July – AI and Murderbot

I have been enjoying the course on Artificial Intelligence from the Law Society of Ireland, and I completed that during July. This is useful for ongoing professional training and keeps me updated.

I attended a talk in the RDS by Deborah Perry Piscione, for the MBA programme. This talk on AI related to her latest book, Employment is Dead. Among her points were that entry level jobs and supervisory jobs are going to be done by AI systems, so there will be a shortage of trained people to work up the career ladder. Physical skills will still be needed, like nursing and farming. But many medical and legal jobs can be automated.

I asked: Two weeks ago, I was attending a talk at Trinity College and I told the student next to me that in ten years’ time, the only jobs going would be ones you do with your hands, like plumbing, gardening, nursing. He was wondering what he would do with his Master’s degree in History. While you say more people should work in agriculture, farmers today don’t want workers. They are mechanising all the food production they can, from eggs to pork to field crops. They invest in huge tractors that are directed by satellite, and very soon these won’t have cabs, because they won’t need drivers. The data about the field belongs to the tractor firm, and it tells the farmer where to plant and where to fertilise. The government inspects the field by satellite too, so they don’t send out Department of Agriculture staff any more. And they can tell the farmer they haven’t harvested the last three percent of the crop yet.
So if more people are going to be doing basic work, like picking watermelons all day, I believe the price of residential property is going to be the stumbling block. We know from reading Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich in the 1990s, many Americans had to work two or three jobs to live indoors. Firstly, what are the highly educated people going to do? Secondly, will picking watermelons pay enough to buy or rent a house? And thirdly, if so, will people accept paying more for their food?

Deborah thought that the highly educated people will read and write books, offices can be converted to residential use, freeing up buildings, and food prices will vary a lot.
Afterwards another attendee asked me about the property issue. I said, I see the price of residential property as the real stumbling block. Suppose you are a big residential property owner. You have two large apartment blocks. Do you want to rent out those apartments at fifty dollars a month? He said, No.

I have finally subscribed to a streaming service, it is Apple TV and I got it purely to watch Murderbot (and will watch Silo). It’s beyond fantastic to see modern SF books getting produced to high standards and reaching new audiences. The Murderbot character is an AI security unit which has hacked its controlling module and can act as it chooses, provided the humans don’t find out. Give it a try, there are plenty of YouTube clips so you can see if it suits.
The great news is, Murderbot has been given the approval for a second season. Alexander Skarsgård is the titular character and executive producer. (I hadn’t seen him in anything but True Blood before – another series based on books.) Martha Wells has been a contributing producer. Love it.

Here is an SF book free: download Dining Out On Planet Mercury 24 – 28 July.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074Y53JMX

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074Y53JMX

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