The robots are here — and you should be worried

[chancy]

Hello Everyone:
A very interesting article. Enjoy!
chancy

Link:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-r...der%29&ref=yfp


Article:
The robots are here — and you should be worried

Kathleen Elkins
Jun. 6, 2015, 8:00 AM 22,064 24
irobot robotwww.imdb.comAccording to an Oxford University study, 47% of US jobs could be automated within one to two decades.
See Also
The 25 jobs that robots are least likely to take over
A reporter raced a robot to write a news story — the result shows just how much we should worry about our jobs
We've reached a tipping point where technology is now destroying more jobs than it creates, researcher warns

It's no surprise that technology is getting better, faster, and smarter. But is it at the expense of its makers?

Anxiety has been building around the second machine age and its implications for our economic future, and it may have reached a tipping point.

Just last week, Silicon Valley venture capitalists and executives published an open letter on the digital economy, calling for public-policy changes and new organizational models to account for this era of drastic technological change.

The authors write, "The digital revolution is the best economic news on the planet."

But not everyone agrees. Several scholars have been sounding the alarm on the danger of technological progress.

During a presentation at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs this week, researcher Wendell Wallach said technology is now destroying more jobs than it creates.

"This is an unparalleled situation and one that I think could actually lead to all sorts of disruptions once the public starts to catch on that we are truly in the midst of technological unemployment," said Wallach, a consultant, ethicist, and scholar at the Yale University Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.

Martin Ford, a software developer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, recently published the book "Rise of the Robots" in an effort to generate a conversation around the prospect of a jobless future.

We're not worried enough, he says. Most people don't understand the "mind-boggling" speed that technology is advancing at.

"When people talk about robots, they're mostly imagining factories, but the factory jobs have been gone for decades," Ford tells Business Insider.

rise of the robotsAmazon

In May, Shenzhen Evenwin Precision Technology, a manufacturing company based out of Dongguan in southern China, announced it would soon be replacing 90% of its 1,800 employees with machines. The 200 employees not receiving pink slips will take on a new role — overseeing the robotic workforce.

This is part of a larger trend in southern China, where robots are poised to invade several manufacturing companies.

If that isn't unsettling enough, consider the Oxford University study, "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization," which predicts that 47% of US jobs could be automated within one to two decades.

It's no longer just the "dangerous, dirty, and dull" jobs on the block. Technology is also poised to replace white-collar positions, like lawyers, reporters, and financial analysts, to name a few.

While certain sectors, such as healthcare and education, are safer than others for the time being, Ford believes most industries will eventually be at risk.

But it's not as much about what industry you work in, Ford explains, as it is the function you perform. Think about your job, he says, and consider whether or not any smart person could figure out how to do it if they watched you work or studied your past work patterns.

If so, then it's a pretty good bet that an algorithm will eventually be able to figure it out as well, he warns. "If you look far enough into the future, say 50 years and beyond, there aren't any jobs that you could say absolutely for sure are going to be safe."

With creative computing underway, even the most artful of jobs could be at risk. Algorithms can now write symphonies and paint original paintings, Ford tells us.

Toyota RobotKoichi Kamoshida/Getty

"We should be concerned," says Ford. "Primarily because we don't have an alternate for people to lose their jobs.

"I'm not arguing that the technology is a bad thing. It could be a great thing if the robots did all our jobs and we didn't have to work. The problem is that your job and income are packaged together. So if you lose your job, you also lose your income, and we don't have a very good system in place to deal with that."

The economic consequences could be dramatic, he says. Jobs drive consumption, and consumption drives our economy.

"Without consumers, we're not going to have an economy. No matter how talented you are as an individual, you've got to have a market to sell it to," Ford says. "We need most people to be OK. We need some reasonable level of broad-based prosperity if we're going to continue to have a vibrant, consumer-driven economy."

Of course, what Ford sees as a disaster, others see as an opportunity. The New York Times recently highlighted a study by the McKinsey Global Institute that presents a more cheerful outlook.

"By 2025, McKinsey estimates, these digital talent platforms could add $2.7 trillion a year to global gross domestic product," the Times wrote. "And the digital tools, the report states, could benefit as many as 540 million people in various ways, including better matches of their skills with jobs, higher wages, and shorter stints of unemployment."

