Author Topic: Robots and their impact on the future  (Read 537989 times)

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1600 on: January 06, 2018, 02:46:46 PM »
I think the US needs to get ahead of the curve here and send an ambassador to the machine nation of Zero One to maintain good diplomatic relations. That way, Americans can avoid ended up plugged into the Matrix.

maizefolk

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1601 on: January 06, 2018, 03:15:27 PM »
The amish are an interesting case. There are some commonalities with MMMers, such as relatively high savings rates used to accumulate capital,* a dramatic reduction in spending on consumer goods and a strong emphasis on DIY. Basically they're using a lot of the same strategies we use to reduce living expenses, except while we're using that to be able hit FI and remove the necessity for work in a matter of years and they're using it to be able to compensate for having per worker productivity comparable to the 1800s.

Since a lot of the strategies from the forum are already "used up" I imagine it would be significantly harder for a person living an amish lifestyle to accumulate enough assets/capital to become financially independent. Similarly, in a hypothetical future 50 years from now where only 60% of people can find productive work in mainstream society, it doesn't some implausible some people split off to create communities based on only employing tech developed by the year 2000 (for example), but I would imagine people in those communities would face a lot of the same challenges if they wanted to achieve FIRE as an amish person would today.

*Stocks and/or houses for us, farm land and labor intensive small businesses for the amish.

Just Joe

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1602 on: January 08, 2018, 01:18:30 PM »
I don't know. I look around at the world via TV and YouTube and in poor countries people don't do anything particularly creative, they just live in shacks and exist in poverty. Some turn to crime. Ignorance takes root.

I'd like to think all sorts of cooperatives would spring up among the unemployed but it seems alot of people turn to their more baser ideas about getting ahead of the other guy (crabs in a bucket mentality) rather than cooperating to get ahead together. Or they expend alot of energy via religious organizations wishing something was different.

I think the Amish model of hard work and planning is something to be learned from. I don't think it is universally perfect (lots of social imperfections) but still worth consideration. Ain't nobody going to tell me to wear a beard or reject our kids b/c they didn't do as an elder said to.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2018, 01:22:33 PM by Just Joe »

Bakari

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1603 on: January 23, 2018, 03:16:05 PM »
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-store/amazons-automated-grocery-store-of-the-future-opens-monday-idUSKBN1FA0RL

Quote
Amazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores.

Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, created an automated checkout process, but it has no plans to combine the two.  Sure.

No formal, written plans, with a proposed date of test or roll-out, or specific mechanism of implementation. 
That's probably entirely true!
Its not a guarantee that they won't even do it.
(Where "ever" could mean any length of time)

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1604 on: January 23, 2018, 05:07:58 PM »
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-ceo-hopes-self-driving-134911610.html

"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,

The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.

That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."


"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."

In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!!  Crazy stuff.  He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated.  Pretty crazy times ahead.



lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1605 on: January 23, 2018, 08:08:54 PM »
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-ceo-hopes-self-driving-134911610.html

"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,

The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.

That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."


"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."

In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!!  Crazy stuff.  He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated.  Pretty crazy times ahead.
A few topics including self driving cars discussed here along with some predictions on timelines (scroll down if you just want to see the predictions rather than read it all). I don't have a strong opinion but there will be so many problematic edge cases to successful autonomous vehicles that I'm a bit bearish (as is the linked post) on speed of deployment and the Uber roadmap hints at that as well.

TempusFugit

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1606 on: January 24, 2018, 04:40:03 PM »
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/uber-ceo-hopes-self-driving-134911610.html

"True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away," Khosrowshahi began,

The Uber CEO described how in, for example, Phoenix, there will be 95% of cases where the company may not have everything mapped perfectly, or the weather might not be perfect, or there could be other factors that will mean Uber will opt to send a driver. "But in 5 percent of cases, we'll send an autonomous car," Khosrowshahi said, when everything's just right, and still the user will be able to choose whether they get an AV or a regular car.

That initial 5 percent is going to grow to 10, to 15 and 20 as Uber's algorithms learn more about what it takes to drive in a real-world situation, he said, and then "in five years, we will have the perfect driver in Phoenix."


"Asked whether child born today would even have to learn how to drive, Khosrowshahi confidently said he didn't believe they would."

