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Thread: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
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07-18-2018, 09:02 AM #61
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07-18-2018, 09:03 AM #62Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
We can build robots to do repeated tasks. Tasks that don't involve thought, anticipation, trouble shooting. So, maybe in 20 years we could get a robot to build a house, if everything goes exactly right, and there is not unforseen problem that occurs. Oh and of course we would still have to design the house and everything involved with it (along with the robot). Clearing the land, plumbing, electrical...
Fear of technology is not new. Again, it's going to be a shift in job types.
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Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
The problem with this is if we really believe corporations run America, then we would they created something that takes away all jobs and puts people on a fixed income?
That will reduce the number of people who have jobs or expendable income to buy their products.
While I do believe we are seeing a shift to AI, and will see a shift to more robots etc. I don't think jobs are going away. I think there will just be different jobs. Much like there has always been..
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07-18-2018, 04:41 PM #64Legendary RSR Poster
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07-18-2018, 04:42 PM #65Legendary RSR Poster
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07-18-2018, 10:15 PM #66
Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
This isn't true. It isn't the robot that is limited, it is the programmer. Little by little programmers will anticipate different situations and figure out how to handle them.
For example, a simple robot can screw a bolt into a but as long as the bolt and nut are exactly where they need to be, but a more sophisticated one can find the bolt, then the nut, and screw them together. A robot that paints a car can use lasers to site exactly where the car is and start painting as opposed to needing it in the exact spot on an assembly line, which used to be required.
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07-19-2018, 07:38 AM #67Hall Of Fame Poster
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07-20-2018, 03:32 PM #68
Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
True AI isn't going to come from programmers explicitly learning how to tell a robot how to handle each situation. It's going to come from machine learning or some other technique allowing us to make a robot that is smart enough that we don't have to tell it what to do. The current approach (as well as I understand it) is usually to train an algorithm to recognize patterns and make decisions based on those patterns. This is how we get a computer beating people at Go. No one meticulously programmed all the different strategies that can be employed in Go. An algorithm was made that analyzed the patterns it saw when playing the game. That algorithm figured out better ways of playing than humans had yet conceived.
We're still in the early stages of learning how to do this. But given enough time I think machines can learn to do anything. I have no idea what the time line for complex tasks like being a plumber is, but if we can truly make AI, there's a timeline for everything.
One question this poses is how to support people whose jobs are displaced. Universal Basic Income may eventually be the answer.
Another question is how do we make sure the machines only do what we want them to do. Most will think of this in terms of a machine deciding to turn on humans, and this makes for a good movie script, but it could just as easily be out of ambivalence to humans. What if you told a machine to calculate all the digits of pi, and it decided the best way to do this was to turn the planet into one giant calculator. Silly sounding example, but the point is if you make truly brilliant AI how can you be sure you will be able to control what it does. It will think of things we will never think of.
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07-20-2018, 09:20 PM #69
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07-20-2018, 09:25 PM #70
Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
You can't "train an algorithm" to do anything, you program it to learn. It must be programmed to do such a thing. You can't just keep feeding data to an algorithm and have it learn beyond its programming unless the programming includes that ability.
That said, a car mechanic robot can be taught to read the VIN on a vehicle, then examine to see where it fails to meet the specifications of its original design. Once done it can (having been programmed to) pick the correct adjustments and repairs and do the work. This robot will displace a lot of mechanics and be able to work near 24/7, won't be calling in sick, won't be causing trouble gossiping and spreading rumors, and will do the repairs properly more often
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07-21-2018, 12:16 AM #71
Re: The Dark Side Of The Singularity
"Train an algorithm" was a poor choice of words. You design an algorithm that, when given data, can learn from the data. But you don't explicit train it to do the tasks it eventually learns. You program it to learn, and give it the data to learn from.
But yes, we can still explicitly program machines to do things like read a VIN and do other tasks (although even teaching a machine to read numbers and letters often involves machine learning). That's enough to automate a lot of jobs. That's just not the way we are going to get to AI.
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07-21-2018, 12:22 PM #72Legendary RSR Poster
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