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IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Fri 24 Jul 2009, 20:45:39

The Future

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]What's next for the Blue Brain Project?

Phase I marks the completion of a proof-of-principle simulation-based research process that has resulted in a cellular-level model of the neocortical column. We have achieved biological fidelity such that the model itself now serves as a primary tool for evaluating the consistency and relevance of neurobiological data, while providing guidance for new experimental efforts. These new data will serve to further refine the neocortical column model. The assembled process allows neuroscientists to investigate scientific questions by integrating the available experimental data and evaluating hypotheses of network dynamics and neural function.

The completion of phase I provides the basis now for increasing the resolution of the models down to the molecular level and expanding the size of the models towards the whole brains of mammals.

In the future, information from the molecular and genetic level will be added to the algorithms that generate the individual neurons and their connections, and thus this level of detail will be reflected in the circuit's construction. The simulations can be used to explore what happens when this molecular or genetic information is altered -- situations such as a genetic variation in particular neurotransmitters, or what happens when the molecular environment is altered via drugs.

The project will continue to expand and will necessarily involve additional scientists and research groups from around the world.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')enefits of the Blue Brain Project

Gathering and Testing 100 Years of Data

The most immediate benefit is to provide a working model into which the past 100 years knowledge about the microstructure and workings of the neocortical column can be gathered and tested. The Blue Column will therefore also produce a virtual library to explore in 3D the microarchitecture of the neocortex and access all key research relating to its structure and function.


Cracking the Neural Code

The Neural Code refers to how the brain builds objects using electrical patterns. In the same way that the neuron is the elementary cell for computing in the brain, the NCC is the elementary network for computing in the neocortex. Creating an accurate replica of the NCC which faithfully reproduces the emergent electrical dynamics of the real microcircuit, is an absolute requirement to revealing how the neocortex processes, stores and retrieves information.

Understanding Neocortical Information Processing

The power of an accurate simulation lies in the predictions that can be generated about the neocortex. Indeed, iterations between simulations and experiments are essential to build an accurate copy of the NCC. These iterations are therfore expected to reveal the function of individual elements (neurons, synapses, ion channels, receptors), pathways (mono-synaptic, disynaptic, multisynaptic loops) and physiological processes (functional properties, learning, reward, goal-oreinted behavior).

A Novel Tool for Drug Discovery for Brain Disorders

Understanding the functions of different elements and pathways of the NCC will provide a concrete foundation to explore the cellular and synaptic bases of a wide spectrum of neurological and psychiatric diseases. The impact of receptor, ion channel, cellular and synaptic deficits could be tested in simulations and the optimal experimental tests can be determined.

A Global Facility

A software replica of a NCC will allow researchers to explore hypotheses of brain function and dysfunction accelerating research. Simulation runs could determine which parameters should be used and measured in the experiments. An advanced 2D, 3D and 3D immersive visualization system will allow "imaging" of many aspects of neural dynamics during processing, storage and retrieval of information. Such imaging experiments may be imposible in reality or may be prohibitively expensive to perform.

A Foundation for Whole Brain Simulations

With current and envisageable future computer technology it seems unlikely that a mammalian brain can be simulated with full cellular and synaptic complexity (above the molecular level). An accurate replica of an NCC is therefore required in order to generate reduced models that retain critical functions and computational capabilities, which can be duplicated and interconnected to form neocortical brain regions. Knowledge of the NCC architecture can be transferred to facilitate reconstruction of subcortical brain regions.

A Foundation for Molecular Modeling of Brain Function

An accurate cellular replica of the neocortical column will provide the first and essential step to a gradual increase in model complexity moving towards a molecular level description of the neocortex with biochemical pathways being simulated. A molecular level model of the NCC will provide the substrate for interfacing gene expression with the network structure and function. The NCC lies at the interface between the genes and complex cognitive functions. Establishing this link will allow predictions of the cognitive consequences of genetic disorders and allow reverse engineering of cognitive deficits to determine the genetic and molecular causes. This level of simulation will become a reality with the most advanced phase of Blue Gene development.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Sat 25 Jul 2009, 02:21:54

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'Y')ou cannot learn about system based on non-digital principles by observing system working on digital principles.


