Thread: Robots / Artificial Intelligence & our Jobs

Millions of people will be losing their jobs through no fault of their own. A new book is released.


May 11, 2016
‘Only Humans Need Apply’ by Thomas Davenport and Julia Kirby
Review by Andrew Hill
Busch/Bloomberg©Bloomberg
Developers must seek to help us perform our 'most human and most valuable work better', the authors say

An IBM executive told a recent conference that when supercomputer Deep Blue was halfway through its 1997 chess match with Garry Kasparov, it made a random move, due to a software bug. Assuming the machine was smarter than it was, Kasparov later made a strategic error that helped hand Deep Blue victory in the match.

Thomas Davenport and Julia Kirby warn that humans could, like Kasparov, cede the future to machines too easily. “Many knowledge workers are fearful,” they write. “We should be concerned, given the potential for these unprecedented tools to make us redundant. But we should not feel helpless in the midst of the large-scale change unfolding around us.”


Only Humans Need Apply falls into the sub-genre of techno-optimism, at the opposite end of the bookshelf from, say, Martin Ford’s doomier Rise of the Robots


?Only Humans Need Apply? by Thomas Davenport and Julia Kirby - FT.com

Sorry, Marlboro Man. We don't need ya no more.

Robot ranchers monitor animals on giant Australian farms



By Alice Klein

Farmers, put your feet up. Autonomous robots are already being used to inspect crops, count yields and dig up weeds – now they are shepherds too.

Sheep and cattle farms in the Australian outback are vast as well as remote. For example, the country’s most isolated cattle station, Suplejack Downs in the Northern Territory, extends across 4000 square kilometres and takes 13 hours to reach by car from the nearest major town, Alice Springs.

The livestock on these far-flung farms are monitored infrequently – sometimes only once or twice a year – meaning they often fall ill or get into trouble without anyone knowing.

But robots are coming to the rescue. A two-year trial, which starts next month, will train a “farmbot” to herd livestock, keep an eye on their health, and check they have enough pasture to graze on.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...tralian-farms/

At the link you'll see a woman ordering a meal with a robot and also asking "how many calories are in that?"

Robots know how many calories, but me thinks humans would hand you a paper brochure with a list.

McRobot.....

Building robot McDonald's staff 'cheaper' than hiring workers on minimum wage
25 MAY 2016
BY JESSICA HAWORTH

The worrying forecast could threaten jobs at the fast food franchise, a former CEO of the company warns


Link and woman ordering from robot.
Building robot McDonald's staff 'cheaper' than hiring workers on minimum wage - Mirror Online

What about all those hookers being thrown out of work?

Scientists Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars have imagined what a brothel will look like in 2050 and say android sex workers will help stamp out people trafficking and STIs.

Experts say sex robot prostitutes are just around the corner - and will help fight people trafficking and the spread of sexual diseases.

According to a bizarre paper in an academic journal, red-light districts will be transformed by 2050 with the introduction of the robotic sex workers.

Ian Yeoman, a scientist specialising in futurology, and Michelle Mars, a sexologist at the University of Wellington, co-authored a paper entitled "Robots, Men and Sex Tourism".

In the paper, they imagine an Amsterdam brothel in 2050.

They base it on Yub-Yum, which closed in 2008 but was once considered one of Amsterdam's most exclusive brothels.

The paper reads: "Yub-Yum is modern and gleaming with about 100 scantily clad blondes and brunettes parading around in exotic G-strings and lingerie .

"Entry costs $10,000 for an all inclusive service. The club offers a full range of sexual services from massages, lap dancing and intercourse in plush surroundings.

"The Yub-Yum is a unique bordello licensed by the city council, staffed not by humans but by androids."

Yeoman and Mars go on to describe how the futuristic brothel came about because of a spoke in human trafficking in the sex industry in the 2040s.

They also predict a growing problem with incurable Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), particularly HIV, which they say will mutate and become resistant to vaccines.

Th pair claim Yub-Yum will feature robots of all ethnicities, body shapes, ages, languages and sexual features. But the most popular, they say, is tall, blonde, Russian android 'Irina', who is a particular favourite of Middle Eastern businessmen.

It continues: "The tourists who use the services of Yub-Yum are guaranteed a wonderful and thrilling experience, as all the androids are programmed to perform every service and satisfy every desire.

"All androids are made of bacteria resistant fiber and are flushed for human fluids, therefore guaranteeing no Sexual Transmitted Diseases are transferred between consumers."

However, according to Yeoman and Mars, while the club will help 'the sex industry alleviate all health and human trafficking problems', human sex workers will be put out of business, unable to compete on price and quality of service.

"Robots, Men and Sex Tourism" appeared in an issue of Futures , an academic journal.

Amsterdam sex robot BROTHEL 'will help prevent human trafficking and spread of STDs' - Mirror Online

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by Black Heart

But what jobs will be generated by robots?

Somebody has to service them. Someday even those jobs will be gone as well.