In technology, when they are talking about some ways away, they are talking about in five years!!  Crazy stuff.  He is pretty much acknowledging that children born today, will not learn how to drive. So within 16 years he believe that all vehicles will be automated.  Pretty crazy times ahead.
A few topics including self driving cars discussed here along with some predictions on timelines (scroll down if you just want to see the predictions rather than read it all). I don't have a strong opinion but there will be so many problematic edge cases to successful autonomous vehicles that I'm a bit bearish (as is the linked post) on speed of deployment and the Uber roadmap hints at that as well.

80% of the work will be for 20% of the circumstances - the edge cases.  All the talk about how many millions of miles autonomous cars have driven is a bit misleading when a majority of those miles are the same few miles that have been mapped to the centimeter and driven over and over.  I think the curve is going to flatten as they handle all the low hanging fruit and have to deal with the unexpected. 

It's amazing how well the human brain adapts to do something quite complicated like drive a car.  We put teenagers with mobile phones and stereos (and friends) in these things and most manage to survive with only minor incidents.  Since we all (most of us anyway) have learned to do it so well that it's mostly subconscious/habit/reflex, it seems kind of simple, when it really isn't.  In the farther future, when all vehicles are autonomous, it will be easier with every vehicle communicating and coordinating with the others, but that transition when there is a mix of humans and machines I think will be the hard part.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2018, 04:41:50 PM by TempusFugit »

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1607 on: January 26, 2018, 02:24:10 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0


it will be much before 16 years that we hit that tipping point this video is pretty good at detailing the why and how with some data.

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1608 on: January 26, 2018, 02:31:08 PM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

davisgang90

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1609 on: January 26, 2018, 05:34:15 PM »
Might be on interest to this group.

Reading a fun book: Infinity Born by Douglas E. Richards.

Its a scifi thriller set in the near future and covers a lot of ground, AI, uploading consciousness, gene splicing.

Its been a fun read so far.

Since I lead an industry study on Robotics and Autonomous Systems, I especially enjoy his ideas on how to build an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and what the trip from AGI to ASI (Super Intelligence) could look like.  His view is pretty scary.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1610 on: January 26, 2018, 09:05:00 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0


it will be much before 16 years that we hit that tipping point this video is pretty good at detailing the why and how with some data.
The video was rather good, thanks for sharing. If he is half right about his batteries + solar prediction, a lot of annoying problems go away pretty quickly; it's good to hear an optimistic view like this now and then.

The problem I have with his description of enabling technology for pooled autonomous EVs is his arm-waving with respect to deep learning neatly solving all the problem of adequately controlling the vehicles, though perhaps the early and very limited tests of autonomous vehicles are showing more promising results than the more mixed results I've happened to hear about. Also not considered is the lead time on the appropriate regulatory and legal framework for operating autonomous vehicles at scale in a city or on major highways.

He is also a bit uncritically accepting of some of Tesla's milestone timelines (Musk time is not ordinary time: how overdue is falcon heavy, and the Model 3?).

Finally, I wonder if Seba has taken any short positions in either oil extraction companies or non EV-focused auto manufacturers.

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1611 on: January 27, 2018, 07:01:44 AM »
Gm already has an application in with nhtsa for it's not human controls cars.

The battery and solar thing is a much longer shot than the cars. That tech is here and Tesla doesn't really matter GM already knows how to mass build cars. And if we need 40% less then we won't need them both to succeed.

Even if he's half right by 2040 we no longer own cars.

Bateaux

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1612 on: January 27, 2018, 11:45:56 AM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee.   It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home.  It took 12 hours of driving to get there.  The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge.   The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site.  It would have been an enery cost free trip for us.   I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback.   Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice.  It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring.   I'd love a self driving car.  I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also.  I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.     
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful.  Either we perfect it or someone else will.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2018, 11:47:32 AM by Bateaux »

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1613 on: January 29, 2018, 11:52:14 AM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee.   It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home.  It took 12 hours of driving to get there.  The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge.   The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site.  It would have been an enery cost free trip for us.   I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback.   Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice.  It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring.   I'd love a self driving car.  I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also.  I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.     
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful.  Either we perfect it or someone else will.

its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.

toganet

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1614 on: January 29, 2018, 01:29:24 PM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee.   It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home.  It took 12 hours of driving to get there.  The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge.   The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site.  It would have been an enery cost free trip for us.   I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback.   Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice.  It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring.   I'd love a self driving car.  I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also.  I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.     
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful.  Either we perfect it or someone else will.

its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.

