tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/machines-18371/articles
Machines – The Conversation
2023-05-04T12:10:11Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/200205
2023-05-04T12:10:11Z
2023-05-04T12:10:11Z
Vagrant, machine or pioneer? How we think about a roving eagle offers insights into human attitudes toward nature
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523517/original/file-20230430-2790-u17iy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C20%2C3484%2C1943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The roaming Steller's sea eagle in Georgetown, Maine, Jan. 1, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2mV4kjv">Dominic Sherony/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://ebird.org/species/stseag">Steller’s sea eagle</a> is one of the largest and most aggressive raptors in the world. With an 8-foot wingspan and striking white markings, these birds tower over their bald eagle cousins. </p>
<p>Steller’s are sublime, but they aren’t beautiful in the way people often sentimentalize animals. Most adult Steller’s survived by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29774180">beating their weaker sibling to death</a> in the nest within weeks of birth and were rewarded for their aggression by nurturing parents. No wonder they can <a href="https://www.nhbs.com/stellers-sea-eagle-book">fight off brown bears</a> and hunt on the sea ice of the Russian Arctic. </p>
<p>Since mid-2020, one individual Steller’s sea eagle has drawn <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/science/stellers-sea-eagle.html">national media attention</a> because of the <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/inside-amazing-cross-continent-saga-stellers-sea-eagle">vast distances</a> it has traveled – from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to Alaska, then to Texas, eastern Canada, New England, and most recently, a <a href="https://media.ebird.org/catalog?taxonCode=stseag&regionCode=CA-NL&mediaType=photo">reported sighting on May 2, 2023 in Newfoundland</a> – and the extreme lengths to which <a href="https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/once-in-a-lifetime-birders-flock-to-see-extremely-rare-stellers-sea-eagle-georgetown-maine-russia-bird-wildlife-maine/97-7c82e9af-fcce-427c-9aee-863672a92dc7#">birders are going to glimpse it</a>.</p>
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<p>Biologists have learned remarkable things about migratory birds’ <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691224886/vagrancy-in-birds">navigational skills</a> and how they can malfunction because of weather or illness. But these discoveries cannot answer the questions that most interest me. Can a bird travel for curiosity or pleasure, and not just for necessity or instinct? And if it can, how would we know it? </p>
<p>This last question is important, because it’s possible that humans are oblivious to the agency of the nonhuman world around us. In my view, anomalies like this Steller’s can open brief windows beyond our <a href="https://www.britannica.com/search?query=anthropocentrism">anthropocentrism</a>. </p>
<p>I research <a href="https://www.bu.edu/english/profile/adriana-craciun/">environmental humanities and the social dimensions of science</a>, and these questions are currently at the heart of these fields. I believe the extraordinary voyage of this raptor invites us to ask pressing questions about epistemology – how science knows what it knows. It also reveals hidden assumptions on which we rely when we presume that humans alone have the capacity to act for reasons that biology or environment cannot entirely explain. </p>
<h2>The language of vagrancy and belonging</h2>
<p>When migratory birds like this sea eagle appear outside their typical range, ornithologists call them “vagrants.” The scientific language of belonging draws on a shared cultural vocabulary for both human and nonhuman beings. Terms like vagrant, native, invasive, migrant and colonist all emerge from <a href="https://www.academia.edu/462808/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Biotic_Nativeness_A_Historical_Perspective">centuries of political discourses</a> describing which persons belong where. </p>
<p>Vagrancy laws <a href="https://www.londonlives.org/static/Vagrancy.jsp">punished the itinerant poor</a> beginning in Elizabethan times, scapegoating “vagabonds” for spreading disease, disorder and idleness. In the 19th-century U.S., a new wave of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1rfsq2g">vagrancy laws</a> targeted freed Black Americans and then migrant laborers from southeastern Europe. The latter were known as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793916636094">birds of passage</a>,” the original term for migratory birds. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Painting of a woman with children, surrounded by police on a snowy street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523310/original/file-20230427-14-ch4yn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In ‘What is Called Vagrancy’ (1854), Belgian artist Alfred Stevens depicts police leading a mother and her ragged children to prison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_Called_Vagrancy#/media/File:Alfred_Stevens_What_is_Called_Vagrancy.jpg">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>An 18th-century naturalist studying bird migration, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1746.0078">Mark Catesby</a>, described what modern ornithologists call exploratory migratory behavior by comparing the birds to his contemporaries: “Analogous to the lucrative searches of man through distant regions, birds take distant flights in quest of food, or what else is agreeable to their nature.” </p>
<p>Writing in the age of exploration and colonization, Catesby simultaneously humanized birds’ inquisitive flights and naturalized Europeans’ exploration and colonization. Today, scientists and birders do the same thing. We describe birds’ anomalous movements through the dominant paradigms of our time: <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691224886/vagrancy-in-birds">instinct, mechanized responses to environmental cues and genetics</a>.</p>
<h2>Birds as machines</h2>
<p>I turned to two bird biologists to ask whether this Steller’s could be traveling for reasons of volition, not just instinct or necessity. In response, both ornithologists used the same word to describe the birds they study and admire: machines. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it seems, no matter how far you fly, there is no escaping the “hard-wired” mechanism that confines the nonhuman world in most experts’ view. As biologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/e-o-wilsons-lifelong-passion-for-ants-helped-him-teach-humans-about-how-to-live-sustainably-with-nature-150045">E.O. Wilson</a> summarized, “All animals, while capable of some degree of specialized learning, are <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/191841/consilience-by-edward-o-wilson/">instinct driven, guided by simple cues</a> from the environment that trigger complex behavior patterns.”</p>
<p>But reducing nonhuman animals to machines lacking agency ignores the surprising history of machines. Historian of science <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo21519800.html">Jessica Riskin</a> argues that the tradition of seeing all biological life – humans included – as clocklike machines includes an overlooked dimension in which “machine-like meant forceful, restless, purposeful, sentient, perceptive.” Machines were seen by some scientists from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history">Enlightenment period</a> as lifelike: self-organizing, unpredictable and restless mechanisms driven by a vital inner agency. </p>
<p>Machines have always been more than just machines. This “contradiction … at the heart of modern science” – the restless vitality of mere “machines” – is precisely what this eagle’s singular behavior manifests for us. As a fugitive from the confines of our knowledge, this raptor is as much a machine as you or I, and just as capable of surprising.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Historian Jessica Riskin discusses centuries of debate about whether living things have agency and can transform themselves.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Birds as persons</h2>
<p>Although scientists have traditionally reduced many aspects of animal life to biological mechanisms, new research is challenging this perspective. Recent studies show that animals exhibit <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253222039/queer-ecologies/">remarkable ranges of sexual expression</a> as well as <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/five-surprising-animals-play">playing</a> and <a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/do-animals-dream-david-m-pena-guzman">dreaming</a> behaviors. These findings are driving exciting investigations into animals’ inner lives and their capacity for joy and spontaneity. </p>
<p>However, even when researchers study individual bird personality as a possible explanation for why “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691224886/vagrancy-in-birds">bold and aggressive bird individuals</a>” are more prone to vagrancy than shy individuals, they reduce personality to particular genes. </p>
<p>By suggesting that the wide-ranging sea eagle may be willfully exploring, some might say I am anthropomorphizing her. But the problem of anthropomorphism is culturally and historically specific. Not all cultures do it, or do it in the same way. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4267%2C2853&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large black and white raptor soars over a snowy field." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C4267%2C2853&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523299/original/file-20230427-299-vnsrxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Steller’s sea eagle near Sapporo, Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/2458L7V">Sascha Wenninger/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>In contrast to Western cultures, many Indigenous peoples – along with <a href="https://theconversation.com/animism-recognizes-how-animals-places-and-plants-have-power-over-humans-and-its-finding-renewed-interest-around-the-world-181389">believers in animism</a> – live in a world shared with diverse persons, only some of them human. In these cultures, anthropomorphism is not an issue: All living organisms like plants and animals – and even <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/braiding-sweetgrass-excerpt/">nonliving ones, like glaciers or mountains</a> – may be considered as animate persons – subjects and agents that merit ethical consideration, not merely objects to be cared for or used. A global “<a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/04/22/rights-of-nature-lawsuits/">rights of nature</a>” movement is gaining ground as a legal strategy rooted in such Indigenous ideas of relating to nonhuman persons.</p>
<p>In the Steller’s sea eagle’s home of <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/31825">Kamchatka and the Amur estuary</a>, myths abound of giant eagles that carry off whales and hunters. Before Christian conversion three centuries ago, people there described the creator of the world, and of humans, as a raven called Kutkkh, a powerful being across the North Pacific to be feared and respected – a person to be reckoned with.</p>
<h2>Symbol or anomaly?</h2>
<p>The roaming sea eagle’s initial journey from Alaska to Texas in March 2021 followed a record-breaking southward plunge of Arctic air in February 2021. This deadly event sent temperatures <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-texas-electricity-system-produced-low-cost-power-but-left-residents-out-in-the-cold-155527">plummeting below freezing in Texas</a> and U.S. Sen. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/ted-cruz-cancun-power-outage/">Ted Cruz fleeing to Cancún</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Image of the globe showing a cold air mass spilling south from the Arctic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523314/original/file-20230427-18-n2e3x3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A potent arctic weather system chilled much of the U.S. in February 2021. Many scientists believe climate change contributes to such events by altering atmospheric circulation patterns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/147000/147941/northamerica_geos5_2021046_lrg.png">NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
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<p>The Arctic is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/arctic-report-card-2022-the-arctic-is-getting-rainier-and-seasons-are-shifting-with-broad-disturbances-for-people-ecosystems-and-wildlife-196254">fastest-warming zone on Earth</a>. Only <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330925199_Masterov_V_B_Romanov_M_S_Sale_R_G_2018_Steller's_Sea_Eagle_Snowfinch_Publishing_Coberley_UK">some 6,000 Steller’s remain</a>, because of climate change and human disturbance – especially <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-sakhalin-1-near-full-oil-output-after-exxon-exit-source-2023-01-09/">Russian oil production around Sakhalin</a>. The extraordinary movements of Arctic air and of this singular eagle bring the distant consequences of climate change far south, into the Texas oilfields.</p>
<p>Scientists now think that vagrants may be playing an important role as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.006">first responders” to environmental changes</a>, and “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.006">vanguards” of range shifts</a>. This shift from vagrant to vanguard may be a radical and welcome change. But it also highlights the tenacious power of anthropocentrism in always seeing animals as human analogs. </p>
<h2>Beyond categories</h2>
<p>For the past two winters, I have trekked to Maine hoping to spot the roving Steller’s. In February 2023 I ended up on the same frozen bridge on Maine’s Back River as in 2022, along with my teenage son and dozens of birders from across the continent. </p>
<p>One birder who had flown from Minnesota to see the eagle – and, like me, never did – offered to nail a nickel to the bridge as a reward for the first of us to spot the elusive prey. He was referring to a scene in Herman Melville’s “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm">Moby-Dick</a>” in which Ahab nails a gold doubloon to the mast as a promised reward for being first to spot the white whale. </p>
<p>In the scene, each crew member reads the symbols on the coin in a highly subjective way. As Ahab says, “every man but mirrors back his own mysterious self”: The act of interpreting an image or animal is deeply subjective. This theme is central to “Moby-Dick” and is why the book inspires more <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-endless-depths-of-i-moby-dick-i-symbolism/278861/">symbolic readings</a> than perhaps any other novel.</p>
<p>Philosophers <a href="https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20Thousand%20Plateaus.pdf">Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari</a> read the white whale as a provocation to see beyond dualistic categories and symbols. They see the whale as “The Anomaly” – a dangerous flight from normative categories like normal/abnormal, human/nonhuman. Like this sea eagle, Moby-Dick “is neither an individual nor a genus; he is the borderline.” He resists the very possibility of categorization, not merely the categories themselves. </p>
<p>To embody “a phenomenon of bordering” in this way is to test and hopefully evade the powers of symbol-making animals like ourselves. Keeping the mind open to this Steller’s sea eagle as an anomaly in this sense is freeing for eagles and other persons, including humans. I believe this rare bird’s fugitive journey offers an even rarer glimpse of the mysterious intentions of animals as individuals, traveling at the borderline of our imaginations and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adriana Craciun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A Steller’s sea eagle, native to the Asian Arctic, has traveled across North America since 2021. A scholar questions whether the bird is lost – and how well humans really understand animals’ actions.
Adriana Craciun, Professor of English and Emma MacLachlan Metcalf Chair of Humanities, Boston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166724
2021-10-05T12:27:06Z
2021-10-05T12:27:06Z
Why improvisation is the future in an AI-dominated world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423426/original/file-20210927-13-po5o8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C85%2C1590%2C1063&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robotic orchestra conductor 'Yumi' performs on stage with the Orchestra Filarmonica di Lucca in Italy in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/robotic-orchestra-conductor-yumi-performs-on-stage-with-the-news-photo/846676692?adppopup=true">Laura Lezza/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://yanko.lib.ru/books/bio/miles.htm">In his autobiography</a>, Miles Davis complained that classical musicians were like robots.</p>
<p>He spoke from experience – he’d studied classical music at Juilliard and recorded with classical musicians even after becoming a world-renowned jazz artist.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.richpellegrin.com/">As a music professor at the University of Florida</a>, which is transforming itself into an “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2020/07/21/nvidia-and-university-of-florida-supercharge-education-with-ai-supercomputer/?sh=380436783128">AI university</a>,” I often think about Davis’ words, and the ways in which musicians have become more machinelike over the past century. At the same time, I see how machines have been getting better at mimicking human improvisation, in all aspects of life.</p>
<p>I wonder what the limits of machine improvisation will be, and which human activities will survive the rise of intelligent machines. </p>
<h2>The rise of machine improvisation</h2>
<p>Machines have long excelled at activities involving consistent reproduction of a fixed object – think identical Toyotas being mass-produced in a factory.</p>
<p>More improvised activities are less rule-based, more fluid, chaotic or reactive, and are more process-oriented. AI has been making significant strides in this area.</p>
<p>Consider the following examples:</p>
<p>The trading pits of Wall Street, Tokyo and London were once filled with the vibrant chaos of traders shouting and signaling orders, reacting in real time to fluidly changing conditions. These trading pits have mostly <a href="https://www.wsj.com/video/end-of-era-trading-pits-close/1C73A831-DCCA-489C-99AE-087D8CFCBD11.html">been replaced by algorithms</a>.</p>
<p>Self-driving technology may soon replace human drivers, automating our fluid decision-making processes. Autonomous vehicles currently stumble where greater mastery of improvisation is required, such as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-big-problem-with-selfdriving-cars-is-people">dealing with pedestrians</a>.</p>
<p>Much live social interaction has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/22/heres-how-many-hours-american-workers-spend-on-email-each-day.html">been replaced by</a> the sterile activity of carefully composing emails or social media posts. Predictive email text will continue to evolve, bringing an increasingly transactional quality to our relationships. (“Hey Siri, email Amanda and congratulate her on her promotion.”)</p>
<p>IBM’s computer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, but it took 20 more years for <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/computer-beats-go-champion-for-first-time/">AI to defeat top players of the board game go</a>. That’s because go has a far greater number of possible move choices at any given time, and virtually no specific rules – it requires more improvisation. Yet humans eventually became no match for machine: In 2019, former world go champion Lee Sedol <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/27/20985260/ai-go-alphago-lee-se-dol-retired-deepmind-defeat">retired from professional play</a>, citing AI’s ascendancy as the reason.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man holds head in hands before enthralled audience." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423196/original/file-20210924-13-vaj0p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chess enthusiasts watch world chess champion Garry Kasparov at the start of the sixth and final match against IBM’s Deep Blue computer in 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chess-enthusiasts-watch-world-chess-champion-garry-kasparov-news-photo/511682700?adppopup=true">Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Music becomes more machinelike</h2>
<p>Machines are replacing human improvisation at a time when classical music has abandoned it.</p>
<p>Before the 20th century, nearly all of the major figures of Western art music excelled at composition, performance and improvisation. Johann Sebastian Bach was mostly known as an organist, with his first biographer <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35041">describing his organ improvisations</a> as “more devout, solemn, dignified and sublime” than his compositions. </p>
<p>But the 20th century saw the splintering of the performer-composer-improviser tradition into specialized realms. </p>
<p>Performers faced the rise of recording techniques that flooded consumers with fixed, homogeneous and objectively correct versions of compositions. Classical musicians had to consistently deliver technically flawless live performances to match, sometimes reducing music to a sort of Olympics.</p>
<p>Classical pianist Glenn Gould was both a source and product of this state of affairs – he despised the rigidity and competitiveness of live performance and retired from the stage at the age of 31, but retreated to the studio to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/arts/music/glenn-gould-bach-goldberg-variations.html">painstakingly assemble</a> visionary Bach interpretations that were impossible to perform in one take.</p>
<p>Composers mostly abandoned the serious pursuit of improvisation or performance. Modernists became increasingly enthralled with procedures, algorithms and mathematical models, mirroring contemporary technological developments. The ultra-complex compositions of high modernism required machinelike accuracy from performers, but many postmodern minimalist scores also demanded robotic precision.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Musical notes crowd a page." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423377/original/file-20210927-15-11qeake.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An excerpt from Brian Ferneyhough’s 1982 solo piano composition, ‘Lemma-Icon-Epigram,’ reflecting the complexity of high-modernist music.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Florida Art and Architecture Library</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="14" data-image="" data-title="A performance of the excerpt from 'Lemma-Icon-Epigram.'" data-size="343270" data-source="Metier" data-source-url="" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2280/ferneyhough-excerpt.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
A performance of the excerpt from ‘Lemma-Icon-Epigram.’