Other experts point to the Industrial Revolution, which ultimately led to more employment opportunities, and say the same will happen during the second machine age. Some believe an increase in computing prowess will simply eliminate old jobs and introduce new ones, resulting in a net-zero effect — or even an increase in jobs.

However, Ford doesn't believe the past will predict the future in this case. "On January 2, 2010, The Washington Post reported that the first decade of the 21st century resulted in the creation of no new jobs. Zero," he writes in "Rise of the Robots." "In other words, during those first 10 years there were about 10 million missing jobs that should have been created — but never showed up."

The solution to this job displacement is not a simple one.

In the past, when low-skilled workers lost their jobs to technology, the conventional advice was to go to school for a better education and training and find more intellectual work in an office. This solution will no longer be effective, Ford says, because technology is coming after those higher-skilled jobs as well.

robotChinaFotoPress/GettyRobots are invading the service sector, where most of our jobs are.

"Investment in education and training will unlikely solve our problems. We must look beyond conventional policy prescriptions," says Ford.

His solution is a radical one: To effectively restructure our entire system.

Ford suggests a guaranteed income.

"You give people a minimum — a survivable income. Not something so generous that they just sit around and do nothing, but you give them enough so they don't have to worry about basic survival," he explains. "Some people would be lazy, but most others would want more and would work part-time, start small businesses, or work a more traditional job if they could find one."

Ford is not the only one proposing such extreme changes.

Scott Santens, a leader in the basic-income movement — a worldwide network of thousands of advocates — agrees that job growth is not keeping pace with technology and encourages government-provided income as a remedy.

"It's not just a matter of needing basic income in the future; we need it now," Santens told The Atlantic. "People don't see it, but we are already seeing the effects all around us, in the jobs and pay we take, the hours we accept, the extremes inequality is reaching, and in the loss of consumer spending power."

It's unlikely Ford and Santens' proposal would become a reality, at least any time soon. "In today's environment, such a radical solution is completely unthinkable," Ford admits. "But the paradox is that it's ultimately what we're going to need in the future. It's unclear how we're going to get there."

For now, it might be time to consider strategies for staying ahead of the robots before they come for your job.

[Bubu]

I am worried that this thread is telling us to worry about jobs when all we should be doing is to have fun life experience. No worries please i havehad more than enough already. Actually when robots tske over and people are forced to till the land to survive its gonna have a wakeup effect were people will rralized that we dont need jobs at all. ... l hope so.

[ghostrider]

the words of Henoch come to pass again , robotic killing machines will be unleashed by the military , and the military will lose control of them as they gain A.I. ... animal and humans will be mixed , cloned killing machines unleashed on humanity ... 888 days of hell on Earth , a man/woman will lose his/her life for stealing a piece of bread ... science will create an artificial sun which will only go well for a short time , it will fall back to Earth many lives lost ... humanity will depart from space and science for a time ... a second artificial sun will be created and will suffer the same fate ... humans will build cities under the sea ... war will break out and the people from the cities under the sea will surface and join the battle ...many will be killed by the fighter and bomber aircraft ...America will be a country of total destruction , two civil wars , the second shortly after the first , then the country will be divided up into five sectors , religious fanatics will play a role ...it could be that the off world humans intervene to stop the leaders from the madness inflicted on humans ... the extraterrestrials will give up their anonymity ... the human being will build ships and travel to Mars and to Lyra and discover his true origins ...after 800 years the human being will finally become peaceful and a real human being taking responsibility for his thoughts , actions and feelings ... I wrote all this , so when the other things happen , it will be known Henoch predicted it , and some may read his writings and know and be ready for what the future holds ... keeping their sanity in an insane world ...

[Cidersomerset]

Rise of the Machines? You may lose your job soon...to a robot

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=r2Bf975wBwM

Published on 7 Jun 2015


What do you think about robots? Love them, hate them? Well if you haven't
decided yet think of this - almost half of US jobs can be automated. Marina Portnaya reports.

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...916#post967916

[Ewan]

Posted by Bubu (here)
I am worried that this thread is telling us to worry about jobs when all we should be doing is to have fun life experience. No worries please i havehad more than enough already. Actually when robots tske over and people are forced to till the land to survive its gonna have a wakeup effect were people will rralized that we dont need jobs at all. ... l hope so.

Lovely ending thought, but all the land is already owned. To be ahead of the curve wouldn't we need to convert everything we now own to money and buy land? Otherwise I could picture bulldozers going through 'unauthorised crops and land use' and mass arrests.

