The rise of artificial intelligence risks making us all redundant

At the start of a new year, what is there to look forward to? According to predictions from think tanks and tech experts, advances in automation and artificial intelligence will threaten the jobs of millions of workers. The CEO of one company, Capgemini, goes further, predicting that AI will be one of the key factors dividing society into the haves and have-nots, with highly skilled engineers at the one end of the spectrum and low-paid unqualified worker drones at the other, with nothing in between.

There will be massive redundancies, for sure. Is it time to rethink the welfare system and pay everyone a minimum living wage whether they work or not? That proposal, known as a "universal basic income" is being trialled in Finland but was rejected in a referendum in Switzerland last June.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg is investing heavily in developing AI. He recently released a corny "seasonal message" featuring his latest project, a robot butler named Jarvis. We don’t see Jarvis, voiced by Morgan Freeman, but the message is absolutely plain: this is not a bit of fun, but the unveiling of a plan for our future, a future which tech companies are battling to capitalise on.

Zuckerberg has spent more than 100 hours programming Jarvis so that it can switch on his household gadgets, his music system and even help his small daughter learn Mandarin. It responds to voice commands issued from a phone, even offering him a clean grey T-shirt in the morning. Jarvis is also a gatekeeper, deciding who may or may not enter the Zuckerberg home.

This cutesy video is surely designed to deflect attention from Facebook’s recent woes, including failing to curb fake news reports which critics reckon had a devastating impact on the result of the US presidential election. Facebook stands accused of failing to monitor the material it disseminates, consistently claiming freedom of speech by default, allowing lies and blatant propaganda the same platform as real news stories. Even the Pope has now decreed that publishing fake news is a sin.

The development of a faceless, featureless robot is ominous; when his daughter Max wakes up, surely she would prefer a cuddle from a human being rather than a po-faced lesson from a non-person? By fostering the illusion that Jarvis is sociable and has a use beyond the purely functional in a small family unit, Zuckerberg is preparing the ground to present AI as something new and desirable, rather than the ultimate threat to our livelihoods. If he develops devices like Jarvis on a commercial basis, will it give his company direct access into our homes, whisking away what little privacy we may have left? And if this use of AI relies on programmes derived from our speech patterns, should we hand those over to a third party? And, given that we already spend far too long staring at screens, and the time we interact with other people is declining and loneliness increasing, can introducing robots into our personal lives be a good thing?

Google and Amazon are already selling devices which can perform simple tasks, as well as developing rival driverless cars. AI systems are being designed for supermarkets which allow customers to choose their shopping and exit without going to a checkout. Soon, robots will be stacking the shelves and running the entire show. No wonder unions are worried.

As for driverless cars, what are the ethics involved in deciding how they should respond to obstacles in their path? How do they differentiate a dead pheasant or a deer from a person who may have fallen down? And, if driverless cars are easily identifiable, will they spawn a new kind of road rage – one directed at trying to provoke a response from the robots taking over our lives?

Fans of AI say driverless cars will reduce deaths on the roads, and represent the biggest change in our lives since motor cars replaced horses a century ago. Really? Are we powerless to stop the rapid roll-out of AI?

One of my favourite films as a student was Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, in which Paris shot in atmospheric black and white is Alphaville, a city controlled by a powerful computer dubbed Alpha 60. Emotion is forbidden and anyone who deviates from accepted behaviour is terminated by female assassins. Has a film ever seemed more prescient?

When Mark Zuckerberg tells us Jarvis is the start of something, be very scared. The only butler I want at chez JSP will have blood in his or her veins and be capable of questioning my more pretentious requests. To be honest, if I could have one gift for 2017, if would be a few hours a week from a real butler. Human beings make much better companions.