Will AI allow us early retirement?

In the 1960s, politicians told us that technology would herald a leisure economy.  This didn't happen. Today, those in power are preaching the same message about AI and predict that robots will soon do our jobs so we don't have to.

If we take a step back, history teaches us a different lesson. Since the invention of the microchip, most people have had to work harder and longer to put a roof over their heads. This wasn’t how the technological age was sold to us was it? It would appear that those putting about such ideas, either lied to working people about the benefits of technology, or just got it wrong.

We must remember too, that the only thing that working men and women have to bargain with is their labour, so if robots can be programmed to work in their factories and farm their land, then the rest of us will be increasingly less useful to prospective employers, who will no longer need us to turn a profit.

Before pushing the AI button, however, those that own the country’s wealth have a problem. because at the moment, they are hopelessly unsure how far the technology should be allowed to go.  Too little consciousness and the robots won't be able to do the jobs they are predicted to be able to do, too much awareness and they will start making their own plans, that may or may not involve the ruling elite.   

We were told in the 60s by the then Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, that new technology would mean working less. The sound-bites of the day was "The White Heat of Technology and the Leisure Economy". Back in the real world, the consequences of new technologies is that when once a single person could afford to buy their own home on an working wage, it is now difficult for two or three working adults earning an average income to get on the property ladder.

The intelligence they call artificial may well change the way we live, but don't be fooled that those that invest in the technology are doing so for the benefit of working men and women. They are sinking billions into AI so that robots and not humans, will do their chores, and fight their wars.  While the ruling elites plan your redundancy, the big issue for them is whether they are able to control the technology they crave as easily as they do their current human workforce.     

 

The debate around A1 is dressed up as an immeasurable benefit to mankind, whose champions pretend that it will mean humans will no longer be required to work.  Theoretically, and for some, this may well be true, but the practical reality is that the benefit of AI to you and me is dependent on who controls it. As I write, the multi-national tech giants with money to burn, are engaged in a desperate scramble to see who can crack the AI code first.  This is where the danger lies.  In the race to be first, the tech-giants and the governments dependent on them, have lost sight of the probability that, if their technology is successful, robots, despite their fake intelligence will be less easy to manipulate than we are.

 

There is little doubt, that one way or another, AI will provide benefits we may be allowed to share, but in the end, I believe it is extremely unlikely that AI will reduce the retirement age or make it easier for ours or future generations to rent or buy their own home, any more than the technological age of the 60s and 70s did.    

 

 

Death by a thousand contracts | Is the NHS being privatised under nurses noses?

Image by kind permission of: NHS Solidarity

Following the 1948 Public Health Act the Secretary of State for Health had a legal obligation to provide universal health care.  In 2012, by passing the Health and Social Care Act, the Coalition Government removed the duty to provide universal heath care and enshrined in law instead the right of the Secretary of State for Health to develope a marketised, insurance based healthcare system.  More than 10 years later and Drs and Nurses on the frontline tell us that the NHS is being privatised, contract-by-contract, right under their noses.

 

Professor Allyson Pollock is Director of the Institute of Health and Society

So where's the saving made when contracting out chunks of the NHS?  You'd think that for an organisation with such a fantastically well motivated staff, outsourcing would distraction from patient care and just add another tier of expensive management. On top of the extra cost of outsourcing healthcare, there's the reality that part of the money spent on buying in NHS services goes straight into the pockets of the private business owners that, quite naturally, want a slice of the action. 

While NHS managers, spend their days trying to decide between competing healthcare suppliers, sick patients are stuck in ambulances, or being treated in privately owned hospital car parks.  This must  be agonisingly difficult to endure day in day out, but this is what a marketised healthcare system looks like.  Privatisation of the NHS is unwanted, unnecessary and, worst of all, is failing the public miserably - but it doesn’t have to be like this.

If in 1948, after being bankrupted by two World Wars, the UK could afford to provide Universal Health Care, why is it today, as the sixth largest economy in the World after France, that we are told that the country can't afford to pay for a publicly run Health Service, or pay doctors and nurses properly?  

In 2023, while Doctors and Nurses are having to fight for better working conditions and a fair wage, Ministers continue to dismantle the NHS by systematically outsourcing healthcare contract-by-contract to private companies.  

