IBM's Watson and Poverty--Future Possibilities?

This article ("Homeless People Start Tweeting in New Awareness Initiative") by Mashable has really got me thinking about the experience of those in poverty, and the crossover with technology, especially with the stories abounding about "thinking machines" like IBM's Watson supercomputer.

We have a bevy of technologies that make things easier, faster, and more complete, and yet, we will always have poverty (as I have mentioned before, "eliminating" poverty doesn't really exist, but reducing certainly does). Technology can make our lives better, but it doesn't always deliver to those who need the most help--those in poverty. We have all this great information on the internet, but even in the United States over 20% of the population doesn't have regular internet access. So it's still a largely class-based advancement.

However, advances like Watson give me hope. Yes, it's fun to label the rise of Artificial Intelligence as the downfall of man's supremacy over machines. But machines (probably) won't want to kill us. Even when machines replace humans as the primary innovators of technology (which will happen, but don't be scared!) humans will still have domain over machines. Maybe I'm an optimist, but machines don't have to eliminate inefficient processes (as humans certainly are). We can certainly teach machines not to eliminate things that are not useful at current juncture--which is key to the human element.

My point in discussing all of this is to bring optimism to the idea of thinking machines when it comes to addressing the needs of the less fortunate. People say that "well, machines will start taking all jobs" and to some degree, that's certainly true. I don't know if machines will begin to create art or literature, but you never know. I think the best (and of course, most optimistic) way of thinking about it is--are we going to need jobs in the future? If machines are able to provide everything, what are we going to need? Now I know that people will be calling me a egalitarian yahoo, but I didn't come up with this idea.

Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project has some of the most interesting thought experiments on this topic, and while this may be outside of my lifetime, I am comforted to think about the prospect. If we export the "means of production" (Marx, but hey) to machines that can both a) design machines and b) build machines, then where is the cost? Sure, we'd have to build the original machines, but a thinking machine can go from there.

Raw materials certainly become an important consideration, but we can be more efficient and use synthetics. We're going to have to move to a more sustainable world anyway (and we should have a long time ago) and this world can analyze existing materials and maximize potential.

I realize I sound like the Architect from the Matrix series, but think about it. Maybe it's not so crazy after all...