The Core
Why We Are Here => Economics & Investing => Topic started by: rcjordan on January 24, 2017, 01:41:15 PM
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Our Terminator thread is overwhelmed with an ever-increasing [insert Apocalyptic phrase-du-jour here], so...
A thread chronicling the building of our job-killers:
I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news first. This one will devastate jobs even in the 3rd World. The good news is that Nike, etc. won't need to run sweatshops.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067149/robot-revolution/is-this-sewing-robot-the-future-of-fashion
<changed thread name. was Robotic Job-Killers>
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The most IMPORTANT issue of our time FOR SURE
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I may have to throttle my news reader on kw phrase 'job killer.'
The In Situ Fabricator1 is designed from the bottom up to be practical. It can build stuff using a range of tools with a precision of less than five millimeters, it is designed to operate semi-autonomously in a complex changing environment, it can reach the height of a standard wall, and it can fit through ordinary doorways. And it is dust- and waterproof, runs off standard electricity, and has battery backup.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603429/new-robotic-fabricator-could-change-the-way-buildings-are-constructed/
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Planet Money had a good episode on the sewing robot and why it's such a hard problem to crack (short answer: shear forces -> wrinkling) and how they finally cracked it
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/03/488611449/episode-715-the-sewing-robot
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Robots Are Taking Over Oil Rigs
Automation means wells need only five workers, down from 20
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-24/robots-are-taking-over-oil-rigs-as-roughnecks-become-expendable
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'Automated dermatologist' detects skin cancer with expert accuracy
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/health/ai-system-detects-skin-cancer-study/
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'Automated dermatologist' detects skin cancer with expert accuracy
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/health/ai-system-detects-skin-cancer-study/
@littleman RE impacts on "low skill" workers - add this one to my comment about radiologists. People, especially MDs, are not ready for this.
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In a way I think the threat to skilled labor is a good thing in that it will cause us to address the problem faster than if it was just the bottom rung left behind.
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[changed thread title. it's more than robots]
Had an eye exam lately? Last couple of years for my exams, the doc just checks and signs off on what the computer scans. Lemme assemble a couple of articles here that spell out job doom for optometrists.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/25/479346651/online-eye-exam-site-makes-waves-in-eye-care-industry
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/28/409731415/smart-phones-are-so-smart-they-can-now-test-your-vision
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-smart-glasses-automatically-focus-wearer.html
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In a way I think the threat to skilled labor is a good thing in that it will cause us to address the problem faster than if it was just the bottom rung left behind.
Agreed. But I think most skilled professionals think it will happen to the other guy. They haven't adjusted yet.
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>They haven't adjusted yet
And they have good lobbyists and certification boards awash in self-interest. On top of that, older users just don't trust tech even if the numbers prove it (see pharmacist post. stats are overwhelmingly support robot pharmacists but hospitals balk at the PR problem.)
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Oakland international airport
THERE’S AN ANDROID HELPING OUT AT AN AIRPORT IN CALIFORNIA
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/pepper-at-oakland-airport/
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Scratch those document review jobs:
"Robots have recently entered the legal workplace, performing several tasks once assigned to newly minted law grads. What does this mean for current and future lawyers? Simple answer: robots will not replace lawyers but they will work with them"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2016/09/06/artificial-intelligence-and-legal-delivery/#12652f282647
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>replace lawyers
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/parking-tickets-teenager-creates-website-allowing-motorist-to-them-in-minutes-10484200.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3453318/The-robot-lawyer-traffic-cops-Stanford-student-s-chatbot-successfully-appealed-3-MILLION-parking-tickets-set-launch-New-York.html
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/off-record-speeding-ticket-app/
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/15/fixed-the-app-that-helps-you-fight-tickets-gets-acquired-by-a-law-firm/
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I've been reading up on 'robot-proofing' and almost all of the articles are vague, too broad , over-simplified, and have a light smack of dismissiveness. Like so;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/08/12/will-these-4-skills-help-future-proof-your-career/
IMO, you can't teach creativity or empathy or some aspects of social-situation mastery to the point that a job is safe. You *can* teach 'the general rules, responses, & reactions' to give them a better skillset ...but you're outlining patterns here. And if it's a pattern....
Ergophobe termed it better -I forget the phrase he used- but having a job that deals with unpredictable interactions is the most tech-proof, I think.