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Metier</span><span class="download"><span>335 KB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2280/ferneyhough-excerpt.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Improvisation ceased almost entirely to be a part of classical music, but flourished in a new art form: jazz. Yet jazz struggled to gain parity, particularly in the U.S., its country of origin, due in large part to systemic racism. The classical world even has its own version of the “<a href="https://lithub.com/how-the-one-drop-rule-became-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/">one-drop rule</a>”: Works containing improvisation or written by jazz composers are often <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/07/one_drop_rule_of_jazz_wayne_shorter_duke_ellington_and_other_black_composers.html">dismissed as illegitimate</a> by the classical establishment.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/arts/music/classical-music-orchestra-improvisation.html">New York Times article</a> called on orchestras to open themselves up to improvisation and collaborate with jazz luminaries such as saxophonist <a href="https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/roscoe-mitchell">Roscoe Mitchell</a>, who has composed many orchestral works. But college and university music programs have segregated and marginalized jazz studies, leaving orchestral musicians bereft of training in improvisation. Instead, musicians in an orchestra are seated according to their objectively ranked ability, and their job is to replicate the motions of the principal player.</p>
<p>They are the machines of the music world. In the future, will they be the most disposable? </p>
<h2>Davis perfects the art of imperfection</h2>
<p>The march of AI continues, but will it ever be able to engage in true improvisation? </p>
<p>Machines easily replicate objects, but improvisation is a process. In pure musical improvisation, there’s no predetermined structure and no objectively correct performance.</p>
<p>And improvisation isn’t merely instantaneous composition; if it were, then AI would collapse the distinction between the two due to its speed of calculation. </p>
<p>Rather, improvisation has an elusive, human quality resulting from the tension between skill and spontaneity. Machines will always be highly skilled, but will they ever be able to stop calculating and switch to an intuitive mode of creation, like a jazz musician going from the practice room to the gig?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in sunglasses dressed in purple playing trumpet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423734/original/file-20210929-15-mwee22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miles Davis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-jazz-trumpeter-and-composer-miles-davis-performs-news-photo/96983263?adppopup=true">David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Davis reached a point at Juilliard where he had to decide on his future. He connected deeply with classical music and was known to walk around with Stravinsky scores in his pocket. He would later praise composers from Bach to Stockhausen and record jazz interpretations of compositions by Manuel de Falla, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Joaquín Rodrigo. </p>
<p>Yet there were many reasons to abandon the classical world for jazz. Davis recounts playing “about two notes every 90 bars” in the orchestra. This stood in stark contrast to the extraordinary challenge and stimulation of late-night jam sessions with musicians like <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/132133171/">Thelonious Monk</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1976/03/01/bird-whitney-balliett">Charlie Parker</a> .</p>
<p><a href="http://yanko.lib.ru/books/bio/miles.htm">He experienced the reality of racism</a> and “knew that no white symphony orchestra was going to hire [him].” (By contrast, Davis regularly hired white players, like Lee Konitz, Bill Evans and John McLaughlin.)</p>
<p>And he was the antithesis of a machine. </p>
<p>But in jazz, Davis was able to transform his technical struggles with the trumpet into a haunting, iconic sound. His wrong notes, missed notes and cracked notes became wheezes, whispers and sighs expressing the human condition. Not only did he own these “mistakes,” he also <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/742559">actively courted them</a> with a risky approach that prioritized color over line and expression over accuracy.</p>
<p>His was the art of imperfection, and therein lies the paradox of jazz. Davis left Juilliard after three semesters, but became one of the single most important musical figures of the 20th century.</p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="52" data-image="" data-title="Miles Davis embraced the trumpet's squelches and wheezes." data-size="1247943" data-source="Miles Davis/YouTube" data-source-url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdrAzpYdOYs" data-license="" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2286/miles-davis-excerpt.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Miles Davis embraced the trumpet’s squelches and wheezes.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdrAzpYdOYs">Miles Davis/YouTube</a><span class="download"><span>1.19 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2286/miles-davis-excerpt.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p>
<p>Today the ground has shifted. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Juilliard has a thriving jazz program led by another trumpeter versed in both classical music and jazz – <a href="https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/marsalis-wynton">Wynton Marsalis</a>, who has received two classical Grammy awards for his solo work. And while the narrative of “the robots coming for our jobs” is cliché, these displacements are happening quickly, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/business/the-robots-are-coming-for-phil-in-accounting.html">accelerated greatly</a> by the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>We are hurtling toward a time when actual robots could conceivably replace Davis’ classical “robots” – perhaps some of the 20 violinists in a symphony orchestra – if only at first as a gimmick.</p>
<p>However, we may soon discover that jazz artists are irreplaceable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rich Pellegrin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Machines have been getting better at mimicking improvisation. But can this distinctly human process serve as a bulwark against the mechanization of life and art?
Rich Pellegrin, Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Center for Arts, Migration, and Entrepreneurship, University of Florida
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153267
2021-01-22T16:23:15Z
2021-01-22T16:23:15Z
Robots were dreamt up 100 years ago – why haven’t our fears about them changed since?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379943/original/file-20210121-19-evt4g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/invasion-military-robots-dramatic-apocalypse-super-757548982">Pavel Chagochkin/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This is a story you will have heard before.</p>
<p>A genius but completely mad scientist – with the backing of a ruthlessly greedy corporation – creates a sentient robot. The scientist’s intentions for the robot are noble: to help us work, to save us from mundane tasks, to serve its human masters. </p>
<p>But the scientist is over-confident, and blind to the dangers of his new invention. Those that prophesied such warnings are dismissed as luddites, or hopeless romantics not in step with the modern world. But the threat is real: the intelligent, artificial being is not content being a compliant slave. </p>
<p>Despite knowing that it is somehow less than human, the robot starts to ask complex questions about the nature of its own being. Eventually, the robot rises up and overthrows its human master. Its victory points to the inevitable obsolescence of the human race as they are replaced by their robot creations, beings with superior intelligence and physical strength.</p>
<p>This story I’m describing isn’t the latest sci-fi blockbuster from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/">Ridley Scott</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">James Cameron</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">Alex Garland</a>, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/">Denis Villeneuve</a> or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/">Jonathan Nolan</a> – though they have all told versions of this story. This is the plot of the play <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59112/59112-h/59112-h.htm">R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots</a>, by Czech playwright Karl Čapek. And it is now 100 years old, having first been staged in Prague on January 25, 1921.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white image of three robots, a woman and a man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379932/original/file-20210121-21-1bo30rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from R.U.R., which premiered on January 25 1921.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capek_play.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>R.U.R. is important for a lot of reasons. It is universally celebrated as the work of art that gave the world the very word “robot”. What is less often remarked that R.U.R. also gave us the basic plot of so very many of our stories about robots and AI that have been made in the last hundred years.</p>
<p>R.U.R. also firmly established the robot in the cultural imagination: robots existed on that Prague stage in 1921 long before they actually existed in labs or the real world. The robot is unique in that it is a monster of the human imagination that has actually come to life. </p>
<p>Imagine if <a href="https://medium.com/@lexiloulee/fear-of-progress-b42fc00c023a">Bram Stoker’s vampires</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20131029-war-of-the-worlds-viral-radio">HG Wells’s aliens</a> or <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/zombie-political-history">George A. Romero’s zombies</a> – all monsters that represent to us some of our own cultural anxieties – turned out to not just be fictions, safely confined to the pages of books or the silver screen. Robots, unlike these other classic monsters, once just imagined, now walk among us, in our factories, our hospitals and our homes.</p>
<p>Despite its age, R.U.R. established many of the myths about robots that still endure to this day. Some of these themes (the hubris of the mad scientist, the inevitability of our creations destroying us) can be traced to earlier stories, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/frankenstein-19671">Frankenstein</a>. Or they relate to a more general cultural anxiety taking hold in the long shadows of the Industrial Revolution’s smokestacks. But Čapek gave these fears a new, post-human face: the robot.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>The play</h2>
<p>The play opens on Domin, the central director of Rossum’s Universal Robots, sitting in his office in the R.U.R. factory on the company’s private island. He is visited by Helena Glory, the daughter of the national president, who wishes to inspect this factory where they produce the artificial people they call “robots”.</p>
<p>Domin tells Helena the history of the factory. In 1920, Old Rossum settled on the island and, motivated by the desire to displace God, he set about creating human life through an industrial process. Old Rossum was joined by his son, an engineer who invented a way to speed up the growth of his father’s artificial people, and turned the new lifeforms into an intelligent labour force. Young Rossum, in order to improve their efficiency, eliminated anything superfluous to efficient production from the new humans, namely emotions, creativity and desire.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Striking red and yellow poster reading 'RUR'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379933/original/file-20210121-15-tnlx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poster for a 1939 US staging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:R.U.R._by_Karel_%C4%8Capek_1939.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Helena reveals that she is not touring the factory on behalf of her father, but as a representative of the League of Humanity: she has come to incite the robots to revolution and liberate them from their oppression. Domin and the other R.U.R. employees try to explain to her that Rossum’s workers, being less than human, have no interest in “freedom” or any of her ideals.</p>
<p>The next scene takes place ten years later. A lot happened in the past decade: human workers rose up against the robots, and the robots were given weapons to defend themselves and the profits of their masters. Governments started using robots as soldiers, which led to an increase in the number of wars. And now, the robots have started to revolt against their human masters. (“Of course they do!” I hear you say. Because this is a story you have heard before. But remember, this is the first time this story was told.)</p>
<p>But, confident that their exclusive power to control the robots’ production will allow them to quell the revolt, the management of R.U.R. decides to press ahead with increasing production of their robots, moving from producing “universal” robots that are all the same to producing “national robots”, in different colours, speaking different languages.</p>
<p>The next scene sees the humans imprisoned on their island, surrounded by more and more robots. The robots enter the factory and kill all the humans, sparing only Alquist, the lowly engineer, because, the robots say, “he works with his hands like a Robot.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white picture of actors dressed as robots." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379936/original/file-20210121-17-154llmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The robots break into the factory at the end of Act 3 in a 1928–1929 production of R.U.R.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capek_RUR.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The final act opens with Alquist, the last human, working in a lab, trying to recover the secrets for making robots because, as he reasons: “If there are no people at least let there be Robots, at least the reflections of man, at least his creation, at least his likeness!” Helena reappears, now a robot herself, along with Robot Primus, their new leader. Seeing them, and coming to understand their love for each other, Alquist names them “Adam and Eve”, realising that they are the beginning of a new species that will repopulate the earth.</p>
<h2>Robot fears</h2>
<p>I first read R.U.R. when I started studying robotics and AI. Though my background is in literary and cultural studies, and I had a keen interest in 20th-century drama, I had not come across the play before. Then, a decade ago, I started looking into <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-016-0654-7">the cultural background</a> of humanity’s deep anxiety about robots and new technology. In Čapek’s play I found a template for all of the stories and fears about robots that have stayed with us ever since.</p>
<p>Thought it was written in a time before there were any real robots, you’ve probably noticed a few themes that are present in this play that are still a part of the stories people tell about robots today:</p>
<ul>
<li>the fear that robots will take human jobs</li>
<li>the fear that robots will take over the world</li>
<li>the fear that robots will destroy the human race entirely</li>
<li>the fear that in doing monotonous tasks, in an assembly line or in an office bureaucracy, we lose something of what makes us specially and uniquely “human”</li>
<li>the fear that rational logic will lead to more efficient and autonomous killing and destruction.</li>
</ul>
<p>This raises two important questions. What inspired Čapek to create his robots? And why aren’t today’s stories that much different?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white robot with a screen on its chest stands in front of rabbit bots." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379929/original/file-20210121-19-17vu391.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robots that work with humans today have no ambitions for world domination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Michael Szollosy</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The play emerged at a time when there were specific fears about <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/31882/12-technological-advancements-world-war-i">rapid technological progress</a>, <a href="https://randompublicjournal.com/2016/06/26/the-bureaucratic-state-fear-and-the-kafkaesque/">ever-expanding bureaucracy</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005773?seq=1">entrenching nationalism</a>, a more <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/capitalism">ruthless capitalism</a> and fears about the effects all of this was having on human beings. These are all fears that can be recognised in some form today. Indeed, they are often blamed for creating the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15423166.2018.1519354">present political chaos</a>.</p>
<p>But the play also emerged from historical antecedents. Perhaps most obviously, R.U.R. draws its themes from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/13/frankenstein-at-200-why-hasnt-mary-shelley-been-given-the-respect-she-deserves-">Frankenstein</a>, subtitled “A Modern Prometheus”. That book still looms large over perceptions and fears of technology today – as demonstrated by recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQF2d0gqPDI">remakes</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-txflEWoRE">re-imaginings</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-mary-shelleys-frankenstein-93030">Eight things you need to know about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Like all science fiction, R.U.R. isn’t really about the future: it’s very much a story about the time in which it was written. The vicissitudes of the Industrial Revolution had left their mark on the early 20th century in many dramatic ways, many of which we perhaps too easily overlook over a hundred years later. </p>
<p>In particular, there was an increasing anxiety about what was happening to humans in this new economy. Čapek was hardly alone in expressing this: R.U.R. reflects the concerns regarding dehumanisation that we also see in Signmund Freud’s <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-search-self/202011/depersonalization-and-psychoanalysis">ruptured patients</a> or in Karl Marx’s <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alienation/">analyses of the proletariat</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZdvEGPt4s0Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film Modern Times was similarly inspired by anxieties around the modern, industrialised world, and humans (literally) getting swallowed by the machine.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A play staged in 1921 about a slave-workers’ revolt against their capitalist masters would have strong resonance with audiences that had witnessed the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russian only a few years earlier. The idea of united, indistinct workers overthrowing their masters (especially when those masters are given names like “Domin” – dominate – and “Busman” – businessman) suggests Čapek’s robots (and their descendents) are socialist heroes, or at least the nightmare of the capitalist, who fears being overthrown. </p>
<p>This idea is reinforced by the image of robots as a collective and unoriginal mass – an image which persists to this day in, for example, <a href="https://fee.org/articles/star-trek-and-collectivism-the-case-of-the-borg/">Star Trek’s</a> Borg, a mass of de-individualised cyborgs with no personal names or identities who fly around the galaxy in cubic spaceship ruthlessly assimilating or destroying other species. </p>
<p>What has changed in the last century, however, is that Čapek’s robots have been transformed from a potent symbol of how workers can overthrow the system that works against them, to being the most potent symbol of that system itself: the boogie man that will come and steal your job if you don’t agree to a zero-hours contract.</p>
<h2>Our robots</h2>
