Decius wrote:
] ] The next step was autonomous, humanoid robots. The
] ] mechanics of walking were not simple, but Honda had
] ] proven that those problems could be solved with the
] ] creation of its ASIMO robot at the turn of the century.
] ] Sony and other manufacturers followed Honda's lead. Over
] ] the course of two decades, engineers refined this
] ] hardware and the software controlling it to the point
] ] where they could create humanoid bodyforms with the grace
] ] and precision of a ballerina or the mass and sheer
] ] strength of the Incredible Hulk.
]
] Iclough's memeings about robots made me go back and look at
] this essay.
]
] This was making the rounds a few weeks ago. I ignored it
] because he started off talking about McDonald's Kiosks. We had
] those in Murfreesboro in the early 90's. Hasn't gone anywhere.
] Not exciting...
]
] However, a fully automated McDonalds is an easy thing to
] imagine. We (finally) can buy robotic lawn mowers. The primary
] problem with these things is battery power. As fuel cells
] become a reality robotic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners will
] become common place in American homes. People will have their
] weekends free.
]
] What is a combine but a big lawn mower? Robotic combines are
] already running at Texas A&M. The food gets automatically
] harvested.
]
] Transportation? They have a Humvee at Georgia Tech that drives
] itself. This can be aided with the right kind of
] infrastructure in the roads. When the time comes, we'll build
] it. The food will move from the farm to the plant
] automatically. Its already processed automatically. Then it
] will move automatically to the store, where a kisok will take
] your order. Cooking it? Easy I think. I'm actually somewhat
] amazed that people still cook fries. The mechanical motion is
] so simple. They really only need a person there to make sure
] that nothing goes wrong... And we're off...
]
] I agree with the author that we will see a lot of robotics in
] our lives in the next few decades. It will be an important
] growth industry. I also agree that honda's humanoid robot is a
] tremendous achievement.
]
] However, this article gets several things wrong.
]
] A leap of logic is made between humanoid robots and robots
] doing human jobs. Many human jobs are a lot more complex then
] we think. Cleaning a room is incredibly complex, when you
] consider how varied the environments can be, and the need to
] ID so many different kinds of objects, and sort them properly.
] This is a tremendous knowledge problem. I will admit that more
] computing power could help you tacle it, but its just an
] example. The point is that human's easily handle situations
] that are very complex to program because humans aren't
] computers. More on that below.
]
] This article assumes that Moore's law will continue unabated.
] This is a bad assumption. Moore's law has a shelf life that
] will end in a decade or two. You can't get smaller then atoms,
] and no engineering breakthrough is going to fix that. New
] science maybe, but you can't predict scientific progress in
] the same way. Science is about a better understanding of how
] things work, and how things work doesn't lend itself to linear
] progression of human capability, because its not driven by
] human ingenuity, its driven by cold, hard reality. Reality
] simply is what it is.
]
] This article makes the famous AI deceit that computing power
] will someday equal that of the human mind. 1. The human mind
] is NOT a computer. In fact, humans are extremely BAD at
] computing. Thats why we all find calculators so helpful. 2. My
] $10 calculator has far superior calculating capabilities then
] my human mind, so if you are looking for dominance from
] computers, you need look no further. Your Pentium 4 is just a
] big calculator. Thats all it is. It adds, multiplies, and
] shifts bits. Thats it. Its not magic and its not the same as
] thinking. Neural Networks are more interesting, but frankly
] what we don't know about how the human mind really works could
] take several generations to explain, and almost certainly
] will.
]
] This article presumes that the technical advances of this
] century are evidence that any imaginable technical advance
] will certainly happen in the next century. Hogwash. People
] have been predicting time travel and cyborgs for over 100
] years, and yet we have neither. No one, on the other hand,
] really predicted the Internet. Not way way back. Closest was
] Bush's paper on microfiche.
]
] If you know how to do X, but you don't have enough Y, and Y is
] getting cheaper at N rate, you can accurately predict that you
] will be able to do X at a certain time.
]
] If you don't know how to do X, you can't predict when you'll
] be able to do it.
]
] Robotics is somewhere in the middle of these examples. I think
] we're going to see a lot of exciting advances in this area,
] that it will eliminate a lot of jobs, and that this is all
] good. However, I don't think I'm going to be writing long
] winded essays at some point in the near future about the civil
] liberties of artificial life forms. If I do, it won't be
] because of something we are able to accurately predict right
] now.
]
] Having said all of this, the point this guy makes about the
] economy is absolutely right... Jobs are going to go away.
] This has already started. It is going to continue. Just as in
] the industrial revolution the jobs moved from the farm to the
] factory, in the information revolution the jobs are moving
] from the factory to the mind, and those intellectual jobs are
] being outsourced to India.
]
] Consider the impact that technology is having on the music
] industry... We know that the whole way that media is produced
] and distributed is going to completely change, and its going
] to look like linux; a place where no one really makes money.
] Not really. Not for the work that REALLY matters.
]
] Its going to be terrible terrible. No one knows how to build
] an economy in an environment where there is diminishing
] scarcity. People are simply going to give their work product
] away for free, and they are going to compete and incent with
] reputation. This change will hit the whole of society like a
] ton of bricks, and a lot of people are going to fall through
] the cracks. Trying to figure out how to make this transition
] happen smoothley is something worth thinking about, but it is
] so far off at this point. I think we are really talking about
] problems that will primarily be born by another generation.
] We're just at the very start of this now.

Look at the "jobless" economic recovery in the United States. Productivity growth has outstripped production by a percentage point, so while GDP goes up, employment does not. And that's just due to increased efficiency from the application of information technology.

RE: Robotic Nation, by Marshall Brain