I'm actually not happy with this news. They are the only one interested on some of the long term researchy projects especially in robotics area. In my opinion, this would be one of the highest impact area in next 10 years given all the advances in computer vision and reinforcement learning. It will take time, but imagine, one day, freeing up humanity from the burden of all the repetitive mind-numbing boring low paying jobs. You might say that people will lose jobs but I think we will be fine. If you ask where is the $1T business opportunity that would be powered by AI, I would point to this rapidly evolving field. To our misfortune most of the big tech with big wallet have strangely disorganized, if any, efforts. SoftBank is one of the biggest long term game in this area which believes in this promise.
That is how the Vision Fund sold themselves. In practice though, most of the businesses they invested in looked a lot more liked non-innovative, monopolistic, Shock & Awe plays.
He probably means fine in the long term. Nobody laments the loss of farm laboring or a coal mining jobs now that they are (mostly) gone. In fact the farm jobs that haven't been mechanised yet (picking apples etc.) are mostly done by immigrants with no other options.
I did apple pruning one hot summer. Trust me, nobody will miss that job when machines take over.
Tell that to the coal mining communities that were affected by the closing of coal mines by Thatcher in the 80s. From the reduced expectations of the multi-generationally unemployed, to the social isolation that a lack of community services brings, to the paucity of opportunities for both young people and those who want to change career. 40 years later those communities are still dealing with the consequences of these actions.
One thought is that, say, in semi-utopian world robots do infrastructure, farms, mining and even building houses. In that world, basic necessities will become much more cheaper and it might be even possible to institute universal basic income. In fact, I think this is the only few scenarios where UBI can actually become practical without causing inflation. Second point is our economy is slowly but steadily drifting away from these basic necessity jobs to entertainment, entrepreneurship, online services and finance. With UBI in hand, it might be more easier to pursue these high paying jobs. About 100 years down the line, we should expect people to work on more full filling jobs than bagging the grocery, assembling phones or bringing cooked dishes to people.
Some people don't seem to realize there is a limit to how much of added value a low skilled person can bring to the market. Plenty of people are essentially unable to contribute anything more complicated than their muscle power, others can contribute vision and recognition (professional drivers) - and this goes on and on in a continuum. There already is a class of people - low skilled, low IQ, poor mental health - that are essentially unemployable unless you need to dig trenches by hand. And the bar will keep rising and rising.