+1 super excited.

When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life.  Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical.  I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph).  But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.

My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety. 

That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1615 on: January 29, 2018, 01:56:35 PM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee.   It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home.  It took 12 hours of driving to get there.  The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge.   The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site.  It would have been an enery cost free trip for us.   I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback.   Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice.  It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring.   I'd love a self driving car.  I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also.  I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.     
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful.  Either we perfect it or someone else will.

its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.

+1 super excited.

When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life.  Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical.  I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph).  But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.

My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety. 

That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.

i think we're looking at a very small 2-3 year window where this state may exist before all high speed travel is by autonomous car ie you cant get on the interstate under human control.

toganet

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1616 on: January 30, 2018, 08:12:44 AM »
GM will have cars with out human controls on the road in test markets in 2019 i think the future is coming faster than most people think - the tech curve is exponential and we're just at the tipping point of the up trend.

I just took a road trip with my wife to the mountains in Tennessee.   It was 600 miles from our Louisiana home.  It took 12 hours of driving to get there.  The Tesla Roadster could complete the journey on a single charge.   The resort we stayed at had two free chargers on site.  It would have been an enery cost free trip for us.   I stopped for fuel 5 times round trip in our gasoline Subaru Outback.   Our Eyesight system on board the Subaru is nice.  It won't self steer but it does have adaptive speed control and lane monitoring.   I'd love a self driving car.  I'd love to see self driving Uber like services also.  I'm a hiker and getting a trail shuttle can be difficult.     
The technology cannot be disinvented and is only getting more powerful.  Either we perfect it or someone else will.

its going to be an awesome next few years watching this unfold.

+1 super excited.

When I think about things I do day-to-day, driving a car at 80 mph on a high way is by far the riskiest thing I do in my life.  Realize the probabilities of accidents are still absolutely low but relative to everything else I do they're astronomical.  I do my very best to work remote or take surface streets (where I'm going a more human 30/40 mph).  But, very excited, to take the steering wheel out of human hands.

My fear is that there is an inverse relationship between willingness to embrace autonomous vehicles and driving ability, leading to a temporary worsening in road safety. 

That is, cautious, experienced, defensive drivers will be more likely to see the benefits of mature autonomous vehicles, and remove themselves from the driving population, leaving the reckless, inexperienced, aggressive drivers on the road with the (still maturing) autonomous vehicles, making their maturation process more difficult.

i think we're looking at a very small 2-3 year window where this state may exist before all high speed travel is by autonomous car ie you cant get on the interstate under human control.

I also hope this is a short, intermediate window.

I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy.  I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up).  Population density is very low.  It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc.  Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more.  My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles.  At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.

Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough.  Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well.  Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.

So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.

robartsd

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1617 on: January 30, 2018, 09:59:25 AM »
I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy.  I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up).  Population density is very low.  It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc.  Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more.  My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles.  At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.

Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough.  Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well.  Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.

So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.
I also think the transition will be long. I could see various government (access to restricted lanes, tax breaks) and insurance company (reduced premiums) incentives that tip the scales pretty quickly towards all/most new cars having the technology (or even regulations mandating the technology in all new cars); but it will take quite a while to phase out existing human driven cars.

edgema

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1618 on: January 30, 2018, 10:00:42 AM »
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.

1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined. 
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.

On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;

1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.     
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.

I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.

Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......

I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.

dougules

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1619 on: January 30, 2018, 10:31:48 AM »
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.

1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined. 
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.

On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;

1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.     
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.

I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.

Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......

I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.

At least on the question about the present, my guess is that it's economic recovery.  Productivity actually goes up in a recession because the least productive people are no longer putting hours into the equation.  Now that employment is tightening, all the least productive people are getting pulled back in which makes the line look flatter than it actually is. 

I don't know what the future holds in how our economic system will change with automation, but it is interesting how artisanal products have boomed.  I don't think that's coincidence. 

toganet

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1620 on: January 30, 2018, 10:38:21 AM »
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.

1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined. 
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.

