4 ms·

> I can't fathom a situation where we want to automate what should be human interactions. Really? You'd rather call the taxi company and make an appointment wi

by darawk 8y ago

> I can't fathom a situation where we want to automate what should be human interactions. Really? You'd rather call the taxi company and make an appointment with a person than use Uber? You'd rather ask a librarian to do your google searches for you?

tylerhou 8y ago
He said "we shouldn't automate what we shouldn't automate", not "we shouldn't automate anything."
- darawk 8y ago
  Yes, which is a pointless tautology.
  - tylerhou 8y ago
    Okay, but then your response is just as pointless as his tautology.
    - darawk 8y ago
      My point is that "should be human interactions" is a meaningless standard. The only way it could be meaningful is if it meant "anything that used to involve human interaction, and now doesn't". I was rebutting that interpretation of it, which seemed to me to be what the OP was implying.
      - candu 8y ago
        They provided a pretty clear example: actually talking to children is important to develop socialization and maturity (read: executive function). This is one area where machines absolutely cannot do the job anywhere near equally well - i.e., something that should involve human interaction.
        darawk 8y ago
        > This is one area where machines absolutely cannot do the job anywhere near equally well Citation needed. You're neglecting the fact that there are millions of under-interacted kids in the world. Providing a cheap source of interaction for them could be extremely valuable. Just saying "their parents/teachers/whoever should do it" does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Building them a robot does.
      - quadrangle 8y ago
        [note: this is my first post on the thread] > "should be human interactions" is a meaningless standard What irony! The entire concept is that there is a place for real human judgments and not just rigid programs/rules! What "should be human interactions" is not meaningless. It means: there should be humans judging what should be left to human judgment. It's an assertion that there ARE things that shouldn't be just standards we blindly follow. It wasn't saying any human interaction automatically matters. Tasks where a human would just follow rigid protocol are ones that should be automated…
        darawk 8y ago
        > What "should be human interactions" is not meaningless. It means: there should be humans judging what should be left to human judgment. It's an assertion that there ARE things that shouldn't be just standards we blindly follow. You mean...humans like the humans who decided to buy this software? Presumably you don't just mean 'humans'. You mean the 'right' humans. But which humans are those? Who decides which ones the right humans are? It's just a circular argument that reduces to "humans should do human stuff", unless you want to actually articulate a standard, but you have definitely not done that yet.
        quadrangle 8y ago
        > Presumably you don't just mean 'humans' Bad presumption. The argument is about the difference between humans versus computer programs. Whichever case, I want the 'right' ones (i.e. the best ones doing good not evil), so the 'right' ones isn't the differentiation here. Whatever the argument is, there's an argument that having real people instead of programs matters for some things. And the standard we can use is something like "the things where they aren't interchangeable" at least (although others may have other qualities to emphasize). So, a person who literally just does the exact same thing a program can do can be replaced by the program. For example, data entry. A person who cannot be duplicated nearly exactly by a program is where we want to be careful about considering keeping the human position around. For example, teachers. I heard a quip that computers are passing the Turing Test more these days… but not just because they are getting more sophisticated — human beings are failing the test more (are acting more like computer programs). The point being that "human interactions" in the argument here implies humans engaged in natural human thought and intuitions and communication and not just following protocol so rigidly that they effectively are just carrying out program instructions.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Tautology yes - pointless - perhaps not. It points out that there are many things which are automatable, but that the capability to automate things cannot be the decision driver of whether things should be automated. At one end of the scale, ATMs replacing some bank tellers seems to have been widely accepted as OK. In the middle, self serve supermarket checkouts (here in .au at least) are saving staff costs for the supermarkets with the side effect of pushing shoplifting prevention and enforcement costs off to the local police instead of supermarket staff, which is not such a great automation outcome (unless you're the manager who got the bonus for reducing headcount costs at the supermarket). At the end alluded to in the discussion of this article, I think it's pretty clear that attempts to automate discipline of children is an abhorrent idea.
haskellandchill 8y ago
Honestly if things keep trending this way, I would. Assuming I have a choice which it seems I don’t. Luckily as the other commentator pointed out it is not an either or decision.
paganel 8y ago
> You'd rather call the taxi company and make an appointment with a person than use Uber? Not the OP, but yes, I actually do that, I mean, I've avoided installing an extra app that would track my every move (the Uber app) and I prefer calling the taxi company on the phone. I also very frequently take random taxis from street corners or the like.
- darawk 8y ago
  What do you feel this affords you?
  - paganel 8y ago
    In case yours was a serious question: human interaction (actually talking with a human on the phone), not giving my CC details to yet another company, like I said, not being tracked by the same company (which was caught doing some pretty not-cool stuff).
    - gowld 8y ago
      Why isn't using an app a human interaction? Just like a phone call, it's a communication mediated by technology, not a direct contact.
      - paganel 8y ago
        Because there's no human voice at the other end of the communication channel...? I mean, I don't want to sound rude or anything, but isn't that obvious? Am I already in the wrong demographic because of my age (late 30s)? Do people nowadays equate using a phone app with genuine human interaction?
        dual_basis 8y ago
        "Yeah, and nobody writes letters anymore!" - Grandpa "Are you kidding? Too many people write things down, it causes forgetfulness." - Socrates I don't see what value a 2 minute conversation with a human who is essentially following a script and pressing the same buttons on their end that you could have pushed on yours has. Despite the audio portion of the human's voice, this is still an extremely shallow form of human interaction. You are better off saving the time and having a more meaningful connection with someone else later.
gorpomon 8y ago
No need to get into it online. Simply put there are situations that can be successfully automated, like hailing taxis. There are also situations where we automate them to our detriment, like in this case. Also, yes! I would ask a librarian to search for me! Librarians are AWESOME and can find things in places you didn't think to look. Everyone should ask a librarian in addition to doing their own Google search.

