Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (49 page)

20
. Emmanuel Saez, “Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,” University of California, Berkeley, September 3, 2013,
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf
.

21
. Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry, “Inequality and Unsustainable Growth: Two Sides of the Same Coin?,” International Monetary Fund, April 8, 2011,
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
.

22
. Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry, “Warning! Inequality May Be Hazardous to Your Growth,”
iMFdirect,
April 8, 2011,
http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2011/04/08/inequality-and-growth/
.

23
. Ellen Florian Kratz, “The Risk in Subprime,”
CNN Money,
March 1, 2007,
http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/28/magazines/fortune/subprime.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007030117
.

24
. Senior Supervisors Group, “Progress Report on Counterparty Data,” January 15, 2014,
http://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/banking/2014/SSG_Progress_Report_on_Counterparty_January2014.pdf
.

25
. Noah Smith, “Drones Will Cause an Upheaval of Society Like We Haven’t Seen in 700 Years,”
Quartz,
March 11, 2014,
http://qz.com/185945/drones-are-about-to-upheave-society-in-a-way-we-havent-seen-in-700-years
.

26
. Barry Bluestone and Mark Melnik, “After the Recovery: Help Needed,”
Civic Ventures,
2010,
http://www.encore.org/files/research/JobsBluestonePaper3–5-10.pdf
.

27
. Andy Sharp and Masaaki Iwamoto, “Japan Real Wages Fall to Global Recession Low in Abe [Japanese Prime Minister] Risk,”
Bloomberg Businessweek,
February 5, 2014,
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014–02–05/japan-real-wages-fall-to-global-recession-low-in-spending-risk
.

28
. On youth unemployment, see Ian Sivera, “Italy’s Youth Unemployment at 42% as Jobless Rate Hits 37-Year High,”
International Business Times,
January 8, 2014,
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/italys-jobless-rate-hits-37-year-record-high-youth-unemployment-reaches-41–6-1431445
, and Ian Sivera, “Spain’s Youth Unemployment Rate Hits 57.7% as Europe Faces a ‘Lost Generation,’”
International Business Times,
January 8, 2014,
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/spains-youth-unemployment-rate-hits-57–7-europe-faces-lost-generation-1431480
.

29
. James M. Poterba, “Retirement Security in an Aging Society,” National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. 19930, issued in February 2014,
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19930
and also
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19930.pdf
. See Table 9, p. 21.

30
. Ibid., based on Table 15, p. 39; see the row labeled “Joint & Survivor, Male 65 and Female 60, 100% Survivor Income-Life Annuity.” An alternate plan with a 3 percent annual increase starts at just $3,700 (or about $300 per month).

31
. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?,” Oxford Martin School, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, September 17, 2013, p. 38,
http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/sites/futuretech.ox.ac.uk/files/The_Future_of_Employment_OMS_Working_Paper_1.pdf
.

32
. For China population figures, see Deirdre Wang Morris, “China’s Aging Population Threatens Its Manufacturing Might,” CNBC, October 24, 2012,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49498720
and “World Population Ageing 2013,” United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, p. 32,
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WorldPopulationAgeing2013.pdf
.

33
. On the Chinese savings rate (which, as noted, is as high as 40 percent), see Keith B. Richburg, “Getting Chinese to Stop Saving and Start Spending Is a Hard Sell,”
Washington Post,
July 5, 2012,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/getting-chinese-to-stop-saving-and-start-spending-is-a-hard-sell/2012/07/04/gJQAc7P6OW_story_1.html
, and “China’s Savings Rate World’s Highest,”
China People’s Daily,
November 30, 2012,
http://english.people.com.cn/90778/8040481.html
.

34
. Mike Riddell, “China’s Investment/GDP Ratio Soars to a Totally Unsustainable 54.4%. Be Afraid,”
Bond Vigilantes,
January 14, 2014,
http://www.bondvigilantes.com/blog/2014/01/24/chinas-investmentgdp-ratio-soars-to-a-totally-unsustainable-54–4-be-afraid/
.

35
. Dexter Robert, “Expect China Deposit Rate Liberalization Within Two Years, Says Central Bank Head,”
Bloomberg Businessweek,
March 11, 2014,
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014–03–11/china-deposit-rate-liberalization-within-two-years-says-head-of-chinas-central-bank
.

36
. Shang-Jin Wei and Xiaobo Zhang, “Sex Ratios and Savings Rates: Evidence from ‘Excess Men’ in China,” February 16, 2009,
http://igov.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Shang-Jin.pdf
.