On point 1) the best I can come up with is that more and more of us have ridiculous 'buls**t' jobs (to coin the phrase) spent pushing paper / attending meetings / Facebooking / posting on MMM rather than actually doing anything genuinely productive. On point 2) the best I can come up with are the options of;

1) Some sort of Utopian vision where we enter a semi-post-work era with some sort of guaranteed income so we can buy the goods and services.     
2) Some nasty vision of further dramatic increases wealth inequality where concentration of wealth has a few million billionaires consuming almost everything (i.e the robots make one $10m supercars rather than thousands of Fords). The rest of us are in slums.

I think 2) is not likely as you would have a revolution and 1) is, well, too Utopian as it doesn't allow for the fact that we monkeys want to financially outshine our neighbours, on the whole.

Maybe we don't have some thunderous change in the aggregate but a managed muddle through where we create more 'bulls**t' paper pushing jobs while the machines get on with making stuff. p.s. I am in one of the paper pushing jobs which probably doesn't need to exist. Others know who they are......

I mean, in the micro I get that technology should mean that (to pick transport as an example) there are no truck drivers, cab drivers, delivery van drivers, pilots, etc, but I cannot square that micro with the macro earthquake of that at a societal level.

I will add the tinfoil hat answer for #2.  (Disclaimer, I am simply repeating what I've heard/read elsewhere, impossible to know if anyone actually believes this).

"These changes are all part of a plan to build robots/AI that can do everything that we do ("we" here referring to wage-earning folks).  Once the Elites have their self-driving cars, robot restaurants, automatic factories, and robotic sex slaves they won't have any need for us, and will use their power to eliminate us -- probably via some worldwide flu pandemic or blah blah blah chemtrails yada yada black helicopters."

I'm mocking this theory, obviously -- but I think it reveals the real fear behind the changes already underway to the way people work (or don't) and how their identity is associated with that.  In America in particular we have upheld Work as the primary measure of self-worth, and material achievement as the scorecard of success.  If we hope to have any sort of functioning society in a future where work is almost exclusively done by machines, we need to be talking about this.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1621 on: January 30, 2018, 10:40:44 AM »
I would be interested to hear peoples views on two conundrums which I cannot find a solution for on the treat/opportunity of robots/automation.

Edgema, you might enjoy reading all ~1600 posts in this thread from the beginning.  The questions you've posed have been discussed at some length here already.

Quote
1) Present day - If automation/robots are making things so much more efficient, why have productivity numbers flat-lined.

The short answer here, IMO, is that "productivity" is only loosely correlated with the number of people working, or how much they work.  It's an economic term measured in economic output, which means it is controlled by economic forces.  We are more "productive" when we "consume" more, not when we "work" more.
 
So yes, bullshit paper pushing jobs are one way to do that.  Those consumer labor.  Also blowing shit up works really well, because "consuming" and "destroying" aren't really very different.  Consider how rapidly economies boom in places like Japan after a major earthquake.  All that cleanup and construction work generates economic producyivity, though I think it's clear that a devastating earthquake is a net loss for the world.  Funny, isn't it, how wanton waste suddenly generates apparent prosperity?  Why is that?

Quote
2) Future - If however many billions of people are going to be out of work because the robots have taken 'pick your percentage' of jobs, who exactly is buying the goods and services that the robots are creating.

This question is why so many participants in this thread support a UBI.  Seriously, go read it.  Lots of smart people here.  Some great links, too.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1622 on: January 30, 2018, 12:59:20 PM »
I may have said this before, but I am skeptical of this ever being the "always everywhere" state of things, even with mature autonomy.  I'm thinking of this from the point of view of rural America (where I grew up).  Population density is very low.  It is typical to drive 20-40 miles to work, grocery store, etc.  Getting to the interstate is 15 miles of two-lane roads, or more.  My intuition is that the number of driverless vehicles needed to meet demand here would approach the current number of traditional vehicles.  At that point, the added value of AI-driven vehicles might be hard to quantify -- or at least to sell to a very conservative market.

Mandates from government (or more likely, insurance companies) might tip it towards the robots, but I'm not sure it would be enough.  Driverless vehicles would probably need to be cheaper, as well.  Average vehicle age skews "rusted and busted" in those parts, too.

