Billionaire: AI could put workers 'out to pasture'
Billionaire: AI could put workers 'out to pasture'
Matthew J. Belvedere
6 Hours Ago CNBC.com
In the not-too-distant future, humans in the workplace
could go the way of the horse-and-buggy because of the "exponential growth
of artificial intelligence," billionaire Jeff Greene said Thursday.
"When we first had the internal combustion engine —
the horseless carriages, the car was called — look at all the horses they just
put out to pasture," he said, making an ominous comparison to the
present-day advances in automation. "We are going to be destroying jobs at
a record clip."
"The way software, computers, robots are taking over
… what's going to happen more and more is the American worker is going to be
marginalized," Greene told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in an interview.
"Artificial intelligence (AI), right now, can do the
task of a 100 IQ person," Greene said. Assuming a yearly increase of 1.5
percent in the capabilities of AI, he argued, "Ten years from now …
artificial intelligence will do the tasks of a 120 IQ person."
As a result, the 60-year-old Florida real estate mogul
said the American economy "could be heading off a cliff," because
both Republicans and Democrats are trying to use traditional solutions to
"nontraditional problems."
"The current model is not working. We have to figure
out how to reinvent the economy," urged Greene, who's hosting in Palm
Beach an early December conference of major investors and political figures, in
hopes of talking about those new solutions.
Greene, who became a billionaire by shorting the housing
market during the financial crisis, has since tripled his wealth by investing
in real estate and the markets.
As for stocks, he told CNBC, "I'm not super bullish,
but I'm not super bearish," against the backdrop of a possible Federal
Reserve interest rate increase next month.
"I think interest rates are going to go up very
modestly," he predicted. "[But] there's no way the Fed is going to
jack up rates in any crazy way." A rate hike by the Fed would be the first
such more in nine years.
But with a shallow path higher for rates, Greene said,
"Stocks still in general will do well. [Though] I'd be surprised if you
see a 5 percent or 10 percent swing in either direction over the next 12
months."
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