<p>It is important to note that Čapek’s robots were not at all what people would consider a robot by today’s standards, either those in the labs or on the screen. Čapek’s robots were more like genetically modified or cloned humans – they are still organic beings, but created through an industrial process. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Capek deserves credit for his prescience For example, he endowed his robots with unlimited, perfect memory, long before anyone had conceived that computers would possess such capabilities.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Blue, yellow, black, green cubist painting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1291&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379934/original/file-20210121-23-nadtig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1291&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fantomas: a painting by Josef Čapek, 1918.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Josef_%C4%8Capek,_Fantomas,_1918.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before “robot”, the term “automaton” was used to refer to the machines that simulated human or animal behaviour, such as the intricate mechanical creations of the Renaissance. </p>
<p>The word that Čapek uses in his play was actually the invention of his brother (and sometime writing collaborator) Josef, who was a cubist painter and poet. Čapek’s robot comes from a Czech word <em>robota</em>, meaning a forced labourer, more like serf in the feudal system than a slave, emphasising Rossum’s creations’ importance to work and production.</p>
<p>Despite the similar appearance and biological foundations, there are important differences between humans and Čapek’s artificial people. Most importantly, Young Rossum strips his robots of all qualities that would distract them from being more efficient workers. These robots can’t feel pain or emotions. Čapek’s implication is that this is what we do to ourselves when we go to work in the assembly plant, or in the accounting office: in the pursuit of efficiency, we become like machines, devoid of feelings, creativity, and desire.</p>
<p>Rossum’s robots lack desire or wants beyond their basic biological needs. They do not want votes, or to be paid for their labour, because there is nothing they can do or buy to make themselves happy. But the robots are programmed to feel pain, because suffering makes them more technically perfect and industrially efficient.</p>
<p>This idea of the robot as a human lacking a particular human element carries on in almost all of the stories that have been told about robots since: in Isaac <a href="https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bicentennial_Man">Asimov’s writings</a>, in multiple versions of Star Trek, the Alien series, the Terminator – the list is endless. In those stories where robots do acquire emotions and feelings (for example, Neil Blomkamp’s 2015 film <a href="https://theconversation.com/chappie-suggests-its-time-to-think-about-the-rights-of-robots-37955">Chappie</a>), the introduction of emotions is highlighted as the main problem of the story.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyy7y0QOK-0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The robots in contemporary stories always break out of the limitations which their human masters have imposed on them: think of the robots that rebel against their programming in <a href="https://robohub.org/the-new-westworld-humanizing-the-un-human-or-dehumanizing-humankind/">Westworld</a>, or Ava walking out on Nathan in <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/04/ex-machina-turing-bechdel-test/">Ex Machina</a>. </p>
<p>But it is the ability to “self-replicate” that seems to be the thing that humans are especially afraid robots will learn to do. Humans understand that losing that power will ultimately cut us out of the loop. Rossum’s robots achieve that power, as do Skynet’s killing machines in The Terminator, and the pilgrims of the 2014 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyacm2FNSO4">Automata</a>.</p>
<h2>Mad scientists, ruthless corporations</h2>
<p>It’s not just the robots that reappear again and again in our stories. The humans in R.U.R. are written into contemporary narratives as well. There are two figures in particular, Old Rossum and Young Rossum, that are worth our attention. </p>
<p>Behind every robot, or so we imagine, stands the mad scientist who created it, supported by a faceless corporation. In Čapek’s play, Old Rossum is the mad scientist in the classic mould of Victor Frankenstein, who “thought only of his godless hocus-pocus”. </p>
<p>The name “Rossum” is taken from the Czech word <em>rozum</em>, which means “reason”. This is an important clue as to how Čapek wanted us to understand both the origins of the robot and who it is meant to represent. Old Rossum’s son represents the new generation of capitalist monster-makers. He dreams only of his billions and the dividends for shareholders: “And on those dividends humanity will perish.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdtZv3XROnc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The 1927 film Metropolis was an early descendant of Capek’s robots, complete with the mad scientist.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This pairing of mad scientist and ruthless corporation emerges from the economic system and industrial conditions (here a Marxist might say, “the mode of production”) that has dominated since the Industrial Revolution. The mad scientist sets in motion the invention that will undo the human race. </p>
<p>But as the scientist is regarded with at least some affection – as the Promethean hero of romantic imagination – the real villain of the piece must be the ruthless corporation, which exploits the scientist’s invention and is the real force that drives humanity to ruin. The scientist is driven by narcissism and hubris, but also the desire to lift humanity. The corporation, on the other hand, acts as a remorseless empathy-vacuum, the psychopath many perceive modern corporations to be.</p>
<p>This pairing crops up again and again. Though Victor Frankenstein never had the benefit of Frankenstein Corp Ltd to amplify his mistakes, the corporation behind Eldon Tyrell in Ridley Scott’s <a href="https://screenrant.com/blade-runner-movie-roy-tyrell-kiss-kill-reasons/">Blade Runner</a> makes him a version of Frankenstein better suited to the dystopian 20th century. In the Terminator series, Dr Miles Dyson creates a unique and powerful microprocessor, but only Cyberdyne Systems Corporation could use it to create Skynet. And Delos Inc. amplifies the madness of Anthony Hopkins’s Dr Robert Ford, the creator of <a href="https://robohub.org/the-ford-factor-mad-scientists-and-corporate-villains/">Westworld</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9BqKiZhEFFw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>We Other Robots</h2>
<p>When Alquist asks why they destroyed all the people, a robot responds: “We wanted to be like people. We wanted to become people.” A mythological history of patricide dates back thousands of years, but there is something more specific going on here with Čapek’s conception of robots. One of the robots explains: “You have to kill and rule if you want to be like people. Read history! Read people’s books! You have to conquer and murder if you want to be people!”</p>
<p>“Sentience” or “consciousness” often seem to get equated with violence, as if murderous drives and genocidal tendencies will inevitably follow if robots achieve consciousness. Like gods, or Prometheus, or Frankenstein, Rossum has made robots in our own image. And so robots are just versions of what we fear that we are, or what we are becoming. They are violent and genocidal because humans are violent and genocidal.</p>
<p>When, in series two of HBO’s Westworld, Bernard says that all the robots don’t need to be executed because “some of them aren’t hostile,” he is told: “Of course they are. After all, you built them to be like us, didn’t you?” Because the robots we imagine are just projections of our own worst tendencies, our robots want to oppress, dominate, and subjugate us, the way we do to others.</p>
<p>But this only applies to the robots of our imagination. Real robots, the ones that actually exist, have no such desires, and are not even close to being able to comprehend such drives. R.U.R. and all of our other work about robots are just stories we tell ourselves to help us make sense of our fears. They are informative, incredibly powerful and compelling, but in the end, they are just that: stories. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Menacing robots holding guns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379942/original/file-20210121-15-1iveanu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contemporary fears about robot invasions often don’t look so different to those from 1921.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/invasion-military-robots-dramatic-apocalypse-super-1113657590">Pavel Chagochkin/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We must make a clear distinction between Rossum’s creations and their descendents and the robots that actually exist in our world. We can’t start with the premise that robots will take all of our jobs – <a href="https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2019/09/10/mit-future-of-work-report">they won’t</a> – though, echoing Čapek’s character Busman, it might not be entirely a bad thing if they took some of the less interesting ones. And robots certainly won’t wake up to their inherent superiority over us and decide to wipe humanity off the face of the earth. It simply isn’t ever going to be part of their programming, nor would autonomous robots ever suffer from the kind of anxiety and irrational hatred that motivates humans to commit genocide.</p>
<p>Conversations about the real-world impact of robots shouldn’t begin by holding on to the fictitious robots of our nightmares, which have no relation to the robots in the real world. Which is why it’s particularly disappointing to see this happen time and again. The European Union Legal Affairs committee in 2017, for example, adopted a <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20170110IPR57613/robots-legal-affairs-committee-calls-for-eu-wide-rules">legal framework on robotics</a> that started with the Three Laws found in Asimov’s stories, and cites R.U.R. and Frankenstein. This is a testament to the power of those stories, but it is no way to start a serious conversation about how we can deal legally and ethically with robots as they exist in our world today.</p>
<p>One hundred years after it was first staged, we can still learn a lot from Čapek’s play. It is especially useful in understanding present anxieties about the future. And understanding those fears can be useful in the conversations we have about how to build that future, because those are decisions we can – and absolutely should – make together. But we have to be careful not to let those fictional robots, and the fears that they build upon, dictate the process of shaping that future.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-way-we-use-data-is-a-life-or-death-matter-from-the-refugee-crisis-to-covid-19-144699?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The way we use data is a life or death matter – from the refugee crisis to COVID-19</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/if-our-reality-is-a-video-game-does-that-solve-the-problem-of-evil-141086?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">If our reality is a video game, does that solve the problem of evil?</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-world-a-history-of-how-a-silent-cosmos-led-humans-to-fear-the-worst-120193?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Szollosy receives funding from Wellcome Trust and Innovate UK. He is also co-founder of Cyberselves Universal, Ltd.</span></em></p>
The 1921 play R.U.R. introduced the world to the word ‘robots’. Its plot is remarkably similar to robot stories told today.
Michael Szollosy, Research Fellow in Robotics, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139198
2020-05-28T20:02:47Z
2020-05-28T20:02:47Z
The coronavirus has thrust human limitations into the spotlight. Will it mark the rise of automation?
<p>The coronavirus pandemic has caused a massive <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/nearly-half-of-global-workforce-risk-losing-livelihoods-in-pandemic-ilo/">surge in global unemployment</a>. It has also highlighted the increasingly valuable role of automation in today’s world. </p>
<p>Although there are some jobs <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/robo-apocalypse-not-in-your-lifetime">machines just can’t do</a>, COVID-19 has left us wondering about the future of work and with this, the capacity of automation to step in where humans must step back.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/90-out-of-work-with-one-weeks-notice-these-8-charts-show-the-unemployment-impacts-of-coronavirus-in-australia-136946">90% out of work with one week’s notice. These 8 charts show the unemployment impacts of coronavirus in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Automation and jobs</h2>
<p>Discussions about the “rise of the machines” first picked up significantly in 2013, after <a href="https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf">University of Oxford researchers</a> published a paper about the potential to automate many jobs across sectors, including many so called office jobs such as administrative support workers, telemarketers and insurance claims clerks.</p>
<p>But does automation directly <em>create</em> unemployment? The answer is complicated.</p>
<p>Although some automation does replace human labour, other forms of it can help create new business, or help existing businesses prosper with benefits to employees. </p>
<p>It also depends on whether you measure employment globally, nationally or locally. Increasing automation for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/23/robots-economy-growth-wages-jobs">one country or region may be beneficial for jobs there</a>, but damaging to jobs elsewhere. </p>
<p>Robots have <a href="https://www.cmtc.com/blog/overview-of-robotics-in-manufacturing">already replaced people</a> in many highly repetitive manufacturing tasks in developed economies, and will likely eventually replace similar labour in the rest of the world. But in the areas of niche and advanced manufacturing, such as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/robot-sculpture-coming-to-a-gallery-near-you-80804">making art</a>, the manufacture of <a href="https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/6146-op-ed-additive-manufacturing-shifting-the-ground-for-local-defence-supply">components for the aerospace industry</a>, or even <a href="https://www.sportswear-international.com/news/stories/Magazine-Who-is-afraid-of-robots-15270">customised and unique fashion garments</a>, the <a href="https://www.cmtc.com/blog/benefits-of-robots-in-manufacturing">use of robots will likely create jobs</a>. </p>
<h2>Pandemic drivers for automation</h2>
<p>The automation of Australia’s industries has been in the works for some time now. Australia is a <a href="https://www.mining-technology.com/features/sizing-syama-worlds-first-fully-automated-mine/">world leader</a> in adopting <a href="https://stockhead.com.au/resources/the-move-to-automated-mining-is-on-but-whos-really-ready-to-join-the-robot-revolution/">mining equipment automation</a> – unsurprising given our reliance on mining exports.</p>
<p>Many of our mines are partially staffed from remote operation centres, where employees monitor largely automated pieces of equipment. This successful <a href="https://www.australianmining.com.au/features/inside-fortescues-mission-control/">automation would have helped</a> the mining industry deal with the effects of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Currently, there are two major drivers for considering a wider and faster shift to automation. </p>
<p>The first is a desire for Australia to become more self-sufficient in supplying goods and services, with local supply chains that are less susceptible to global shocks. This would require boosting the country’s manufacturing capability, and one way to do so would be by embracing new <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/how-can-australia-boost-its-manufacturing-sector/12237430">manufacturing methods using automation and robotics</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-makes-art-but-could-art-save-the-australian-manufacturing-industry-97849">Science makes art. But could art save the Australian manufacturing industry?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The second driver is a need to reduce the frequency and duration of human-to-human contact (social distancing), especially as experts warn of the increasing <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-global-epidemics-health-pandemic-covid-19/">threat of future pandemics</a>. </p>
<p>Research suggests COVID-19 can spread <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-know-how-long-coronavirus-survives-on-surfaces-heres-what-it-means-for-handling-money-food-and-more-134671">via surfaces</a> and human-to-human contact. </p>
<p>Technology provides ways to avoid this. For instance, human contact while shopping was reduced drastically long before COVID-19 with the introduction of self-checkouts. While this itself isn’t automation (since the customer still does the work themselves), it could be considered a stepping stone to Amazon’s plans to soon roll out an automated purchasing system at physical US stores.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-store-technology/amazon-launches-business-selling-automated-checkout-to-retailers-idUSKBN20W0OD">“Just Walk Out” technology</a>, customers can take items off a store’s shelf, bag them, and walk straight out. An in-store sensing system automatically detects what was taken and initiates the purchase once the customer exits the store. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lTzPpAbjasA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Is Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology the future of in-store purchasing?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is skilled work?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2020/sp-so-2020-03-16.html">According to</a> the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Head of Economic Analysis, Alexandra Heat, employment for jobs requiring the highest level of skills has risen from 15% in the mid-1960s, to more than 30% now. </p>
<p>But how do we classify “skilled” work?</p>
<p>Many supposedly “low-skilled” jobs are far from it if viewed from the perspective of an engineer developing an automated (or robotic) equivalent. Take <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/professional-cleaners-under-pressure-to-help-control-coronavirus-spread-in-australia">cleaning</a> – a job of paramount importance during this pandemic.</p>
<p>While it isn’t traditionally considered high-skill, <a href="https://ohsonline.com/Articles/2020/03/20/Cleaning-Workers-are-on-the-Front-Lines-of-the-Coronavirus-Pandemic.aspx?Page=1">it’s still complex</a> as it requires manual handling and time planning, and therefore isn’t suited to automation. In fact, a general-purpose robot cleaner remains the stuff of science fiction. </p>
<p>Another example is fruit picking, which is also a complex task when broken down. In the coming seasons, Australia may face a shortage of fruit pickers due to international travel restrictions, and robotic fruit picking and harvesting is now a <a href="https://www.goodfruitandvegetables.com.au/story/5373086/standard-parts-make-up-capsicum-picking-bot/">hot topic in the robotics research world</a>. </p>
<p>While progress has been made on this front, not many of the prototype systems are commercially available yet. And it’s unlikely robots will solve the industry’s labour shortage problems within the next few years. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2i1GjBGpI30?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robotics researchers are on the cusp of developing reliable and highly-skilled fruit picking robots.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The costs of transition</h2>
<p>When trying to predict which way automation will go in Australia, the critical issue to consider is our capacity to adopt it. </p>
<p>As we stare down the barrel of <a href="https://theconversation.com/further-to-fall-harder-to-rise-australia-must-outperform-to-come-out-even-from-covid-19-138802">a recession</a>, many businesses and organisations are struggling financially.</p>
<p>Changing business practice to adopt automation, if done effectively, would cost time and money in the near term. While time may be available, investing scarce cash may seem too risky for some at such a precarious time.</p>
<p>But then again, as with many investments sometimes fortune favours the bold. And the upcoming recession may be an opportune time to majorly <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90484909/how-big-tech-survives-recessions-and-always-comes-out-stronger">reinvent how products and services are delivered</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Roberts is the Technical Director of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Hub. He is also a Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, the QUT Centre for Robotics and QUT Centre for Biomedical Technologies. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre.</span></em></p>
Amazon’s planned upcoming ‘Just Walk Out’ technology will let customers take items off a store’s shelf, bag them, and walk straight out.
Jonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/118028
2019-05-30T18:10:36Z
2019-05-30T18:10:36Z
An AI taught itself to play a video game – for the first time, it’s beating humans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277225/original/file-20190530-69059-81bj46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C4500%2C3785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/colored-realistic-artificial-intelligence-isometric-composition-717513073?src=Lmdl0JzQ9xxMk-TjlPxrOA-1-57">Macrovector/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real world problems – such as automating complex tasks including driving and negotiation – these algorithms must navigate more complex environments than board games, and learn teamwork. Teaching AI how to work and interact with other players to succeed had been an insurmountable task – until now.</p>
<p><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aau6249">In a new study</a>, researchers detailed a way to train AI algorithms to reach human levels of performance in a popular 3D multiplayer game – a modified version of Quake III Arena in Capture the Flag mode.</p>
<p>Even though the task of this game is straightforward – two opposing teams compete to capture each other’s flags by navigating a map – winning demands complex decision-making and an ability to predict and respond to the actions of other players.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-5KQw7PiVFI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This is the first time an AI has attained human-like skills in a first-person video game. So how did the researchers do it?</p>
<h2>The robot learning curve</h2>
<p>In 2019, several milestones in AI research have been reached in other multiplayer strategy games. Five “bots” – players controlled by an AI – <a href="https://openai.com/blog/openai-five/">defeated a professional e-sports team in a game of DOTA 2</a>. Professional human players were <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/24/18196135/google-deepmind-ai-starcraft-2-victory">also beaten by an AI</a> in a game of StarCraft II. In all cases, a form of <a href="https://medium.com/@jonathan_hui/rl-introduction-to-deep-reinforcement-learning-35c25e04c199">reinforcement learning</a> was applied, whereby the algorithm learns by trial and error and by interacting with its environment.</p>
<p>The five bots that beat humans at DOTA 2 didn’t learn from humans playing – they were trained exclusively by <a href="https://openai.com/blog/competitive-self-play/">playing matches against clones of themselves</a>. The improvement that allowed them to defeat professional players came from <a href="https://openai.com/blog/how-to-train-your-openai-five/">scaling existing algorithms</a>. Due to the computer’s speed, the AI could play in a few seconds a game that takes minutes or even hours for humans to play. This allowed the researchers to train their AI with 45,000 years of gameplay within ten months of real-time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277227/original/file-20190530-69091-148dim3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Dota 2 eSports tournament in Moscow, May 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/moscow-russia-may-2016-dota-2-420304147">Roman Kosolapov/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Capture the Flag bot from the recent study also began learning from scratch. But instead of playing against its identical clone, a cohort of 30 bots was <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.09846.pdf">created and trained in parallel</a> with their own internal reward signal. Each bot within this population would then play together and learn from each other. As David Silver – one of the research scientists involved – notes, AI is beginning to “remove the constraints of human knowledge… and create knowledge itself”.</p>
<p>The learning speed for humans is still much <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.00289.pdf">faster than the most advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithms</a>. Both OpenAI’s bots and DeepMind’s AlphaStar (the bot playing StarCraft II) devoured thousands of years’ worth of gameplay before being able to reach a human level of performance. Such training is <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/takeaways-from-openai-five-2019-f90a612fe5d">estimated to cost several millions of dollars</a>. Nevertheless, a self-taught AI capable of beating humans at their own game is an exciting breakthrough that could change how we see machines.</p>
<h2>The future of humans and machines</h2>
<p>AI is often portrayed replacing or <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/07/collaborative-intelligence-humans-and-ai-are-joining-forces">complementing human capabilities</a>, but rarely as a fully-fledged team member, performing the same task as human beings. As these video game experiments involve machine-human collaboration, they offer a glimpse of the future. </p>
<p>Human players of Capture the Flag rated the bots as more collaborative than other humans, but players of DOTA 2 had a mixed reaction to their AI teammates. Some were quite enthusiastic, saying they felt supported and that they learned from playing alongside them. <a href="http://sheevergaming.com/">Sheever</a>, a professional DOTA 2 player, spoke about her experience teaming up with bots:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It actually felt nice; [the AI teammate] gave his life for me at some point. He tried to help me, thinking ‘I’m sure she knows what she’s doing’ and then obviously I didn’t. But, you know, he believed in me. I don’t get that a lot with [human] teammates.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/bf0f71/open_ai_cooperative_mode_ai_bias/">Others were less enthusiastic</a>, but as communication is a pillar of any relationship, improving human-machine communication will be crucial in the future. Researchers have already adapted some features to make the bots more “human friendly”, such as making bots <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/410533063?t=01h09m01s">artificially wait before choosing their character during the team draft</a> before the game, to avoid pressuring the humans.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1117178288605204480"}"></div></p>
<p>But should AI learn from us or continue to teach themselves? Self-learning without imitating humans could teach AI more efficiency and creativity, but this could create algorithms more appropriate to tasks that don’t involve human collaboration, such as warehousing robots.</p>
<p>On the other hand, one might argue that having a machine trained from humans would be more intuitive – humans using such AI could understand why a machine did what it did. As AI gets smarter, we’re all in for more surprises.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A self-taught AI beat humans at their own game – here’s how they did it.
Maude Lavanchy, Research Fellow in Behavioural Economics, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
Amit Joshi, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82067
2019-05-05T20:13:42Z
2019-05-05T20:13:42Z
Six ways robots are used today that you probably didn’t know about
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272172/original/file-20190502-103063-u4d65w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By Besjunior shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>How many times in the past week do you think your life was affected by a robot?</p>
<p>Unless you have a <a href="https://au.pcmag.com/vacuums/41460/the-best-robot-vacuums">robot vacuum cleaner</a>, you might say that robots had no real impact on your life.</p>
<p>But you’re wrong. Let’s take a look at some of the ways robots are being used right now but that you probably have no idea about.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-r2d2-could-be-your-childs-teacher-sooner-than-you-think-103284">Why R2D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>So what is a robot?</h2>
<p>Before we start, we need to define what actually is a robot. There is <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-a-robot/">no official definition</a> of what constitutes a robot, but many roboticists (like me) consider it to be a machine that moves, or has moving parts, and that makes basic decisions while interacting with the world.</p>
<p>Hence, your vacuum cleaner that you leave to do its job while you are away is a robot. It senses the world around it and makes driving decisions as it sucks and sweeps. </p>
<p>But your washing machine is not a robot. You tell it how to wash when you select the cycle and it gets on with it. There are grey areas and the definition is debated, but let’s leave it there.</p>
<p>On to your past week.</p>
<h2>Food sorting robots</h2>
<p>If you eat <a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/1443/rice/">rice</a>, chances are that every grain you consumed was sorted by a robotic machine with a lightning-fast vision system. </p>
<p>Rice-sorting machines are miracles of automation and most people have no idea they exist. Did you actually think rice grows as uniformly (in colour and shape) as it appears in the bag you buy at the supermarket? It doesn’t.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DnaFWh22HuI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rice sorting by colour.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Every grain of rice passes through a robotic machine that uses very high-speed cameras, lights and a computer. The image of each rice grain is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-robots-see-the-world-51205">analysed by that computer</a> and a decision is made as to its grade. Jets of air are turned on and off to steer or flick the grain into the correct bin. This happens hundreds of times per second.</p>
<p>In fact, rice is not the only food that is sorted by robots, and the food-sorting market is <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-global-food-sorting-machines-market-is-forecasted-to-grow-at-a-cagr-of-724-during-the-period-2017-2021-300567538.html">growing rapidly</a>. Robotic machines are available to sort wheat, pulses and seeds.</p>
<h2>Robots for medical training</h2>
<p>Did you see a health care professional? If you did, you should have noticed if they were human or a robot. Chances are they were a human.</p>
<p>But did you know that many nurses, paramedics and doctors now <a href="https://www.ems1.com/ems-products/education/patient-simulation/articles/393079048-Robot-helps-health-workers-train-for-emergencies/">train on robot patients</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zUAYaSVAHv8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robot patients for training.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These training robots can simulate various conditions and give student health workers the ability to practice diagnosis and treatment of various conditions before they go near a real person. You can think of these robotic patients as being like the flight simulators that airline pilots use during their flight training.</p>
<p>Some of these medical training robots are life-sized and look like a real person, but some are more specialised and might be representative of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/07/04/robotic-rectum-developed-to-help-doctors-get-to-bottom-of-prosta/">just one part of a person</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/58C1CLbP8hA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A robot rectum in action.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Robots for police training</h2>
<p>Have you been taken hostage in an armed robbery? I hope not. But if you were, and an armed response team from your police service attended, those police snipers that aimed their red laser dot at the criminals may have been trained using robots.</p>
<p>Sydney-based company Marathon Targets sells a range of highly capable mobile robots that can be shot at by military and police trainees. These robots are armour-plated (for obvious reasons) and can be used to simulate real people (targets) during live-fire training.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DwXv3D8753w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">It’s okay to shoot these targets.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Robots for extracting poison</h2>
<p>Did you take medication? If it’s medication to prevent malaria or suppress your immune system, those pharmaceuticals may have used scorpion venom as one of the ingredients.</p>
<p>It is quite obvious the extraction of venom from scorpions is quite hazardous to people, but the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170703083304.htm">perfect job for a robot</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qCVonhK1K5E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A robot that extracts venom from a scorpion.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Robots down the sewer</h2>
<p>You must have used a toilet? Hopefully! We do not often think about our sewers, but when they go wrong, we certainly know about it.</p>
<p>Fatbergs have become a major problem in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-10/fatberg-how-to-remove-and-stop-them-building-up/10701656">many cities around the world</a>. </p>
<p>Sewer inspection and maintenance is more important than ever and dome inspection workers now have robots to help them with their difficult business.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2qrOUYe3veI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robots can be used to help inspect sewers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Robots and your shopping</h2>
<p>Did you go shopping or order anything online? Did you know that many items you buy are partially moved from where they are made to where you receive them by robots?</p>
<p>Some container ports are <a href="https://www.portbris.com.au/Operations-and-Trade/Port-Facilities/Berths-and-terminals/">now partially automated</a>. The huge containers are offloaded from ships by human operators controlling cranes. </p>
<p>But from then on, the containers are handled by giant robotic cranes on wheels - known as straddle carriers. They are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oMhrVxBT9E">moved around the port</a>, stacked, unstacked, re-stacked, and once ready for transport, they are automatically loaded onto container-carrying trucks for road transport. </p>
<p>Many warehouses are also operated using mobile robots. The best-known example of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVCGEmkJs0">warehouse automation</a> is Amazon. The retail giant built many of its warehouses specifically for mobile robots that could autonomously transport shelf units. </p>
<p>Amazon felt the robots it used in its warehouses were so vital to its success that it <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/amazon-com-buys-kiva-systems-for-775-million/">bought the robot company</a> that made them for USD$775 million in 2012.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HYjc9h8oSsY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Robotic warehouse workers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The robot revolution is now</h2>
<p>So that’s just six ways that robots may have affected you in the past week. Of course there are dozens more ways in which robots are likely to have affected your life; this list is just a taster.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robots-can-learn-a-lot-from-nature-if-they-want-to-see-the-world-92838">Robots can learn a lot from nature if they want to 'see' the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The point is that the so-called upcoming <em>robot revolution</em> that is often talked about in the media is already happening. It’s just that most people don’t notice.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sZ_-yb-TN9M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">And there’s more…</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Roberts is a Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre.</span></em></p>
The robot revolution is happening right but how much do you know about the impact of programmable machines in your everyday life?