So maybe not never, but I'm betting much slower uptake.
I also think the transition will be long. I could see various government (access to restricted lanes, tax breaks) and insurance company (reduced premiums) incentives that tip the scales pretty quickly towards all/most new cars having the technology (or even regulations mandating the technology in all new cars); but it will take quite a while to phase out existing human driven cars.

not when you need way way less total cars - current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road.  make it 80 and you're at 1/20th

rural or not most of those cars are still just sitting most of the time. 

there are 263MM cars in the US we utilize these at a rate of 4% so 100% utilization would mean we'd only need 9.44MM cars if we utilze those at 40% we'd need 23.6MM cars the US consumers buy 6.3MM cars a year so it woud take 4 years if companies put the new cars into service at the same rate we currently purchase cars. 

sol

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1623 on: January 30, 2018, 01:33:44 PM »
current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road.  make it 80 and you're at 1/20th

One minor point of contention:  in practice this doesn't scale linearly.  It's not like we use only use 4% of every car at all times, we use more like 40% during the commuting rush hours and almost zero at 2am on a random Wednesday.  And taxi cabs still spend a lot more time in traffic than they do with a passenger in them, because they have to get from wherever they are to wherever they're needed.  They sometimes have to drive empty, and autonomous cars will too.

It's a valid point in theory, and I agree that automated subscription-based chauffeur services, if widely adopted, will be a) cheaper than owning a private vehicle for most people, and b) a huge reduction in the number of total cars sold. 

I'm much less convinced that it will also result in such a large reduction in the number of cars on the road at any given moment.  That's determined by how many people need to take trips right now, not how many cars are available sitting in garages.  I might even argue that the relative ease of cheap-as-free summoning an autonomous electric taxi might even increase the total number of miles driven, as people may be less efficient with their car usage if they're not paying for the gas/maintenance/attention required to actually drive them themselves, aka the Jevons Paradox.


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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1624 on: January 30, 2018, 01:40:05 PM »
current auto utilization is 4% per car - if we increase that to 40% you need 1/10th the number of cars on the road.  make it 80 and you're at 1/20th

One minor point of contention:  in practice this doesn't scale linearly.  It's not like we use only use 4% of every car at all times, we use more like 40% during the commuting rush hours and almost zero at 2am on a random Wednesday.  And taxi cabs still spend a lot more time in traffic than they do with a passenger in them, because they have to get from wherever they are to wherever they're needed.  They sometimes have to drive empty, and autonomous cars will too.

It's a valid point in theory, and I agree that automated subscription-based chauffeur services, if widely adopted, will be a) cheaper than owning a private vehicle for most people, and b) a huge reduction in the number of total cars sold. 

I'm much less convinced that it will also result in such a large reduction in the number of cars on the road at any given moment.  That's determined by how many people need to take trips right now, not how many cars are available sitting in garages.  I might even argue that the relative ease of cheap-as-free summoning an autonomous electric taxi might even increase the total number of miles driven, as people may be less efficient with their car usage if they're not paying for the gas/maintenance/attention required to actually drive them themselves, aka the Jevons Paradox.

thats why i didnt say 100% utilization and went with 40% utilization - its a figure that Tony Seba calculated as a conservative utilzation of automobilies- he thinks the real number will be closer to 60%.  You also have to add in ride sharing that becomes much more economical - i work with 3 guys we live 25 to 30 mins away within a quarter mile radius of each other - most of the time we all work 7-4 but almost always one person is staying later for some reason or another - seen as a barrier to carpool - plus the minor inconvience of picking each other up at houses - this is eliminated in the world where you call a service as the car picks each one up and if one wants to stay late the cost to commute home isnt as high alone as it is now. 

and your paradox is what Musk believes will happen as well - traffic overall will increase b/c it will cost less.

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1625 on: January 30, 2018, 07:50:36 PM »
The charts Tony Seba shows in the video also indicate an increase in passenger-miles once autonomous vehicles predominate

anisotropy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1626 on: January 30, 2018, 09:48:35 PM »
At long last:

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/suncor-phasing-in-150-autonomous-haul-trucks-job-cuts-expected-by-2019

also,

I suspect the new healthcare comp formed by Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan will be quite heavy on the robots side.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1627 on: January 31, 2018, 03:43:28 AM »
The charts Tony Seba shows in the video also indicate an increase in passenger-miles once autonomous vehicles predominate

And really why wouldn't they. Wanna take a road trip. Just sit back relax play some family board games.  Sleep thru the night wake up in your destination. Could greatly reduced air travel. Which would be a plus for the environment. Where I live it's about a 24 hour drive to get just about anywhere. If I can sleep. Why take a plane.  1800 miles at 10c a mile is 180 bucks. Hard to beat that with a family once you lift the burden of driving the car.

