Eight programs could help displaced workers adapt

摘要

Artificial intelligence offers opportunities for engineers, and according to Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and chief executive of Sinovation Ventures, writing in The New York Times, it does not present a near-term prospect of a sci-fi dystopia. What it will do, he writes, is outperform humans at many tasks-such as an AI-based "spreadsheet on steroids" evaluating loan-repayment histories. As AI spreads across many domains, it will eliminate many jobs. Retraining may help people find new jobs, but Lee expects few laid-off production line workers to become trail lawyers or other highly paid professionals requiring creativity and cross-domain thinking. They may more easily acquire, or already have, the people skills necessary to become social workers, bartenders, or concierges, he writes, but then asks, "How many bartenders does a society really need?"