The argument that the UK can't afford the NHS is a myth put about by free market ideologues as they  convince unwitting NHS managers that the only way to save the NHS is through the miracle of private enterprise.  NHS management, however, are torn between their belief in the provision of Universal Healthcare enshrined in the original 1948 Act and the certain knowledge their employment is dependent on the inexorable shift towards a marketised healthcare system that has removed by law the duty of the Secretary of State for Health to provide Universal Healthcare for all.  Without structural and political change, sadly, the future of the NHS looks increasingly bleak.

What Drs say about NHS funding since 2017
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The Department for Health and Social Care Perspective 

Why people will always need to protest

At the Tolpuddle Martyrs museum 2017 

Throughout history people have always had to fight for their rights, rights denied them by the ruling elite, whether those in power be emperors, Russian Tsars, French, or British monarchs, fascist dictators, or unelected EU Commissioners. 

Over time, and considerable struggle, people have achieved a great deal to overcome oppression. For example, the right not to be treated as property, as slaves were until the abolition of slavery in 1833. We also take it for granted today, but it really wasn't that long ago, that only the very wealthiest property owners were allowed to vote in general elections. Men with  urban property got the vote in 1867, while men without property over 21, had to wait until after the end of First World War in 1918 to be eligible to vote. Women without property, thanks to the Suffraget Movement, finally got the vote ten years later than men in 1928. Finally, under a Labour Government, Harold Wilson in 1969 made it possible for 18 year olds to decide who represents them in Parliament, and so the fight for democracy goes on. Today, 16 year olds, while old enough to work, get married and have children, are unable to vote.  It must be right that young people should have the chance to choose who makes the laws that they are expected to obey? Democracy, even now it seems, is work-in-progress.

As a consequence of past class struggles, men and women are now able to vote in general elections and choose, if they wish, to elect representatives that will demand a descent living wage, a proper education, universal health care and to be cared for when they get old. Progressive change would not have happened were it not for the 19th century liberal approach to politics, 20th century Socialism, or people making themselves heard by protest.

In the 21st century, it seems to me an enduring truth that there are two popular views of how people are governed: The Conservative way and the Labour way. The distinction is simple, the Conservative Party exists to look after and maintain the the interests of the owners capital, while the Labour Party's purpose is to protect the workers (the people that toil to create the country's wealth).  Both systems claim  to oppose the ill treatment and exploitation of human beings that existed in the past, and the opportunity to protest, helps ensure that people will never again be slaves. 

There is still much work to do and damaging  inequality still remains in the UK, so until the norm across society is fairness, justice and equality we should take care not to judge too harshly those that stick their neck out to try to make their lives better.

History of Slavery

History of Voting

Equal Franchise Act 1928

Labour's Manifesto 2017

UK Equality Trust

World Wealth Inequality

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When will there be a cure for Covid-19?

THERE IS NO CURE for the common cold and because that was caused by a previous version of Coronavirus, we have to consider the probability that a completely protective vaccine anytime soon is unlikely.   

Expert opinion varies from 18 months to 10 years (from Lab to Doctor's surgery) for a fully working vaccine, however, until it's thoroughly tested, the most effective way to dodge the disease is to starve the virus by keeping away from other people as much as we can.  So, in the short-run, if we keep as far away from potential carriers, wear face barriers (screens and masks), wash our hands and the surfaces where the virus lingers, we should be able to keep the virus within manageble limits.

According to W.H Allen, the author of: The Pandemic Century, and speaking in June 2020, scientists' working in Asia have identified 500 Coronaviruses (mainly in bats) and 50 of those have the potential to cause as much disruption and death as Covid-19. In the longer term, therefore, it's essential that scientists' working in epidemiology are properly funded and worldwide investment in health systems are sufficient to identify, then isolated animal-based Coronaviruses before they have a chance to spread.  

Vaccine Tracker

Is Coronavirus a wake-up call for humans not to eat exotic animals?

The practice in Asia of keeping live animals at market because some people like to buy "warm meat" is the probable cause of the current  pandemic. The market trader of wild animals slaughter and butcher the creatures there and then, which runs a risk of contamination. These zoonotic viruses then become human viruses, just as measles started in animals. In a global world we have to change how we farm and eat meat. Coronavirus is a wake-up call and thankfully, with a the death-rate currently running at rate at 2%, does not appear as great a health risk to humans as some others, e.g. Ebola, which has 50% death rate or Nipah virus that kills 70% of those exposed to it.

