“Will the imminent “rise of the robots” threaten all future human employment? The most thoughtful discussion of that question can be found in MIT economist David H. Autor’s 2015 paper, “Why Are There Still so Many Jobs?”, which considers the problem in the context of Polanyi’s Paradox. Given that “we can know more than we can tell,” the twentieth-century philosopher Michael Polanyi observed, we shouldn’t assume that technology can replicate the function of human knowledge itself. Just because a computer can know everything there is to know about a car doesn’t mean it can drive it.
This distinction between tacit knowledge and information bears directly on the question of what humans will be doing to produce economic value in the future. Historically, the tasks that humans have performed have fallen into ten broad categories. The first, and most basic, is using one’s body to move physical objects, which is followed by using one’s eyes and fingers to create discrete material goods. The third category involves feeding materials into machine-driven production processes – that is, serving as a human robot – which is followed by actually guiding the operations of a machine (acting as a human microprocessor).”
Robo-Apocalypse? Not in Your Lifetime | by J. Bradford DeLong
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rise-of-robots-social-work-by-j-bradford-delong-2019-05
via Instapaper
This distinction between tacit knowledge and information bears directly on the question of what humans will be doing to produce economic value in the future. Historically, the tasks that humans have performed have fallen into ten broad categories. The first, and most basic, is using one’s body to move physical objects, which is followed by using one’s eyes and fingers to create discrete material goods. The third category involves feeding materials into machine-driven production processes – that is, serving as a human robot – which is followed by actually guiding the operations of a machine (acting as a human microprocessor).”
Robo-Apocalypse? Not in Your Lifetime | by J. Bradford DeLong
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rise-of-robots-social-work-by-j-bradford-delong-2019-05
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“The idea is to allow people to use their thoughts to navigate intuitively through augmented reality—the neuro-driven version of the world recently described by Kevin Kelly in these pages. No typing, no speaking, even, to distract you or slow you down as you interact with digital additions to the landscape: driving instructions superimposed over the freeway, short biographies floating next to attendees of a conference, 3-D models of furniture you can move around your apartment.
The Harvard audience was a little taken aback by the conversation’s turn, and Zittrain made a law-professor joke about the constitutional right to remain silent in light of a technology that allows eavesdropping on thoughts. “Fifth amendment implications are staggering,” he said to laughter. Even this gentle pushback was met with the tried-and-true defense of big tech companies when criticized for trampling users’ privacy—users’ consent. “Presumably,” Zuckerberg said, “this would be something that someone would choose to use as a product.”
In short, he would not be diverted from his self-assigned mission to connect the people of the world for fun and profit. Not by the dystopian image of brain-probing police officers. Not by an extended apology tour. “I don’t know how we got onto that,” he said jovially. “But I think a little bit on future tech and research is interesting, too.””
Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Build a Mind-Reading Machine
https://www.wired.com/story/zuckerberg-wants-facebook-to-build-mind-reading-machine/
via Instapaper
The Harvard audience was a little taken aback by the conversation’s turn, and Zittrain made a law-professor joke about the constitutional right to remain silent in light of a technology that allows eavesdropping on thoughts. “Fifth amendment implications are staggering,” he said to laughter. Even this gentle pushback was met with the tried-and-true defense of big tech companies when criticized for trampling users’ privacy—users’ consent. “Presumably,” Zuckerberg said, “this would be something that someone would choose to use as a product.”
In short, he would not be diverted from his self-assigned mission to connect the people of the world for fun and profit. Not by the dystopian image of brain-probing police officers. Not by an extended apology tour. “I don’t know how we got onto that,” he said jovially. “But I think a little bit on future tech and research is interesting, too.””
Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Build a Mind-Reading Machine
https://www.wired.com/story/zuckerberg-wants-facebook-to-build-mind-reading-machine/
via Instapaper
“Yet, with centuries of technology advancement and the almost exponential increase of computing resources, data, knowledge, and capabilities, we still have not yet achieved the vision of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) -- machines that can be an equal counterpart of human ability. We’re not even close. We have devices we can talk to that don’t understand what we’re saying. We have cars that will happily drive straight into a wall if that’s what your GPS instructs it to do. Machines are detecting images but not understanding what they are. And we have amazing machines that can beat world champions at chess and Go and multiplayer games, but can’t answer a question as basic as “how long should I cook a 14 pound turkey?” We’ve mastered computing. We’ve wrangled big data. We’re figuring out learning. We have no idea how to achieve general intelligence.”
Artificial Intelligence Is Not A Technology
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/11/01/artificial-intelligence-is-not-a-technology/?utm_campaign=f93d7b1204-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_10_05_46&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Cognitive%2BRoundUp&utm_term=0_8baf59472a-f93d7b1204-98985207
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Artificial Intelligence Is Not A Technology
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/11/01/artificial-intelligence-is-not-a-technology/?utm_campaign=f93d7b1204-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_10_05_46&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Cognitive%2BRoundUp&utm_term=0_8baf59472a-f93d7b1204-98985207
via Instapaper
Derived from JDA Focus event in Barcelona November 6 2018