WTF do you know about neuroscience or modeling the neo-cortical column? You're just some dumbass on a public discussion board spouting off about things you know nothing about.

You are certainly one one of the cretins who thinks that he knows something, but all what you are doing is parroting some company releases without understanding actual content of these.

So it is not so important that something reminding patterns of organized neural activity have been replicated but it is far more important that such a system confined by constraints dictated by digital input-output is completely devoid of properties which are related to any sort of creativity and problem solving abilities typical for mammalian brain.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he computer simulation utilizes an IBM supercomputer capable of performing 22.8 trillion operations in a second. And that's just barely enough to simulate one part of a rat's brain. Each individual neuron requires the computing power of a high-end desktop computer, and the small area of the brain that Blue Brain simulates contains 10,000 neurons.

On the other hand human brain neurons are working at ~25Hz clock speed and each brain uses trillions of these neurons working in massively parallel but non-digital fashion.
Don't you understand, moron, that there is a fundamental difference here?
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Sat 25 Jul 2009, 09:20:34

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'Y')ou are certainly one one of the cretins who thinks to know something, but all what you are doing is parroting some company releases without understanding actual content of these.
The Blue Brain Project is a project primarily funded by the government of Switzerland.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '.').. a system confined by constraints dictated by digital input-output is completely devoid of properties which are related to any sort of creativity and problem solving abilities typical for mammalian brain.
The Project's purpose is to discover the principles by which collections of neo-cortical columns (NCCs) yield important brain functions and emergent consciousness. You can't build a brain if you don't first understand its principles of operation. The Blue Brain Project is about systematically discovering those principles of operation.

The project uses software running on an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer which mimics very accurately the firing patterns of individual, varied-types of neurons - and, more specifically, the virtual functioning of an individual neo-cortical columns (which are composed of around 60,000 neurons). This has already been accomplished for a rat brain NCC. This mimicry of neuron function need not occur in real time. The vast numbers of neurons and NCCs in the brain need not be completely duplicated if your purpose is just to figure out the principles at work in vision and auditory processing, memory, thought, etc.

If you had bothered to read the FAQ page, you wouldn't be raising this silly objection continually. Here is a pertinent question and reply:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Blue Brain FAQ', '[')b]How do you relate your research to the field of artificial intelligence?

We are not trying to create a specific form of intelligence, but rather trying to understand the emergence of mammalian intelligence. We will of course be examining the computational power of the Neo-Cortical Column. In particular, we will explore the ability of the NCC to act as a Liquid Computer (a form of analog computer that handles continuous data streams). This could be used for dynamic vision and scene segmentation, real-time auditory processing, as well as sensory-motor integration for robotics. Another special ability of the neocortex is the ability to anticipate the future based on current data (the birth of cognition) and so we will examine the ability of the NCC to make intelligent predictions on complex data. We will also examine other forms of computing that can be used - perhaps hybrid digital-analog computing, but this is quite far in the future.


Your whole argument seems to be that it is impossible for people to learn about biology.

But learning how the brain's neurons and NCCs yield visual, auditory and intellectual capabilities is hot science. Other projects tasked with this sort of basic research are being funded by governments and DARPA. The military is all over this like white on rice. It's very, very promising research.

Impossible for scientists to learn about information processing in biiological systems? Good luck with that dumbass argument.

Here's another project involved in the same basic inquiry but using a different approach:

Building a Brain on a Silicon Chip

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Technology Review', 'A')n international team of scientists in Europe has created a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain. With 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, the chip is able to mimic the brain's ability to learn more closely than any other machine.

Although the chip has a fraction of the number of neurons or connections found in a brain, its design allows it to be scaled up, says Karlheinz Meier, a physicist at Heidelberg University, in Germany, who has coordinated the Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States project, or FACETS.

