Dan Lipka Web Log

As some point it will be cheaper for a company to automate a vast majority of the jobs in the world. This isn't just sectors like farming, manufacturing, and retail, but almost every sector of employment out there. The combination of flexible robotics and enhanced AI will eventually create a technology that can do your job (and do it better than you).  I am currently reading, Rise of Robots by Martin Ford , which delved into many of these issues.  The book is probably about 10x longer than it needs to be to make the same point, but that point is critically important to the future of our economic system. One thing the book didn't include (I'm 80% through) is a calculator of when it makes sense for an industry to automate any job.  For example, there is the cost of developing, building and maintaining the technology to replace everyone with a certain job, viewed against the current costs of a human doing that work (salary, healthcare, management).  If you have a common job (s

So many questions and such significant consequences. Can President Trump preemptively attack N. Korea without prior Congressional approval?  He did this in Syria, but that was different in a lot of ways. We are already in active combat in Syria, the threat Syria posed was not against Americans, and the potential response from Syria is limited.  In N. Korea, we don't have any active troops (although we have tens of thousands nearby), and the N. Korean response may be full on war (and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths in S. Korea).  Congress needs to clarify right now if a preemptive attack is acceptable under the constitution.  This is not something that Trump can do, and than take back. What if S. Korea expelled all American forces from their country.  There is already a movement to do this.  If they believe Kim Jong-un would attack the South if the American forces were not there, then they clearly wouldn't do this. However, what if they said "Hey N. Kor