Robot-proof your kids by teaching them to perform "unpredictable" jobs
http://boingboing.net/2017/01/23/robot-proof-your-kids-by-teach.html
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Ergophobe termed it better -I forget the phrase he used- but having a job that deals with unpredictable interactions is the most tech-proof, I think.
Sadly, no, I guess I'm a pessimist. I believe I stated the negative, saying something like if your job consisted principally of any or all of the three following items, you're toast:
1. repetitive tasks
2. prediction
3. pattern recognition
So in the white-collar world this includes radiologist (pattern), legal document review (pattern), financial advisors (prediction), doctors whose primary role is diagnostic, such as family doctors or dermatologist (pattern, prediction), processing insurance claims (repetitive), the simplest news stories (pattern).
Even surgeons are at risk but this is a harder problem because of combining so many things - difficult pattern recognition, precise physical skill, variation in the repetition, but it's coming - machines already suture more precisely but slower than surgeons and let's face it, the speed advantage can't last more than a couple of years (and speed is super important in surgery).
All these professions will always have jobs. Just like some privileged few still make a living as poets. Just like there will always be jobs for live musicians, but not as many as if recording technology hadn't been invented. It was only a few generations ago that if you wanted a party with dancing, you had to have some live music, even if it was only the whole group clapping in time.
Most white-collar workers, if they even see this at all, think this is a problem for Amazon warehouse workers and truck drivers, but not ME.
And by the way, old news for everyone here, but...
- financial planner/advisor: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-13/morgan-stanley-analyst-says-robo-advisers-are-one-of-the-major-threats-to-the-industry
- radiology: http://www.radiologytoday.net/archive/rt0516p12.shtml
- general medical diagnostics: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/i-b-m-s-watson-goes-to-medical-school/
- nuts and bolts journalism of business, earnings reports, high-school sports -
-- https://www.wired.com/2015/10/this-news-writing-bot-is-now-free-for-everyone/
-- http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/29/7939067/ap-journalism-automation-robots-financial-reporting
- insurance claims: https://qz.com/875491/japanese-white-collar-workers-are-already-being-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence
- surgery:https://getpocket.com/a/read/1278456772
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Well, today must be "Kill-A-Customer-Service-Rep" Day.
HDFC Bank’s interactive humanoid IRA (Intelligent Robotic Assistant) which has been deployed at their Kamla Mills branch in Mumbai will guide customers to the various counters. This includes cash deposit, foreign exchange, loans among others in the first phase. IRA’s language of communication will be English in the first phase.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/first-look-a-humanoid-will-help-you-carry-out-bank-transactions-at-this-hdfc-branch_8358621.html
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As far from human as that is, I think it's one step over the edge into Uncanny Valley.
Translation: that weirds me out
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And now poker players are screwed
http://gizmodo.com/why-it-matters-that-human-poker-pros-are-getting-trounc-1791565551
What does this do to online gaming? How do you verify that someone is not using an AI?
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Surgical robot makes highly precise eye injection possible
https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/28/surgical-robot-highly-precise-eye-surgery/
"I'd rather have a sharp needle in the eye." --NFFC
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Turning thus around then, how to you improve your kids chances of surviving the ooh collapse? Lots of articles (like the one linked) talking about this, but not much solid advice.
My kids are 8 and 6. I try to fuel their imaginations, give them a broad understanding of the world, teach them to ask questions and solve problems. (whilst also doing more to save for their futures than I've ever managed to do for myself).
Doesn't feel like enough though.
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If you missed it, take a look at the members-only thread
Oxford Martin School study ranks 700 jobs in decending order of probability of being eaten by robot overlords.
http://th3core.com/talk/members-only/this-oxford-martin-school-study-ranks-700-jobs-in-ascending-order-of-probability/
It needs work, maybe some tagging of vulnerabilities we see but the authors missed, but it's a start.
Secondly, recognizing that I'm going to have biases, preconceptions, and other shortfalls, I think it's important to go with what I know rather than waiting for clairvoyance or divine intervention. So, in my case, tech or maybe construction.
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Turning thus around then, how to you improve your kids chances of surviving the ooh collapse? Lots of articles (like the one linked) talking about this, but not much solid advice.
