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Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

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Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#21

Post by X2kJSkesvUFhG8B »

Danihan wrote: post #18
thriftwy wrote: post #2

I think that soon it will be considered a bad practice to possess a skill or to use some knowledge for decisions.. If you have learned to do something, you will proceed by teaching a machine learning system that. And then you will use that, and not your internal knowledge. The reason will be cited as follows: If you know something, this introduces bus factor. People can't get in your head to validate if you're applyi…

It already is. For instance, let's say you pull up to a red light and the intesection is empty. No cars, no pedestrians. Common sense tells you to just run the light, there is no reason not to. But it's illegal for a human to use their own judgement to do this, and the instructions of the red light have to be followed regardless.

> the instructions of the red light have to be followed regardless

No they don't. If there's no enforcement, and no moral reason to follow the law, you've reduced yourself to a robot if you follow it.

As far as red lights are concerned though, you'd better be damn sure cars or bikes or pedestrians aren't going to leap out from around a corner before you run them. Especially if the intersection is empty at 3am and visibility is poor. In fact in that situation it's better to play it safe.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#22

Post by stefie10 »

Danihan wrote: post #19
stefie10 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you unlearn though? Eventually the AI will do all of the above as well. Maybe eventually programming will be like blacksmithing or weaving is today...

Completely obscure?

I was thinking more like the Renaissance fair today. You'd visit the fair that recreates a hack-a-thon in the late 90s. At the fair, you'd see the old programmer at his terminal, coding in Perl in an emacs window... instead of turkey legs, you'd have Fritos and Mountain Dew...

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#23

Post by indigochill »

stefie10 wrote: post #20
boundring wrote: post #16

The article is focused on robotic automation of menial tasks, primarily in industrial settings (factories, warehouses), not automation of judgements which could be subject to bias... Thriftwy raises an interesting point, speculatively, but there's little bias to be found in supply logistics or assembly of parts. Marginally touched upon in the article was the displacement of lower-class workers. Is expansion of automa…

I started working in robotics because I wanted to empower people and make the world a better place. But what I have started to appreciate is that increasing automation is by default a transfer of wealth from labor to capital owners. The two million long-haul truck drivers who are going to be replaced by self-driving trucks are going to lose income; the owners of the self-driving trucks are going to capture that wealt…

Although I agree automation necessarily moves wealth from labor to capital sources, I think an underappreciated concept by those concerned about automation is how increased productivity at least historically has benefited the overall economy. The industrial revolution went a long way towards advancing economic inequality, but had it not happened we collectively wouldn't enjoy anywhere near the quality of life we now do (and that goes for pretty much anyone who's worn a t-shirt).

But yes, it would be best if we could find ways to help laborers adapt to new automation and advance technology in a socially responsible way. Not that I have any great ideas for how that would work.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#24

Post by stefie10 »

fenwick67 wrote: post #17
stefie10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you can sue the company that owns the machine learning algorithm, probably for much more money than you can sue an individual. You can even imagine class action law suites and the like. (I am one of the researchers mentioned in the article.)

It is much harder to ask an algorithm about it's reasoning than a person's. "Joe, why did you fire Carla?" "She was late to work every other day and spent all day on her phone" "HR-bot 5000, why did you fire Carla?" "Weights indices 59738, 837, and 28836 added to over 0.67, yielding a score of only .85, which is below the firing threshold" Certainly you could look at the input data and try to convince a jury that her…

We cannot do this today, but this capability, of using language, is one we are actively working towards. Eventually, you can imagine an AI that can engage in a dialog like this one, in words. For example, see the DARPA Explainable AI program: https://www.darpa.mil/program/explainable-artificial-intelli....

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#25

Post by goatlover »

Danihan wrote: post #18
thriftwy wrote: post #2

I think that soon it will be considered a bad practice to possess a skill or to use some knowledge for decisions.. If you have learned to do something, you will proceed by teaching a machine learning system that. And then you will use that, and not your internal knowledge. The reason will be cited as follows: If you know something, this introduces bus factor. People can't get in your head to validate if you're applyi…

It already is. For instance, let's say you pull up to a red light and the intesection is empty. No cars, no pedestrians. Common sense tells you to just run the light, there is no reason not to. But it's illegal for a human to use their own judgement to do this, and the instructions of the red light have to be followed regardless.

If there is no camera and no police, you can run treat the light as a stoplight. Just be safe about it.

