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Anyone who thinks robots haven't taken over hasn't been paying much attention. The major difference is that, factory automation aside, they don't look like rob
by jaggederest 9y ago
Anyone who thinks robots haven't taken over hasn't been paying much attention.
The major difference is that, factory automation aside, they don't look like robots. They look like the normal everyday items that they replaced, except they are imbued with more intelligence.
Take, for example, modern cars. They're really as much software as hardware these days. Networked processors talking to each other via CAN bus. Just because they're driveable robots doesn't mean they're not robots.
That's leaving aside the other issue, which is that it turns out it's much easier to automate non-physical processes.
- baddox 9y agoYou focused on explaining how many everyday objects could be described as robots, but you left out any discussion of the phrase "taken over."
- jaggederest 9y agoI mean it simply, many of our major life activities are now intermediated by robots. Logistics, manufacturing, farming, transportation, media and entertainment, etc. How long has it been since most people have hand-written a letter?
- Retra 9y agoI feel like people are confusing the meaning of "taken over" because it means both "outnumbers" and "controls". Electronic messages outnumber paper letters, but humans still control both.
- jaggederest 9y agoWell, I mean it in the sense that, if you turned off all of the microprocessors, what would still function? Almost nothing. Ergo everything that would die is "taken over" fully by automation, in a way that should concern people but not terrify them.
- austinjp 9y agoWhen I stay in a hotel, the receptionist's job is to stand nearby while I type my reservation details into a panel. When I pay at the supermarket, the checkout person's job is to stand nearby in case I have trouble with the self-checkout machine. When I walk through the gates on the metro, the assistant's job is to stand nearby in case the tap-to-pay machine malfunctions. When I stand on the rail platform, I grit my teeth when the automated tannoy announces "sincere apologies" for the late running service. When I take delivery of mail, the delivery guy's job is to beep the barcode and take my signature on a touchscreen. When I get an Uber, I wonder if the driver is aware that we are both helping Uber build the databases intended to power their driverless cars. Robots can help or hinder, but it is their owners who are steadily depersonalising our daily experiences, particularly for city dwellers. They are determined to de-skill the remaining human workforce in pursuit of ever tighter margins. This will continue until the humans are so obviously obsolete that it becomes literally unimaginable that such roles should continue.
- goatlover 9y agoThe robots are our tools. Taking over would imply that humans no longer work or make the important decisions. That the machines are running society, instead of just being tools we humans use to run society. That's a fundamental difference.
- jaggederest 9y agoMy definition is essentially "Can humans still operate the system without sophisticated microprocessors?" and the answer for all the things I listed is no. Don't be confused: Society is as much run by the machines as society runs the machines. People do not recognize this, for precisely the same reason you're disputing me: It seems like humans are fully in control. We lack all but the grossest influence over most of the fully automated systems - we can pull the plug, but we can never go back to non-automated from where we are today. Complex systems are chaotic and rapidly exceed the capabilities of humans to understand and control.
- goatlover 9y agoIf humans disappeared tomorrow, like with the book Aftermath: Population Zero or the Life After People show, then all our machines and civilization stop working and begin to fall apart soon after (Las Vegas might stay powered for 2 years before the Hoover Dam pipes clogged up and satellites longer). If something changed the physics of our planet so that all modern technology stopped working, such as in the Dies the Fire book, then although most humans would starve, the survivors would start over with a medieval society (plus being able to use the scraps from modern world). That's the fundamental difference. A world run by machines could exist after us and continue or build it's own civilization, which presumably Skynet would be able to do if it had won. The Matrix is more mixed, because the machines need humans to satisfy a lot of their power needs.