My kids are 8 and 6. I try to fuel their imaginations, give them a broad understanding of the world, teach them to ask questions and solve problems. (whilst also doing more to save for their futures than I've ever managed to do for myself).
The hard thing about predicting the future is that it hasn't happened yet. Translation: my expertise is with a small slice of the past, not the future.
Other caveat - I would never take career advice from me. But to throw a few things out there.
Encourage expansive thinking. So "problem solving" can be reductive or expansive. In other words, you can "reduce" to a solution (patient exhibits these three symptoms; this happened, that happened and engine stopped). That sort of reductive problem solving won't need humans in the near future. Then there's expansive problem solving where you expand up to solutions: you have a board, some wire and a hammer, what can you build with these? I think this sort of problem solving will be AI assisted (generating options), but human-driven
Unpredictibility - mixing things that don't seem to go together. AI might excel at this because of pure horsepower, but the value of the practice will probably endure
Creative - it's going to be a long time until an AI can write a really compelling short story or novel, or create a painting that captures the imagination.
Flexibility - ability to change and adapt to circumstances. Obviously. I think parents pass that response to circumstances to their kids whether they want to or not.
Diversity - this is probably the top lesson that ecosystems show us. Life survives in hostile environments because of diversity. Any one trick might get automated today, but no four tricks are likely to get automated at the same time. Generally speaking, the top scholars I know who end up leading their fields and are the ultimate experts on a tiny slice of the knowledge turn out to be surprisingly diverse in their lives and hobbies and reading habits and the scholars I know who seem to have no other interests never seem to make it. So I think that's good advice for a happy life even in the absence of automation.
Human-centered. Music sharing destroyed revenue from recorded music in most cases, but a few years ago Springsteen sold out a tour at $200 a ticket min because people want an authentic experience of another human being. We see this in photography. It is almost impossible to make a living selling photos anymore, but people will pay a lot of money to do workshops with photographers who will take them to a cool place and teach them how to photograph it. So whereas record sales and photo sales were the main income and concerts and wokshops were promotional, now the recorded song and image have almost no value, but the in-person experience does. So always be looking for what it is that you can provide that cannot be provided virtually. In other words, being people that have something to offer and a disposition that makes them nice to be with, will probably count for more than, say, programming skills, in 10-20 years.
And again... I don't have kids, have spent my life studying the past not the future and would be one of the last people I would go to for career advice.... And with that I'll leave it to you to assess the value of those comments :-)
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As for some sort of plan, at their ages I'd concentrate on activities that help overcome stage fright and encourage developing public speaking as a skill --dance, music lessons, individual (not team) sports, acting. The two of my daughters who stuck with ballet (and those damn recitals) have had an easier time developing a professional career. I don't think it's coincidental. Public speaking is one of the arts that can be learned, so they say. I know for a fact that the lack of that ability has cost me dearly.
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<added>
And consider this:
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-stem-club-toy-subscription-price
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<added 2>
Sent this to my daughter yesterday (girl scout leader)
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-at-scouts-wintercamp/
She has 2 daughters
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-girls-boys-brilliant-20170126-story.html
"There are all kinds of beginner student explorer programs out there
now. Some are very, very rudimentary just to give them a feel.
Materials costs can be low. A Raspeberry Pi -a real computer- is under
$30. Could be shared or maybe get grants. Ping someone involved in
that get-girls-interested-in-STEM program at the Citadel, maybe.
Just ideas. But you know that girls-can't-do-math-or-tech is a problem
that needs addressing."
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>>developing public speaking
There we go! That's a good, practical example of what I was trying to grope towards in my "human centered" point, but (perhaps not being a parent), concrete ideas for kids weren't coming for me. It's not just that it's helpful to engineers to be able to speak in public, it's that when all the non-AI engineering jobs are gone, there will still be people speaking public.
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What's the current ROI on this new robotic barista, I wonder? Worth a watch, if you haven't seen it yet.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/01/30/robotic-barista-now-serving-really-fast/95888780/
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Starbucks, with more than 25,000 stores, has no plans for robotic baristas. It stresses a person-to-person connection between its service partners (reps) and customers, according to company policy.
yeah yeah... for how long I wonder.
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Starbucks, with more than 25,000 stores, has no plans for robotic baristas. It stresses a person-to-person connection between its service partners (reps) and customers, according to company policy.
yeah yeah... for how long I wonder.