The hope is that recreating the structure of the brain in computer form may help to further our understanding of how to develop massively parallel, powerful new computers, says Meier.

This is not the first time someone has tried to recreate the workings of the brain. One effort called the Blue Brain project, run by Henry Markram at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, has been using vast databases of biological data recorded by neurologists to create a hugely complex and realistic simulation of the brain on an IBM supercomputer.

FACETS has been tapping into the same databases. "But rather than simulating neurons," says Karlheinz, "we are building them." Using a standard eight-inch silicon wafer, the researchers recreate the neurons and synapses as circuits of transistors and capacitors, designed to produce the same sort of electrical activity as their biological counterparts.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Sat 25 Jul 2009, 13:59:48

NEURON software that Blue Brain is using:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') flexible and powerful simulator of neurons and networks

NEURON is a simulation environment for modeling individual neurons and networks of neurons. It provides tools for conveniently building, managing, and using models in a way that is numerically sound and computationally efficient. It is particularly well-suited to problems that are closely linked to experimental data, especially those that involve cells with complex anatomical and biophysical properties.

Advantages over general-purpose simulators

NEURON had its beginnings in the laboratory of John W. Moore at Duke University, where he and Michael Hines started their collaboration to develop simulation software for neuroscience research. It has benefited from judicious revision and selective enhancement, guided by feedback from the growing number of neuroscientists who have used it to incorporate empirically-based modeling into their research strategies.

NEURON's computational engine employs special algorithms that achieve high efficiency by exploiting the structure of the equations that describe neuronal properties. It has functions that are tailored for conveniently controlling simulations, and presenting the results of real neurophysiological problems graphically in ways that are quickly and intuitively grasped. Instead of forcing users to reformulate their conceptual models to fit the requirements of a general purpose simulator, NEURON is designed to let them deal directly with familiar neuroscience concepts. Consequently, users can think in terms of the biophysical properties of membrane and cytoplasm, the branched architecture of neurons, and the effects of synaptic communication between cells.


Blue Brain is incorporating all that is known about neuroscience into the NEURON software that is eventually run on the Blue Gene supercomputer. This means identifying all the various types of neurons present in a neo-corticle column and their differing connectivity - and carefully reproducing the functioning of each neuron. 60,000 neurons of differing type and connectivity compose a single neo-cortical column.

Blue Gene could run a limited number of accurate virtual NCC's. But it can run enough of them to begin to notice patterns and emergent properties.

NEURON has been around for some time and has been improved for its many users just like other kinds of software.

Buy the NEURON book!
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 02:38:14

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')The Project's purpose is to discover the principles by which collections of neo-cortical columns (NCCs) yield important brain functions and emergent consciousness.

They don't hope at all to model entire brain, what is anyway impossible with digital technology (brain doesn't work in digital fashion, memory functions there in entirely different way than in computer etc).
They are trying to produce something what might very remotely resemble few better understood functions of single neocortical column, but it will still be a very far cry from actual thing.
And it is really silly to expect for single NCC to exhibit any sort of consciousness.
That is 6 orders of magnitude lower complexity than actual thing have.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou can't build a brain if you don't first understand its principles of operation. The Blue Brain Project is about systematically discovering those principles of operation.

But tools used for that purpose are inadequate for the task.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he project uses software running on an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer which mimics very accurately the firing patterns of individual, varied-types of neurons - and, more specifically, the virtual functioning of an individual neo-cortical columns (which are composed of around 60,000 neurons).

That is about as much similar to actual thing as sex doll is similar to woman.
Creativity of human brain and consciousness is much more complicated issue than firing pattern of neural cells.
In particular there are layers of error input, incomplete error correction and mechanisms of selection of promising outcomes, which your digital system cannot mimic at all.
You even do not know level of randomness in this error input to begin with.
Probably a lot of fine tuning is involved and many layers of error input are present and each layer is of different level of frequency of occurrence and randomness.
Get it slightly wrong by inputting too much error and you will get garbage out, get too little error and you will get correct answers but no creativity at all etc.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his has already been accomplished for a rat brain NCC.