37
. Caroline Baum, “So Who’s Stealing China’s Manufacturing Jobs?,”
Bloomberg News,
October 14, 2003,
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRI4bAft7Xw4
.

38
. On investment and the business cycle, see Paul Krugman, “Shocking Barro,”
New York Times
(The Conscience of a Liberal blog), September 12, 2011,
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/shocking-barro/
.

C
HAPTER
9

1
. Stephen Hawking, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, and Frank Wilczek, “Stephen Hawking: ‘Transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence—But Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough?,’”
The Independent,
May 1, 2014,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/stephen-hawking-transcendence-looks-at-the-implications-of-artificial-intelligence-but-are-we-taking-ai-seriously-enough-9313474.html
.

2
. James Barrat,
Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era
(New York: Thomas Dunne, 2013), pp. 196–197.

3
. Yann LeCun, Google+ Post, October 28, 2013,
https://plus.google.com/+YannLeCunPhD/posts/Qwj9EEkUJXY
.

4
. Gary Marcus, “Hyping Artificial Intelligence, Yet Again,”
New Yorker
(Elements blog), January 1, 2014,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-new-york-times-artificial-intelligence-hype-machine.html
.

5
. Vernor Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era,” NASA VISION-21 Symposium, March 30–31, 1993.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Robert M. Geraci, “The Cult of Kurzweil: Will Robots Save Our Souls?,”
USC Religion Dispatches,
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/4456/the_cult_of_kurzweil%3A_will_robots_save_our_souls/
.

8
. “Noam Chomsky: The Singularity Is Science Fiction!” (interview), YouTube, October 4, 2013,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kICLG4Zg8s#t=1393
.

9
. As quoted in
IEEE Spectrum,
“Tech Luminaries Address Singularity,”
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/tech-luminaries-address-singularity
.

10
. Ibid.

11
. James Hamblin, “But What Would the End of Humanity Mean for
Me
?,”
The Atlantic,
May 9, 2014,
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/but-what-does-the-end-of-humanity-mean-for-me/361931/
.

12
. Gary Marcus, “Why We Should Think About the Threat of Artificial Intelligence,”
New Yorker
(Elements blog), October 24, 2013,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/why-we-should-think-about-the-threat-of-artificial-intelligence.html
.

13
. P. Z. Myers, “Ray Kurzweil Does Not Understand the Brain,”
Pharyngula Science Blog,
August 17, 2010,
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/17/ray-kurzweil-does-not-understa/
.

14
. Barrat,
Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era,
pp. 7–21.

15
. Richard Feynman, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” lecture at CalTech, December 29, 1959, full text available at
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
.

16
. On federal research funding for nanotechnology, see John F. Sargent Jr., “The National Nanotechnology Initiative: Overview, Reauthorization, and Appropriations Issues,” Congressional Research Service, December 17, 2013,
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34401.pdf
.

17
. K. Eric Drexler,
Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2013), p. 205.

18
. Ibid.

19
. K. Eric Drexler,
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology
(New York: Anchor Books, 1986, 1990), p. 173.

20
. Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,”
Wired,
April 2000,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
.

21
. “Nanotechnology: Drexler and Smalley Make the Case For and Against ‘Molecular Assemblers,’”
Chemical and Engineering News,
December 1, 2003,
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html
.

22
. Institute of Nanotechnology website,
http://www.nano.org.uk/nano/nanotubes.php
.

23
. Luciana Gravotta, “Cheap Nanotech Filter Clears Hazardous Microbes and Chemicals from Drinking Water,”
Scientific American,
May 7, 2013,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cheap-nanotech-filter-water/
.

24
. Drexler,
Radical Abundance,
pp. 147–148.

25
. Ibid., p. 210.

C
HAPTER
10

1
. Interview between JFK and Walter Cronkite, September 2, 1963,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsplVYbB7b8
8:00. Kennedy’s comments on unemployment begin at about the 8-minute mark in this YouTube video.

2
. “Skill Mismatch in Europe,” European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, June 2010,
http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/Files/9023_en.pdf?_ga=1.174939682.1636948377.1400554111
.

3
. Jock Finlayson, “The Plight of the Overeducated Worker,”
Troy Media,
January 13, 2014,
http://www.troymedia.com/2014/01/13/the-plight-of-the-overeducated-worker/
.

4
. Jin Zhu, “More Workers Say They Are Over-Educated,”
China Daily,
February 8, 2013,
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013–02/08/content_16213715.htm
.

5
. Hal Salzman, Daniel Kuehn, and B. Lindsay Lowell, “Guestworkers in the High-Skill U.S. Labor Market,” Economic Policy Institute, April 24, 2013,
http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-market-analysis/
.