I would be happy if all fast food restaurants moved to using robots. A taco-bot would probably mess up my Taco Bell order a lot less than the humans working there.
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Starbucks, with more than 25,000 stores, has no plans for robotic baristas. It stresses a person-to-person connection between its service partners (reps) and customers, according to company policy.
yeah yeah... for how long I wonder.
They're stuck. They want to be personalized, but they are a commodity. Now those places I keep hearing about that are selling gourmet toast for $12? They are all about the human experience and the toast is largely irrelevant. You can't automate that.
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Here's a robot with a soft, vegetable-handling touch being developed for supermarkets. Won't be long before they'll be in the fields in an array across the drag-bar, Gnidone. If they can plant/tend/cut cabbage it'll put a zillion field workers out of a job here in NC alone.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/31/ocado-is-developing-robot-hands-that-wont-bruise-bananas/
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Amazon will build a $1.4 billion hub in Kentucky for its 30-minute drone delivery
Amazon Prime Air promises to deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. The service completed its first successful delivery via drone just last month near Cambridge, England.
The drones travel fully autonomously below 400 feet using a GPS system to carry packages up to 5 pounds.
http://mashable.com/2017/01/31/amazon-prime-air-drone-cincinnati/
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So long tax preparers....
IBM Gives Watson a New Challenge: Your Tax Return
“This is not magic,” Mr. Cobb said the Watson team told him. “You have to teach Watson over time.”
Watson proved to be a quick learner. Its core skill is its ability to digest and classify vast amounts of text, using what is known as natural language processing. So, among other things, it was fed the 74,000 pages of the federal tax code and thousands of tax-related questions culled from H&R Block’s data, accumulated over six decades of preparing tax returns.
Then, H&R Block tax professionals were brought in to “train” Watson. They approved when Watson suggested a smart question for a particular tax filer and corrected it when a proposed question was off base.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/technology/ibm-watson-tax-return.html?_r=0
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Here's a robot with a soft, vegetable-handling touch being developed for supermarkets. Won't be long before they'll be in the fields in an array across the drag-bar, Gnidone. If they can plant/tend/cut cabbage it'll put a zillion field workers out of a job here in NC alone.
I'd think it'd be harder to make a robot that works in the field because the produce isn't always in the same place. Sometimes the tomato is at the top of the plant, sometimes at the bottom and sometimes inside the bushy part of the plant. And, it's difficult to tell by robotic eye if the tomato is ripe or not, given there are many shades of tomatoes.
There are milking robots for cows, and even there, the udder is in roughly the same place on each cow: the bottom towards the back end. There is no need to determine if the cow is "ripe" or not, and basically, no-touch car wash technology can be used to guide the washers and milker things to the proper spot.
I do hope to see harvesting technology come of age though...theres a lot of people who break their backs so we can eat!
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difficult to tell by robotic eye if the tomato is ripe
Ultimately, though, the robotic eye will be able to see into the IR and UV spectrum and maybe millimeter wave microwave and be much more accurate than a human.
Touch can probably be quantified. But a cantelope or a mango isn't ripe until it smells right, and a machine that can do that is a ways off, but modern ag doesn't pick at that state of ripeness anyway
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>Ultimately, though, the robotic eye will be able to see into the IR and UV spectrum and maybe millimeter wave microwave and be much more accurate than a human.
Now, that's something I hadn't thought of...You're probably right, maybe the color issue isn't that big of deal.
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here is an interesting planter for the home:
https://farmbot.io/
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here is an interesting planter for the home:
https://farmbot.io/
Amazing potential for people who want to garden, but who also want/need to travel.
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Inside Amazon’s robot-run supermarket that needs just 3 human workers...
http://nypost.com/2017/02/05/inside-amazons-robot-run-supermarket-that-needs-just-3-human-workers/
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At JPMorgan Chase & Co., a learning machine is parsing financial deals that once kept legal teams busy for thousands of hours.
