Re: How Robots Will Steal Your Job

[Roedy Green]

How many words of Chinese have you decoded? Perhaps 3 or 4. Does
that reflect on Chinese or you?

 

[Ray Gardener]

Another simple definition of intelligence could be that which
successfully analyzes cause and effect.

Ray

 

[George W. Cherry]

Robots caring for the elderly is one of the main applications.
With the aging population, everyone will need at least one robot to
help care for them.

We are in the same sort of position we were with telephones where if
we continued the same way with plug boards every single female in the
country would have had to be employed as an operator.

Things like preparing meals, lifting out of bed, turning, doing
housework, monitoring health, preparing medications and seeing they
are taken on time, cleaning up bathroom accidents, reading to the
person could all potentially be handled by specialised robots.

And most important of all, fetching the Helium
rebreather if the time comes when the senior
wants to make his or her final exit.

George

 

[Roedy Green]

And most important of all, fetching the Helium
rebreather if the time comes when the senior
wants to make his or her final exit.

We have a real problem with this. We will allow the elderly to starve
to death, but we won't help them have an easy death. By the time
people are so far gone they want to go, they are too weak to do it
without assistance.

With our puritanical and busybody rules blocking assistance, people
are forced to kill themselves earlier than they would have otherwise
done so.

In the old days, people did not linger. When they got weak, some
infectious disease took them quickly. Now people can drag on for years
teetering on the edge of death.

http://mindprod.com/euthanasia.html

 

[Alan Balmer]

Actually, that sounds like a job for the robots.

I don't know about you, but I would rather be aloft in a sail plane than
baby sitting or changing bedpans for codgers. Not that there is anything
wrong with babies mind you, or codgers.

Bob Kolker

 

[Hermann Riemann]

Another simple definition of intelligence could be that which
successfully analyzes cause and effect.

My best definition at this moment is:



autonomous sufficient fast generation of

usefull rules
=======




Herman
sometimes thinking of intelligence
working at the same principles
like human beings

 

[royls]

We have a real problem with this. We will allow the elderly to starve
to death, but we won't help them have an easy death. By the time
people are so far gone they want to go, they are too weak to do it
without assistance.

In many cases, they unexpectedly become unable to form the intention
to go, and are consequently but _incorrectly_ presumed to want to
stay.

With our puritanical and busybody rules blocking assistance, people
are forced to kill themselves earlier than they would have otherwise
done so.

Maybe we need to start prosecuting medical "service" providers who
intervene without the _informed_, _sober_ consent of patients or their
families. And we definitely need to start thinking about costs and
benefits when care is provided at taxpayer expense.

In the old days, people did not linger. When they got weak, some
infectious disease took them quickly. Now people can drag on for years
teetering on the edge of death.

This is the fundamental problem that is making health care so
outrageously costly to society, absorbing a double-digit percentage of
GDP. It will not be solved until there is widespread recognition of
the fact that restoration, maintenance, and enhancement of health are
the goals of medical treatment, not prolongation of terminal suffering
in an incredibly expensive and wasteful attempt to delay the
inevitable by a few days or weeks.

-- Roy L

 

[Alan Balmer]

In many cases, they unexpectedly become unable to form the intention
to go, and are consequently but _incorrectly_ presumed to want to
stay.

And just how did you form that conclusion? Are you a practicing
telepath?

 

[Roedy Green]

Maybe we need to start prosecuting medical "service" providers who
intervene without the _informed_, _sober_ consent of patients or their
families. And we definitely need to start thinking about costs and
benefits when care is provided at taxpayer expense.

I think of my poor Aunt Edith with pancreas cancer. She asked me
about euthanasia techniques, but by then she was too weak to arrange
anything herself, and she did not want to presume on me to ask me to
break the law.

Even the traditional "yellow submarines" nembutals no longer work.
They have an emetic in them to prevent overdosing.

Americans puzzle why she did not use a firearm. Blasting her brains
out all over a hospital ward is not the inconsiderate thing my aunt
would have ever contemplated. She spent her life training nurses.

We spend 50% of our lifetime medical budget in the our last year of
life. For many of us, we would just as soon avoid the worst part of
the last year by checking out early and leave the money for something
more useful.

Bringing it back to the topic, robotics should bring the cost of that
last year of care down, so people need not feel such a burden just for
staying alive.

 

[George W. Cherry]

We have a real problem with this. We will allow the elderly to starve
to death, but we won't help them have an easy death. By the time
people are so far gone they want to go, they are too weak to do it
without assistance.

And we let children nearly starve to death,
but insist that all pregnancies come to term.

