How we can all cash in on the benefits of workplace automation

Artificial intelligence is no different than the cotton gin, telecommunication satellites or nuclear power plants. It's a technology, one with the potential to vastly improve the lives of every human on Earth, transforming the way that we work, learn and interact with the world around us. But like nuclear science, AI technology also carries the threat of being weaponized -- a digital cudgel with which to beat down the working class and enshrine the current capitalist status quo. Just look at how Amazon's automated facial recognition system is being marketed to law enforcement and government agencies, despite its obvious racial biases, or Wisconsin's automated sentencing tool, Compas, which determines a defendant's prison time via a proprietary and secret algorithm. It just so happens to sentence black and brown defendants to longer terms than their white counterparts for similar crimes.