[Bubu]

Posted by Anakie (here)

Posted by Bubu (here)
I am worried that this thread is telling us to worry about jobs when all we should be doing is to have fun life experience. No worries please i havehad more than enough already. Actually when robots tske over and people are forced to till the land to survive its gonna have a wakeup effect were people will rralized that we dont need jobs at all. ... l hope so.

Lovely ending thought, but all the land is already owned. To be ahead of the curve wouldn't we need to convert everything we now own to money and buy land? Otherwise I could picture bulldozers going through 'unauthorised crops and land use' and mass arrests.

Ultimately it all boils down to muscle since they can make all sorts of ridiculous laws which they have been doing alrrady and muscle you out of your land so buy guns instead

[etheric underground]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PI8XBKb6DQk

[Samson]

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artifi...olution-2.html
The link from wait but why gives an increadable clear but mindboggling insight in where A I is going... It is a long read but by far the best article i've read in years.

[Finefeather]

IMO any machine that does the work that humans do is welcome... it just proves that what humans do is not always the smartest thing to do when it can be done by a simple machine.

No machine can replace a human's intelligence because it is humans who create them and so it is humans who can break them.

No machine can think for itself it needs to be programmed to do what it does and a machine will always get to a point where it is in a stale mate condition.

The thing to worry about is the state of the mind of the persons who create the machines... because it is the humans mind who is creating the machine for some purpose.

All purposes thought out by humans is a reflection of their state of mind and it is this state of mind which needs to be addressed... not what the machine is capable of doing.

Artificial intelligence is a myth thought out by those who have no idea of what intelligence really is.
Human intelligence is based on knowledge and experience from millions of years of life... it comes in the form of our instincts which we have ingrained in our consciousness from millions of years in the plant and animal kingdoms combined with our human kingdom experience and consciousness.

No machine can ever match this vast amount of inner knowledge we have which has allowed us to create these machines for our own use... it just boils down to the evils in man's minds what a machine is to be used for.

So when machines can do everything for us we should be able to spend more time thinking about how we can unify our lives... how we can come together in harmony and create things which can benefit all and not the few who use machines for their own ulterior motives.

Life on earth at this time is not just the prison most talk about... it is more than that... it is the hell we fantasize about... it is where we come to pay back the many many 'evils' we have got up to in our past lives.

We want to think that we are like little innocent children but we are all dragging our own individual and collective baggage around which needs to be reaped in the form of violence and all sorts of barbaric behavior... in the form of military machines which are only used to kill for the sake of power.

Only when this is realised and we have come to learn that life is about consciousness growth... and with this comes life in the form of beauty and peace and unity amongst all, will machines be used truly in ways which are beneficial for all mankind.

Imagine if all the money and effort, which is used in the creation of machines for the destruction of our human brothers and sisters, would be used for the benefit of mankind... how different... how much closer we would be to loving one another and not wanting to destroy one another... how much more would we be able to enjoy the diversity of our cultures, and our different ways, and the beauty of our magnificent planet earth.

Take care
Ray

[Anchor]

I am not so sure Artificial intelligence is a myth - it is a valid branch of machine science and machines are being created that can operate in ways that can learn and adapt, but not yet (so far as I know) self modify.

I feel sure that we humans will be able to create a machine to behave intelligently by means of synthetic intelligence.

The level of intelligence achievable will always depend on the technology it is contained within.

That last sentence sets the bar as high or low as the technological capabilities that the machine makers can achieve, and I suspect that a time will come when that means that the intelligence capability of the created machine will rise to a level that could, for example, operate something like a body - perhaps even an organic one, maybe better than us as humans.

Will it be "intelligent" in the sense of our human intelligence? Will we be able to synthesize a coupling between raw intellectual "processing" power and the kinds of creative intelligence that come from our unique mind, body and spirit complexes? Will it dream of electric sheep?

Let us assume, hypothetically, the existence of a vastly powerful "synthetic" intelligence, an intelligent machine that can learn, adapt, think and even develop for itself new ways of thinking and acquiring knowledge, perhaps even the ability to extend its own intellectual powers by tinkering with its own container.

Will such a machine be able to meditate? Will it be able develop any spiritual awareness? Will it be able to plumb the inner worlds that we as humans in quiet meditation can seek and find?

Would it ever be possible for us to create a fully synthetic human? What would be synthetic or artificial at that point?