The program, called COIN, for Contract Intelligence, does the mind-numbing job of interpreting commercial-loan agreements that, until the project went online in June, consumed 360,000 hours of work each year by lawyers and loan officers. The software reviews documents in seconds, is less error-prone and never asks for vacation.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-28/jpmorgan-marshals-an-army-of-developers-to-automate-high-finance
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Burger-flipping robot could spell the end of teen employment.
https://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2017/03/09/burger-flipping-robot-could-spell-the-end-of-teen-employment/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=Burger-flipping%20robot%20could%20spell%20the%20end%20of%20teen%20employment&utm_campaign=share%2Bbutton#.tnw_cejmdNYN
INCREASE IN CRIME ???
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How about the recent UK budget?
That's a flipping job-killer for some.
The tax allowance for dividends up to 5K is now capped at 2K, class 2 national insurance is being abolished but class 4 will be rising at 1% a year for at least the next three years.
The abolishment of class 2 NI may affect entitlement to state pensions and the like.
It's as if they don't want small businesses any more ...
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How about the recent UK budget?
That's a flipping job-killer for some.
The tax allowance for dividends up to 5K is now capped at 2K, class 2 national insurance is being abolished but class 4 will be rising at 1% a year for at least the next three years.
The abolishment of class 2 NI may affect entitlement to state pensions and the like.
It's as if they don't want small businesses any more ...
<shakes fist in anger>
And this is from a conservative government who are traditionally pro businesses
I've only just got over the changes in dividends last year
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<shakes fist in anger>
And this is from a conservative government who are traditionally pro businesses
I've only just got over the changes in dividends last year
Yes it's really surprising! They will probably backtrack though, and we still have the November budget to come.
They usually try and see what they can get away with by bait and switch, greedy gits!
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Cheaper than slaves
http://60secondstatistics.com/for-manufacturing-and-retail-companies-using-automated-robots-is-cheaper-than-actual-slave-labor-would-be/
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I sold all my SLAVES
I'm looking into ROBOTS
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>cheaper than slaves
Chinese firm halves worker costs by hiring army of robots to sort out 200,000 packages a day
(South China Morning Post) http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2086662/chinese-firm-cuts-costs-hiring-army-robots-sort-out-200000
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>cheaper than slaves
Chinese firm halves worker costs by hiring army of robots to sort out 200,000 packages a day
(South China Morning Post) http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2086662/chinese-firm-cuts-costs-hiring-army-robots-sort-out-200000
I wonder how long it will be before we have anti-robot groups going around sabotaging stuff !
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I've been expecting a return of the Luddites any time now. The recent up-welling of populist|anti-science agendas has a strong tinge of techno-revolt in it.
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I've been expecting a return of the Luddites any time now. The recent up-welling of populist|anti-science agendas has a strong tinge of techno-revolt in it.
Don't forget, the Luddites were right about everything except the belief that they could succeed in the long run.
I'm reading Grapes of Wrath right now (which is amazing) and the chapter on the the tractor driver resonates so strongly with today. And Steinbeck was right too.
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There will be an uprising (or three) similar to the Ford Massacre. This time, the protesters & Luddites will be branded as 'domestic terrorists' and be gunned down by robotic security guards.
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College Replaces Cafeteria Staff With Machines
http://www.vocativ.com/421260/suny-orange-cafeteria-staff-machines/
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Burger flipping robots. Pretty soon you won't need any humans in a fast food restaurant.
https://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2017/03/09/burger-flipping-robot-could-spell-the-end-of-teen-employment/#.tnw_M51JH7Ct
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So they can screw up my order without any human involvement?
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>>So they can screw up my order without any human involvement?
It is the human involvement that usually screws it up. I am looking forward to the machines getting it right. I already like the ordering kiosks at McDonalds. And more and more I am using apps to order ahead of time at places like Chick-fil-A and Five Guys. Very, very rarely have any screw-ups when using those.
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They'll always need people to write the software, classic problem, programs that write programs, or programs that can even tell what another program's purpose is.
Maybe they'll feed us burger and fries wihle we sit, chained to a PC, coding away, with an early-model sex-robot giving us blowjobs and the occasional electric shock ;+}
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Robots Will Transform Fast Food
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/iron-chefs/546581/
Check out the estimated ROI.
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Robots are being used to shoo away homeless people in San Francisco
Knightscope’s business model, according to Popular Science, is to rent the robots to customers for $7 an hour, which is about $3 less than minimum wage in California.
https://qz.com/1154649/a-knightscope-security-robot-is-being-used-to-shoo-away-homeless-people-in-san-francisco/