3 ms·

How can we all own a robotic workforce?

1 points by grej 13y ago

11thEarlOfMar 13y ago
Let's first differentiate robotics versus automation. A conveyor belt is a form of automation. So are the 'robots' that pick up auto parts and place them into position so other 'robots' can weld them. These devices are specifically designed to perform repetitive movements, handling a payload or stamping a label, or folding a box. They operate with a defined set of repeating actions. They constitute automation, not robotics. Robots are devices that respond to input from unstructured events in an open environment. They must have some amount of interpretive logic that takes input from a variety of sensors and chooses a response. The state of the input may not have a matching defined response in the robot's control software, but the robot needs to make a guess or perhaps learn with repeated trials over time. Automation in manufacturing has been with us for a century or so and its effects have made more and more sophisticated material possessions available to larger and larger markets. More part content, more sophisticated parts, lower and lower cost, more features and therefore, more value to the buyer. Or, in another vein, more food available to more people, better sorted, safer, more consistent quality and attributes. Automation does reduce the human labor content in the goods we purchase, but at the same time, it reduces the cost of those goods so that more units are sold and more people can afford them. Less human labor per item, but many more items. Robots and robotics are still decades away from actually supplanting humans as free-roaming servants that could make workers obsolete. True AI is still very expensive to produce. The variability of an open environment and the myriad events that can occur make the response options too numerous for software to efficiently handle. Researchers remain encouraged, but they have been so for 50 years. Our brains still outperform AI by a wide margin and that margin has to be substantially reduced before any of us are replaced. Automation does displace work. But it also makes more sophisticated goods available to more people. So the conversation should be about how to manage the job displacement and transition workers from one vocation to another within a nation or region. Select a broad enough region and you'll find the jobs created roughly equate to the jobs lost. Manufacturing jobs in the rust belt become customer service centers in the plains States or software development jobs in The Valley. The net of the two is the unemployment rate. My theory, entirely borne of intuition, is that in a capitalist economy, innovation resolves unemployment.
- grej 13y ago
  I think you are right and agree with you over a large enough time span. I think the challenge of the next 2 decades is going to be that the speed of the change will be so fast that it will displace multiple large sectors of the economy simultaneously. Eventually (hopefully) the economy and society will adjust to the disruption, but in the near term, it could result in a great deal of social unrest.

1 points by grej 13y ago

Let's first differentiate robotics versus automation. A conveyor belt is a form of automation. So are the 'robots' that pick up auto parts and place them into position so other 'robots' can weld them. These devices are specifically designed to perform repetitive movements, handling a payload or stamping a label, or folding a box. They operate with a defined set of repeating actions. They constitute automation, not robotics. Robots are devices that respond to input from unstructured events in an open environment. They must have some amount of interpretive logic that takes input from a variety of sensors and chooses a response. The state of the input may not have a matching defined response in the robot's control software, but the robot needs to make a guess or perhaps learn with repeated trials over time. Automation in manufacturing has been with us for a century or so and its effects have made more and more sophisticated material possessions available to larger and larger markets. More part content, more sophisticated parts, lower and lower cost, more features and therefore, more value to the buyer. Or, in another vein, more food available to more people, better sorted, safer, more consistent quality and attributes. Automation does reduce the human labor content in the goods we purchase, but at the same time, it reduces the cost of those goods so that more units are sold and more people can afford them. Less human labor per item, but many more items. Robots and robotics are still decades away from actually supplanting humans as free-roaming servants that could make workers obsolete. True AI is still very expensive to produce. The variability of an open environment and the myriad events that can occur make the response options too numerous for software to efficiently handle. Researchers remain encouraged, but they have been so for 50 years. Our brains still outperform AI by a wide margin and that margin has to be substantially reduced before any of us are replaced. Automation does displace work. But it also makes more sophisticated goods available to more people. So the conversation should be about how to manage the job displacement and transition workers from one vocation to another within a nation or region. Select a broad enough region and you'll find the jobs created roughly equate to the jobs lost. Manufacturing jobs in the rust belt become customer service centers in the plains States or software development jobs in The Valley. The net of the two is the unemployment rate. My theory, entirely borne of intuition, is that in a capitalist economy, innovation resolves unemployment.

grej 13y ago
I think you are right and agree with you over a large enough time span. I think the challenge of the next 2 decades is going to be that the speed of the change will be so fast that it will displace multiple large sectors of the economy simultaneously. Eventually (hopefully) the economy and society will adjust to the disruption, but in the near term, it could result in a great deal of social unrest.