The day I lost my job to a bot

By awakening, we heal.Presence is the knowledge of insight, and of us. Wonder requires exploration.Although you may not realise it, you are quantum.Who are we? Where on the great journey will we be awakened? Throughout history, humans have been interacting with the galaxy via ultrasonic energy. Humankind has nothing to lose.This text above was created by Seb Pearce's New-Age bullshit generator tool. More on that later....This text below, is a real quote:

Far from being the smartest possible biological species, we are probably better thought of as the stupidest possible biological species capable of starting a technological civilisation – a niche we filled because we got there first, not because we are in any sense optimally adapted to it. –Nick Bostrom

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Besides prehistoric apemen clubbing other prehistoric apemen to death after having seen a monolith, the brilliant minds of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Clarke also produced HAL9000. Hal9000 was a sentient computer, Hal9000 was an artificial intelligence. In 2018 2001: A space odyssey will have its fiftieth anniversary.

2001: A space odyssey is considered to be scientific fiction. Watson, however, is an innocent and innovative fun piece of AI machinery. Until it's not anymore.I think it's fair to say with current self-driving cars and automated transportation bots that everyone in the transportation industry will be affected within the next 5 years. Considering that predicting the future is not possible yet, I could be wrong. It's not a question of if though, rather of when. Think taxi drivers, truck drivers facilitating transportation, and every other human driving every other machine. After that, the maritime industry will be affected and shortly after, the aviation industry and so forth.

Back to the tool- generated content at the beginning. It's hardly Artificial Intelligence in the sense that it is simply a tool which uses a certain algorithm to compile a  specific amount of words together in a specific order. However, if I were to place this quote or any other quote generated by the tool on Facebook and it happened to garner some likes, doesn't that automatically imply it passes the Turing test? Or does it simply mean I need to start removing some friends? You can't deny that Pearce's tool generates something which somewhat resembles something a human could have written.

I am far removed from being an AI expert. But considering the future rapid and exponential growth of technology it doesn't seem unrealistic to say that it won't take long before algorithms will master the art of storytelling. That "being creative" will come down to zeros and ones. To believe otherwise is naive. Presuming you will have children and your children will have children, it's necessary to be aware of an inevitable outcome. As CGP Grey puts so eloquently:

Perfectly capable humans will find themselves unemployable, through no fault of their own.

Whatever fancy terminology you use. Third industrial revolution - Economic singularity - Skynet hurt my feelings. In due time workers in every field will be replaced by bots at an ever expanding rate. Not if, but when.

Where we have tools to check and synchronise calendars, set reminders, plan events, notify us of the weather 3000 miles removed, save and store data, communicate (the list is endless), we generally use tools to make the process of work and life easier and more effective. With a more efficient use of time, thus costing less. 

The process of making society's life easier and more effective is currently occupied by huge automation (think huge machines which build cars). So if drivers are replaced by smaller automation, we won't be far removed from a situation where office workers will be "aided" in their daily tasks.

If at some point in time you no longer have to pay a freelancer a one-time rate for a one time project but you can pay a one-time rate for all your projects ever, as an employer, that's a no-brainer. So from the New-age generator tool to sophisticated intelligent writing bots, we still have some time before true progression is made concerning artificially created 100 percent human-like coherent content. But how do you compete with the bot if the bot gets better than you? You don't. What you do is you become an expert in growing vegetables, to become self-sufficient. Exchange your fruits for meats to survive. The only thing you write is a diary to document how the "self-sustaining thing" is going.

Machines or bots will become stronger, better, more efficient. More reliable, without error, without fail. Writing bots will never become tired, never miss a deadline, will be able to pitch 30 different versions of a text, will be able to take feedback like a pro, never get emotional, never burn out, never get divorced or have drinking problems.

We are living in a different era. Current automation bots can learn more and cost less than you do as a human. A general purpose robot starts off highly expensive. Like the first Apple 1 computer cost US$666.66 back in 1976 (equivalent to $2,806 in 2016) which could "only" be used for developing programs, playing games or running the BASIC operating system. Bots will get cheaper and more sophisticated every year. A copywriter (depending on the form of employment) in the flesh amounts to:

• The costs to recruit him.
• The costs of his or her basic salary.
• The costs of his or her employment taxes and insurances.
• The costs of his or her benefits (let alone the severance package).
• The costs of housing your human in an office space. 

Even a freelancer will cost "recruiting" and "salary". A writing bot costs electricity and programming. The software itself will become cheaper, the content will be ever producing and everlasting.

As CGP grey explains; Horses were replaced by mechanical muscles (cars). Life became convenient because of the laid back jobs for them (no more hard labour). However, these mechanical muscles caused a dramatic decrease of horses and use of them in from 1915 onwards. Mechanical minds will push humans out of the workforce. 

You may look at the state of technology now and think it can’t possibly replace your job. But technology gets better, cheaper, and faster at a rate biology can’t match. - CGP grey
 

A bot won't be taught the skill. It will teach itself. It will be taught how to teach itself. Gathering more and more information by the minute. Until it believes to able to add creativity. It may need a couple of years of fine tuning and re-adjustment. But if you take all the adds in the world, all the campaigns, all textbooks ever written on marketing, every piece of copy ever and feed it to Watson's third removed cousin, you will have something of the likes of "Supermarket(here)." It will devise its own slogan, and set up its own virtual company. Here is what a scenario like that could look like: 

At Supermarket(here) we write like we are told to write; just right. 

Within minutes the human client will be able to effortlessly enter the criteria for the algorithm to get going and get to work. Here at Supermarket(here) we like to be bossed around. First, we need some answers;

1. What is your product? Book about nursing on an intensive care unit.
2. What is your goal? Sell to every possible medical institute in the world.
3. By when? Within 3 months.
4. Which emotions would you like to use/ vibe would you like to exude? Confidence
5. Negative, that is not an emotion. Ok sorry, happy, ecstatic.. not sure.
6. Please specify and select from following suggestions: encouraged, energised, confident, challenged, fulfilled.
7. Would you like to make use of our image database? Yes
8. Please select 5 images from the following 20 to specify.
9. Does it need to be a moving image? No.

Thank you for choosing Supermarket(here). We are now developing the strategy and writing your content. Would you like some music during your tiny wait?

This could hypothetically be an interaction between future AI software and a client, designed to help you develop a branding strategy and take all the necessary steps to write the content and make sure it ranks high in Google.We have had an economic revolution before but have never seen anything like this. The future won't be bad, it will be inevitable. As mentioned before. You will simply be unemployable through no fault of your own.

To put it otherwise:  

What can you do to prepare?

1. Nothing. To pretend otherwise would also be naive. Work hard, save up. Spend it all on software.
2. Become an automation engineer if it isn't too late.
3. Despair
4. Spend all of your free time on developing vegetable growth skills. Basically become a biologist.

Kubrick is considered a visionary filmmaker. With one of his classics, arguably the best Sci-Fi cult movie ever to have arisen from cinema.

It may be called sci-fi. But why not call it suspended real-life? The coming-of-age tale of the future. Except now, in our day and technological age, the protagonist is a bot. Which leaves us humans...........left.

Kind regards,

Watson

P.S. Coming soon to a screen near you!