Cold fusion have also been accomplished here and there. :-D
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his mimicry of neuron function need not occur in real time.
Agreed.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he vast numbers of neurons and NCCs in the brain need not be completely duplicated if your purpose is just to figure out the principles at work in vision and auditory processing, memory, thought, etc.
And that is what authors of experiments might hope for.
Good digital camera, but nothing conscious or creative.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')our whole argument seems to be that it is impossible for people to learn about biology.
Not at all.
It is certainly possible in theory and providing that wealthy technological civilization is preserved for century or two (and I doubt, it will...) it is likely to be accomplished in practice.

What I claim is that digital technology is of very limited use in exploring area in question and new far more powerful technologies must be invented before we can learn something more than mundane.
Current approach resembles attempts to describe nuclear physics or stellar evolution with Newtonian laws as the only tool.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 07:40:13

**
Last edited by Carlhole on Mon 27 Jul 2009, 08:56:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 08:53:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'W')hat I claim is that digital technology is of very limited use in exploring area in question...


Who gives a damn what YOU claim? Are you a credentialed neuroscientist with backround in the modeling of neural networks?

Post an accomplished credentialed neuroscientist's criticism of the project. But don't pretend to have special knowledge yourself. You're just dead-ass ignorant of facts.


Hundreds of research reports have used NEURON software

Neuron simulation and neural network simulation is already widely accepted in the Neuroscience field. This is nothing new. The neuroscience community appears to have arrived at entirely different conclusions than you have about the possibilities of modeling real neurons.

What is new is that Blue Brain is using this software, specifically adapted and written for the project, and running it on one of the fastest supercomputers in the world in order construct, complex, biologically-accurate, full human neo-cortical columns, which have upwards of 60,000 neurons each. As long as you can gain computational speed by making your the NEURON software run massively parallel, you can build whole virtual sections of brain. If computational capacity really grows enormous in the years ahead, you can have a full brain. But that probably won't be necessary.

Also, the structure of the Blue Brain Project is intended to incorporate all that is known so far about neuroscience. Dr. Markham is incorporating a mountain of relevant, experimental biological data; it's a key part of the project. Markham wants to build a model that can incorporate additional experimental data going forward. So it will become a sophisticated tool for other researchers around the world.

The idea is to design virtual collections of neo-cortical columns for studying emergent behavior that could give more clues about how consciousness emerges from different kinds of brain structure and function. Other research projects are designing chips which attempt to mimic neural structure; these other kinds of projects will only benefit from what is learned from a virtual neo-cortex or full human brain.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby outcast » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 10:42:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
').........



Out of curiousity what exactly is your academic background?
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 13:20:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('outcast', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
').........



Out of curiousity what exactly is your academic background?

BSc & MSc in chemistry.
Few papers from area of supramolecular chemistry related to subject of molecular switch.
Industrial experience in UK pharma (drug design and execution of synthesis of novel drug candidates).
Got to team leader position.

Made enough money, left industry and run private business not related to chemistry for last several years.
Not intending to return to chemical industry.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Mon 27 Jul 2009, 13:57:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')Neuron simulation and neural network simulation is already widely accepted in the Neuroscience field.

That doesn't mean that this approach will deliver anything above mundane range.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is nothing new. The neuroscience community appears to have arrived at entirely different conclusions than you have about the possibilities of modeling real neurons.

They have to work with tools in their disposal.
At the moment these are a bit more sophisticated than a scalpel but nevertheless they are still light years away from technologies which are actually needed.
But they have to carry on.
It is possible to develop necessary technologies as long as time permit.
Other option is to switch off light and close the shop.
Reality related to collapse of resource base may enforce it.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat is new is that Blue Brain is using this software, specifically adapted and written for the project, and running it on one of the fastest supercomputers in the world in order construct, complex, biologically-accurate, full human neo-cortical columns, which have upwards of 60,000 neurons each.

