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I'm not out to score debate points. I'm out to say this oft-repeated sentiment is trivially incorrect. While there are a range of activities which can be perf
by waterlesscloud 13y ago
I'm not out to score debate points.
I'm out to say this oft-repeated sentiment is trivially incorrect.
While there are a range of activities which can be performed better by machines than humans, there is still a very wide range of actions that can't be performed better by machines. One would expect technologists to understand this better than anyone.
But the crucial thing here is that a given human is capable of a much wider range of actions than a given machine. True, this can be made up for to an extent by using a wide variety of machines. Though at some point the weight of said machines will outweigh the human and their required support systems. And even then, those machines will be limited to a small subset of actions that the human can take.
So what do humans have that machines don't? Versatility.
PS- If I wanted to score points, I'd say he said "absolutely nothing", which overstates his case and makes your response invalid.
- tptacek 13y agoWhich actions would those be?
- waterlesscloud 13y agoAnything that requires a versatile response or independent judgment.
- Dylan16807 13y agoSure, for missions that aren't performed within a light-second of Earth. So far we have sent a total of zero humans far enough away to take advantage of their superior reasoning capabilities.
- leoc 13y agoThat's a very generous threshold for usefulness. For difficult interactive tasks—like, perhaps, performing fiddly repair work on a $2.5bn+ satellite—there is clearly some advantage to not having a ping of 2000 or even 350.
- Dylan16807 13y agoThe human mind has a pretty awful ping time, and there's no reason not to take things slow in microgravity.
- leoc 13y ago> The human mind has a pretty awful ping time But unless the repair is going to be conducted by an AI—highly unlikely in the foreseeable future—then this is moot, as there will be a human brain in the loop in either case.
- Dylan16807 13y agoIt's not moot. A high fixed latency from involving humans makes it far less useful to reduce the control latency by a quarter of a second.
- tptacek 13y agoCould you provide a couple specific examples of tasks which fit the bill, that can't be accomplished effectively by unmanned missions?
- waterlesscloud 13y agoIs there really nothing you can't imagine humans doing better than machines? Seriously?
- tptacek 13y agoCould you perhaps identify a single important task that we'd want to do in space that can't effectively be done by machines?
- waterlesscloud 13y agoYes, and so could you if you weren't more interested in arguing.
- lutusp 13y ago> Could you perhaps identify a single important task that we'd want to do in space that can't effectively be done by machines? I certainly can -- appeal to voters. If space programs didn't have to appeal to voters to get funded, we could do away with manned programs entirely, and good riddance. It's said that an equivalent unmanned program costs just 10% of a manned one. -- former NASA engineer.
- WalterBright 13y agoLearn how humans react to space and how to build working environments to people in space.