I agree that people who are both AI experts and truck drivers (or executives at truck-driving companies) will have a better idea of how many Americans will lose their truck-driving jobs because they get automated away, and likewise for other jobs.
Relatively few people are expert both in AI and in other fields at risk of getting automated away. I think having just expertise in AI gives you a better chance than having neither. I don’t know who Yang’s “smartest people” actually were, but if they aren’t people with either specific AI expertise, or specific expertise in areas likely to fall victim to automation, or maybe expertise in labor economics, then I think their pronouncements about how many Americans are going to lose their jobs to automation in the near future are themselves examples of the phenomenon that xkcd comic is pointing at.
(Also, e.g., truck drivers may well have characteristic biases when they talk about the likely state of the truck driving industry a decade from now, just as AI researchers may.)
I agree that people who are both AI experts and truck drivers (or executives at truck-driving companies) will have a better idea of how many Americans will lose their truck-driving jobs because they get automated away, and likewise for other jobs.
Relatively few people are expert both in AI and in other fields at risk of getting automated away. I think having just expertise in AI gives you a better chance than having neither. I don’t know who Yang’s “smartest people” actually were, but if they aren’t people with either specific AI expertise, or specific expertise in areas likely to fall victim to automation, or maybe expertise in labor economics, then I think their pronouncements about how many Americans are going to lose their jobs to automation in the near future are themselves examples of the phenomenon that xkcd comic is pointing at.
(Also, e.g., truck drivers may well have characteristic biases when they talk about the likely state of the truck driving industry a decade from now, just as AI researchers may.)