And brain is not using any software in IT sense.
Science knows far too little at the moment to claim biological accuracy there.
And claiming that it does is plain hubris.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s long as you can gain computational speed by making your the NEURON software run massively parallel, you can build whole virtual sections of brain.

That is only a wishful thinking at the moment.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')r. Markham is incorporating a mountain of relevant, experimental biological data; it's a key part of the project.
So lets convert scrambled egg into a chicken.

As I have said, without detailed understanding of functions of brain related to errors, error correction mechanisms, selection of promising outcomes for future processing, levels of randomness of errors on many stages of error generation and independent error processing before given error can interfere with processed information he may forget about delivering anything resembling actual brain functions.
And I have mentioned only one of many tasks required to complete that project.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Carlhole » Tue 11 Aug 2009, 15:37:35

Are we on the brink of creating a computer with a human brain?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here are only a handful of scientific revolutions that would really change the world. An immortality pill would be one. A time machine would be another. Faster-than-light travel, allowing the stars to be explored in a human lifetime, would be on the shortlist, too.

To my mind, however, the creation of an artificial mind would probably trump all of these - a development that would throw up an array of bewildering and complex moral and philosophical quandaries. Amazingly, it might also be within reach.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')ndeed, most scientists - and science fiction writers - have tended to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of robotics: how you make artificial muscles; how you make a machine see and hear; how you give it realistic skin and enough tendons and ligaments underneath that skin to allow it to smile convincingly.

But what tends to be glossed over is by far the most complex problem of all: how you make a machine think.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')wo years ago, a team at IBM's Almaden research lab at Nevada University used a BlueGene/L Supercomputer to model half a mouse brain. Half a mouse brain consists of about eight million neurons, each of which can form around 8,000 links with neighbouring cells. Creating a virtual version of this pushes a computer to the limit, even machines which, like the BlueGene, can perform 20trillion calculations a second.

The 'mouse' simulation was run for about ten seconds at a speed a tenth as fast as an actual rodent brain operates. Nevertheless, the scientists said they detected tell-tale patterns believed to correspond with the 'thoughts' seen by scanners in real-life mouse brains.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')f the Blue Brain project succeeds, in a few decades - perhaps sooner - we will be looking at the creation of a new intelligent lifeform on Earth. And the ethical dilemmas we face when it comes to experimenting on animals in the name of science will pale into insignificance when faced with the potential torments of our new machine mind.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby careinke » Mon 23 Dec 2019, 07:04:28

Hey, It's been a little over a decade, so I thought I would bump this thread. I went searching for a thread on AI, and ran across this one. the reason I was searching was because I watched this recent FRONTLINE AI, episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk

The first time I watched it I was pretty disturbed. I had not realized how far we have progressed. The first awakening was when a deep thinking computer beat the Korean National Go Champion by making a unique but brilliant move never seen before. It's two hours and well worth watching.
It covers AI, Robotics, driver less vehicles, the AI race between the US and China, corporate surveillance, government surveillance, and Job loss expected to be 40%, including lots of high paying specialties like doctors, lawyers. The most common employment in 29 states is Truck driving, 93% men, going away.

After stewing over it for a week, I finally accepted it, and understood I probably can't change what's going to happen. So, I like to put my brain to work, by asking it a question. Not by wishing for something, but asking how I can benefit from the new reality.

Then I watched it again. There are some amazing things already possible, which could drastically reduce the costs of services. For instance, GP Doctors can be replaced completely by AI, with vastly increased accuracy on diagnostics, it can interview the patient via video, with the AI appearing as a real doctor able to converse with you. Plus with facial recognition it can tell if you are lying, bored, don't understand, etc. Actually I would feel much more comfortable if I had an AI GP.

Probably the last people to loose their jobs will be skilled laborers able to adapt to unique or one of a kind properties. Electricians, construction workers, Cement masons, etc. Although they will use AI to help them find solutions.