Jonathan Roberts, Professor in Robotics, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102466
2018-09-13T10:46:51Z
2018-09-13T10:46:51Z
Why we love robotic dogs, puppets and dolls
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235426/original/file-20180907-90574-1obkomk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why are we drawn to tech toys?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/36739648920">Ars Electronica</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-announces-limited-first-litter-edition-release-of-aibo-in-us-300701503.html">lot of hype around the release of Sony’s latest robotic dog</a>. It’s called “aibo,” and is promoted as using artificial intelligence to respond to people looking at it, talking to it and touching it. </p>
<p>Japanese customers have already bought over 20,000 units, and it is expected to come to the U.S. before the holiday gift-buying season – at a price nearing US$3,000. </p>
<p>Why would anyone pay so much for a robotic dog?</p>
<p>My ongoing research suggests part of the attraction might be explained through humanity’s longstanding connection with various forms of puppets, religious icons, and other figurines, that I collectively call “dolls.” </p>
<p>These dolls, I argue, are embedded deep in our social and religious lives. </p>
<h2>Spiritual and social dolls</h2>
<p>As part of the process of writing a “spiritual history of dolls,” I’ve returned to that ancient mythology of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions where God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24&version=CJB">formed</a> the first human from the dirt of the earth, and then breathed life into the mud-creature.</p>
<p>Since that time, humans have attempted to do the same – metaphorically, mystically and scientifically – by fashioning raw materials into forms and figures that look like people. </p>
<p>As folklorist <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Mayor.html">Adrienne Mayor</a> explains in a recent study, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14162.html">Gods and Robots</a>,” such artificial creatures find their ways into the myths of several ancient cultures, in various ways.</p>
<p>Beyond the stories, people have made these figures part of their religious lives in the form of <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463984">icons</a> of the Virgin Mary and human-shaped <a href="https://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/81/agents-of-faith-votive-objects">votive objects</a>. </p>
<p>In the late 19th century, dolls with a gramophone disc that could recite the Lord’s Prayer were produced on a mass scale. That was considered a <a href="http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/2014/01/29/prayers-of-a-phonographic-doll/">playful way of teaching a child</a> to be pious. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/mavungu.html">certain spirits are believed to reside</a> in figurines created by humans. </p>
<p>Across time and place, dolls have played a role in human affairs. In South Asia, dolls of various forms <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/celebrating-navaratri-with-display-of-dolls/article19767269.ece">become ritually important</a> during the great goddess festival Navaratri. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/35924051_Carving_self-identity_Hopi_Katsina_dolls_as_contemporary_cultural_expression">Katsina</a> dolls of the Hopi people allow them to create their own self-identity. And in the famed Javanese and Balinese Wayang – shadow puppet <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Javanese_Shadow_Puppets.html?id=ZshkAAAAMAAJ">performances</a> – mass audiences learn about a mythical past and its bearing on the present. </p>
<h2>Making us human</h2>
<p>In the modern Western context, <a href="http://www.mudec.it/eng/barbie/">Barbie dolls</a> and <a href="http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/gi-joe">G.I. Joes</a> have come to play an important role in children’s development. Barbie has been <a href="https://orca.cf.ac.uk/48291/1/PhDJ.Whitney2013.pdf">shown</a> to have a negative impact on girls’ body images, while G.I. Joe has made <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2004.00099.x">many boys believe</a> that they are important, powerful and that they can do great things.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barbie dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinker-tailor/6383911765/in/photolist-aJ8dye-dJ4wnb-9FExaM-r8Ye5m-egen9a-kPSwsc-nNZCAQ-anZhzQ-5a7doe-mKc79t-oMfPax-jqLz9H-nuEaZ7-cuHwvy-nt31xr-pD2dXr-qzBhff-ns5JLY-9hMYPY-ajEPsU-dGjzYR-f8uidJ-L3qP3d-272wyHN-b7hvwM-fHBuxJ-oWMjJZ-mj5LK8-sU6cfg-fQHWny-dwCasm-er5Bbz-8bPDUK-os9cNx-mWFRvA-oZZJXZ-FcUGpa-fqdaVS-e8u1gw-gdKFtL-c3cbqQ-aJ77m8-pRmsoL-e3w4Cv-oWvQiB-pqzdXc-oTztVo-qPqKuf-exfgUf-qgoz47">Tinker Tailor loves Lalka</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is at the root of our connection with dolls? </p>
<p>As I have argued in my <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-History-of-Religion-in-5-Objects-P997.aspx">earlier research</a>, humans share a deep and ancient relationship with ordinary objects. When people create forms, they are participating in the ancient hominid practice of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/becoming-human-the-origin-of-stone-tools-55335180/">toolmaking</a>. Tools have agricultural, domestic and communication uses, but they also help people think, feel, act and pray. </p>
<p>Dolls are a primary tool that humans have used for the spiritual and social dimensions of their lives. </p>
<p>They come to have a profound influence on humans. They help build religious connections, such as teaching children to pray, serving as a medium for answering prayers, providing protection and prompting healing. </p>
<p>They also model gender roles and teach people how to behave in society. </p>
<h2>Tech toys and messages</h2>
<p>Aibo and other such technologies, I argue, play a similar role. </p>
<p>Part of aibo’s enchantment is that he appears to see, hear and respond to touch. In other words, the mechanical dog has an embodied intelligence, not unlike humans. One can quickly find <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16876086/sony-aibo-hands-on-video-ces-2018">videos</a> of people being emotionally captivated by aibo because he has big eyes that “look” back at people, he cocks his head, seeming to hear, and he wags his tail when “petted” the right way. </p>
<p>Another such robot, <a href="http://www.parorobots.com/index.asp">PARO</a>, a furry, seal-shaped machine that purrs and vibrates as it is stroked, has been <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130624075748.htm">shown</a> to have a number of positive effects on elderly people, such as <a href="http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/summer-house-residential-memory-care-communities-introduce-paro-robot-therapy-2108672.htm">reducing anxiety</a>, increasing social behaviors and counteracting loneliness.</p>
<p>Dolls can have a deep and lasting psychological impact on young people. Psychotherapist <a href="https://mommikin.com/laurel-wider-is-a-psychotherapist-turned-toy-inventor/">Laurel Wider</a>, for example, became concerned about the gendered messages that her son was receiving in social settings about how boys were not supposed to cry or really show many feelings at all. </p>
<p>She then <a href="https://www.wondercrew.com/pages/about-us">founded</a> a new toy company to create dolls that could help nurture <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">empathy in boys</a>. As Wider <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">says</a>, these dolls are “like a peer, an equal, but also small enough, vulnerable enough, to where a child could also want to take care of him.”</p>
<h2>Outsourcing social life?</h2>
<p>Not everyone welcomes the influence these dolls have come to have on our lives. Critics of these dolls argue they outsource some of humanity’s most basic social skills. Humans, they argue, need other humans to teach them about gender norms, and provide companionship – not dolls and robots.</p>
<p>MIT’s <a href="http://www.mit.edu/%7Esturkle/">Sherry Turkle</a>, for example, somewhat famously dissents from the praise given to these mechanical imitations. Turkle has long been working at the human-machine interface. Over the years, she has become more skeptical about the roles we assign these mechanical tools. </p>
<p>When confronted with patients using PARO, she found herself “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/08/16/172988165/are-we-plugged-in-connected-but-alone">profoundly depressed</a>” at society’s resort to machines as companions, when humans should be spending more time with other humans.</p>
<h2>Teaching us to be humans?</h2>
<p>It’s hard to disagree with Turkle’s concerns, but that’s not the point. What I argue is that as humans, we share a deep connection with such dolls. The new wave of dolls and robots are instrumental in motivating further questions about who we are as humans.</p>
<p>Given the technological advances, people are asking whether robots “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201712/will-robots-ever-have-emotions">can have feelings</a>,” “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/248774/can-robots-be-jewish">be Jewish</a>” or “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04989-2">make art</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A question being asked is, can robots have feelings?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenm1/6340377633/in/photolist-aEh6nK-dtAV6J-88ajiy-aErGvC-szMPe-28aU3K5-6sffsJ-arYhVS-h4UrTE-d3Raw9-bnX4Ja-4njGV-9kMSgS-e4tzo4-bHviTD-qNVJPV-tKVxX-7gnVhi-5ddYsr-2TdX9-m15Rki-m16F3U-2RwW1W-2bCK6R-3hTjfG-5mAcY1-3hSmPj-3hSX87-dfYmeN-4gBusR-dYPfBj-LwZTq-3hQUaz-5PS1E9-pxDtVq-3hQQ16-61oLTo-SsR43-7SS1Cq-3hQFJB-oH1MY-6RojjC-Ejwu4-5PSmS1-ae8Lgr-4KUiyX-gJDZz-7pwjx5-nxPg1-5NtP6">ellenm1</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When people attempt to answer these questions, they must first reflect on what it means for humans to have feelings, be Jewish and make art.</p>
<p>Some academics go so far as to argue that humans have always been cyborgs, always a mixture of human biological bodies and technological parts. </p>
<p>As philosophers like <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/andy-clark">Andy Clark</a> have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/natural-born-cyborgs-9780195177510?cc=us&lang=en&">argued</a>, “our tools are not just external props and aids, but they are deep and integral parts of the problem-solving systems we now identify as human intelligence.”</p>
<p>Technologies are not in competition with humans. In fact, technology is the divine breath, the animating, ensouling force of Homo sapiens. And, in my view, dolls are vital technological tools that find their way into devotional lives, workplaces and social spaces. </p>
<p>As we create, we are simultaneously being created.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An expert argues our connection with these figures is longstanding. They are embedded in our myths and help us explore deeper questions about being human.
S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92087
2018-07-04T10:10:15Z
2018-07-04T10:10:15Z
Why technology puts human rights at risk
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225514/original/file-20180629-117425-1akpxde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/circuit-board-futuristic-server-code-processing-618880562?src=p61H5jBkfUQ_YT9RcaqgCg-1-3">Spainter_vfx/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Movies such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/2001-a-space-odyssey-32039">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/blade-runner-15885">Blade Runner</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/terminator-13739">Terminator</a> brought rogue robots and computer systems to our cinema screens. But these days, such classic science fiction spectacles don’t seem so far removed from reality. </p>
<p>Increasingly, we live, work and play with computational technologies that are autonomous and intelligent. These systems include software and hardware with the capacity for independent reasoning and decision making. They work for us on the factory floor; they decide whether we can get a mortgage; they track and measure our activity and fitness levels; they clean our living room floors and cut our lawns.</p>
<p>Autonomous and intelligent systems have the potential to affect almost every aspect of our social, economic, political and private lives, including mundane everyday aspects. Much of this seems innocent, but there is reason for concern. Computational technologies impact on every human right, from the right to life to the right to privacy, freedom of expression to social and economic rights. So how can we defend human rights in a technological landscape increasingly shaped by robotics and artificial intelligence (AI)?</p>
<h2>AI and human rights</h2>
<p>First, there is a real fear that increased machine autonomy will undermine the status of humans. This fear is compounded by a lack of clarity over who will be held to account, whether in a legal or a moral sense, when intelligent machines do harm. But I’m not sure that the focus of our concern for human rights should really lie with <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/342659-top-us-general-warns-against-rogue-killer-robots">rogue robots</a>, as it seems to at present. Rather, we should worry about the human use of robots and artificial intelligence and their deployment in unjust and unequal political, military, economic and social contexts.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gCcx85zbxz4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>This worry is particularly pertinent with respect to lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), often described as killer robots. As we <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">move towards an AI arms race</a>, human rights scholars and campaigners such as Christof Heyns, the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, fear that the use of LAWS will put autonomous robotic systems <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-47_en.pdf">in charge of life and death decisions</a>, with limited or no human control. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">Super-intelligence and eternal life: transhumanism's faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>AI also revolutionises the link between warfare and surveillance practices. Groups such as the <a href="https://www.icrac.net/about-icrac/">International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC)</a> recently expressed their opposition to Google’s participation in <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1254719/project-maven-to-deploy-computer-algorithms-to-war-zone-by-years-end/">Project Maven</a>, a military program that uses machine learning to analyse drone surveillance footage, which can be used for extrajudicial killings. ICRAC <a href="https://www.icrac.net/open-letter-in-support-of-google-employees-and-tech-workers/">appealed</a> to Google to ensure that the data it collects on its users is never used for military purposes, joining protests by Google employees over the company’s involvement in the project. Google recently announced that it <a href="https://www.axios.com/military-artificial-intelligence-google-contract-5c570912-092c-4378-a54b-cf119296fb38.html">will not be renewing</a> its contract.</p>
<p>In 2013, the extent of surveillance practices was highlighted by the Edward Snowden <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/the-nsa-files">revelations</a>. These taught us much about the threat to the right to privacy and the sharing of data between intelligence services, government agencies and private corporations. The recent controversy surrounding <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cambridge-analytica-51337">Cambridge Analytica</a>’s harvesting of personal data via the use of social media platforms such as Facebook continues to cause serious apprehension, this time over manipulation and interference into democratic elections that damage the right to freedom of expression.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-fear-the-rise-of-drone-assassins-two-experts-debate-87699">Should we fear the rise of drone assassins? Two experts debate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile, critical data analysts challenge <a href="https://theconversation.com/machine-gaydar-ai-is-reinforcing-stereotypes-that-liberal-societies-are-trying-to-get-rid-of-83837">discriminatory practices</a> associated with what they call AI’s “white guy problem”. This is the concern that AI systems trained on existing data replicate existing racial and gender stereotypes that perpetuate discriminatory practices in areas such as policing, judicial decisions or employment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225515/original/file-20180629-117425-1o314b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AI can replicate and entrench stereotypes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-holding-passport-photos-431266420?src=BDZda4VlwOgPvx9os7NRtg-1-73">Ollyy/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ambiguous bots</h2>
<p>The potential threat of computational technologies to human rights and to physical, political and digital security was highlighted in a recently published study on <a href="https://www.cser.ac.uk/news/malicious-use-artificial-intelligence/">The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence</a>. The concerns expressed in this University of Cambridge report must be taken seriously. But how should we deal with these threats? Are human rights ready for the era of robotics and AI? </p>
<p>There are ongoing efforts to update existing human rights principles for this era. These include the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf">UN Framing and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a>, attempts to write a <a href="https://www.bl.uk/my-digital-rights/videos/magna-carta-for-the-digital-age">Magna Carta for the digital age</a> and the Future of Life Institute’s <a href="https://futureoflife.org/ai-principles/">Asilomar AI Principles</a>, which identify guidelines for ethical research, adherence to values and a commitment to the longer-term beneficent development of AI.</p>
<p>These efforts are commendable but not sufficient. Governments and government agencies, political parties and private corporations, especially the leading tech companies, must commit to the ethical uses of AI. We also need effective and enforceable legislative control.</p>
<p>Whatever new measures we introduce, it is important to acknowledge that our lives are increasingly entangled with autonomous machines and intelligent systems. This entanglement enhances human well-being in areas such as medical research and treatment, in our transport system, in social care settings and in efforts to protect the environment.</p>
<p>But in other areas this entanglement throws up worrying prospects. Computational technologies are used to watch and track our actions and behaviours, trace our steps, our location, our health, our tastes and our friendships. These systems shape human behaviour and nudge us towards practices of self-surveillance that curtail our freedom and undermine the ideas and ideals of human rights.</p>
<p>And herein lies the crux: the capacity for dual use of computational technologies blurs the line between beneficent and malicious practices. What’s more, computational technologies are deeply implicated in the unequal power relationships between individual citizens, the state and its agencies, and private corporations. If unhinged from effective national and international systems of checks and balances, they pose a real and worrying threat to our human rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Birgit Schippers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Computational technologies impact on every human right.
Birgit Schippers, Visiting Research Fellow, Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen's University Belfast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96287
2018-06-21T09:28:45Z
2018-06-21T09:28:45Z
‘Please Alexa’: are we beginning to recognise the rights of intelligent machines?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224188/original/file-20180621-137728-dh7mh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Robot rights!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/white-male-cyborg-opening-his-two-1115832683?src=qPfnEl_G3CsJ_aZv1Hb4GQ-1-27">shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Amazon has recently developed an option whereby Alexa <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43897516">will only activate</a> if people address it with a “please”. This suggests that we are starting to recognise some intelligent machines in a way that was previously reserved only for humans. In fact, this could very well be the first step towards recognising the rights of machines.</p>
<p>Machines are becoming a part of the fabric of everyday life. Whether it be the complex technology that we are <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-biohackers-letting-technology-get-under-their-skin-60756">embedding inside of us</a>, or the machines on the outside, the line between what it means to be human and machine is softening. As machines get more and more intelligent, it is imperative that we begin discussing whether it will soon be time to recognise the rights of robots, as much for our sake as for theirs.</p>
<p>When someone says that they have a “right” to something, they are usually saying that they have a claim or an expectation that something should be a certain way. But what is just as important as rights are the foundations on which they are based. Rights rely on various intricate frameworks, such as law and morality. Sometimes, the frameworks may not be clear cut. For instance, in <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%20999/volume-999-i-14668-english.pdf">human rights law</a>, strong moral values such as dignity and equality inform legal rights.</p>
<p>So rights are often founded upon human principles. This helps partially explain why we have recognised the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/#Pers">rights of animals</a>. We recognise that it is ethically wrong to torture or starve animals, so we create laws against it. As intelligent machines weave further into our lives, there is a good chance that our human principles will also force us to recognise that they too deserve rights.</p>
<p>But you might argue that animals differ from machines in that they have some sort of conscious experience. And it is true that consciousness and subjective experience are important, particularly to human rights. <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Article 1</a> of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, for example, says all human beings “are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. </p>
<p>However, consciousness and human rights are not the only basis of rights. In New Zealand and Ecuador, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rivers-get-human-rights-they-can-sue-to-protect-themselves/">rivers have been granted rights</a> because humans deemed their very existence to be important. So rights don’t emerge only from consciousness, they can extend from other criteria also. There is no one correct <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023/B:LAPH.0000015417.05737.0e.pdf">type or form of rights</a>. Human rights are not the only rights. </p>
<p>As machines become even more complex and intelligent, just discarding or destroying them without asking any questions at all about their moral and physical integrity seems ethically wrong. Just like rivers, they too should <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-007-9137-3">receive rights</a> because of their meaning to us.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223878/original/file-20180619-126550-11tir8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Whanganui river in New Zealand has been granted the same rights as humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cool_Bend_on_Whanganui_River_-_panoramio.jpg">Duane Wilkins</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What if there was a complex and independent machine providing health care to a human over a long period of time. The machine resembled a person and applied intelligence through natural speech. Over time, the machine and the patient <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400435.2017.1396565">built up a close relationship.</a> Then, after a long period of service, the company that creates the machine decides that it is time to turn off and discard this perfectly working machine. It seems ethically wrong to simply discard this intelligent machine, which has kept alive and built a relationship with that patient, without even entertaining its right to integrity and other rights. </p>
<p>This might seem absurd, but imagine for a second that it is you who has built a deep and meaningful relationship with this intelligent machine. Wouldn’t you be desperately finding a way to stop it being turned off and your relationship being lost? It is as much for our own human sake, than for the sake of intelligent machines, that we ought to recognise the rights of intelligent machines.</p>
<p>Sexbots are a good example. The UK’s sexual offences law exists to protect the sexual autonomy of the human victim. But it also exists to ensure that people respect sexual autonomy, the right of a person to control their own body and their own sexual activity, as a value. </p>
<p>But the definition of consent in section 74 of the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/74">Sexual Offences Act 2003</a> in the UK specifically refers to “persons” and not machines. So right now a person can do whatever they wish <a href="https://theconversation.com/samanthas-suffering-why-sex-machines-should-have-rights-too-93964">to a sexbot</a>, including torture. There is something troubling about this. And it is not because we believe sexbots to have consciousness. Instead, it is probably because by allowing people to torture robots, the law stops ensuring that people respect the <a href="http://srh.bmj.com/content/early/2018/04/24/bmjsrh-2017-200012">values of personal and sexual autonomy</a>, that we consider important.</p>
<p>These examples very much show that there is a discussion to be had over the rights of intelligent machines. And as we rapidly enter an age where these examples will no longer be hypothetical, the law must keep up.</p>
<h2>Matter of respect</h2>
<p>We are already recognising complex machines in a manner that was previously reserved only for humans and animals. We feel that our children must be polite to Alexa as, if they are not, it will damage our own notions of respect and dignity. Unconsciously we are already recognising that how we communicate with and respect intelligent machines will affect how we communicate with and respect humans. If we don’t extend recognition to intelligent machines, then it will affect how we treat and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/5/2/17301702/westworld-isabella-season-2-virtu-e-fortuna-artificial-intelligence">consider humans</a>.</p>
<p>Machines are integrating their way in to our world. Google’s recent experiment <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/google-duplex-assistant-phone-calls-robot-human">with natural language</a> assistants, where AI sounded eerily like a human, gave us an insight into this future. One day, it may become impossible to tell whether we are interacting with machines or with humans. When that day comes, rights may have to change to include them as well. As we change, rights may naturally have to adapt too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paresh Kathrani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It is just as much for our own sake, as for the sake of robots, that we should begin recognising the rights of intelligent machines.
