I was having a conversation with someone about whether or not robotics and AI will cause problems by eliminating jobs. They said:
"People worried about joblessness when we started to mechanize farms, their worries never panned out, therefore your worries now are misplaced."
Or to use another example:
"The last big asteroid that came close to earth didn't crash into us, therefore we'll never be hit by one ever."
Without any justification as to why the two situations are similar this line of thinking seems like it is a fallacy. If so, what is the name for it? If not is there any other word or term that describes the line of thinking?
Answer
This question is arguably better placed in the philosophy forum, but the answer is "false generalization" or "false analogy" meaning an argument that relies on superficial similarities to draw unjustified conclusions.
However, it's worth noting in the case of this particular argument, it's not clear that mechanizing farms did not in fact lead to loss of jobs, since there is currently widespread unemployment and a far lower percentage of people are now involved directly in agriculture.
No comments:
Post a Comment