By can, I mean that a human being can choose to do so. Maybe smart cars in the future won't allow the driver to make that decision. But nothing forces us to always obey traffic laws right now.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#26

Post by goatlover »

thriftwy wrote: post #2

I think that soon it will be considered a bad practice to possess a skill or to use some knowledge for decisions.. If you have learned to do something, you will proceed by teaching a machine learning system that. And then you will use that, and not your internal knowledge. The reason will be cited as follows: If you know something, this introduces bus factor. People can't get in your head to validate if you're applyi…

Seems like that would greatly reduce the value of labor.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#27

Post by fishcolorbrick »

fenwick67 wrote: post #17
stefie10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you can sue the company that owns the machine learning algorithm, probably for much more money than you can sue an individual. You can even imagine class action law suites and the like. (I am one of the researchers mentioned in the article.)

It is much harder to ask an algorithm about it's reasoning than a person's. "Joe, why did you fire Carla?" "She was late to work every other day and spent all day on her phone" "HR-bot 5000, why did you fire Carla?" "Weights indices 59738, 837, and 28836 added to over 0.67, yielding a score of only .85, which is below the firing threshold" Certainly you could look at the input data and try to convince a jury that her…

At my previous shop, it was normal to silently tolerate developers breaking the rules (not locking their stations when they stepped away, browsing unapproved sites, coming in late, leaving early)... until it was decided that they needed to be fired because they were rude to someone important, or etc... at that point they lost their privilege to act like a professional and their badge-access records were pulled and compared to their time-entry.

The reason developers got fired is because of clear and well-defined rules... that were never enforced except when the decision to fire them for an arbitrary reason had already been made.

I think HR-bot 5000 would treat employees more equitably by forcing employers to confront the inequity of some HR regulations. The same way self-driving cars "drive weird" because they stop at stop signs and drive the speed limit.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#28

Post by stefie10 »

indigochill wrote: post #23
stefie10 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started working in robotics because I wanted to empower people and make the world a better place. But what I have started to appreciate is that increasing automation is by default a transfer of wealth from labor to capital owners. The two million long-haul truck drivers who are going to be replaced by self-driving trucks are going to lose income; the owners of the self-driving trucks are going to capture that wealt…

Although I agree automation necessarily moves wealth from labor to capital sources, I think an underappreciated concept by those concerned about automation is how increased productivity at least historically has benefited the overall economy. The industrial revolution went a long way towards advancing economic inequality, but had it not happened we collectively wouldn't enjoy anywhere near the quality of life we now…

I agree with that so much that I spend all my time working on robots. I am not saying we should stop automating. More the latter, that we should work toward applying the technology in a sustainable way. The advances in labor protections as part of the industrial revolution did not come for free. People fought (and died!) for advances such as the eight hour work day, stopping child labor, and many other things.

At this moment in history, with so much automation happening, and also so much inequality, we should keep fighting for it to happen in a good way.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#29

Post by s_kilk »

thriftwy wrote: post #2

I think that soon it will be considered a bad practice to possess a skill or to use some knowledge for decisions.. If you have learned to do something, you will proceed by teaching a machine learning system that. And then you will use that, and not your internal knowledge. The reason will be cited as follows: If you know something, this introduces bus factor. People can't get in your head to validate if you're applyi…

This would effectively freeze all development and leave us collectively stuck at the current level of expertise.

If every doctor trains an ML algo, then forgets how to be a doctor, then medicine stops dead at that level.

Re: Welcoming Our New Robotic Overlords

#30

Post by colemannugent »

boundring wrote: post #16

The article is focused on robotic automation of menial tasks, primarily in industrial settings (factories, warehouses), not automation of judgements which could be subject to bias... Thriftwy raises an interesting point, speculatively, but there's little bias to be found in supply logistics or assembly of parts. Marginally touched upon in the article was the displacement of lower-class workers. Is expansion of automa…

I don't think that increased automation will necessarily kill jobs. When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that could triple the labor of a slave, and the number of slaves increased keep the machines fed.

For a more modern analogy, AWS enables one engineer to deploy machines at let's say 100 times the speed of an engineer doing it all manually. If you business scales with the number of deployed machines, each additional engineer adds significant value to your business until you reach a point where adding another engineer does not justify the salary you would pay her.

The issue then is now training engineers to use AWS. Your business could justify bearing this cost if the cost of training does not outweigh the additional value.

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