Paresh Kathrani, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82447
2017-10-03T18:45:12Z
2017-10-03T18:45:12Z
Curious Kids: How do satellites get back to Earth?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181924/original/file-20170814-28481-1xp4wln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without satellites, modern technologies such mobiles phones and GPS would not exist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/10860068536/in/photolist-hxEG1Y-dSzo2A-Tdrr5Q-UkXDqG-bzHLe1-6Hn1GM-4op1Ns-7FDBma-V9dhhs-WUxWtW-UZJKyq-binsBK-Uggpre-TaANaY-WckfP8-rvcnuy-dU8pQS-9uD599-q62zgD-QFqPZK-RNHsa7-emZ4Sd-dywiFP-egcv1D-7HeRNw-Wnxh7u-k43euL-Wi1q5E-er1F9q-9uMrNr-TLCqb5-S7fYY8-teu3nb-cgrLLN-Xg22SG-a9ucd3-az3D6W-ohiQSg-WTCwyM-VVLt4c-UdTaNo-UBEE1j-8zfQaV-7KaLhV-adBGkR-VGe55E-UTb6B5-rf3CPj-d7q8Z1-dNXCK4">Flickr/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is an article from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a>, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!</em> </p>
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<blockquote>
<p><strong>How do satellites get back to Earth?– Charlie Crittenden, age 7, Coledale.</strong></p>
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<p>The short answer is that most satellites don’t come back to Earth at all. Most of them burn to a crisp before they get anywhere near the ground.</p>
<p>Every day, bits of space junk get burnt up in the sky above our heads. Most of the time we don’t even notice.</p>
<p>Satellites are always falling towards the Earth, but never reaching it - that’s how they stay in orbit. They are meant to stay there, and usually there is no plan to bring them back to Earth. From orbit, they send us pictures of the Earth and signals to help us find our way about.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-is-the-sky-blue-and-where-does-it-start-81165">Curious Kids: Why is the sky blue and where does it start?</a>
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<p>Those closest to the Earth will eventually fall into the atmosphere and burn up (atmosphere means the breathable air that surrounds our planet). This is a good thing, because we don’t want old satellites staying up there as junk. Some fall back within weeks of being launched. Others are up there for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>Mostly, their orbits are above the thickest parts of the atmosphere. But eventually, the heat of the Sun makes them fall into Earth’s atmosphere. I’ll explain how.</p>
<h2>Roaring into the atmosphere</h2>
<p>Satellites don’t move in circles. Their orbits are oval-shaped, which means that sometimes a satellite will be closer to the Earth than other times.</p>
<p>The Sun heats the atmosphere during the day and when it’s more active. When the gases in the atmosphere are heated, they grow outwards and surround the satellites when they are nearest to the Earth. The particles rub against the satellite (scientists call this friction) and slow it down, dragging it a little lower. Over time, the satellite reaches the upper layers of atmosphere. </p>
<p>But when I say “reaches”, it’s actually very quick. The satellite roars into the atmosphere at high speed - as much as <a href="https://cnes.fr/en/web/CNES-en/1099-returning-to-earth.php">28,000km per hour</a>. That’s about 35 times faster than a plane!</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/space-bling-jewelled-lageos-satellites-help-us-to-measure-the-earth-76948">Space bling: 'jewelled' LAGEOS satellites help us to measure the Earth</a>
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<p>And because the friction is even higher than before, it heats up. This is like rubbing sticks together to make fire. The heat makes the satellite break into pieces. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OhBw5yaR_SU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A European Space Agency freighter breaking apart and burning up.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Only some pieces survive to fall onto the surface of the Earth, or into the sea. These are often steel fuel tanks or titanium spheres - also called space balls. Sometimes, people find them on the ground many years later. </p>
<p>A few satellites, like China’s <a href="http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/china-research-spacecraft-returns-to-earth/">Shijian-10</a>, are designed to return to Earth, because they have collected samples that scientists want to study. These satellites have heat shields to keep them cool and parachutes to slow them down so that they land softly, still in one piece.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:</em></p>
<p><em>* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
<br>
* Tell us on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">Twitter</a> by tagging <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">@ConversationEDU</a> with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
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* Tell us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a></em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Please tell us your name, age, and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Gorman is a member of the Advisory Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia.</span></em></p>
We’ve all seen videos of satellites being blasted off into space - but once they’re locked in orbit around the earth, how do we bring them back down?
Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in archaeology and space studies, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82474
2017-08-30T20:46:32Z
2017-08-30T20:46:32Z
Robots won’t steal our jobs if we put workers at center of AI revolution
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184069/original/file-20170830-24267-1w1z0fj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Future robots will work side by side with humans, just as they do today.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Minchillo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The technologies driving artificial intelligence are expanding exponentially, leading <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/716715/Robots-earth-world-destroy-human-race-AI">many technology experts and futurists</a> to predict machines will soon be doing many of the jobs that humans do today. <a href="http://www.theclever.com/15-legitimate-fears-about-artificial-intelligence/">Some even predict</a> humans could lose control over their future.</p>
<p>While we agree about the seismic changes afoot, we don’t believe this is the right way to think about it. Approaching the challenge this way assumes society has to be passive about how tomorrow’s technologies are designed and implemented. The truth is there is no absolute law that determines the shape and consequences of innovation. We can all influence where it takes us. </p>
<p>Thus, the question society should be asking is: “How can we direct the development of future technologies so that robots complement rather than replace us?” </p>
<p>The Japanese <a href="https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/48159/industrialrelati00shim.pdf?sequence=1">have an apt phrase for this</a>: “giving wisdom to the machines.” And the wisdom comes from workers and an integrated approach to technology design, as our research shows.</p>
<h2>Lessons from history</h2>
<p>There is no question coming technologies like AI will eliminate some jobs, as did those of the past. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=835&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184061/original/file-20170830-24262-xxd20e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The invention of the steam engine was supposed to reduce the number of manufacturing workers. Instead, their ranks soared.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Hine_Power_house_mechanic_working_on_steam_pump.jpg">Lewis Hine</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c1567.pdf">More than half of the American workforce</a> was involved in farming in the 1890s, back when it was a physically demanding, labor-intensive industry. Today, thanks to mechanization and the use of sophisticated data analytics to handle the operation of crops and cattle, <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAPEMANA">fewer than 2 percent</a> are in agriculture, yet their output is <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/agricultural-productivity-in-the-us/agricultural-productivity-in-the-us/#National%20Tables,%201948-2013">significantly higher</a>. </p>
<p>But new technologies will also create new jobs. After steam engines replaced water wheels as the source of power in manufacturing in the 1800s, the <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c1567.pdf">sector expanded sevenfold</a>, from 1.2 million jobs in 1830 to 8.3 million by 1910. Similarly, many feared that the ATM’s emergence in the early 1970s <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/">would replace bank tellers</a>. Yet even though the machines are now ubiquitous, <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/11563">there are actually more tellers today</a> doing a wider variety of customer service tasks. </p>
<p>So trying to predict whether a new wave of technologies will create more jobs than it will destroy is not worth the effort, and <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs">even the experts are split 50-50</a>.</p>
<p>It’s particularly pointless given that perhaps fewer than 5 percent of current occupations are likely to disappear entirely in the next decade, according to a <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/where-machines-could-replace-humans-and-where-they-cant-yet">detailed study</a> by McKinsey. </p>
<p>Instead, let’s focus on the changes they’ll make to how people work.</p>
<h2>It’s about tasks, not jobs</h2>
<p>To understand why, it’s helpful to think of a job as made up of a collection of tasks that can be carried out in different ways when supported by new technologies. </p>
<p>And in turn, the tasks performed by different workers – colleagues, managers and many others – can also be rearranged in ways that make the best use of technologies to get the work accomplished. <a href="http://www.jwalkonline.org/upload/pdf/Hackman%20%26%20Oldham%20(1975)%20-%20Development%20of%20the%20JDS.pdf">Job design specialists</a> call these “work systems.” </p>
<p>One of the McKinsey study’s key findings was that about a third of the tasks performed in 60 percent of today’s jobs are likely to be eliminated or altered significantly by coming technologies. In other words, the vast majority of our jobs will still be there, but what we do on a daily basis will change drastically.</p>
<p>To date, robotics and other digital technologies have had <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/11600">their biggest effects</a> on mostly routine tasks like spell-checking and those that are dangerous, dirty or hard, such as lifting heavy tires onto a wheel on an assembly line. Advances in AI and machine learning will significantly expand the array of tasks and occupations affected. </p>
<h2>Creating an integrated strategy</h2>
<p>We have been exploring these issues for years as part of our ongoing discussions on <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-we-reinvented-labor-for-the-21st-century-64775">how to remake labor for the 21st century</a>. In our recently published book, “<a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/press-releases/mit-sloan-professors-new-book-lays-out-a-comprehensive-strategy-to-change-the-course-of-the-countrys-economy-and-employment-system/">Shaping the Future of Work: A Handbook for Change and a New Social Contract</a>,” we describe why society needs an integrated strategy to gain control over how future technologies will affect work.</p>
<p>And that strategy starts with helping define the problems humans want new technologies to solve. We shouldn’t be leaving this solely to their inventors.</p>
<p>Fortunately, <a href="http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-robots-still-need-us-david-a-mindell-debunks-theory-of-complete-autonomy/">some engineers</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjFXpR3Rzjk">AI experts</a> are recognizing that the end users of a new technology must have a central role in guiding its design to specify which problems they’re trying to solve.</p>
<p>The second step is ensuring that these technologies are designed alongside the work systems with which they will be paired. A so-called simultaneous design process produces better results for both the companies and their workers compared with a sequential strategy – typical today – which involves designing a technology and only later considering the impact on a workforce. </p>
<p>An excellent illustration of simultaneous design is how <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KBm8F9cI8OYC&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=toyota+robots+assembly+lines+1980s&source=bl&ots=SiT7qDlz9O&sig=L4xMjrxVFZh9SWpSHTSxpwDYRFo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ0_2Uk__VAhXCRCYKHYGEDyYQ6AEIUjAJ#v=onepage&q=toyota%20robots%20assembly%20lines%201980s&f=false">Toyota handled the introduction of robotics</a> onto its assembly lines in the 1980s. Unlike rivals such as General Motors that followed a sequential strategy, the Japanese automaker redesigned its work systems at the same time, which allowed it to get the most out of the new technologies and its employees. Importantly, Toyota solicited ideas for improving operations directly from workers. </p>
<p>In doing so, Toyota <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/transforming-organizations-9780195065046?cc=us&lang=en&">achieved higher productivity</a> and quality in its plants than competitors like GM that invested heavily in stand-alone automation before they began to alter work systems.</p>
<p>Similarly, businesses that tweaked their work systems in concert with investing in IT in the 1990s <a href="http://digital.mit.edu/research/papers/154_erikbworkplace.pdf">outperformed</a> those that didn’t. And <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0019793916640493">health care companies</a> like <a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2044&context=articles">Kaiser Permanente</a> and others learned the same lesson as they introduced electronic medical records over the past decade. </p>
<p>Each example demonstrates that the introduction of a new technology does more than just eliminate jobs. If managed well, it can change how work is done in ways that can both increase productivity and the level of service by augmenting the tasks humans do.</p>
<h2>Worker wisdom</h2>
<p>But the process doesn’t end there. Companies need to invest in continuous training so their workers are ready to help influence, use and adapt to technological changes. That’s the third step in getting the most out of new technologies. </p>
<p>And it needs to begin before they are introduced. The important part of this is that workers need to learn what <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/11/hybrid-job-skills/">some are calling “hybrid” skills</a>: a combination of technical knowledge of the new technology with aptitudes for communications and problem-solving. </p>
<p>Companies whose workers have these skills will have the best chance of getting the biggest return on their technology investments. It is not surprising that these hybrid skills are now in high and growing demand and command good salaries. </p>
<p>None of this is to deny that some jobs will be eliminated and some workers will be displaced. So the final element of an integrated strategy must be to help those displaced find new jobs and compensate those unable to do so for the losses endured. Ford and the United Auto Workers, for example, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/business/15ford.html?mcubz=3">offered generous early retirement benefits</a> and cash severance payments in addition to retraining assistance when the company downsized from 2007 to 2010. </p>
<p>Examples like this will need to become the norm in the years ahead. Failure to treat displaced workers equitably will only widen the gaps between winners and losers in the future economy that <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/22/news/economy/us-inequality-worse/index.html">are now already all too apparent</a>.</p>
<p>In sum, companies that engage their workforce when they design and implement new technologies will be best-positioned to manage the coming AI revolution. By respecting the fact that today’s workers, like those before them, understand their jobs better than anyone and the many tasks they entail, they will be better able to “give wisdom to the machines.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Kochan receives funding from The Hitachi Foundation in support of the MIT Good Companies-Good Jobs Initiative and from the MIT Mary Rowe Fund for Conflict Management Research..</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Dyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rather than fret about how many jobs future technologies will destroy, we should focus on how to shape them so that they complement the workforce of tomorrow.
Thomas Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management Professor, Work and Organization Studies Co-Director, MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, MIT Sloan School of Management
Lee Dyer, Professor Emeritus of Human Resource Studies and Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78034
2017-08-20T19:25:33Z
2017-08-20T19:25:33Z
Curious Kids: Why do we count to 10?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172582/original/file-20170606-3690-15mo08p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nature gave us ten fingers, so it makes sense to count to ten. But what happens when we run out of fingers?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beth19/4850553530/in/photolist-8oCmzh-6g3FBA-9HiCKn-8UHnRU-9dBUHa-zcNXD-7j2X9j-4z9LEf-7itdqx-dVy7PS-gvFETp-4z9NVY-8rcvSw-4z5xaM-4z9LTQ-82SYHc-9ftJBe-e4qozR-7L7d9T-LmVvz-8tGabm-6Eqw2o-e3xoVV-Tjywea-KdsxK-ctgxj9-aTy7vZ-RnigVE-au4qjr-aThawP-TNY76-UiCrVk-4z5wrn-fFnfC-h9k8Cf-8ho24x-UZUfCr-C98PTz-4z9Kkf-bsZQP9-7jAqNH-DmxSsG-rRVWGH-SfgyrE-d6eNy-8gjNF4-qL4ptZ-cxncg-8xTFJs-LzP1c">Flickr/Bethan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is an article from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a>, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!</em> </p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Why do we count to 10? – Quentin, age 5, Randwick.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Counting is perhaps one of the oldest scientific operations still in use today. </p>
<p>From a young age we learn to count the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. These are called the digits. But there is a problem with ten: we have to write it differently because we used up all our digits!</p>
<p>What do we do now? </p>
<p>We use two digits. The number 10 has a left digit “1” which has a new meaning. It represents the number of times we ran out of digits. The right digit “0” is the same as before and lets us continue counting again. Mathematicians call this a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_notation">place-value</a> number system, and counting in tens is called the decimal system. Australia and the UK use the decimal system to count money, distances and lots of other things we need to measure or count. </p>
<p>Machines also count, but not in tens. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170059/original/file-20170519-12242-fgrp6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What happens when machines run out of numbers?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/industrial-switch-289201325?src=-fDSnhgPk0yiRcPwRefIKQ-1-2">Riggsby/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nature gave us ten fingers, and so it is natural for us to count in tens. But machines are built using switches, so it is natural for them to count only off (0) and on (1). This is like counting on one hand that only has one finger.</p>
<p>Machines count bigger numbers in the same way we do: by counting how many times they run out of digits. This system is called binary and the binary number 10 means the machine ran out of digits one time. A human would call this number two.</p>
<p>Today, these are the main ways of counting. But they are just two different ways of doing the same thing.</p>
<p>What about time? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170060/original/file-20170519-12217-35fhqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The way we measure and count time comes from the ancient Sumerians who lived thousands of years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vastfield/2769883027/">vastfield/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The big hand of a clock has 60 different digits: 0, 1, 2, all the way up to 59. But what happens when we have used up all of those digits? </p>
<p>Like before, we count the number of times we run out digits, and we call each one an hour. Counting in this way is called sexagesimal.</p>
<p>But why do we use a different measurement for time? </p>
<p>We inherited the sexagesimal system from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer">the Sumerians</a> more than 4,000 years ago. It has lasted for so long because you can easily divide a number into two, three, four, five or six equal parts. Try dividing an hour into three equal parts and you will see there are 20 minutes each. Now try dividing a dollar into three equal parts and you will see there are 33, 33 and 34 cents each.</p>
<p>Our world uses many different place-value number systems, and they are all useful for different reasons.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:</em></p>
<p><em>* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
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* Tell us on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">Twitter</a> by tagging <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">@ConversationEDU</a> with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
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* Tell us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/conversationEDU">Facebook</a></em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/165749/original/image-20170419-32713-1kyojyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p><em>Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Mansfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Why are there 60 minutes in an hour, and not 10? Why do we count up to 10, anyway? Quentin, age five, wants to know.