Also in the short term with all cars autonomous and communicating commute times will get shorter and more people will move to the burbs and then roads will clog back up with increased traffic.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2018, 03:48:42 AM by boarder42 »

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1628 on: January 31, 2018, 05:34:53 AM »
I think that vehicles we never have seen before will emerge with the technology.   I foresee big sleeper buses coming.   Kinda like the mini sleepers on trains where you can double stack in a small space.  Maybe coffin sized pods that are bullet aerodynamic for those without claustrophobia.  With electric vehicles and potentially millions of automous charge points the traditional definitiin of transportation is moot. 

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1629 on: January 31, 2018, 05:37:50 AM »
I think that vehicles we never have seen before will emerge with the technology.   I foresee big sleeper buses coming.   Kinda like the mini sleepers on trains where you can double stack in a small space.  Maybe coffin sized pods that are bullet aerodynamic for those without claustrophobia.  With electric vehicles and potentially millions of automous charge points the traditional definitiin of transportation is moot.

i agree it will dramatically change transportation and we have yet to see what those vehicles will look like.  up to and including inductive charging as you drive down the interstate so no stops are required.

jordanread

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1630 on: January 31, 2018, 09:46:41 AM »
When I initially started typing out this post, it wound up all over the place. So I went back to the drawing board to make it a bit more coherent. I know some of this has been said before (even by me), but it all goes together, so I’ll repeat myself.

As far as self-driving electronic vehicle adoption, my guess is that will not be as quick as we would like. There are two main reasons I can think of for this. The American culture is a bit too car-centric (like cars = freedom) for people to just give up that ‘freedom’ and be at the whim of software. There are also a lot of older cars on the road that are cheap and/or well-maintained. Shit, until last September, I spent the last 5 years driving a $400 1988 Sentra for a 90 mile round trip commute. And it still runs! There is also a generational thing. People who grew up with that freedom=cars=American marketing campaigns in general seem to be more attached to that concept. On these forums, for the most part, cars are viewed more like shackles.

Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow. Not soon, but eventually. Self-driving cars are in a pretty interesting place. I’ve never seen something so widespread, but there are some similar situations I can think of. Namely, new recreational drugs and drones. There is a delay when new drugs come out (or something starts being used as drugs) before they are considered controlled. Salvia and the associated extracts is an example. One used to order it online and have it mailed to you. That has changed in quite a few states so far. Also, when drones became widely available, there weren’t any guidelines or rules for them, so it was pretty much a free for all. Now, legislation and FAA rules have been introduced. I suspect that these rules were implemented primarily due to public outcry based on perception and visibility (and possibly a touch of jealousy). So we’re actually in a similar spot with self-driving cars. People talk about how long it will take legislation to catch up, but what is missed sometimes is that there is (or wasn’t) legislation that even touched on self-driving cars, which is why they were able to start testing them without special permission. Which is why Teslas have autopilot functionality that can update often. The only rules for that software are self-imposed. Nothing was on the books at all originally, and since it’s not as visible as drones, I doubt there will be huge outcry for legislation, and even if legislation does happen, I doubt it will be enforced (think of the anti-texting while driving laws).

Now, one thing that I've seen that addresses some of the first concerns is a project that The Boring Company is working on, with the uninspired and redundant name of 3D Tunnels. From a TED talk that Elon Musk gave, he showed this mockup of what it would be like. The thing I like about this is that it would not necessitate purchasing a new car, and yet it could (and should) be using sustainable energy, without sacrificing that sense of freedom. A cool idea as a stop-gap (not that I think it will happen fast enough, but still a cool idea).

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1631 on: February 01, 2018, 12:49:15 PM »
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.


I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.

Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society. 
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking.  There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1632 on: February 01, 2018, 12:57:51 PM »
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.


I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.

Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society. 
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking.  There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.

the 55mph speed limit did exist for a while in the 70s

traffic lights and stop signs dont have to exist to assist with what you indicate - you would have wireless signals at intersections for the connected cars to stop for the human/horse powered transportation devices.  those are human ways to view things -- when off the cars could simply fly thru the intersection when a cross walk is needed it tells the cars to stop.  bikes and pedestrians would have their own signal systems.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1633 on: February 01, 2018, 01:15:25 PM »
Now, the other thing that was mentioned was legislation. I’m in the camp that logic will eventually dictate that it’s too unsafe to have human drivers in high-speed/high-traffic situations, and legislation will follow.


