technically inclined owner-builders from getting established. It’s illegal for new, small competition to rise or to so much as pull itself out of rental slavery.

A good custom machinist who doesn’t have to make payments on abominable loans for overly expensive equipment can do small production runs on manually controlled machines faster than CNC operators—especially on older equipment. Small operations can indeed be cabable of making profits and sooner than expensive operations. There are also many other kinds of production operations besides machining.

The political/regulator class has outlawed work for others by using fake property values, environmentalist and animal worship front hags in local-yocal commissioners’ meetings all over the country. There have also been wrongful family-busting efforts going on for decades with the help of so many feminist laws passed.

Now we have a general dump-on-your-neighbor regime (neighborhood coveting) with illegal taxes disguised as fees going up and up. It’s strangling the last of the real, sustainable revenues that could come from real production from many small shops. That’s the problem.

Combine that whole situation with the increasing lack of desire on everyone’s part to spend frivolously, compete for the shrinking numbers of positions in slavery and be good little consumers, and you’ll see what is ahead.

"Will they wish to pursue research that could destroy human life as we know it?"

In the minds of stylish, genocidal schemers, who can't stand allowing so many ordinary, unstylish, conservative people to be seen on this planet. They're not the "producers" that they claim to be. They sit on the rear ends all of their lives, dreaming about how to rid the scenery of the sights and sounds of others hated by them. Foreign, communist slaves do most of the producing for now.

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