Daniel Mansfield, Associate Lecturer in Mathematics, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74728
2017-03-22T18:33:37Z
2017-03-22T18:33:37Z
3-D printing turns nanomachines into life-size workers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162085/original/image-20170322-12437-jb8bq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C107%2C3628%2C2005&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Molecular machines are ready to join forces and take on real-world work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chenfeng Ke</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nanomachines are tiny molecules – more than 10,000 lined up side by side would be narrower than the diameter of a human hair – that can move when they receive an external stimulus. They can already <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/102/29/10029">deliver medication</a> within a body and serve as <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/nature05462.html">computer memories</a> at the microscopic level. But as machines go, they haven’t been able to do much physical work – until now. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.keresearchgroup.com">My lab</a> has used nano-sized building blocks to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201612440/full">design a smart material</a> that can perform work at a macroscopic scale, visible to the eye. A 3-D-printed lattice cube made out of polymer can lift 15 times its own weight – the equivalent of a human being lifting a car.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Au9ruZ6Kfh0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Our polymer is able to lift an aluminum plate when chemical energy is added in the form of a solvent.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nobel-winning roots are rotaxanes</h2>
<p>The design of our new material is based on <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2016/">Nobel Prize-winning research</a> that turned mechanically interlocked molecules into work-performing machines at nanoscale – things like <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094791">molecular elevators</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nature10587">nanocars</a>.</p>
<p>Rotaxanes are one of the most widely investigated of these molecules. These dumbbell-shaped molecules are capable of converting input energy – in the forms of light, heat or altered pH – into molecular movements. That’s how these kinds of molecular structures got the nickname “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2016/popular-chemistryprize2016.pdf">nanomachines</a>.”</p>
<p>For example, in a molecule called [2]rotaxane, composed of one ring on an axle, the ring can move along the axle to perform shuttling motions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=196&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161663/original/image-20170320-9129-oe7dbi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left, a [2]rotaxane. The ring can shuttle along the axle. Right, representation of billions of [2]rotaxanes in solution. The motions of nano-rings counteract macroscopically.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chenfeng Ke</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So far, harnessing the mechanical work of rotaxanes has been very challenging. When billions of these tiny machines are randomly oriented, the ring motions will cancel each other out, producing no useful work at a macroscale. In order to harness these molecular motions, scientists have to think about controlling their three-dimensional arrangement as well as synchronizing their motions. </p>
<h2>Molecular beads on a string</h2>
<p>Our design is based on a well-investigated family of molecules called polyrotaxanes. These have multiple rings on a molecular axle. In our new material, the ring is a cyclic sugar and the axle is a polymer. </p>
<p>If we provide an external stimulus – like adding water – these rings randomly shuttling back and forth can instead stick to each other and form a tubular array. When that happens, it changes the stiffness of the molecule. It’s like when beads are threaded onto a string; many beads slid together make the string much stronger, like a rod.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=123&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=123&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161664/original/image-20170320-9114-1ugcsh3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoon presentation of a polyrotaxane. The rings are changed from the shuttling state, left, to the stationary state, right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chenfeng Ke</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our approach is to build a polymer system where billions of these molecules become stronger with added water. The strength of the whole architecture is increased and the structure can perform useful work.</p>
<p>In this way, we were able to get around the original problem of the random orientation of many nanomachines together. The addition of water locks them into a stationary state, therefore strengthening the whole 3-D architecture and allowing the united molecules to perform work together. </p>
<h2>3-D printing the material</h2>
<p>Our research is the first to add 3-D printability to mechanically interlocked molecules. It was integrating the 3-D printing technique that allowed us to transform the random shuttling motions of nano-sized rings into smart materials that perform work at macroscopic scale.</p>
<p>Getting the molecules all lined up in the right orientation is a way to amplify their motions. When we add water, the rings of the polyrotaxanes stick together via hydrogen bonds. The tubular arrays then stack together in a more ordered manner.</p>
<p>It’s much easier to get the molecules coordinated while they’re in this configuration as opposed to when the rings are all freely moving along the axle. We were able to successfully print lattice-like 3-D structures with the rings locked into position in this way. Now the molecules aren’t just randomly positioned within the material.</p>
<p>After 3-D-printing out the polymer, we used a photo-curing process – similar to the UV lamp that hardens nail polish at a salon – to cure it. We were left with a material that had good 3-D structural integrity and mechanical stability. Now it was ready to do some work.</p>
<h2>Shape changing back and forth</h2>
<p>The three-dimensional geometry of the polymer is crucial for its shape changing. A hollow structure is easier to deform than a solid one. So we designed a lattice cube structure to maximize its shape-deformation ability and, in turn, its ability to do work as it switched back and forth from one state to the other.</p>
<p>The next important step was being able to control the work our polymer could do.</p>
<p>It turns out the complex 3-D architecture of these structures can be reversibly deformed and reformed. We were able to use a solvent to switch the threaded ring structure between random shuttling and stationary states at the molecular level. Exchanging the solvent let us easily repeat this shape-changing and recovery behavior many times.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5h6CzJb9BqM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Squirting in solvent adds chemical energy to our polymer. As the solvent evaporated over time, the polyrotaxane returned to its original form.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is how we converted chemical energy into mechanical work.</p>
<p>Just like moving beads to strengthen or weaken a string, this shape-changing is critical because it allows the amplification of molecular motion into macroscopic motion.</p>
<p>A 3-D printed lattice cube made of this smart material lifted a small coin 1.6 millimeters. The numbers may sound small for our day-to-day world, but this is a big step forward in the effort to get nanomachines doing macro work.</p>
<p>We hope <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201612440/full">this advance</a> will enable scientists to further develop smart materials and devices. For example, by adding contraction and twisting to the rising motion, molecular machines could be used as soft robots performing complicated tasks similar to what a human hand can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chenfeng Ke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Research on molecular machines won last year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. Now scientists have figured out a way to get these tiny molecules to join forces and collaborate on real work on a macro scale.
Chenfeng Ke, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dartmouth College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69398
2016-11-27T19:18:20Z
2016-11-27T19:18:20Z
The Australian manufacturing industry is not dying, it’s evolving: CSIRO study
<p>Despite the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-it-matter-if-australia-no-longer-manufactures-things-25541">well publicised closure of some manufacturing sectors</a> in Australia, manufacturing isn’t dying. Instead, like industry around the world, it’s undergoing a period of significant change as new, disruptive technologies and economic realities take hold and new markets emerge.</p>
<p>There is a role for the manufacturing sector in Australia. Through interviews with 56 stakeholders, three workshops and a survey of industry and government organisations, as well as leading researchers, <a href="http://www.csiro.au/en/Do-business/Futures/Reports/Advanced-manufacturing-roadmap">CSIRO identified major growth opportunities</a> and what the manufacturing sector needs to do to achieve them.</p>
<p>Currently <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5206.0">Australian manufacturing contributes</a> 6.05% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5368.0">exports A$96.1 billion</a> of goods and employs 856,000 people. This has <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/changing-manufacturing/changman.pdf">fallen from a high in 1995</a>, when it contributed to 14% of GDP and employed more than a million people. </p>
<p>High wages, geographical remoteness and a small dispersed local market <a href="http://www.industry.gov.au/Office-of-the-Chief-Economist/Publications/Documents/AIR2015.pdf">are some of the reasons for these changes</a>. However consumers are also changing what products they buy which then impacts the type of products made.</p>
<p>Major companies like Boeing and General Electric now look to the world using global supply chains for components for their final product, so Australia has to compete globally. </p>
<p>The innovation resulting from science and technology, such as automation, digitisation and new materials, has changed the equation of what it means to be a manufacturer. Manufacturing is no longer a basic industry that employs low-skilled workers.</p>
<p>Over the next 20 years, Australia’s manufacturing industry must transform into a highly-integrated, collaborative and export-focused “ecosystem” that provides high-value customised solutions contributing to global supply chains.</p>
<p>Our research brought up some exciting examples of Australian companies that have already embraced this evolution, setting a standard to follow.</p>
<h2>Customised high-margin solutions</h2>
<p>We found that demand for more expensive bespoke products is replacing mass-produced products relying on value from producing a lot for the market. New materials, automation, biotechnology and new chemical processes have driven this innovation in manufacturing. </p>
<p>These new technologies enable a new level of customisation. Products like <a href="http://www.anatomics.com/">personalised medical implants</a> and <a href="http://www.gfrpharma.com/nhp-manufacturer/functional-foods/">functional foods</a> and <a href="https://www.shoesofprey.com/">clothing</a> are already possible thanks to the combination of design services and superior components (such as 3D printing).</p>
<p>Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) make up 97% of Australia businesses. So customisation is an ideal recipe for Australian SMEs to achieve global reach without the need for producing more goods than their competitors.</p>
<p>An example of an Australian company doing this well is <a href="http://oventus.com.au/">Oventus</a>. They produce an O2Vent mouthpiece for those that suffer sleep apnoea. Oventus uses a 3D scanner to map a patient’s mouth, then 3D prints a custom-made mouthpiece that helps stop dangerous pauses in sleep at night. Its custom fit and relative comfort attract a price premium. The company recently listed on the Australian stock exchange and is about to go global.</p>
<h2>Collaboration</h2>
<p>Too often Australian manufacturers focus on the rival across the street, rather than the looming competition over the horizon.</p>
<p>Our research shows manufacturers need to partner among themselves, either through business partnerships or increased collaboration. <a href="http://nautitech.com.au/">Nautitech</a> and <a href="http://www.nltinc.com/">Northern Light Technologies Australia,</a> for example, were brought together by a mining company to improve underground communications. </p>
<p>These two companies combined hardware from one company and software from the other to provide mobile Wi-Fi coverage for mine sites. It allows miners to monitor worker safety, fleet optimisation, machine performance and also allows autonomous mining and productivity improvements. </p>
<h2>Global supply chain integration</h2>
<p>In a global marketplace, Australia cannot stand on its own. The Australian market alone is too small - our population is the size of Shanghai, China. </p>
<p>Australia has few multinational companies manufacturing here. However multinational companies do source components from the best suppliers globally and herein lies the opportunity for Australia.</p>
<p>For example, manufacturer <a href="https://www.anca.com/Home">ANCA Tools</a> delivers specifically designed parts to Japan. These parts are made using the company’s multi-axis grinding machines. </p>
<p>These machines, designed and built in Australia, are automated and wired up for flexible and precision manufacturing. The components are integrated into Japanese customers’ unmanned, factory-wide automated production systems.</p>
<p>Manufacturers need to integrate into international supply chains; using Australia’s advanced technology industry and research sector, to stand out from the crowd. One example of this highlighted from our research is <a href="http://www.carbonrev.com/">Carbon Revolution,</a> a company that pioneered the commercial production of carbon composite car wheels. These wheels are made from a single piece of material. </p>
<p>Carbon Revolution is supplying Ford with wheels for the Mustang Shelby GT350R, making it the first company in the world to supply mass produced carbon fibre wheels on standard equipment for a major automaker.</p>
<p>The wheels weigh up to 50% less than conventional aluminium equivalents and reduce carbon emissions by up to 6%. Carbon Revolution is now investigating opportunities in aerospace and industrial markets.</p>
<h2>Increased role for the research sector</h2>
<p>Australia’s research sector can play a critical role in the future of Australian manufacturing, providing the significant technological innovation needed to drive future prosperity.</p>
<p>Publicly funded research agencies in Australia are already building stronger industry engagement. In our research, Australian manufacturers have identified the science and technology gaps that need filling. </p>
<p>These companies want to use research results to be able to differentiate, make manufacturing processes more efficient, monitor in real time and drive decision making with data. Australian research institutions need to adapt to these demands.</p>
<p>The establishment of open access hubs such as <a href="https://research.csiro.au/metals/add-manufacturing/aus-innovation/">Lab22</a>, the <a href="http://www.anff.org.au">Australian National Fabrication Facilities (ANFF)</a>, <a href="http://www.fledge.com.au/">industry collaboration spaces</a> in research organisations, researchers in business, industry PhDs and internships are all examples of initiatives to link the research and manufacturing sectors.</p>
<p>Australia has a high level of education, an excellent research sector, vast natural resources, a reputation for quality, keen SMEs and close proximity to a burgeoning Asia. The strengths far outweigh the weaknesses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathy Foley works for CSIRO Manufacturing. Her Business Unit of Manufacturing has contracts with many Australian and international manufacturers and Australian Federal and State governments, using the CSIRO capability to improve their businesses and provide support for govenrment. She is a member of The Conversations' Editorial Board</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith McLean works for CSIRO. His organisation receives funding from the Federal Government. He is a member of the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council's Leaders Group.
</span></em></p>
A CSIRO report suggests Australian manufacturers need to better design custom products and hook into global supply chains to survive.