I'm not sure about that. Legislators are people, and not necessarily any more logical or scientific then any other random person.
Logic would dictate that, in order to save lives, reduce environmental impact, secure energy independence, and maintain respect for the law, auto manufacturers would be required by law to govern every automobile to 65mph (or no higher than the state limit in whatever state they are sold in), rather than leaving it up to individuals to choose to either follow the law or not.
This would be much much cheaper and easier than many of the things that are currently mandated (like anti-lock brakes or airbags), while having a much higher impact (speed is the single largest factor in fatal accidents, and a 55mph speed limit that was actually followed would save as much fuel as the total we import from the Middle East)
Yet this is something that has ever even been considered.

Speaks to several previous poster's points about universal driverless being likely to be slow to happen not because of technology, but because of society. 
Having a fully connected grid where every car can wirelessly talk to other cars may reduce traffic issues, but unless you outlaw bikes and pedestrians and horse buggys, you can't eliminate stop signs and traffic lights and crosswalks, and that greatly reduces the benefit of the networking.  There are still parts of the country where horse buggys are quite common.

Yeah, I think that's why I said 'eventually'. It's going to require outrage. That seems to be the main thing that gets legislation to happen. The first fatal accident in a 'self driving' car didn't cause outrage, even though it was caused by human error on the part of the truck driver. I suspect it's going to not be legislated until the majority (read that: 51%) of cars on the road are self driving, and someone riding in one is killed by someone not. That sucks, but that's how it goes. What is the old saying? They put in a stoplight after the kid gets hit.

You and I have talked about this before, and I think we are on the same page.

I don't think that we will have a fully connected grid in our natural lifetime (or ever). The beauty and challenge of the current self driving cars is that they operate independent of a centralized grid. Honestly, I can't think of any way that would actually be implemented in the current or recent past political climate.

Bakari

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1634 on: February 02, 2018, 08:06:27 AM »
The first fatal accident in a 'self driving' car didn't cause outrage, even though it was caused by human error on the part of the truck driver.


Are you talking about the Tesla that slid under a semi?  That was mostly the fault of the Tesla driver. He was speeding, which meant he had to deliberately override the autopilot default, he was using autopilot on a road with intersections when it is only meant for freeways with ramps, and he ignored multiple audio warnings by the car to pay attention, briefly touching the wheel in order to silence it, while apparently watching a movie. 
"Autopilot" was never claimed by Tesla to be a self-driving car anyway, it is an advanced version of cruise control.  The driver was fully aware of this, as evidenced by his own posting of a video explicitly mentioning it. “A bigger danger at this stage of the development is getting someone too comfortable. You really do need to be paying attention at this point. This is early in the development and the human should be ready to intervene if [the Autopilot] can’t do something. I talked in one of the other comments about the blind spots of the current hardware. There are some situations it doesn’t do well in which is okay. It’s not an autonomous car"

Granted, an incident being primarily the fault of the victims own deliberate choices doesn't always prevent outrage among the public....

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1635 on: February 04, 2018, 10:16:33 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mercedes-bosch-test-self-driving-052700426.html

Some big players are making a play for the autonous taxi market in the coming months. With the goal of rolling this out widespread in three years, the future is almost here.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2018, 10:18:33 AM by tomsang »

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1636 on: February 04, 2018, 10:33:13 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mercedes-bosch-test-self-driving-052700426.html

Some big players are making a play for the autonous taxi market in the coming months. With the goal of rolling this out widespread in three years, the future is almost here.

Yes it is.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1637 on: February 04, 2018, 11:36:25 AM »
It is kind of cool to me that I owned one car from when I was 16 until 18, another car from 18 until 24, no car from 24 til 32, new car at 32... and that new car that I bought while I was 32 (a year ago) may be the last car I ever have to drive myself, because the self-driving cars could well be completely mainstream by the time the car is due to be replaced.

