Japan’s labor force do not mind robots in factories because they’re seen as a source of help, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Taro Aso said in a panel discussion at the Asian Development Bank’s annual gathering in Manila.
Unlike many of their Western counterparts, Japanese workers aren’t afraid of robots stealing their jobs, a top-ranking official from the country said Friday.
Will they teach humanities?
Some experts have suggested that autonomous systems will replace us in jobs for which humans are unsuited anyway — those that are dull, dirty, and dangerous. That’s already happening. Robots clean nuclear disaster sites and work construction jobs. Desk jobs aren’t immune to the robot takeover, however — machines are replacing finance experts, outperforming doctors, and competing with advertising masterminds.
The unique demands placed on primary and secondary school teachers make this position different from many other jobs at risk of automation. Students all learn differently, and a good teacher must attempt to deliver lessons in a way that resonates with every child in the classroom. Some students may have behavioral or psychological problems that inhibit or complicate that process. Others may have parents who are too involved, or not involved enough, in their education. Effective teachers must be able to navigate these many hurdles while satisfying often-changing curriculum requirements.
In short, the job demands that teachers have nearly superhuman levels of empathy, grit, and organization. Creating robotic teachers that can meet all these demands might be challenging, but in the end, could these AI-enhanced entities solve our most pervasive and systemic issues in education?
I guess any procedure involving the brain feels like a different category of risk to most people. You must face that anxiety every day. I think there are two types of surgical practice that really strike at the core of people’s anxiety. One is brain surgery, where you are operating on something that people see as themselves, their sense of identity, their mind. The other one is, I think, paediatric surgery, where the operation is on the thing most precious to you – your children. I think both create a dynamic where you need to work harder to create trust with your patients.
When it comes to innovation that might link a person’s mind directly with a machine, it seems as much an ethical as a medical question. Is that how you see it? Ethicists are critical in what we do. A working interface would be a real turning point in human evolution. I don’t say that with bombast or hyperbole. And just like with artificial intelligence, we need to take the greatest care in how we think about it. Whether it happens in five years or 50 years, it will happen. I wrote these two science-fiction novels to try to walk people through some of the things that could happen; for example, if others got unauthorised access to these implants, or when corporations got involved. We need to be thinking about these things now, rather than after the fact.
Was one of the motivations in writing your books to work out these things for yourself? Did you feel the same at the beginning of the process as at the end? I had certain ideas in mind when I started the books, but there was an evolution. I came to think less about that individual interface and more about the effect this technology might have on society. We need to think hard about how advances [might] not increase social division.
As it becomes apparent that artificial intelligence will replace ever-more jobs in the coming years, a growing number of politicians, nonprofits, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have started thinking about how we’ll cope with a world in which not everyone can — or needs to — work.
Basic income experiments, in which people are given a regular salary just to live, no strings attached, are popping up all over Europe, Africa, and North America.
The industry partners will use the money to train artificially intelligent laboratory robots.
Many people assume that when robots enter the economy, they’ll snatch low-skilled jobs. But don’t let a PhD fool you — AI-powered robots will soon impact a laboratory near you.
The days of pipetting liquids around were already numbered. Companies like Transcriptic, based in Menlo Park, California, now offer automated molecular biology lab work, from routine PCR to more complicated preclinical assays. Customers can buy time on their ‘robotic cloud lab’ using any laptop and access the results in a web app.
AUSTIN — At SXSW 2018, artificial intelligence (AI) was everywhere, even in the sessions that were not specifically about the subject. AI has captured the attention of people well outside the technology space, and the implications of the technology are far-reaching, changing industries, eliminating many human jobs, and changing the nature of work for most of us going forward. I expect that an AI bot could write this article within 10 years — and likely much sooner — simply by ingesting all the information from the sessions I attended, coupled with an ability to research related information on the internet much better than I could.
Interestingly enough, as Ray Kurzweil pointed out in his talk here, the term “artificial intelligence” was coined at a summer workshop at Dartmouth in 1956 attended by computing pioneers such as Marvin Minsky and Claude Shannon, at a time when computers still ran on vacuum tubes and computers in the world numbered in the hundreds.
While we have a handle on what constitutes artificial intelligence in computers today, what constitutes intelligence in humans is still not completely agreed upon. We have some 100 billion neurons in our brains, and those neurons can make 100 trillion connections, which certainly outstrip any computer today. Those connections allow us to identify things, make decisions, use and understand language, and many other things that a computer has a hard time doing – for now.
The march of AI into the workplace calls for trade-offs between privacy and performance. A fairer, more productive workforce is a prize worth having, but not if it shackles and dehumanises employees. Striking a balance will require thought, a willingness for both employers and employees to adapt, and a strong dose of humanity.
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is barging its way into business. As our special report this week explains, firms of all types are harnessing AI to forecast demand, hire workers and deal with customers. In 2017 companies spent around $22bn on AI-related mergers and acquisitions, about 26 times more than in 2015. The McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank within a consultancy, reckons that just applying AI to marketing, sales and supply chains could create economic value, including profits and efficiencies, of $2.7trn over the next 20 years. Google’s boss has gone so far as to declare that AI will do more for humanity than fire or electricity.
Such grandiose forecasts kindle anxiety as well as hope. Many fret that AI could destroy jobs faster than it creates them. Barriers to entry from owning and generating data could lead to a handful of dominant firms in every industry.
Get our daily newsletter
Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor’s Picks.
Posted in employment, military | Leave a Comment on Russia and China are ‘aggressively developing’ hypersonic weapons — here’s what they are and why the US can’t defend against them
“We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us,” Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
“Both Russia and China are aggressively pursuing hypersonic capabilities,” Hyten added. “We’ve watched them test those capabilities.”
Researchers and engineers at Rand explain what a hypersonic weapon is, which countries are developing them and how the U.S. could look to defend against them.
