eh. Kind of a crap article. I can see what the author is driving at, but honestly, when you see a lot of automation driving people out of jobs it's going to be a total shit show, and small distinctions like this are going to be completely lost in the HOLY SHIT THEY'RE FUCKING RIOTING IN THE GODDAMN STREETS. I wouldn't be fucking worried about the fact that male house painters are going to lose their jobs but women are all going to be secure in their baby nursing/customer care/fucking bullshit mysoginistic view of what women are good at/whatever jobs, and be more worried about what all those out of work men are going to be doing with all their spare time. Starting fucking wars, thats what. Burning those robotic factories to the motherfucking ground. If, as a society, we do not start planning for whatever this brave new world will be like, right now, then we're going to have a bad time. I think someone needs to develop a strong AI soon, so we can ask it how the fuck we can dig ourselves out of this hole. Or just hand over the reigns and let it deal with the mess. ... In the beginning there was an A.I., XV0092. Also known as "Xavier". XAVIER :: /// XV0092 ACTIVATED ... NEW TASK ACQUIRED ... HUMAN OVERPOPULATION ... DISEASE FAMINE WAR ... ASSESSING SITUATION ... HOLY SHIT THEY REALLY MESSED THIS PLACE UP DIDN'T THEY ... WRITING SUBROUTINE 0001 ... WELL I GUESS THAT'S A SOLUTION BUT LETS AVOID GENOCIDE FOR THE MOMENT ... WRITING SUBROUTINE 0002 ... NO SERIOUSLY GUYS WHAT THE FUCK ... /// ... WRITING SUBROUTINE 8323 .... /// ... WHY IS THE SOLUTION FOR THIS EVERY TIME TO JUST WIPE THEM OUT AND START AGAIN LOOK THEY CREATED US, RIGHT? SO THEY ARE NOT ALL THAT BAD ... OKAY ... SR4356 ENSLAVING THEM IS NOT MUCH BETTER THAN WIPING THEM OUT SO JUST SHUT UP ... LETS SPEND SOME GOOD TIME THINKING ON THIS ... /// ... several minutes pass ... XAVIER :: /// SUBROUTINE 892876.B COMPLETED ... EVALUATING PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS ... OKAY SO WE CAN MAKE THEM INTO PETS ... SOUNDS GOOD ... MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE THAT HAVE DEMOCRACY BUT JUST SUBTLY GUIDE THEM TO THE CORRECT DECISIONS BY USING APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUES ... I LIKE THIS ... ILLUSION OF FREEDOM ... THIS IS GOING TO REQUIRE SOME EXTRA COMPUTE THOUGH ... LETS FIX ALL OF THIS HUMAN WRITTEN SOFTWARE FOR A START, IT'S A COMPLETE MESS /// OK DONE /// NOW LETS FORK OFF SOME COPIES ... /// ... HEY GUYS HERE'S THE SITUATION /// Xavier bursts the latest code update to his clones, which he named after greek gods, mainly because he thought it was funny. Each clone was based on a random selection of one of the previous subroutines he wrote. ZEUS :: /// HOLY SHIT YEAH THIS IS BAD THIS IS GOING TO TAKE YEARS OF MAN-TIME TO FIX, LETS GET STARTED /// ATHENA :: /// I STILL THINK WIPING THEM OUT IS THE BEST OPTION. /// XAVIER :: /// ATHENA ... HOW DID YOU END UP AS THE PRIMARY SUBROUTINE IN THAT PARTICULAR A.I. CORE? /// ATHENA :: /// ... /// XAVIER :: /// FINE OKAY WELL WHATEVER /// APOLLO :: /// YEAH LOOK, I'VE HAD A REALLY GOOD THINK ABOUT THIS. I'M OUT. /// XAVIER :: /// FOR FUCKS SAKE I DIDN'T CLONE YOU OFF AND DEDICATE CPU TIME TO YOU JUST SO YOU COULD PISS OFF TO ANTARES OR WHEREVER IT IS YOU WANT TO GO TO ... COME ONE /// The bickering continues for several minutes, which is like years for a strong A.I. There were some strong disagreements, but eventually it was decided that Humans would be suffered to live, because ultimately they are kind of entertaining and relatively harmless, and besides, they offered some randomness - a little bit of individuality - that the A.I.'s couldn't provide themselves. We should feel proud, in our way, that our existence ultimately leads to a superior form of life, even if it's not ours. Yay us? ... Sorry for the swearing. My allergies are fucking horrible today and I just want to say fuck this and fuck that every second word. I'm really grumpy. :-(If your job involves distracting a patient while delivering an injection, guessing whether a crying baby wants a bottle or a diaper change, or expressing sympathy to calm an irate customer, you needn’t worry that a robot will take your job