With our puritanical and busybody rules blocking assistance, people
are forced to kill themselves earlier than they would have otherwise
done so.

I believe that the situation is worse in the US.

In the old days, people did not linger. When they got weak, some
infectious disease took them quickly. Now people can drag on for years
teetering on the edge of death.

http://mindprod.com/euthanasia.html

This worship of life (versus quality of life) appears
in the careful census of the deaths in Iraq but not
the injuries, mutilations, blindings, amputations, and
burns. Sometimes death in the "great good thing".

 

[Zagan]

The discussion is about the _definition_ of intelligence!

[Zagan]
I agree, as R. Steve Walz said, "The discussion is about the _definition_ of
intelligence!"

Here's my definition (at least as it pertains to robotics): Intelligence is
the ability to gather data and make decisions based on that data. In this
context, is has nothing to do with human consciousness or awareness. We are
talking about machine intelligence. Even simple collision detection is a
form of intelligence. Even my TV has simple intelligence since it "knows"
how to respond to signals it receives from my remote control.

Intelligence has nothing to do with consciousness or self-awareness.
Although this thread is cross-posted, I am replying from
"comp.robotics.misc" and my reply is based on the context of that forum.

// Jim

 

[George W. Cherry]

And just how did you form that conclusion? Are you a practicing
telepath?

Are you? As far as I know, no one is. So advanced
directives and living wills must fill the gap. I wonder,
can the soldiers in Iraq write advanced directives, or
does the US Department of Defense rule that out.

 

[George W. Cherry]

I think of my poor Aunt Edith with pancreas cancer. She asked me
about euthanasia techniques, but by then she was too weak to arrange
anything herself, and she did not want to presume on me to ask me to
break the law.

Even the traditional "yellow submarines" nembutals no longer work.
They have an emetic in them to prevent overdosing.

Americans puzzle why she did not use a firearm. Blasting her brains
out all over a hospital ward is not the inconsiderate thing my aunt
would have ever contemplated. She spent her life training nurses.

We spend 50% of our lifetime medical budget in the our last year of
life. For many of us, we would just as soon avoid the worst part of
the last year by checking out early and leave the money for something
more useful.

Bringing it back to the topic, robotics should bring the cost of that
last year of care down, so people need not feel such a burden just for
staying alive.

Too bad robots can't fight wars and we just watch.

On a mundane note, have you seen Roomba, the Robotic Floorvac?

http://www.roombavac.com/homepage.asp

It's a pretty cute hack.

 

[Roedy Green]

On a mundane note, have you seen Roomba, the Robotic Floorvac?

I once bought a rechargeable grass trimmer that could cut perhaps 3
feet of edge before the batteries ran out. I have been very
suspicious of anything rechargeable ever since. They did not describe
how the unit decides the borders on what to clean.

 

[Roedy Green]

This worship of life (versus quality of life) appears
in the careful census of the deaths in Iraq but not
the injuries, mutilations, blindings, amputations, and
burns. Sometimes death in the "great good thing".

I have pictures on my website at http://mindprod.com/iraq.html
of kids who didn't die, just maimed. I keep asking, how could anyone
think doing this would make the USA more secure? Surely all it could
do it make a relative swear revenge down the generations.

 

[P.Hill]

Another simple definition of intelligence could be that which
successfully analyzes cause and effect.

Oh that means my cat doesn't qualify. But on the other
hand I wouldn't want to have jaguar hunting me in the
jungle.

-Paul

 

[Wouter Lievens]

I have pictures on my website at http://mindprod.com/iraq.html
of kids who didn't die, just maimed. I keep asking, how could anyone
think doing this would make the USA more secure? Surely all it could
do it make a relative swear revenge down the generations.

You, me, and a couple of billion others think alike.
It's the guys in DC that don't realise that, so it seems.

 

[Gerry Quinn]

I once bought a rechargeable grass trimmer that could cut perhaps 3
feet of edge before the batteries ran out. I have been very
suspicious of anything rechargeable ever since. They did not describe
how the unit decides the borders on what to clean.

I have a vision of Kafka's torture machine reborn as grass trimmer.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Gerry Quinn]

You, me, and a couple of billion others think alike.
It's the guys in DC that don't realise that, so it seems.

The notion that pacifism is the best way to political success is not
original. I am not sure it has been proven so conclusively that "the
guys in DC" are obliged to take it as revealed truth, however.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Michael Borgwardt]

The notion that pacifism is the best way to political success is not
original. I am not sure it has been proven so conclusively that "the
guys in DC" are obliged to take it as revealed truth, however.

Surely there's a middle ground between pacifism and warmongering?