by darawk 8y ago

tylerhou 8y ago

He said "we shouldn't automate what we shouldn't automate", not "we shouldn't automate anything."

darawk 8y ago
Yes, which is a pointless tautology.
- tylerhou 8y ago
  Okay, but then your response is just as pointless as his tautology.
  - darawk 8y ago
    My point is that "should be human interactions" is a meaningless standard. The only way it could be meaningful is if it meant "anything that used to involve human interaction, and now doesn't". I was rebutting that interpretation of it, which seemed to me to be what the OP was implying.
    - candu 8y ago
      They provided a pretty clear example: actually talking to children is important to develop socialization and maturity (read: executive function). This is one area where machines absolutely cannot do the job anywhere near equally well - i.e., something that should involve human interaction.
      - darawk 8y ago
        > This is one area where machines absolutely cannot do the job anywhere near equally well Citation needed. You're neglecting the fact that there are millions of under-interacted kids in the world. Providing a cheap source of interaction for them could be extremely valuable. Just saying "their parents/teachers/whoever should do it" does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Building them a robot does.
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      [note: this is my first post on the thread] > "should be human interactions" is a meaningless standard What irony! The entire concept is that there is a place for real human judgments and not just rigid programs/rules! What "should be human interactions" is not meaningless. It means: there should be humans judging what should be left to human judgment. It's an assertion that there ARE things that shouldn't be just standards we blindly follow. It wasn't saying any human interaction automatically matters. Tasks where a human would just follow rigid protocol are ones that should be automated…
      - darawk 8y ago
        > What "should be human interactions" is not meaningless. It means: there should be humans judging what should be left to human judgment. It's an assertion that there ARE things that shouldn't be just standards we blindly follow. You mean...humans like the humans who decided to buy this software? Presumably you don't just mean 'humans'. You mean the 'right' humans. But which humans are those? Who decides which ones the right humans are? It's just a circular argument that reduces to "humans should do human stuff", unless you want to actually articulate a standard, but you have definitely not done that yet.
        quadrangle 8y ago
        > Presumably you don't just mean 'humans' Bad presumption. The argument is about the difference between humans versus computer programs. Whichever case, I want the 'right' ones (i.e. the best ones doing good not evil), so the 'right' ones isn't the differentiation here. Whatever the argument is, there's an argument that having real people instead of programs matters for some things. And the standard we can use is something like "the things where they aren't interchangeable" at least (although others may have other qualities to emphasize). So, a person who literally just does the exact same thing a program can do can be replaced by the program. For example, data entry. A person who cannot be duplicated nearly exactly by a program is where we want to be careful about considering keeping the human position around. For example, teachers. I heard a quip that computers are passing the Turing Test more these days… but not just because they are getting more sophisticated — human beings are failing the test more (are acting more like computer programs). The point being that "human interactions" in the argument here implies humans engaged in natural human thought and intuitions and communication and not just following protocol so rigidly that they effectively are just carrying out program instructions.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Tautology yes - pointless - perhaps not. It points out that there are many things which are automatable, but that the capability to automate things cannot be the decision driver of whether things should be automated. At one end of the scale, ATMs replacing some bank tellers seems to have been widely accepted as OK. In the middle, self serve supermarket checkouts (here in .au at least) are saving staff costs for the supermarkets with the side effect of pushing shoplifting prevention and enforcement costs off to the local police instead of supermarket staff, which is not such a great automation outcome (unless you're the manager who got the bonus for reducing headcount costs at the supermarket). At the end alluded to in the discussion of this article, I think it's pretty clear that attempts to automate discipline of children is an abhorrent idea.

haskellandchill 8y ago

Honestly if things keep trending this way, I would. Assuming I have a choice which it seems I don’t. Luckily as the other commentator pointed out it is not an either or decision.

paganel 8y ago

> You'd rather call the taxi company and make an appointment with a person than use Uber? Not the OP, but yes, I actually do that, I mean, I've avoided installing an extra app that would track my every move (the Uber app) and I prefer calling the taxi company on the phone. I also very frequently take random taxis from street corners or the like.

darawk 8y ago
What do you feel this affords you?
- paganel 8y ago
  In case yours was a serious question: human interaction (actually talking with a human on the phone), not giving my CC details to yet another company, like I said, not being tracked by the same company (which was caught doing some pretty not-cool stuff).
  - gowld 8y ago
    Why isn't using an app a human interaction? Just like a phone call, it's a communication mediated by technology, not a direct contact.
    - paganel 8y ago
      Because there's no human voice at the other end of the communication channel...? I mean, I don't want to sound rude or anything, but isn't that obvious? Am I already in the wrong demographic because of my age (late 30s)? Do people nowadays equate using a phone app with genuine human interaction?
      - dual_basis 8y ago
        "Yeah, and nobody writes letters anymore!" - Grandpa "Are you kidding? Too many people write things down, it causes forgetfulness." - Socrates I don't see what value a 2 minute conversation with a human who is essentially following a script and pressing the same buttons on their end that you could have pushed on yours has. Despite the audio portion of the human's voice, this is still an extremely shallow form of human interaction. You are better off saving the time and having a more meaningful connection with someone else later.

gorpomon 8y ago

No need to get into it online. Simply put there are situations that can be successfully automated, like hailing taxis. There are also situations where we automate them to our detriment, like in this case. Also, yes! I would ask a librarian to search for me! Librarians are AWESOME and can find things in places you didn't think to look. Everyone should ask a librarian in addition to doing their own Google search.