Don't Be Afraid Of The Robotic Invasion

in life •  7 years ago 

By now everyone is aware of the increasing prevalence of robots in our daily lives. Whether it's the dramatically biologically disturbing creations of of Boston Dynamics (video below), or the kiosks you use to order food, in one way or another you will experience the products of automation every single day in the modern world.

Job loss fears

When new and disruptive technology comes along, it's always met with equal doses of excitement and fear.

For many, the prospect of automating a process is exciting because it is a means of creating the same or better result with less human effort and time, thereby freeing individuals and society as a whole to do other things. But for others, automation means their job just disappeared or changed completely.

In the fast food industry we are seeing major changes. Kiosks are replacing cashiers (McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks) and robots are set to replace food handlers (A robot is now flipping fast-food burgers; is this the end to the short-order cook?).

And it makes sense: With fast food workers demanding $15/hour, high turnover, and inconsistent production, employers are attracted to a robot that never asks for a raise, doesn't take time off, can flip 2000 burgers per day with no complaints, and always has a consistent product.

But this is how economy grows and people are lifted out of poverty

In 1870, almost 50 percent of the US population was employed in agriculture:
Agricultural employment: has the decline ended?
As of 2008, less than 2 percent of the population is directly employed in agriculture:
Employment by major industry sector

This is a decrease of 96%!!!

Does this mean that 48% of the American workforce is unemployed? Of course not. Automation freed up human capital to invest in other industries that have permitted economic and technological growth.

To put it simply: after a rough period, people found different things to do; different ways to provide value.

And civilization progressed.

In many ways, the automation of agriculture and manufacturing helped to remove the scourges of slavery and child labor. So there is an argument that it has not only been an economic good, but a social good as well.

The future is bright -- get your foot in on the ground floor!

With the advancing automation of labor and service industries, people are redirecting their energy, time, and skills into more creative areas such as development, design, and marketing. Besides being occupations that are much higher paying and personally rewarding, they are also easier on the body and facilitate remote workspace, which is much better for your health and can save you tons of money:

Working from home can save you thousands of dollars every year

You -- yes YOU -- are already positioned to take advantage of this paradigm shift

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By simply being here on #steemit, you have shown that you have skin in the game of the future tokenized economy, where big tech will no longer be able to rip off your personal information and monetize your content for themselves by the order of billions of dollars; but rather you are rewarded for your own content and developers compete to provide services that are more secure and more intelligently tokenized to draw your creativity to their platform.

Tell me what you think

How does it feel to be an early adopter of the future economy?

Let me know in the comments below.

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Wow!
@shayne, do you watch the show "Black Mirror?"
Man, there's an episode in there (it's on Netflix) about killer robots, just like the first clip you put up...
Gave me chills brother!
Worth a look if you have time to scare yourself this weekend 🤗

I don't believe it, I was just about to say the exact same thing, little robot dogs with cluster bomb trackers! Crazy shit.

Black mirror is just great for these types of things, or the dating app one--- mind----blown!

I have not seen it, but I see a lot of people make comments like yours all over YouTube and stuff. It must really treat some of the more "out there" but real stories.

Cool!

Me encanta esta serie. Blackberry Mirror. Ahí se ve uno de estos perros robots. La tecnología puede ser usada para el bien o para el mal.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Robots themselves aren't necessarily bad. Using them as tools of political control and oppression is bad.

People, in general, are ill-adapted to the current complexity of technology and are looking for help from political leaders who claim they are going to protect them. This is undermining self-determination because the politician "savior" class is generally spouting Orwellian nonsense for their own benefit and not the benefit of the general public.

Blaming the robot is like blaming the nuke or blaming the gun.

As far as AI is concerned (AI is not robotics), all human logic is predicated on assumptions of value. For example, the pro and anti abortion argument is based on value of human life or the value of a fetus and the arguments fall out from the initial assumption. AI can only act logically based on whatever values the programmers give it. AI can not determine value (on which ethics and morals are predicated) by itself.

You mention the use of technology as a form of political oppression. That is a serious fear, and the way I see it, this is happening the most with the lack of technical education in public schools.

The fact that kids are coming out of school without the ability to code is beyond insane to me. Kids should be tested at LEAST as much about JavaScript as they are about the Revolutionary War, or mitochondria, or the mile under 8 minutes. Kids should be taught how to code, design, and market technology. But instead they are coming out with a battery of knowledge that they forget within a year (if they don't continue to use it) which is mostly useless.

