• It will be possible to train one robot, and then have an unlimited number of other robots instantly acquire that knowledge via the cloud. As I wrote previously, I think that machine learning is likely to be highly disruptive to the job market at some point in the future in part because of this ability to rapidly scale what machines learn across entire organizations -- potentially threatening huge numbers of jobs.
The last point cannot be emphasized enough. I think that many economists and others who dismiss the potential for robots and automation to dramatically impact the job market have not fully assimilated the implications of machine learning. Human workers need to be trained individually, and that is a very expensive, time-consuming and error-prone process. Machines are different: train just one and all the others acquire the knowledge. And as each machine improves, all the others benefit immediately...
The bottom line is that nearly any type of work that is on some level routine in nature -- regardless of the skill level or educational requirements -- is likely to someday be impacted by these technologies. The only real question is how soon it will happen.
Read it at The Huffington Post
Google's Cloud Robotics Strategy -- and How It Could Soon Threaten JobsMartin Ford
Founder, Silicon Valley-based software development firm
11 comments:
I have yet to see robots that possess manual dexterity or are able to move around as we humans do.
You will do very shortly. Asimo can now run on two legs - which is an astounding feat of engineering.
Chinese nimble fingers are already being replaced by specific AI robots in technology plant as the cost of staff starts to rise.
Those self-service tills in your local store are just the start of the service robot revolution that will make the Paradox of Productivity as clear as day.
So we may as well look at ways of resolving the Paradox now.
The Chinese regime has until now secured it's position through ensuring work for all and rapid and perpetual rises in the standard of living.
Mass unemployment as automation begins to replace workers will invariably signal the advent of momentous upheaval threatening the authority of the Chinese Communist Party. I suspect that the government is acutely aware of the pitfalls of automation.
As to those self-service tills in stores I refuse to use them. When directed to by staff I invariably tell them flat out that those tills have been installed to replace them and I refuse to contribute to that process. I want them to be aware of the consequences and to negotiate for a resolution.
I don't see the paradox of productivity being resolved within a capitalist framework except by external factors - energy, resource and climate constraints. I see the paradox as invariably inflaming the social upheaval and latent insecurity we're already witnessing in most advanced economies.
We're in for a chaotic decade.
In the case of enhanced open surgery, autonomous instruments (in familiar configurations) replace traditional steel tools, performing certain actions (such as rib spreading) with much smoother, feedback-controlled motions than could ever be achieved by a human hand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_surgery
"PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot developed by Boston Dynamics for testing special clothing used by the US Army. PETMAN balances itself as it walks, squats and does simple calisthenics."
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/11/petman-robot/
At least 50 percent of the people working in the American job market today are working in people-powered industries like fast-food restaurants, retail stores, delivery companies construction, airlines, amusement parks, hotels and motels, warehousing and so on. All of these jobs are prime targets for robotic replacement...
Robots will turbocharge the concentration of wealth... Wal-Mart currently employs over 1.3 million people. Imagine that Wal-Mart is able to deploy robots over a relatively short period of time and eliminate one million of those employees...
The following suggestion at first seems impractical because it is so simple: What if we, as a society, simply give consumers money to spend in the economy? In other words: What if the way to achieve the strongest possible economy is to give every citizen more money to spend? For example, what if we gave every citizen of the United States $25,000 to spend?
"Robotic Freedom", Marshall Brain
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
@beowulf.
Marshall Brain's solution doesn't adequately address the boost to disparity and concentration of wealth in the hands of ever-fewer individuals and large corporations. Commensurate with a living wage I believe there needs to be a move towards community or worker-owned means of production - a horizontal ownership structure to replace vertical structurings.
Still, I can't help but think that increased productivity through automation and a somewhat utopian albeit disarmingly simple response of providing a living wage to consume ignore the elephant in the room, and that is the converging issues of resource depletion and the critical damage to life-sustaining ecologies, not least the climate.
"I think that machine learning is likely to be highly disruptive to the job market at some point in the future in part because of this ability to rapidly scale what machines learn across entire organizations -- potentially threatening huge numbers of jobs. "
Of course, "threatening jobs". Never goes in the mind of these commentators that robots allow for shortening working hours.
Hopefully robotic development will crash the present social arrangements and then eventually people will begin to use the brains on the question.
Increased productivity is supposed to result in increased opportunity for leisure. Right now the people that are enjoying the increased leisure made possible by advances in productivity are mostly the very wealthy and the unemployed. These advances are not being distributed but hoarded and if spent it is on creating a super-class that lives in its own luxurious world, protected from intrusion.
all this replacing of people cannot be good for aggregate demand. people ultimately buy the products they make. machines don't.
@ rodney,
This hasn't dawned on supply-siders who are still operating under the notion that Say's law holds.
Moreover, it is fallacy of composition from micro to macro. Firms pursue their individual interest competitively, and this means increasing productivity. They just don't get that if everyone does it successfully, then there will be no customers for anyone due to absent demand unless they pass a significant portion of the productivity gain to workers, which Wall Street won't allow if anyone wanted to since everything is about meeting and exceeding quarterly projections of the Street.
Self-service checkout lines at the grocery store are an example of having customers perform the tasks once done by employees.
I have yet to see a robot bagging my groceries. I have yet to see robot delivery drivers, servers, cleaners, cashiers, or retailers. These occupations account for a significant number of jobs.
I have seen machines that can do amazing things like building the intricate windings of electric motors in seconds. I have yet to see one that can wire a house.
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