US Treasury Secretary: Artificial intelligence will not threaten jobs in 50 to 100 years

OFweekrobotNet News: Will artificial intelligence become a “killer” of human employment? US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is not so pessimistic. He believes that artificial intelligence will not be able to compete with humans in 50 to 100 years.

Mnuchin said at an event held by the American media recently that the issue of artificial intelligence taking over the employment of Americans “is an event that can only happen in the future” and that “we are still far away from this day”, so this matter does not exist at all. on his “radar screen”. When pressed by the event host how far away the day is, he said: “I think it’s 50 to 100 years away.”

Mnuchin explained that this involves the definition of artificial intelligence, which he said is not something like driverless cars. He believes that unmanned driving will become a reality in the near future, which is a combination of computers and some existing real technology, but this kind of thing “is related to artificial intelligence, such as R2-D2 (a robot character in the “Star Wars” movie) Replacing your job (the moderator) is very different.”

Asked if he was concerned about Robots threatening American jobs, Mnuchin said: “I’m quite optimistic, frankly. I mean, this (robots) can create productivity. What we need to do is in training and education. invest.”

He believes that robots are an “important part and complement” of commercial production, and even if jobs are replaced in the future, they will be low-paying jobs.

But there are also some in the United States who disagree with Mnuchin on the prospects for artificial intelligence. “If Mnuchin had read or understood artificial intelligence, he wouldn’t have said such absurd things this morning,” said Ami Webb, an American futurist who was in charge of some tech companies in the U.S. government “It’s actually quite scary, especially the denial of the impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on human employment,” said Larry Irwin of the United States.

A report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers on the 24th predicts that by the early 2030s, 38% of American jobs will be affected byautomationthreat, compared with 30% in the UK, 35% in Germany and 21% in Japan.