Automation technology will go on forever. Society must face this as a fact. Folks will lose jobs. Some may be retrainable, some will not. Reducing the number who will not or cannot be retrained is the key. Drastic changes to primary education and some sort of apprenticeship or "proper" skills training programs need to be established.

...and they have to design them, and that work, I can confirm, is plentiful and continually growing.

Automation that really replaces humans replaces them when there is a health and safety and precision aspect to some process.

You could, if you wanted, get robots to manufacture creative things, and do service type jobs, but consumers don't want that. You can loosen the definition of robot to include everything from PLCs to software bots and simple state-machines that I think is what the IoT buzz is all about, but these are small things often performing tasks that don't replace a human at all, and supposedly save people time and money and appeal to notions of laziness and efficiency. I remember when I first got a modern PC and I imagined it would suddenly enable me to be more organised and efficient, did it fukc, it just created new tasks to perform that didn't exist before, and also new options, and that's likely to be the case with robots; I think we're seeing that with drones - people setting up businesses where they sell data of some sort collected by a drone - but then you have a new thing to process, called data, and you need people to work that up with machines, and then others to buy it and find a use for it, probably to sell more products of some kind.
The most likely application, and where R&D goes is in putting robots in places that are difficult, expensive, and hazardous to get to; and to automate a large-scale process not limited to manufacturing.

Robots are long way off replacing people, and there are many constraints on them - size, materials, cost, energy, safety, etc... and continual waves of new ideas nudging them in different directions as tools.
I tend to think they will help create more interesting jobs, but jobs that will compel people to skill up more, and the real underlying issue here is the digital divide - the difference between consumers and producers, and the initiatives to get children more literate in coding are a response to that.
I sense the effect of robotics will not be mass unemployment, but mass computer literacy, and a huge increase in programming as a mainstream thing that almost everyone does, like writing was, and typing on computers is now.

I train my kids in coding, and the schools are starting to cotton on, but it's a surprise to me how behind the curve the teachers and kids are.

Get on it -> Scratch -> KidsRuby -> Python -> Java -> C/C++/C# -> Javascript & SQL

Thinking about it, there may be some jobs that would be harder to replace. The ones where being a special kind of stupid is a requirement. Like being the president of the US.

Chinks don't fcuk about. 60,000 workers replaced with robots.

Any librarians in your family?

Robo-librarians.

ROBO LIBRARIAN TRACKS DOWN MISPLACED BOOKS
THE ROBOTS HAVE NOW BECOME SHELF-AWARE
By Coby McDonald

Robo Librarian Tracks Down Misplaced Books | Popular Science

And more and more....


Robot workers are showing up in malls, hotels, and parking lots
By Bruce Brown — June 11, 2016



Read more: The Robots Are Coming to Help, may Take Jobs | Digital Trends
Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on Facebook

No surprise to any of us, but what could seriously happen? Automated warfare, and lethal decision made out of humans control, and human control is bad enough.

Killer robots are 'quickly moving toward reality' and humanity only has a YEAR to ban them, expert warns

Robots do the fighting would keep soldiers and officers out of harm's way
But experts say the threats to humanity would outweigh any benefits
Risk of harm or erroneous targeting of civilians would increase
Should start process on lethal autonomous weapons systems in 2017

New technology could lead humans to relinquish control over decisions to use lethal force.

As artificial intelligence advances, the possibility that machines could independently select and fire on targets is fast approaching.
Fully autonomous weapons, also known as 'killer robots,' are quickly moving from the realm of science fiction toward reality.

Read more: Killer robots are 'quickly moving toward reality', expert warns | Daily Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

Killer robots are 'quickly moving toward reality' and humanity only has a YEAR to ban them, expert warns

Come back when they can make a robot play rugby league. Can't be that difficult it's Australia's national sport.

^ That may happen, Duke.

And related to my post above ^^, robots are being developed that have self-defense techniques.

Too Cute for Their Own Good, Robots Get Self-Defense Instincts
Droid designers instill self-defense instincts

The K5 robot, designed by Knightscope, can patrol various places, like the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif.

By GEORGIA WELLS
June 19, 2016
36 COMMENTS
PALO ALTO, Calif.—At a shopping mall here one recent Friday, six-year-old Ruby Dowling made friends with a friendly egg-shaped robot. Her sister Layla, five, even patted the robot on its glossy white tummy. “This robot is nice,” said Ruby, as a group of children encircled it.

It wasn’t surprising that the bot, named K5, inspired this response—it had been designed to look approachable. When it was surrounded and needed to return to work as the mall’s security guard, though, the K5 did something its small admirers never expected. It let out a screech that scattered them in all directions.

“It’s a monster,” whispered three-year-old William Milne.

As their latest creations move into daily life and take on public-facing jobs, robot designers have been taking pains to give them body lines and face-like features that seem nonthreatening. They’re also learning that there is a vanishing point.

If they make their robots seem too friendly, or too meek, there may be unintended consequences.

