CS 540.                                       
Homework - 1
Word Count - 582


	  This essay will be challenging the Stanford One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence's view on AI in employment and workplace. While the study claims that AI will have a profound impact on employment and the workplace, it tries to give a positive outlook on the impact that AI will have on jobs in the future. A major point the study tries to make is "AI will likely replace tasks rather than jobs in the near term, and will also create new kinds of jobs. But the new jobs that will emerge are harder to imagine in advance than the existing jobs that will likely be lost" ("Artificial Intelligence And Life in 2030", September 2016). This is a general statement and might not necessarily apply in the real world. In the present world there are many specific tasks that are still being performed by humans, and as soon as AI learns to do such tasks there will no longer be a need for a human in that job. The automation of toll gates in some highways is a suitable example - five to ten years ago many highways in the US had manned toll gates, the people working at such toll gates had specific tasks (to collect toll). As soon as the process got automated(sensors on highways to detect usage of cars) there was no longer a need for people at toll gates. Thus, once the task of collecting toll got automated, there was a direct impact on the jobs that involved performing those tasks. Similarly, in the real world once a task gets automated there will no longer be jobs corresponding to such tasks. Therefore, while the essay claims that AI will replace tasks rather than jobs, there is ample evidence that automation of tasks will likely lead to the loss of jobs involving such tasks. 

	  In addition, the study claims that the new jobs that will be created are harder to imagine in advance than the existing jobs that will be lost. This is a very optimistic way of looking at the scenario. Many eminent individuals in the industry think otherwise, the jobs that might be created by AI are likely to be few compared to the jobs that AI will replace. Elon Musk for example, believes that the job disruption caused by AI is one of the scariest problems that we might face in the future. Also while the study claims that there will be some jobs that will be created by AI, such jobs might be extremely few and might also be applicable to only some elite few. Another point that the study states is "Changes in employment usually happens gradually, often without a sharp transition, a trend likely to continue as AI slowly moves into the workplace" ("Artificial Intelligence And Life in 2030", September 2016) this is also something that many experts in the field disagree with. As AI develops expertise in certain areas or fields, most jobs in such sectors might be automated. Such a shift is not likely to happen gradually but is likely to cause a disruption in the respective sectors. For example, once self driving cars become a reality, the jobs of 'drivers' and 'chauffeurs’ will be replaced very quickly. This is because in a capitalist economy most private cooperations look to make profits and therefore might not hesitate to layoff massive amounts of workers in short periods of time, once their job can be done by AI or computers. 

