RE: Tired of working? Get a robot "YOU" and become redundant.
I'm first in line to become fully redundant Please!
I'm on the fence whether robots can take over all human roles. Creativity is still uniquely human, though there are some robots that can compose music now, they are learning from earlier music and replicating it with different variables, but I don't think coming up with a totally new musical style is likely any time soon. Also humans are naturally creative, we would write/play music, poetry/prose, dance, sing and paint, irrespective of whether robots can do it better or faster.
Outside of the arts creativity is everywhere too; while I'm sure there would be AI that could serve to run an entire company pretty soon, coming up with unexpected products and services, and making unexpected competitive moves against the competition will still be better served by human intuition.
Besides I don't think robots would be able to create bullshit PowerPoint presentations and bore rooms full of other robots effectively enough to take over in businesses, right? /s
Hey @scalextrix thanks for reading and your measured response. So good to get a couple of good comments as lately some comment's have been...Shall we say, intelligence-challenged? :)
All good points, for sure. Robots, probably aren't that creative...Until Cyberdyne creates Skynet, or some such self-aware artificial intelligence. Then, we're screwed. Just ask Sarah and John Connor. Oh, that's just a movie...But, is it? :)
Seriously though, it's not just robots I refer to in my post. It's the thousands of daily jobs that machines can do in place of a human.
I was advised by a teller at the ANZ bank that instead of depositing a couple of thousand dollars over the counter and into my bank account I could do it at the ATM. Outside, with my back to the public? Hmm. He took me outside to show me how simple it was. 20 minutes later my money was deposited...Into the wrong account! Sure, it was my own account, but not the right one. No worries, he reckons...We can swap it, also at the ATM. So he showed me how to do that. The entire episode took about 25 minutes.
When he was done I said to him, "how do you feel demonstrating to customers how to do things for themselves and so pushing yourself closer to redundancy." He didn't really have an answer.
All of my local supermarkets have self-serve lines (which I refuse to use), as does my local hardware store Bunnings. I still have a human make my lunch at this point but as soon as they can create a machine to mess up my lunch order it'll take over I'm sure.
You're right though, humans are more creative and we'll probably all have loads of time on our hands to get creative when the machines take over and we have no jobs.
It'll be funny to see a room full of robots being bored by a robot delivering a powerpoint presentation!
I worked for 14 years at an Auto Plant. GM-Holden. I started in 1989 making 480 cars a day over two shifts with 5,500 operators. I ended in 2001 making 520 cars a day over two shifts with 4,500 operators. It's closing down this year. Forever. Only 1,300 people work there now. Robots you see.
Anyway, we'll enjoy our redundancy won't we? I'm looking forward to be redundant in many areas too...The grocery shopping, house-cleaning, job, car washing...As long as they don't make a robot that replaces me on the couch watching Netflix! :)
Thanks I enjoyed your article.
Well, none of us knows whats going to happen; so far every technical revolution has created more work, its just different work. However with the capabilities of technology that is being developed now, I do see mass unemployment as a significant issue.
Just look at block-chain and crypto-currency. Disintermediation (the removal of intermediaries) is where block-chain really adds value.
I was presenting SolarCoin and ElectriCChain at a major UK solar energy exhibition yesterday, I showed the audience that with a few tools that are already available in the crypto-sphere, we can take out all of the middle-men, banks, and centralized power infrastructure, and move to localized, decentralized micro-grids. Removing all those intermediaries make the processes much more efficient, but there are a lot of companies and people that are going onto the redundancy list if I am right about that future.
As ususal Im conflicted about whether its to be persued or avoided.