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?
It is not at all unreasonable that a film is subject to certain "legal assessment" before its release. After all, no person or company wants to get "stuck" in a negative way when a movie plays a "sensitive matter". For "2001," Stanley Kubrick made a great effort to convey publicly that HAL 9000 had nothing to do with IBM, but in April 1966, almost two years before the premiere of the film, sent a letter referring to "the state of affairs with IBM "in relation to psychotic behavior HAL 9000-murderer who was going to show on the big screen ...
Already there are countless occasions when we talked about artificial intelligence in one form or another redirect all their might against the human race. One of the best examples is definitely in "2001", which turns 45 years old next April. The film has been studied by experts of all kinds, but in general, what we get closer to those who follow the tech world is the reaction of the AI system HAL 9000, and its consequences. Almost two years before the film's release, the actions of HAL 9000 caused some concern in Stanley Kubrick, who through a letter sent to Roger Caras Productions Polaris requested additional information on IBM's position as to HAL 9000, because as puts it in the text, one of the main themes of the story is "a psychotic computer".
Both Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke has said repeatedly that the "advance letter" between HAL and IBM was just a coincidence. Officially, HAL belongs to "Heuristically programmed Algorithmic computer", but the fact is that IBM, like other companies, has a presence in the film (some no longer exist, as in the case of Pan Am). The fact that IBM "being there" and HAL 9000 was dedicated to killing astronauts Kubrick warrant concern, but equally interesting is the response of Roger Caras. To be completely sure of the situation, contacted DC Faces Hollister, Corporate Director of Public Relations at IBM, which made it clear that the IBM name was not associated in any way with the failure of HAL 9000, and that obviously was not an IBM machine.
The final position of IBM stated that if it was associated by name to the "equipment failure", there would be no objection if Kubrick decided advisory companies mentioned in the credits of the film, nor would objections provided that IBM is "buried "in the list with other companies, and that was not specifically advertised as providing" technical advice "to HAL 9000. The decision no doubt came to fruition, but this response "diplomatic" makes it clear that in the halls of the giant blue someone asked the same question that Kubrick. Do not forget that IBM was going through a golden moment with the complete success of your system 360, and tarnish his reputation with a film, it was more indirect association, was crazy.
A group of scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex are developing what could become the first artificial brain of honeybee history. The ambitious project aims to build an accurate computer model that mimics perfectly the behavior of the brain of one of these insects and use it as "trip computer" of a flying robot can operate autonomously. If they succeed it will be a major step in the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
A team of scientists is working on the creation of a computer model that emulates much of the brain of a honeybee. The European honeybee (Apis mellifera), also known as domestic bee or honey bee, bee species is the most widely distributed in the world. This team, consisting of experts from the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex hopes to develop a kind of "robotic bee brain" that can play to perfection governing systems vision and sense of smell of these insects and use it to command which would be the first autonomous flying robot with the ability to behave autonomously as a bee. Work has already begun, and if successful will be fulfilling one of the greatest challenges of modern science: build a robotic brain capable of complex tasks. Generally, such work has focused on the mammalian brain emulation. But insects also have brains "powerful", including a greater ability to discriminate odors or chemicals present.
According to James Marshall, a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield as part of this task force, "a simulated brain is one of the great challenges of artificial intelligence. So far, many attempts to recreate biological brains have focused on cognitive systems found in humans, monkeys and mice. We have so far neglected the simpler organisms like insects, despite having surprisingly advanced cognitive abilities." Scientists hope to use these flying robots in search and rescue missions, or even mechanical pollination of some crops. This project will also serve to better understand how the brain of Apis mellifera.
Remember Watson? No Sherlock wizard, but the artificial intelligence system developed by IBM that swept the ground with the greatest champions of the game Jeopardy!. Today Watson aims to apply its capacity on financial processes and cancer studies, however, IBM has not stood idly by. The next step is Watson 2.0, an advanced version that allows use in smartphones and other mobile devices. The technical challenges are enormous, but something similar was said about Watson at the time, and we have seen what he did.