AI is to the brain, what the industrial revolution was to muscle. We do need to figure out how to tax it though.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby dissident » Mon 23 Dec 2019, 14:17:09

Neural networks can make actual original game moves and even discern physical process that scientists missed. There was recent paper on putting a slew of scientific research through an "AI" (aka neural network) and it gleaned new information that humans had missed. This may be impressive, but it is far from intelligence. True AI is autonomous and basically self-aware. Current neural networks are nowhere near this state.

There were a few movies recently where in some sci-fi reality human brain neural networks were mapped and used to create true AI. That sounds straightforward, but isn't. If you look at the brain as a collection of neurons of the same sort (which is what any AI does), then were does the higher order organization come from? Some of it is obviously due to stimulus links like the eyes, ears, etc. But we really have no grasp of the higher order brain design and mapping neurons isn't a trivial process to give us understanding.

Also, the current AI systems are vastly smaller in scale than the human brain, or even a mouse brain. They are more of a fancy nonlinear regression system than real intelligence. Obviously they are useful for image analysis and other data analysis as well as meta-models to reduce the computation burden of physical parameterizations in air-quality and climate models. But they are not self-organizing, organic and evolving systems that are converging on true intelligence. Eventually such "animal" AI's will be developed and we will see how they evolve. But that is not the current state of glorified program AI.
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Re: IBM: Artificial brain '10 years away'

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Mon 23 Dec 2019, 14:43:13

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '
')AI is to the brain, what the industrial revolution was to muscle. We do need to figure out how to tax it though.

I think this is spot on. And obviously, it will take time and progress will be in fits and starts instead of some smooth, rapid move to AI brains being as capable as human brains in many ways. Much like how the industrial revolution progressed re machines replacing muscle.

And exactly right on needing to tax it.

Whenever I suggest simply having a robot tax as (at least) a starting point, a lot of people go kind of nuts on me re emotional objections, but to me, given the emerging reality it seems workable, given the obvious issues:

1). As useful human labor is replaced, that labor is still taxed.

2). The government therefore can continue to function and provide (like some of them or not) the many services that society in first world countries has come to expect and depend on.

3). To at least some extent, workers without needed skills who can't compete, or can't compete at a livable wage, can receive some sort of basic income. (I'm not talking about all workers getting rich -- I'm talking about some form of long term unemployment, if it proves needed, so people/families aren't completely screwed.

....

Currently unemployment remains low, although a LOT of the jobs out there don't pay much and continue to be relatively to very low skilled. Such jobs are low hanging fruit once the machines reach a critical mass of job-specific abilities and cost and reliability. I just don't see unemployment remaining low when the machines are "capable enough". Not in a for-profit system where efficiency is key -- and not everyone is capable of complex work requiring advanced educational attainment. Not to mention quite a few deficiencies showing up in various educational systems -- the US K-12 as an obvious example.

The many truck driving jobs are an obvious example. Down the road when AI is better than humans for driving in city (again, it will take time, but no reason to believe in a few decades it won't happen, at least in 99% of weather conditions . And if a strong storm has to be waited out occasionally, well, humans should likely wait such things out instead of doing things like having 69 car pile-ups and MANY people in the hospital from that as just happened on I-64 in Virginia. Plus things like radar and lidar and perhaps other modes besides vision, plus cars communicating via radio and cars slowing down when conditions merit all can't be WORSE than humans in some cases.) traffic, the total number of human jobs replaced will be just HUGE in the first world.

And how about fast food (so far, the automatic order systems reduce waiting and errors with no muss, no fuss, and they rapidly worked out the bugs and improved the interface issues. Case in point -- McDonald's.) And how about the automatic checkout systems replacing cashiers? They used to be pretty awful. Now they are pretty great. These things just take time.

NOT figuring out a workable tax scheme for this trend is a disaster waiting to happen.

No doubt, the US and other governments will avoid dealing with it until the last possible moment. It's the way our governments have been "working" for decades now. :roll:
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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