I, like many have always had one eye on the future and having grown up in the 60's sci-fi era, I have always enjoyed seeing the visions unfold into reality. With authors such as Arthur C Clarke (Amongst others) remarkably accurate with predictions and implications. I won't list them off but so much we now take for granted. Alexa alone is something taken casually for granted that was a crazy dream (echoes/hints of Hal etc).
Anyway, one area that has been around for ages but really struggled to make real progress has been robots. There have been various things around, with most of them being body parts rather than the whole 9 yards but most have been a joke until Atlas, Spot and the Honda robot arrived on the scene. Since then the progress has accelerated exponentially and now there are ridiculously impressive facial expressions, communication and interactions. The movements have really come on and balance has for themost part been cracked (Amazing how hard it has been to crack what every (most) human accomplishes without thinking.
The point was to perhaps see if anyone else has been following this stuff.
The implications are potentially huge and it does feel to me that the time left is dangerously short between now and when these things are seriously impacting our lives and society.
Just take work. Jump forward to day 2 and these things will work all day for maintenance costs only. Perfectly accurate and consistent. If you have ever seen the amazon warehouses you will know that robots already manage these on their own and there is now reason why the robot maintenace won't be done by robots soon. Deliveries already are already automated in some US zip codes (mainly the valley).
It's easy to shrug and say, great these things will do all of the boring jobs for us and costs will go down. I would agree. But in the same way that many misjudged shipping work offshore, think again. People thought the boring cheap jobs would be shipped offshore but it's ended up with the higher skilled expensive jobs going (IT developement, finance/tax modelling). It's those that are staying over there now because that's where the skillbase is now. With robots, they won't just do the simple jobs. They will potentially perform medical operations more accurately and increasingly make better and more informed decisions than the instincts of tired, ageing medical professional. There is a stat that the success rate for operations can be directly mapped to the number of that operation that doctor has performed in the previous month. Robots don't ever forget the procedure, could learn from every instance of that op in the world potentially and evolve the process.
I'll stop because maybe this isn't of interest but there is a huge amount of things that need to be thought through by society before fully unleashing this stuff. I am not suggesting slowing anything down, rather speeding up the awareness and Government assessment of this stuff's impact on economy and so on. It needs thinking about. I think it's probably already too late and in the same way that the internet has evolved without constraints (good and bad) I do think robots will do the same now. Lot of topics
Workplace
Skill base
Military
Law enforcement and control of society
Medical
Sex industry
AI
Terminator wars
Privacy is dead....
Just a note on the sex industry that might make many laugh but it has driven large swathes of the development of image, video and communications, online transactions infrastructure that we now rely upon and it's been driving a section focused on interaction and facial expressions and so on. Throw away you blow up dolls guys and gals, it's party time with Loretta or Laura XGS1 or whatever.
Before anyone thinks I am completely mad, I don't believe robots take over our jobs next year or that robot war breaks out in 5 yrs time but I do think it's impacts are already too close to realisation to be fully controlled.
Anyway, one area that has been around for ages but really struggled to make real progress has been robots. There have been various things around, with most of them being body parts rather than the whole 9 yards but most have been a joke until Atlas, Spot and the Honda robot arrived on the scene. Since then the progress has accelerated exponentially and now there are ridiculously impressive facial expressions, communication and interactions. The movements have really come on and balance has for themost part been cracked (Amazing how hard it has been to crack what every (most) human accomplishes without thinking.
The point was to perhaps see if anyone else has been following this stuff.
The implications are potentially huge and it does feel to me that the time left is dangerously short between now and when these things are seriously impacting our lives and society.
Just take work. Jump forward to day 2 and these things will work all day for maintenance costs only. Perfectly accurate and consistent. If you have ever seen the amazon warehouses you will know that robots already manage these on their own and there is now reason why the robot maintenace won't be done by robots soon. Deliveries already are already automated in some US zip codes (mainly the valley).
It's easy to shrug and say, great these things will do all of the boring jobs for us and costs will go down. I would agree. But in the same way that many misjudged shipping work offshore, think again. People thought the boring cheap jobs would be shipped offshore but it's ended up with the higher skilled expensive jobs going (IT developement, finance/tax modelling). It's those that are staying over there now because that's where the skillbase is now. With robots, they won't just do the simple jobs. They will potentially perform medical operations more accurately and increasingly make better and more informed decisions than the instincts of tired, ageing medical professional. There is a stat that the success rate for operations can be directly mapped to the number of that operation that doctor has performed in the previous month. Robots don't ever forget the procedure, could learn from every instance of that op in the world potentially and evolve the process.
I'll stop because maybe this isn't of interest but there is a huge amount of things that need to be thought through by society before fully unleashing this stuff. I am not suggesting slowing anything down, rather speeding up the awareness and Government assessment of this stuff's impact on economy and so on. It needs thinking about. I think it's probably already too late and in the same way that the internet has evolved without constraints (good and bad) I do think robots will do the same now. Lot of topics
Workplace
Skill base
Military
Law enforcement and control of society
Medical
Sex industry
AI
Terminator wars
Privacy is dead....
Just a note on the sex industry that might make many laugh but it has driven large swathes of the development of image, video and communications, online transactions infrastructure that we now rely upon and it's been driving a section focused on interaction and facial expressions and so on. Throw away you blow up dolls guys and gals, it's party time with Loretta or Laura XGS1 or whatever.
Before anyone thinks I am completely mad, I don't believe robots take over our jobs next year or that robot war breaks out in 5 yrs time but I do think it's impacts are already too close to realisation to be fully controlled.
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