A few days ago I read an article in the prestigious IEEE Spectrum and after making a free interpretation of the text, I have more questions than answers. In short (which is interesting in the article), I can anticipate that the foundation of the text revolves around the uncertainty in the labor market creates the appearance (increasingly) of robots replacing humans in positions work, until a short time ago, did not conceive otherwise than "made by humans". Not shrink away too much in this introduction and thinking the same phone line that brings Internet today, a generation ago was working to billions of women in charge of communicating with each other destinations around the world. Thousands of millions of jobs lost and if we start the article, we discuss what can be together soon.
The article is a transcript of a conversation between a journalist and a distinguished faculty member at Rice University who also runs the "Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology" at the University, where they both address the issue we announced in the header of the article: "humans are being displaced from their jobs by robots." In the article mentioned activities already leaving many (but many) people on the street without a future hopeless labor. Automated boxes with RFID tags in department stores, the machines clean the floors, transportation systems, GPS-guided, robot maids who bring order to the table, the menu is being replaced by tablets (tablets), the plants like Foxconn electronics manufacturing, assembly or automotive parts and a huge list of jobs that are not just statistical numbers. They are people, like your father, as you and with your children in future generations.
Many are excited, in some parts of the world, demonstrating that auto run themselves and are able to park without human intervention, where loaded GPS information with the vacant parking lots and take the car only up there to you do not waste time looking for a place to park. To start the comments: how can we call this if it were a newspaper headline: "Efficient and secure automatic handling system, demonstrates the technological advancement of our industry." Or it could appear stating, "Millions of taxi drivers and truck drivers, around the world lose their jobs after the adoption of the new vehicles with automatic handling systems. Global shock. "Both headlines were talking and informing the very triumph of technology?
The article talks about the advances and replacement of people in work in the field, with planters and harvesters that run unattended, enabling higher yields with fewer people and, as mentioned earlier, the list could be endless. Although it seems to be a maze with no exit, we all know that there are things that machines can never achieve. Can you imagine a TV series made by robots cool all the same? It would be just awful, right? However, that does not mean that at that time, the world population has been decimated as far as work is concerned. It will take a significant and radical cultural change to realize that there will be jobs (job specific) labor market will disappear and will be exclusive of the machines. And workers moving from machines to machines that can give us pleasure, is addressed in a talk time of technological advancement that has taken the automotive industry. Performance and comfort are exceeded every day while competing brands every inch, offering the best but, are not we creating monsters that pollute more, made more difficult to recycle materials? That is, (following controversial comments) got out of the vehicles, abandoned its use and opted for transportation means more "green"? What are we doing? Are we moving towards a technology harmful to ourselves?
The conclusion of the talk focuses on that article expresses a concern about the legacy we are leaving to future generations in terms of moving forward with technology, no matter where the end of this great Tower of Babel. Regardless of how many will be displaced and how big will the gap between those socio-cultural master technology to come and those who can not even access them as consumers. And on this particular topic, in the comments of the article, there is a realistic analysis presents the following suggestion: "If machines will keep the jobs of the people, who will become consumers, how the machines ? If there is a consumer public that you can choose between product A or product B, there is no competition, only a monopoly. The evolution of AI (Artificial Intelligence) between machines will grow to levels capable of meeting data ignore the consumer products, reason why, always buy the same product, bankrupting the other companies. And the destructive spiral will continue until they are ... alone? "
Where do we take the AI and the evolution of the Robots? Is it open further the gap between powerful companies (who have the most efficient machines) and the poor or marginalized by the system? Without reaching the end of the article, surrounded by paranoia that may not exist in 2045, is unhealthy understand today that a machine can do the work of one or more operators, will not work for one or more families. From a sidewalk, a business is not to be missed, while from the other lane, the opposite, is losing the dignity of a job and a future. For one production line that requires only one or two maintenance technicians, why another? A market without consumers, jobless and penniless? Does the man know put an ethical limit to this crossroads ahead? What do you think?