I have personally seen the confrontation between Watson, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in the special challenge of Jeopardy! half a dozen times. Although Watson was not free from gross errors (Toronto is not a city in the United States, for example) their performance was relentless. But what happened after that? What is Watson doing today, and what will be tomorrow? According to information available, both Citigroup and Wellpoint have made use of their abilities, while the plan remains primary market related technology. But there is more, and that Watson is no longer a system as any. Can be optimized in many aspects, including reduced power consumption, and of course, miniaturization. With the latter in mind, IBM Watson wants to see running on smartphones, and other mobile devices.
The current Watson can not do that, but Watson 2.0 itself. The Vice President of Innovation Bernie Meyerson IBM stated that the level of energy required to operate at Watson is "falling like a stone", a detail that will eventually enable the possibility of a mobile version. To better visualize this, imagine a Watson in smartphones as a supercharged version of Siri. The staff care system Apple became an icon in Cupertino products, but studies that locate their effectiveness below 70 percent. Watson can not afford it, especially if they seek to tempt the business environment. To do this, Watson 2.0 will incorporate "senses" through voice recognition and images.
One of the most important challenges to be faced by IBM engineers in processing power and energy consumption locally. Today Watson relies on a hardware equivalent to six thousand desktops, quite far to the average of four cores on a smartphone there. Although Watson process their results through the cloud, the resources required by an application that supports smartphones and tablets would still be too high. To this is added the process of "learning" to be submitted to Watson, but it's all a matter of time. If IBM Watson wants to turn our personal assistant for mobile devices, is because it should be within reach.
Blind, deaf and dumb should be the autistic computers do not believe that we have equated gradually more characteristic of the human qualities, those that give us reason to be and add meaning to our existence as a whole identified as humanity. Still missing and I hope very much, but to give us another example of how insignificant we are, some Spanish scientists developed a computer capable of composing classical music like one of the many great musicians in history. Of course, Lamus at incredible speeds up and puts us to discuss music, man and the universe itself.
For its complexity, which involves writing and execution by the secrecy of his age and because like a fine wine, only specialists know what it's made and tastes so good, listening to the mystique that has a quasi-supernatural large piece of classical music, the feeling of joy is in part to recognize the human as a being capable of the most virtuous, when we insist on the other hand through the media that serve only to destroy each other. There are moments of human feeling pride when you hear these heavenly pianos weeping cellos conjugated with a philosophical subtlety, but may now have to attach another narcissistic wound of humanity to the list provided and fed Freud, because scientists Malaga University have developed a computer capable of composing classical music.
No more exclusivity and bad copies, because the computer Lamus, scientists at the UMA, Department of Computational Intelligence, have broken with the established view that only humans had the sensitivity and wonder to build musical works which have no noticeable differences with the human authors. The team manager, Francisco José Vico, Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, told that the current draft is based on the application of biomimetic techniques and hence is the closeness of the Darwinian theory of evolution, genetics and computing, with its own language that has been able to answer the question about the creativity of the machines. That is, a reformulation of the question that Alan Turing founded the Artificial Intelligence.
So far Lamus has created over 800 original scores and how to check their "humanity" is the comparison of these with other group of renowned artists of all time. As the results have been positive with amazing composition speeds (less than 10 minutes to write a score of 5 minutes to an instrument), at year end we will have a record with 10 scores performed by the London Symphony Orchestra among others. Of course, the existence of this binary Mozart has created debates around the world on how a machine that does not think or feel can create music that generates emotions in humans and appear to have included in his musical body. What does this mean? What music is just math? What computers can sit or emulate the emotions to a very high level? So that. Computers compose classical music, man.
You can’t buy love, but can you engineer it? A project at the National University of Singapore with all kinds of somewhat unsettling implications is trying to create the means for human-robot love by giving robots all the emotional and biological tools that human have.
That means artificial hormones--dopamine, seratonin, oxytocin, endorphin--that ebb and flow based on how the robot is “feeling.” It also means psychology, in this case using MRI brain scans to recreate artificial intelligence that creates affection--or a lack therof--towards a human counterpart.
ust as in human relationships, this human-robot love is based on interactions. The robot can become bored, jealous, angry, affectionate, or flat-out happy, all based on how the human object of its desire interacts with it. Most of this interaction takes place through touching--another analog to affectionate human interaction. The robot isn’t so cuddly, but give it some puppy love and it will love you back.
But spurn its advances at your own peril. If the chilling conclusion of episode one below is any indication, perhaps this isn’t such a great idea. It might just turn out that hell hath no fury like a lovebot scorned.
