AI, Consciousness and Robot Outsourcing

One of my "absurd views" is that the first computer to become conscious was Deep Blue playing against Gary Kasparov in 1997.  It only happened for a moment but in one spectacular move Deep Blue performed like no computer ever had before.  After the game, Kasparov said he felt a presence behind the machine.  He looked frightened.

Ken Rogoff, a top-flight economist and chess prodigy, wonders whether we don’t all have a little something to fear.

But the level that computers have reached already is scary enough.

What’s next? I certainly don’t feel safe as an economics professor!  I have no doubt that sometime later this century, one will be able to
buy pocket professors – perhaps with holographic images – as easily as
one can buy a pocket Kasparov chess computer today.

Rogoff thinks that the upheavals caused by cheap AI will be far more important than those caused by low-wage labor from India and China.

…will
artificial intelligence replace the mantra of outsourcing and
manufacturing migration? Chess players already know the answer.