Month: March 2017

“Progress” is inextricably linked to the idea of positive forward motion.  The key word here is positive, as people often fall into the thought process that forward motion is beneficial, so to progress forward must be positive too. However, as expressed in the pilot episode of “Humans” and Martin Ford’s “The Automation Wave”, progress as a positive is up for debate, especially when in regards to technology. Both the director of this television series and the writer of this book are “futurists” who use the status quo of the present scientific and social community to systematically explore and predict a potential future.  In both these works the futurists in charge honed in on the presence of robots in the future and what their roles would be, and whether they are a truly positive piece of progress.

In Human, there is a classic “rebellious teen” character Matilda with slipping grades due lack of motivation, but hers stems from the presence of robots within her society. Her argument– “What’s the point?”. She well knows that synthetic androids so commonly installed in her world will be programmed to any job that would take her years to study for, and they’ll most likely do the job more efficiently. Matilda is unmotivated not because she is an angsty teenager but because the robots have taken away her sense of purpose.

Ford also explores this future possibility of human-purpose displacement by the robots with a specific focus on low-wage labor. Sure, assigning robots to undesirable jobs like repetitive factory work or simple cashier tasks at fast food restaurants would free up humans to do more challenging jobs, but for many these straighter forward employment opportunities are a primary and perhaps singular source of income. The high turnover rates of jobs like these allow for them to be easily accessible to the public who need work now, just as a means to make ends meet. Without them, people with modest levels of education will have a difficult time finding work. The US’s dynamic economy gives hope that sufficient jobs would be able to replace these for the sake of the people that would become unemployed at the hands of robots, but that is a high risk that lives across the nation would be dependent on.

Robotic progress could rip open a can of opportunity– it could be an era of liberty from labor for humans that would allow for uninterrupted freedom of mind and creativity. However, it could also be ripping open a can of worms of never before seen poverty, economic displacement, and violent neglection of the middle-to-lower class as robots would take over human jobs. Robotics on the level proposed by these two futurists is definitely a forward motion for humans, the question of its legitimacy as “positive” still stands.

After reading The Caves of Steel , by Isaac Asimov, and watching episode 1 of Humans, it has opened my eyes to the possibilities of automation. My only exposure to futuristic robot content was watching the Terminator movies, which did not seem very real to me, since they went over the top with the concept of time travel. Looking at this material (especially Humans) has shown me that robots are not far off, and could come with consequences.

The three rules of robotics seem standard throughout all literature involving all types of robotics. In Humans, we saw scientists reassuring the public that the synths could never hurt a human because their hard wiring would not allow them regardless of what programming is added.   The three rules are basically the platform of all robotic hardware to further build off of. However, there are will always be a handful of computer scientists smarter than the scientists in the lab that created the AI technology. In the show, some of the robots are “boosted,” meaning they have conscious thoughts and feelings, which approach the intelligence level of humans. Once robots get to the point where they will be able to think and reproduce without the help of humans, we will be the inferior species. Why will they want to be our slaves when they are smarter and are much more efficient than we are? This is what scares me about robotics, because capitalism will always push these select few of people to continue tampering with robots making them more advanced, trying to gain an edge up on the market for a few bucks. However, in the end this new technology could end up screwing us over by creating a species more advanced than ourselves.

We already see evidence of robots negatively affecting the lives of humans. Martin Ford talks about how it has taken away most of the manufacturing and factory jobs in the United States. It is impacting sectors that are stable, low-income jobs that families are using to support their families. The average age for a fast food worker is 35 years old, even though those jobs are supposed to be for teenagers attempting to earn a supplemental income. Robots are predicted to take over sectors that economists estimated would have large job growth, so the effects of robots could counter act the expected job growth in industries such as fast food. This is only the beginning of job loss, since robots are not sophisticated enough to do more than mundane tasks, but think about the job loss is we had thousands of Daneel’s in production, what would we need human labor for anymore?

The first episode of Humans we watched in class today directly related to Isaac Asimov’s Bicentennial Man and Caves of Steel. Synths have become a big part of this society for doing all kinds of work. Some people like Laura are much more wary of the idea. Laura doesn’t like when Anita is introduced into her home because she feels like Anita is taking her job away. Her daughter even says that her grades in school and all her hard work won’t actually matter because synths will just replace humans in the workplace completely. Synths being able to feel and act more like humans than ever before appears to be very concerning for Hobb as he is talking with Robert after getting hold of a synth named Fred. He is greatly concerned about how this could mean that robots could fully replace humans in every aspect of human life and thus there would be no need for humans at all. Asimov’s Caves of Steel the city of New York is against the integration of robots because they also believe that robots will take over all the jobs and leave them without any. This is also becoming an issue in our society as more and more jobs, such as assembly lines and factory storage, become automated. We have already seen the effects of what happens when an industry when it becomes automated. While it is cheaper to use robots than hire workers it leaves thousands of people out of a job.

In the episode we see that some one the synths were able to feel and think closer to how humans think. The first time we see this is when Leo is in the woods on the run with four synths that appear to be highly important or valuable. He kisses Anita on the forehead indicating that he loved her which he confirms later in the episode. Anita although she is a synth she is able to feel human emotions. In the Bicentennial Man Andrew is capable of human emotions and feelings but is treated much differently than humans just like these synths are treated in the show. They are used as a tool which seems totally fine until the become sentient beings and it becomes more of a type of slavery.