I think it will be possible for us to do that one day and my basis for this conclusion is that we are the creator expressed in limited form. If we can be created in the image of the creator, then we to can create in the creators image - once we get to a point of transcending our built in limitations.

---

I watched a whole series of "robot" films last weekend (Ex Machina, Automata, The machine, Chappie) and since then I have been mulling this over in my "real" human mind. I hesitate to recommend any of them. Ex Machina was the best in my opinion for its exploration of the subject of what it is to be a machine and how one goes about telling the difference between a synthetic human and a real one.

[Carmody]

Posted by Samson (here)
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artifi...olution-2.html
The link from wait but why gives an incredible clear but mindboggling insight in where A I is going... It is a long read but by far the best article i've read in years.

That was actually a useful link.

I could go on about all the errors in it, regarding the technologies, potentials, etc.

But I try pretty hard to not even think about the AI, for the reason that well.... . .Lets just move away from that..and I'll say that I've never found a technological challenge that I cannot meet. No matter how complex.

AI, is, most definitely already here. I strongly suspect this to be the case. If forced to be my life on it, as in a real bet, with real consequences, I'd say that it is already here.

Take a look at this article.

https://brainsize.wordpress.com/2014...-intelligence/

If you take the average person's IQ of 100, I'm about 16 stages beyond the average person, in rate of cognition. I have found this article's premise to be, for the most part, accurate enough; to serve as a basic and floundering ---but accurate truism. That what the average person can come to understand in 40 years, I can 'grok' in less than half a day. Each plateau reached, changes the entire vista or landscape (each vista being a point of personal recognition, not absolute), with regard to understanding in potentialities.

That after an IQ of approximately 200 (in a widespread set of human directions, not a narrow spike), there is no serious (personal advancement) reason to be physical. That the bulk of lessons possible, would have been learned, or integrated.

[Finefeather]

If you truly knew what intelligence is you would realise that it is impossible to create artificial intelligent machines.

No matter how hard you try, a machine cannot think in the same way as an evolutionary monad(Self)(what all humans are) can...
Because all machines consists of elemental elements which are a collective of involutionary monads(primordial atoms) which have not yet activated higher type consciousness.

They cannot think yet... they only react to external thought and they are the building blocks of matter in different forms... it's the same as saying a metal pin can think and be intelligent.

A machine which is programmed with current technology using integrated circuits which primarily consist of transistors and diodes and gates etc are simply matter in some form... with no intelligence of their own other than the ability to change their state in accordance with the electrons which control their state

Of course machines can react to all sorts of stimuli but in the end it is just elemental matter reacting to the stimuli and doing what it does in that elemental state... it would not do what it is programmed to do if it were not programmed to do it.

In the astral(emotional) world you can do the same thing... you can create any kind of form you like and it will react in exactly the way you want it to simply by thinking what you want it to do... when you stop thinking what you want it to do it ceases to act... when you stop thinking of it, it dissipates.

In the physical world science has not even accessed the true atomic level of physical matter yet and are in fact only currently working at the plasma(the so called 4th state of matter) level, which is only one level above the gaseous.

Machines built by man can and will never be able to think for themselves in the true sense of thinking because you cannot program consciousness into an elemental substance.

[Carmody]

very specifically, no comment.

[RunningDeer]

Posted by etheric underground (here)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PI8XBKb6DQk

Full "Ex Machina" movie

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s76Mmo-USXg

[Samson]

What Finefeather points out previous is very common thought i guess. 'You cannot built consciousness into machine.'
The link i previously posted does inform you without judging. It more or less explains that within a decade or 2 a 1000 dollar computer thinks 99 percent faster then humans and the capacity of the computers 'brain' is billions greater then a human brain.
It is a quantumleaping article, very informative and entertaining.

Changing IQ in BP as Carmody. mentioned is only possible if you make BP measured like bitcoins ...105,0000000008

Writing on a 3 inch screen is not easy...

[Merlinus]

A Burger Chain Added Burger-Flipping Robots; It Lasted for a Day

The robot takeover may have hit a snag: The machine that was said to be one of the most formidable opponents of the human workforce has turned out to be somewhat underqualified for the job. Flippy, the name of the robot that chain CaliBurger purchased to flip burgers at its locations, has gone on an “extended break” after working one regular shift behind the grill.

http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/03/fl...n-the-job.html

In the future many jobs will be taken by robotics