Anyway lol, that's another issue, perhaps.

Interesting thoughts on value. I'll have to mull that one around for a while.

How does it feel to be an early adopter of the future economy?

It feels like the beginning of the end. It feels like another step toward the microchip, disguised as a step toward the alternative to it.

You think steemit is "another step towards the microchip"?

I see what you did there. What steemit is and what steemit feels like to me are two separate discussions.

What if an AI is designed to value efficiency. Using incredibly logic systems and many multi core processing allowing it to compute things thousands of times per second that would take a small team of researchers a couple days to figure out. So they start making things more efficient. Energy, city lay outs, garbage disposal, you name it, give the program, an adaptive, intelligent program a problem and it will be solved. But now there is an inefficiency, humans are too slow in bringing the problems to the AI, so automation which has already been occurring on a grand scale for a while now fully loads this program in. It would be horribly wasteful to have seperate programs detailing utilities, might as well merge them so they all get covered together. So i'm not afraid of the robots or any AI :D Great post though shayne :D @shayne

I admit my knowledge of AI is next to nothing. I understand data, and code generally, but not the specifics of how AI works. However, I know it's just about sorting and compiling data and executing functions, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to be afraid of if the code is solidly written. Even at an unimaginably complex level, we could simply switch things off (unless we were stupid and get stuck in an AI loop of some sort).

Anyway, I'm not terribly scared of AI by any means, either.

I had the opportunity to play with Spot Mini in Los Angeles. Would love to have one!

Jealous! 😒

Would you want the one with the neck/arm?

I think the robot revolution is a good thing. Robots will do lots of dangerous and repetitive task that can cause humans injuries. Yes, this will replace those jobs, but, other jobs will pop up. New jobs will be invented, and as time goes on, jobs in general will become less and less dangerous.

Indeed. I think the notion of a "job" as we think of them now will become an anachronism.

I shall remain suspicious of any AI formed in a DWAVE or other quantum computing arena. I also will never embrace transhumanism in the form of always "connected" implants. I will EMBRACE THE HECK out of a machine that makes my burger.. because humans are gross.

Humans are gross. They spit in food. Totally pro robot there.

@shayne it’s look like grasshopper

Wow those first robots are cool!

This reminds me of the video on youtube: humans not need to apply.
The first time I did see it was during a course at work. There was complete silence during the movie and even more after it! We are at the start of a new industrial revolution. The previous one created jobs for us, the next one will wipe them out. Governments know this, that is way they are thinking about some free basic income. This is so much needed them to keep the world going on!

Both the agricultural and the industrial revolutions wiped out and simultaneously created jobs. The technological revolution is doing the same. 😊

Do you see the vid ‘humans bot need apply’? You can search for it on youtube!
My 2 cents: this revolution will disrupt the economy, it will destroy more jobs than it will create new ones. I really do hope that I am wrong!

Freaking amazing post! Probably most of the people here love technology. And you don't need to be technical to be updated. You just need to read and try.
I love the idea of steem because it's basically what I wanted to create. It works a little bit like coop companies.
Again.. great article!

It feels great and in fact the concept of the increasing automation of life and man and the eventual Singularity has even greatly affected and influenced my artwork. Whether we like it or not, the future shows up every day, and we have to live in it. :)

Millions of "human" jobs will be lost due to robots development and big social problems will emerge. Maybe the "universal income" will be the solution

Millions of jobs were lost in the agricultural revolution. Other jobs were created. Automation frees up human capital to do other things. It's how industry progresses. 👍🏻

You do have a point here, the big difference is the globalised economy and the fact that the changes take place rapidly unlike the previous revolutions (agricultural, industrial)

An interesting video about Exponential Growth:

Tell me what you think

How does it feel to be an early adopter of the future economy?

Hiya @shayne!! ¿Do you speak spanish? or at least Spanglish?

If it's so, you are cordially invited to scrabble a lil bit trying to decipher my opinion about this issue through an authentically awful TL|DR post of mine in foreign tongues. };)

Unless they fire cannons on random people and places, then there's no reason to be scared. Innovation is such interesting isn't it?

  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment
  ·  7 years ago Reveal Comment

Muting you

hey, my first flag!

Exciting isn't it!
I just gave you three!
It's so fun!
Seriously though, thank you so much for flagging me.
I super appreciate it.
Have a great weekend!