What we’re about
We are a group that discusses questions in the Philosophical way of examining the question for built-in assumptions. We meet to learn from each other's perspectives.
We are part of a worldwide movement, called Public Philosophy, to bring philosophical discussion out of academia and to the general public. Socrates Café is part of this same movement.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Could honor culture return as the norm in the US?Wegmans Food Pharmacy - Delicatessen, Columbia, MD
This is a hybrid event, if you can't be there in person, please join us on Teams here: https://teams.live.com/meet/9378312297248?p=5lVo2bcZRuAwIp8h
The US once had a predominant honor culture where insult could not stand and led to duels among “men of honor”. What caused this to fall from normalcy in the US? Was it enlightenment values and science? This culture seems to persist to a greater degree in the US South, why? If we presume this arose from a need to rely on cultural controls where more modern solutions did not yet exist, we can understand the need to shame and use other means of social control.
How do we reconcile the concepts today and how do we address new cultures rising in significant numbers in America who may rely more heavily on honor culture that many Americans may not completely understand? How do we educate each other on expectations? What rules, culture or our current system of laws? Should the laws change to fit this new culture? Is there a happy medium between the culture prevalent in western democracies, presumably based on enlightenment values and culture based on honor? Will a return to honor culture bring a rise in patriarchy or is honor culture purely an outgrowth of patriarchy?
More here: http://blog.yalebooks.com/2017/06/20/southern-honor-culture-and-the-united-states-congress/ and
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/author-interviews/honor-in-colonial-america/
Here is one definition of honor culture: https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/cultural-psychology/culture-of-honor/
More information: http://honorshame.com/12-proven-facts-about-honor-cultures/
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhwrOJvPfBw
This seems to be more prevalent in the US south as noted in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and as noted here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_(Southern_United_States). A bit more here:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/manly-honor-part-v-honor-in-the-american-south/
If there is interest, a follow on discussion of the question of what is America as the talking points above may be in order. How do we reconcile the concepts today – are we a country in which we are organized by tribes and we have our own mores and we must “look out for our own”? or are we a commonwealth where we are our brothers’ keepers – how can we be both? Are these rural v. urban distinctions or is it more complicated? Are we a nation of individual freedoms and total self-reliance or are we a nation with societal safety nets available to all be agreed to law? How will this be shaped by the rise of new voting blocks from groups traditionally silent or disenfranchised? Does it matter if our votes are overridden by bad actors or voters are not educated?
Phew, that's plenty! See you soon... - AI Jobs Apocalypse? (fusion event)Wegmans Food Pharmacy - Delicatessen, Columbia, MD
This is a hybrid event, if you can't be there in person, please join us on Teams here: https://teams.live.com/meet/9378312297248?p=5lVo2bcZRuAwIp8h
The leap in the effectiveness of AI performing of human tasking has been dramatic in the last several years, with ChatGPT and other language models sometimes performing complex tasks spectacularly well. Several of our members have seen layoffs at their organizations as a result.
So are we facing an AI jobs apocalypse?
Here are several references that say yes.
This one says 8 million jobs in the UK are at risk, mostly low paying and entry level jobs: AI ‘apocalypse’ could take away almost 8m jobs in UK, says report | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
This one says 70% of all jobs are AI affected (not all will be lost) Report Warns AI Could Cause "Jobs Apocalypse" (futurism.com)
And this one projects 15-20% jobs lost: How to Best Prepare for the AI Jobs Apocalypse | Nasdaq
While this one projects that the most educated and high end jobs are most at risk, and that unless we somehow politically take the AI profits form the AI moguls, then most of us will be on a subsistence dole, and will all suffer the psychological effects of uselessness either way. The Future of Work in the AI Era by Eric Posner - Project Syndicate (project-syndicate.org)
There are counterpoint views. These two articles note how with every prior technology improvement, there was fear of jobs losses. But employment actually rose in most affected industries. And then new industries also appeared. As a demonstration of tech jobs creation, 60% of jobs today did not even exist as types of work in 1940. Why AI will not lead to technological unemployment | World Economic Forum (weforum.org) People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. | MIT Technology Review
This one takes a mixed view. It notes that 300 million jobs are threatened worldwide, but that more jobs will eventually be created than are destroyed. AI Could Eliminate 300 Million Jobs, Warns Goldman Sachs | The Epoch Times
And this one says that total job losses are overstated, because the estimates neglect the cost of creating and training the AI, and that actual losses at least in the near term will be only about 1/4 of the doomsday estimates. New Research May Calm Some of the AI Job-loss Clamor-For Now - MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
While this one takes a very long term view and says that in the end almost all of our jobs will be lost. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence - Widespread Job Losses (iotforall.com)
This collection of views is all over the place on the AI jobs apocalypse.
I offer several questions for discussion:
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In past tech development, repetitive actions and strength-based tasks were automated, leading to more "head" focused tasks in the new jobs. With the Language model AIs being able to do creative "head" tasks, is the rosy picture of new and better "head" tasks replacing drudgery tasking no longer true? Does AI break the prior tech pattern?
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Prior job replacements were mostly infrastructure intensive. This created jobs to build the new infrastructure, and maintain it. however, is AI software development so specialized to not be able to employ many, and then so easily replicated that there is no infrastructure needed anyway? Does AI break the prior patterns because there is so little need for infrastructure to implement it?
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