If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?

Moshe Y. Vardi from Rice University delivering talk: 

If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?

Abstract: Over the past 20 years Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made a remarkable progress. While AI has been proven to be much more difficult than believed by its early pioneers, its inexorable progress over the past 50 years suggests that H. Simon may have been right when he wrote in 1956 "machines will be capable ... of doing any work a man can do." I do not expect this to happen in the very near future, but I do believe that by 2045 machines will be able to do if not any work that humans can do, then, at least, a very significant fraction of the work that humans can do. The following question, therefore, seems to be of paramount importance. If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?

Monday 7 December – 4.30-5.30pm – room A25, Business School South