Hopefully, lessons will be learnt from the Corona experience and humans will now think twice before eating wild animals.

Referencing: Professor Andrew Cunningham (expert in zootonic diseases) after listening to him on the BBC Monday 16th March 2020.

How to avoid a second EU referendum

1. Take Remain off the table

2. Take No Deal off the table

3. Lock MPs in Parliament for 7 days with packed lunches until they do their job and decide what to do

4. If they can't agree then replace MPs with a general election

5. In the event of another Hung Parliament, Repeat stages 1 - 4 until a deal is agreed

6. Put the deal to EU

7. If the EU agree to the deal

BREXIT DONE

8. If EU are unable to agree - walk away without a deal and do deals after Brexit

Why the Conservative Party needs Rory Stewart

Since David Cameron bailed after the EU referendum the Conservative Party has been clinging onto Theresa May for fear of something worse. That something worse, however, is not so much the larger than life character Boris Johnson, but the knowledge of what happens to the Conservative Party once Boris is anointed Britain's Prime Minister.    

 
   

From a Conservative perspective, that something worse, is a self-inflicted Labour Government, and possibly, no Brexit at all.  

  If Boris Johnson is telling the truth, that he will leave the EU “Come what may”, then a No Deal Brexit is a practical reality.  What could follow is the pro-Europeans in the Conservative Party, backed by the Confederation of Business and Industry and the opposition parties, will threaten a general election to try stop an all-out Brexit. 
    The other option is to pick out another Remainer to replace Theresa May, but choosing someone like Jeremy Hunt, is also a risk for the Conservative Party, because deep down, the leave voters upon which they rely, may leave the Conservatives for a more permanent home in Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.  

Far from being the failure her colleagues have portrayed her to be, Theresa May, in terms of delaying the UK's exit from the EU, for Remainers a least, was a tremendous success, however, the majority in the country expect the Conservatives to deliver Brexit, so their leader has to make that happen and pull us out. 

    So what is the Conservative Party to do?  If they pick Boris Johnson and he sticks to his No Deal guns, then there’ll be an election by Christmas.  On the other hand, if they pick Theresa May’s right-hand man in the Foriegn Office, Jeremy Hunt, the party risks prolonging the Brexit impasse and, at the same time, exacerbate the threat posed to them by the clarity and strong leadership offered by Brexit Party.
    Having not voted Conservative since John Major in the 90s I am perhaps a surprising advocate for Rory Stewart, but, as I see it, it is only he that can square the hellishly difficult dilemma of how to deliver Brexit without collapsing the UK economy, diminishing the country's international status, or dismantling the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

Rory Stewart is the only Conservative candidate with a chance of achieving a satisfactory Brexit outcome for the British people.  Quite apart from believing that this person actually cares about the big issues, climate change, fairness and wants to overhaul social care, his strategy on Brexit, in the particular parliamentary circumstances the country finds itself, is the only candidate that is able deliver a sensible Brexit.

    So how will Rory do it? Well first, as Prime Minister, Rory Stewart will immediately take No Deal off and Remain off the table. There will be those that will baulk at this idea, imagining that our P.M. should negotiate an International Treaty like a company Sales Director, however, as the last three years have established, trying to do deal with 27 other countries is not easy and to deny this practical reality is to accept further excruciating and damaging delay.   
    Because of the awful inflationary economic consequences of a No Deal Brexit the EU know, as do a majority of the UK's MPs, that a NO Deal is so remote a possibility that it ceases to be the bargaining chip, that all other the other conservative candidates say it is.  In my view, No Deal is not a credible threat and will not work within current international diplomatic circles.

Threatening Germany and France with No Deal may be an effective tactic for the US with its military and economic might, as it may have been for Britain in the 19^thcentury, but it is naïve  to imagine that the UK can negotiate so aggressively with 27 EU countries, with the level of power it is able to wield today. 

    For me personally, the Conservative leadership contest is a win-win situation. If Boris Johnson wins we’ll have a general election and Labour Government a few years sooner, but if Conservatives have the wisdom to vote for a candidate with the brains, negotiating skill and the humility to do a deal with the EU and without condemning millions of our poorest UK citizens to poverty by ushering in a No Deal Brexit, then in Rory Stewart Conservatives should be allowed one more chance to safely deliver a grown-up Brexit deal, and at the same time, do the right thing for Britain. 

Written June 24th 2016 | Brexit could take ten years and might bot happen at all