Too Cute for Their Own Good, Robots Get Self-Defense Instincts - WSJ

Stephen Hawking issues robot warning saying "rogue AI could be difficult to stop"
28 JUN 2016
BY KIRSTIE MCCRUM

When it comes to human advancement and science, Stephen Hawking knows what he's talking about - and he's voiced his concern on robots

Here's the interview with Stephen Hawking on AI in weapons and war technology: He also talks about the universe.

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

Stephen Hawking issues robot warning saying "rogue AI could be difficult to stop"
28 JUN 2016
BY KIRSTIE MCCRUM

When it comes to human advancement and science, Stephen Hawking knows what he's talking about - and he's voiced his concern on robots

Here's the interview with Stephen Hawking on AI in weapons and war technology: He also talks about the universe.

How do we know it isn't the Robot AI talking?

Folks this issue is a real one and it could be serious one.

Scientists are teaching robots how to hunt down prey
One day this could be a very important skill for robots across the world.

Brittany Vincent , @MolotovCupcake
4h ago in Robots

https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/05/robots-hunt-prey/

There are already robots that can do what you do.

They're called 'spambots'.

First time used:

JULY 8, 2016
The killer robot used by Dallas police appears to be a first

BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE AND BREE FOWLER
AP Technology Writers

When Dallas police used a bomb-carrying robot to kill a sniper, they also kicked off an ethical debate about technology's use as a crime-fighting weapon.

In what appears to be an unprecedented tactic, police rigged a bomb-disposal robot to kill an armed suspect in the fatal shootings of five officers in Dallas. While there doesn't appear to be any hard data on the subject, security experts and law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall another time when police have deployed a robot with lethal intent.

The strategy opens a new chapter in the escalating use of remote and semi-autonomous devices to fight crime and protect lives. It also raises new questions over when it's appropriate to dispatch a robot to kill dangerous suspects instead of continuing to negotiate their surrender.


Read more here: Killer robot used by Dallas police opens ethical debate | The Star-Telegram

Originally Posted by OhOh

I suspect the robots displacing millions of workers could be avoided if a R&R (Robot Replacement) tax was placed on any robot if a human job was lost. Not that the employers would like it. The tax would fund the real cost of a new job for the replaced human worker. The tax would stop when the displaced worker started being paid the original jobs salary + benefits.

Interesting point re taxes, replace 1000 tax paying workers with robots, robots don't pay income tax.

Now if you get rid of millions of tax paying workers, who or how will they cover the tax loss.

Wonder if they have done the numbers, at what point will the loss of worker income tax, break the system.

Just have to look at car cities, Detroit etc jobs went [ not to robots ], but same result, city went broke, no tax base.

looks like milkman may have to find a new job - the robots are taking over his line of work

Scientists at Imperial College London have developed a robotic rectum for med students to practice giving prostate exams to. I’ve never had a prostate exam, as I’m a woman, but I hear they are rather uncomfortable (wimps, try going to the gynecologist!) and as a result men aren’t exactly lining up around the block to let students test out their probing skills on them. That’s where the robots come in.

^
Just one step away from robot porno dolls--the wiggle and giggle, they moan and groan, and you can program them the whisper your name and other sweet nothings.
"Oh what a brave new world that has such people in it." Shakespeare, The Tempest

Originally Posted by MrG

-the wiggle and giggle, they moan and groan, and you can program them the whisper your name and other sweet nothings.

Can you programme how much they ask for afterwards?

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Just have to look at car cities, Detroit etc jobs went [ not to robots ], but same result, city went broke, no tax base.

Not just cities. Countries are going down that route. No workers wages means no workers spending their normal amount, hence nothing other than bare essentials is being purchased. Henry Ford had the idea, pay the workers enough to enable them to live and buy a Ford car.

The current wheeze is to print currency, buy stocks, bonds etc. to give an appearance of GDP. The odd war adds GDP to the top line, share buybacks increases the "value" of the remaining shares.

All "paid" with imaginary, digital money.

Until............

What drove the R & D in AI to begin with? Warfare first, and then being able to do things more cheaply.

We are just around the corner, IMO.

We have the drones, the "smart" bombs, and I expect to see actual armed and lethal robots going into neighborhood and areas where there is conflict, be it big or small.


Military Robotics Makers See a Future for Armed Police Robots

As military-grade robotics get cheaper and more capable, someone will arm them and put them on American streets.

Robot-maker Sean Bielat says he’s fine with the Dallas Police Department’s apparently unprecedented use of a police bomb-disposal robot to kill a gunman on Thursday. “A robot was used to keep people out of harm’s way in an extreme situation,” said Bielat, the CEO of Endeavor Robotics, a spinoff of iRobot’s military division. “That’s how robots are intended to be used.”

Military Robotics Makers See a Future for Armed Police Robots - Defense One

Originally Posted by Cold Pizza

I expect to see actual armed and lethal robots going into neighborhood and areas where there is conflict,

All ready done. Robot blew up the Dallas shooter last week.