I have a kid on the way in a month.  That kid may never have to learn to drive.  Huge relief if I never have to teach another human how to drive, that's for sure!;)

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1638 on: April 03, 2018, 02:17:27 PM »
Actual in the wild drone delivery:

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/first-delivery/

What is striking is how modest the system is.  1km travel distances, half dozen fixed delivery points, manual-remote pilot, manually swapped batteries.  The system was built by smart knowledgeable professionals (including AirBus) and this is a crawl-walk-run thing, but still very modest.  And they are open about not being sure if it will make economic sense or the public will accept it.  When you read the article none of the difficulties described are related to making the nominal aircraft fly-that is easy.  All the hard parts are the bigger interconnected systems, safety and costs.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1639 on: April 04, 2018, 09:59:35 AM »
http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/03/russian-postal-drone-spectacularly-crashes-on-inaugural-flight

Looked like the wind got ahold of it once it cleared the buildings. Try again folks...

lost_in_the_endless_aisle

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1640 on: April 04, 2018, 06:13:42 PM »
http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/03/russian-postal-drone-spectacularly-crashes-on-inaugural-flight

Looked like the wind got ahold of it once it cleared the buildings. Try again folks...
Russian drone technology is better than you think (NSFW?); featuring Garry Kasparov.

Just Joe

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1641 on: April 05, 2018, 08:40:02 AM »
Funny! So that was testing the effects of a large bird strike on Russian drones? ;)

Back to the drawing board folks...

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1642 on: April 26, 2018, 09:18:08 PM »
I remember a poster years ago here here or on the ERE forums who said renting out cabins to scientists was a major source of local revenue in the alaskan bush. Now robots are reducing the need for both scientists scattered across Alaska, and presumably the potential to FIRE through building cabins in the interior of alaska to rent to scientists.

Quote
Once deployed across the state, the $1.2 million machines, built by Finnish company Vaisala, will save about 8 hours of forecaster time a day—and about $1 million a year at NWS, Buchanan says. That's because the agency tries to staff each remote site with three people, but job vacancies mean overworked employees are shuffled around the vast state to keep up. "We have a difficult time recruiting people to go to these locations," Buchanan says. Recently, some stations have skipped scheduled launches.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/robot-launched-weather-balloons-alaska-hasten-demise-remote-forecast-stations

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1643 on: May 08, 2018, 08:14:45 PM »
The new google duplex service can handle calling businesses, pretending to be a real human being, to schedule appointments to check about hours.

Listen to the first couple of audio clips at the linked site (the article itself is way too long and detailed). Knowing the caller is a robot, it's kind of obvious, but if I hadn't been prompted to listen for something weird I think both of those calls could have passed for conversations between two human beings:

https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural-conversation.html

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1644 on: May 09, 2018, 07:04:08 AM »
google is ready to roll out their self driving fleet in phoenix as well.

https://www.wired.com/story/waymo-self-driving-car-service-phoenix/

assuming its cheaper than uber/lyft i would assume it will be a hit.

article says GM wont be far behind with plans for 2019. 

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1645 on: May 21, 2018, 02:15:55 PM »

boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1646 on: May 21, 2018, 02:30:34 PM »
Now robots are making humans organs!

https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/robots-can-now-grow-human-organs/

sweet - once you can grow a tiny organ in 20 minutes with a robot how long does it take to scale this to full size organs?   we went from 1 day for a human to 20 mins for a robot.  so to scale it to a full size functioning human organ it takes a robot a week? a month? doesnt really matter how long at this point just have to scale it

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1647 on: May 21, 2018, 05:10:34 PM »
Now robots are making humans organs!

https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/robots-can-now-grow-human-organs/

sweet - once you can grow a tiny organ in 20 minutes with a robot how long does it take to scale this to full size organs?   we went from 1 day for a human to 20 mins for a robot.  so to scale it to a full size functioning human organ it takes a robot a week? a month? doesnt really matter how long at this point just have to scale it

Wait.. so does this mean that 9 robots can have a baby on one month?

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1648 on: May 21, 2018, 05:59:39 PM »
Wait.. so does this mean that 9 robots can have a baby on one month?

This year, sure.

Next year, 4.5 robots will be able to have a baby in two weeks.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #1649 on: May 24, 2018, 01:18:02 AM »
This is just the beginning. The fast food industry is ripe for being robotised. Here's a cute video of a Japanese ice cream robot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqcSFgrTJY

24/7, sterile, perfect portion control, on demand.

I think it's a good thing - do we really need to waste human talent flipping burgers and serving ice cream confectionary?