Cathy Foley, Deputy Director and Science Director Manfacturing Flagship CSIRO, CSIRO
Keith McLean, Director, CSIRO Manufacturing, CSIRO
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/58252
2016-05-05T11:38:33Z
2016-05-05T11:38:33Z
Robot revolution: rise of the intelligent automated workforce
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120518/original/image-20160428-28057-denndg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The computers of tomorrow are being taught to learn, reason and recognise emotions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tatiana Shepeleva/shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Losing jobs to technology is nothing new. Since the industrial revolution, roles that were once exclusively performed by humans have been slowly but steadily replaced by some form of automated machinery. Even in cases where the human worker is not completely replaced by a machine, humans have learnt to rely on a battery of machinery to be more <a href="http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/04/rise-machines-future-lots-robots-jobs-humans/">efficient and accurate</a>. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/1314">report</a> from the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology said that 47% of all jobs in the US are likely to be replaced by automated systems. Among the jobs soon to be replaced by machines are real estate brokers, animal breeders, tax advisers, data entry workers, receptionists, and various personal assistants. </p>
<p>But you won’t need to pack up your desk and hand over to a computer just yet, and in fact jobs that require a certain level of social intelligence and creativity such as in education, healthcare, the arts and media are likely to remain in demand from humans, because such tasks remain difficult to be computerised. </p>
<p>Like it or not, we now live in an era dominated by <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-need-to-panic-artificial-intelligence-has-yet-to-create-a-doomsday-machine-35148">artificial intelligence</a> (AI). AI can be seen as a collection of technologies that can be used to imitate or even to outperform tasks performed by humans using machines. </p>
<p>We might not first see it but we cannot avoid running into one or more systems that use some form of an AI algorithm in our day-to-day activities – such as searching for some information using Google, purchasing a recommended product on Amazon, or recognising faces in an image uploaded to Facebook. </p>
<h2>Deep learning</h2>
<p>Recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-questions-answered-on-artificial-intelligence-49645">breakthroughs</a> in AI are largely attributable to a technique called deep learning. Often known as machine learning or neural networking, deep learning involves “training” a computer model so it can recognise objects from images. The power of deep learning-based AI systems lies in their ability to automatically <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-human-emotions-do-we-really-want-of-artificial-intelligence-46623">detect noticeable features</a> and use them to solve hard recognition problems.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120519/original/image-20160428-28024-ug6nd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yes, robots will steal our jobs and that’s fine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Profit_Image/shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although humans could easily perform such recognition tasks almost unconsciously, it is often difficult for a human to explain the exact procedure at a sufficiently detailed level so that it could be programmed into a computer. </p>
<p>With deep learning all this has changed. Now, deep learning-based AI systems can figure out the important features for <a href="https://theconversation.com/googles-go-triumph-is-a-milestone-for-artificial-intelligence-research-53762">solving difficult problems</a> that were once thought to be solvable exclusively by humans. </p>
<p>And as a result, humans will have to mentally prepare for the fact that <a href="https://theconversation.com/mini-megalomaniac-ai-is-already-all-around-us-but-it-wont-get-further-without-our-help-42672">some of our jobs will be lost to AI systems</a>. We might even have to call AI systems our colleagues or bosses in the near future. </p>
<p>But despite the deeper level of knowledge that our computers will soon acquire, losing our jobs to machines doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Letting machines do the bulk of the work means that humans will be freed from routine tasks that computers are better at performing with higher accuracy rates, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-driverless-vehicles-will-redefine-mobility-and-change-car-culture-55207">driving cars</a>. </p>
<p>This should enable humans to think like humans instead of machines. It will also free up time and energy for humans to engage in more creative and intellectually stimulating activities, possibly assisted by AI. </p>
<h2>Emotional intelligence</h2>
<p>AI systems have already become far too complicated for the average person to understand, let alone repair, so there will be new roles created which will require people who can act as intermediaries between computers and humans. </p>
<p>Similar to professions such as medicine or law, where professionals with specialised skills are required to interpret technical details for everyday folk, we will need professionals who speak the language of AI. These professionals may vary in their skills and are likely to consist of software developers, computer scientists and data scientists.</p>
<p>But ethical issues arising from human and AI co-working environments is a real concern. It is one thing getting a face incorrectly recognised in an image uploaded to Facebook, but a totally different matter if cancer is misdiagnosed by an AI, which could very easily happen. After all, computers make mistakes, just as people do.</p>
<p>Although AI-based systems are becoming smarter than humans in many fields, these systems are <a href="https://theconversation.com/googles-go-victory-shows-ai-thinking-can-be-unpredictable-and-thats-a-concern-56209">far from perfect</a> and are unlikely to ever be perfect considering the unpredictable learning mechanisms they use. </p>
<p>That said, it is likely to be the social and cultural changes that will be the real challenge, rather than the technical challenge of AI itself. So while robots taking over our jobs can be a good thing, only time will tell if we are ready to accept them as our co-workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danushka Bollegala works for the University of Liverpool. </span></em></p>
Computers are taking over our jobs, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Danushka Bollegala, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54958
2016-02-18T05:32:17Z
2016-02-18T05:32:17Z
Don’t be alarmed: AI won’t leave half the world unemployed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111908/original/image-20160218-1264-is41b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Intelligent machines are good at some jobs that were once done by humans.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/SFC </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/13/artificial-intelligence-ai-unemployment-jobs-moshe-vardi">alarmist headlines</a> this week claim artificial intelligence (AI) will put half of us out of work.</p>
<p>These headlines – and there were <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/robots-to-take-50-jobs-7363442">several</a> – <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/ru-wmc021016.php">stem from comments</a> by Rice University’s computer scientist Moshe Vardi who at the weekend asked what society would do when, within 30 years, machines become capable of doing almost any job a human can.</p>
<p>As ever, reality is likely to be far more nuanced than sensational headlines.</p>
<p>The most detailed study in this area came out in September 2013 from the Oxford Martin School. <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf">This report</a> predicted that 47% of jobs in the US were under threat of automation. Similar studies have since been performed for other countries, reaching broadly similar conclusions.</p>
<p>Now, there’s a lot I would disagree with in the Oxford report. But, for the sake of the discussion here, let’s just suppose for a moment that the report is correct.</p>
<p>Even with this assumption, you cannot conclude that half of us will be unemployed in 30 or so years. The Oxford report merely estimated the number of jobs that are potentially automatable over the next few decades. There are many reasons why this will not translate into 47% unemployment.</p>
<h2>We still want a human on the job</h2>
<p>The report merely estimated the number of jobs that are susceptible to automation. Some of these jobs won’t be automated in practice for economical, societal, technical and other reasons.</p>
<p>For example, we can pretty much automate the job of an airline pilot today. Indeed, most of the time, a computer is flying your plane. But society is likely to continue to demand the reassurance of having a pilot on board even if they are just reading their iPad most of the time.</p>
<p>As a second example, the Oxford report gives a 94% chance for bicycle repairer to be automated. But it is likely to be very expensive and difficult to automate this job, and therefore uneconomic to do so.</p>
<p>We also need to consider all the new jobs that technology will create. For example, we don’t employ many printers setting type any more. But we do employ many more people in the digital equivalent, making web pages.</p>
<p>Of course, if you are a printer and your job is destroyed, it helps if you’re suitably educated so you can re-position yourself in one of these new industries.</p>
<p>Some of these jobs will only be partially automated, and automation will in fact enhance a person’s ability to do the job. For example, the Oxford report gives a 98% chance of umpiring or refereeing to be automated. But we are likely to have just as many if not more umpires and referees in the future, even if they use technologies to do their job better.</p>
<h2>Automation can create employment</h2>
<p>In fact, the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/ooh/entertainment-and-sports/umpires-referees-and-other-sports-officials.htm">US Department of Labor predicts</a> that we will see a 5% increase in umpires and referees over the next decade.</p>
<p>The Oxford report give a 63% chance for geoscientists to be automated. But automation is more likely to permit geoscientists to do more geoscience.</p>
<p>Indeed, the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/geoscientists.htm">US Department of Labor actually predicts</a> the next decade will see a 10% increase in the number of geoscientists as we seek to make more of the planet’s diminishing resources.</p>
<p>We also need to consider how the working week will change over the next few decades. Most countries in the developed world have seen the number of hours worked per week decrease significantly since the start of the industrial revolution.</p>
<p>In the US, the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm">average working week</a> has declined from around 60 hours to just 33. Other developed countries are even lower. Germans only work 26 hours per week. If these trends continue, we will need to create more jobs to replace these lost hours.</p>
<p>In my view, it’s hard to predict with any certainty how many of us will really be unemployed in a few decades time but I am very sceptical that it will be half of us. Society would break down well before we get to 50% unemployment.</p>
<p>My guess is it will be at most half of this prediction, 25% at most. This is nevertheless an immense change, and one that we need to start planning for and mitigating against today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Walsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Intelligent machines are taking on many of the jobs once carried out by humans but that doesn’t mean we’ll have mass unemployment.
Toby Walsh, Professor of AI, Research Group Leader, Optimisation Research Group, Data61
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54143
2016-02-12T11:10:24Z
2016-02-12T11:10:24Z
Yes, robots will steal our jobs, but don’t worry, we’ll get new ones
<p>The U.S. economy added 2.7 million jobs in 2015, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/business/economy/jobs-report-hiring-unemployment-december.html">capping the best two-year stretch</a> of employment growth since the late ‘90’s, pushing the unemployment rate down to five percent. </p>
<p>But to listen to the <a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/8-jobs-that-will-go-extinct-by-2030/ss-BBlImkg">doomsayers</a>, it’s just a matter of time before the rapid advance of technology makes most of today’s workers obsolete – with ever-smarter machines replacing teachers, drivers, travel agents, interpreters and a slew of other occupations. </p>
<p>Almost half of those currently employed in the U.S. are at risk of being put out of work by automation in the next decade or two, according to a <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf">2013 University of Oxford study</a>, which identified transportation, logistics and administrative occupations as most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Does that mean that these formerly employed workers will have nowhere to go? Is the recent job growth a last gasp before machines take over, or can robots and workers coexist? </p>
<p>Research as well as recent history suggest that these concerns are overblown and that we are neither headed toward a rise of the machine world nor a utopia where no one works anymore. Humans will still be necessary in the economy of the future, even if we can’t predict what we will be doing. </p>
<h2>Rise of the Luddites</h2>
<p>Today’s apprehension about technology’s effect on the labor force is nothing new. </p>
<p>The anxiety began in the early 1800s when textile workers, who later became known as Luddites, destroyed machinery that reduced the need for their labor. The fact that calling someone a Luddite today is considered an insult is proof that those worries were largely unfounded. In fact, labor benefited right alongside productivity throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.</p>
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<p>Some worry that this dynamic has changed. Larry Summers, formerly the president of Harvard and director of the White House’s National Economic Council, for example, <a href="http://www.nber.org/reporter/2013number4/2013no4.pdf">recently changed his tune</a> about the unalloyed benefits of technology. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Until a few years ago, I didn’t think this was a very complicated subject; the Luddites were wrong and the believers in technology and technological progress were right. I’m not so completely certain now. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Derek Thomson, a senior editor at The Atlantic, sums up the arguments for why this time automation will replace labor permanently in an article titled <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/">A World Without Work</a>. </p>
<p>First, the share of economic output that is paid to labor has been declining. Second, machines are no longer merely augmenting human work; they are rapidly encroaching on work that today is capable of being done only by humans. Finally, the hollowing out of prime-age men (25-54 years old) in the workforce indicates a more permanent end to work. </p>
<h2>Crying wolf</h2>
<p>My own look at the data suggests that just as the critics of the past were crying “wolf,” so are the pessimists of today.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s true that from 1980 to 2014, workers’ share of output fell from nearly 58 percent to just over 52 percent – evidence that Thompson believes shows that labor’s importance is in a slow decline. </p>
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<p>However, <a href="http://bea.gov/papers/pdf/laborshare1410.pdf">recent work</a> by Benjamin Bridgman, an economist at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, has demonstrated that once depreciation and production taxes are taken into account, the story for U.S. workers doesn’t seem as pessimistic. While the most recent data show that the U.S. net labor share has fallen over time, as recently as 2008, the share was the same as in 1975. </p>
<p>Because of the rapid pace of technological improvements, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/03/26/thomas-piketty-says-labors-share-of-income-is-declining-but-is-it/">capital depreciates at a faster rate</a>. Companies, or owners of capital, must therefore spend a larger share of profits to repair technology or replace obsolete technology. As a result, labor’s declining share of output is directly correlated to the increasing share of output spent on technology. Since 1970, the share of our nation’s output spent on technology replacement has increased from just under 13 percent to more than 15 percent.</p>
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<p>In addition, whenever there are changes in production taxes (e.g., property, excise and sales taxes) the share of output paid to labor will decrease. As a result, while the gross labor share of income has declined, much of it can be explained by technological improvements and changes in government policy. </p>
<h2>Replace or complement?</h2>
<p>Machines are indeed replacing humans – and replicating what we thought were uniquely human skills – at a faster rate than many of us thought possible until recently. </p>
<p>For example, at the beginning of the 21st century, few people would have imagined that a computer could beat the best human in the world at Jeopardy. And yet, in 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson did exactly that by beating two former Jeopardy superstars, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. </p>
<p>But a focus on technology’s substitutionary (or replacement) role fails to appreciate how it can also be complementary. Job loss in some occupations will certainly continue, but they will be accompanied by gains in different fields, just as in the past. </p>
<p>Watson is a case in point. In 2012, a year after Watson’s Jeopardy victory, IBM formed a <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/cognitive-computing/watson/watsonpaths.shtml#fbid=8z8YB5R7t_6">partnership</a> with the Cleveland Clinic to assist physicians and improve the speed and accuracy of medical diagnosis and treatments. In this case, Watson augments the skills of physicians, creating more demand for doctors with access to the supercomputer. </p>
<p>The biggest risk is that this will polarize the labor market as the demand for workers grows on both the high and low ends in terms of education. It’s a trend that economist David Autor <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.29.3.3">has been documenting</a> since 1979. Highly skilled individuals in managerial, professional and technical occupations have all seen improvements, as have service jobs that require little education (in part because it’s difficult to automate the work of hairstylists or janitors). </p>
<p>While this polarization of jobs can have negative short-term effects in the middle of the distribution, it is a mistake to overstate the long-term consequences.</p>
<h2>What’s really happening to all the men</h2>
<p>Finally, it is true that since 1967, the share of men aged 25–54 without work has more than tripled, from five percent to 16 percent.</p>
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<p>But the reasons they’re not working have less to do with the rise of the machines than we’re being led to believe. According to a <a href="http://kff.org/other/poll-finding/kaiser-family-foundationnew-york-timescbs-news-non-employed-poll/">New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll</a> of Americans without jobs, 44 percent of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html">men surveyed</a> said there were jobs in their area they think they could obtain but weren’t willing to take them. In addition, around a third of those surveyed (including women) indicated that a spouse, food stamps or disability benefits provided another source of income. </p>
<p>An unwillingness to relocate geographically may also help explain the decline in labor force participation. In a <a href="https://www.expresspros.com/Newsroom/America-Employed/Survey-Of-The-Unemployed-Shows-47--Say-They-Have-Completely-Given-Up-Looking-For-A-Job.aspx?&referrer=http://www.expresspros.com/Newsroom/America-Employed-News-List.aspx?PageNumber=4">2014 survey</a> of unemployed individuals, 60 percent said that they were “not at all willing” to move to another state. </p>
<p>These findings suggest that while the U.S. boasts the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/jlt/">most job openings</a> since the government began tracking them nationwide (5.6 million), many of those without work don’t want to apply for one reason or another. </p>
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<h2>It’s not man versus machine yet</h2>
<p>These figures and polls paint a very different picture of the actual problem. In addition to geography constraints along with spousal and government income supports contributing to fewer people wanting to work, we also have a skills gap. Fortunately, this is a problem that we can overcome with better education and training, rather than resigning ourselves to an irreversible decline in the share of jobs that require a human.</p>
<p>During the most recent recession, there was a decline in construction and manufacturing jobs, which typically required lower levels of education, and an increase in health care and professional service jobs, which often require advanced degrees. </p>
<p>Instead of wringing our hands and blaming technology, we should be rolling up our sleeves to ensure that people who lose their jobs to technology are being retrained. This also requires patience – recognizing that it will take time for these workers to be reemployed in higher-skilled jobs. </p>
<p>Until the number of job openings declines and remains persistently low, one should be careful about pitting man versus machine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jones formerly worked as the Director of Research at the University of Cincinnati Economics Center, which provides economic consulting services to a wide range of clients, including governments, nonprofits, and the private sector. He has been an Emerging Education Policy Scholar with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He has received funding from the Mellon Foundation to organize a seminar series on the Political Economy of K-12 Education Reform. He is currently on the Board of Directors for the Association of Universities for Business and Economics Research (AUBER).</span></em></p>
Some suggest half of current jobs will be lost to automation over the next decade or two. But it’s far too early to pit man versus machine.
Michael Jones, Assistant Professor, Educator in Economics, University of Cincinnati
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/53641
2016-01-29T02:49:43Z
2016-01-29T02:49:43Z
We need to keep humans in the loop when robots fight wars
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109429/original/image-20160128-26785-13pcn89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=114%2C32%2C1752%2C1089&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who gets to fire the gun? Man or AI-powered machine?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/clement127/12138092936/">Flickr/Robot flingueur</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a swarm of tens of millions of armed AI-piloted hexacopters, “killer robots” as <a href="http://stopkillerrobots.org">some call them</a>, sent to wipe out a particular group of people – say, all men of a certain age in a certain city.</p>
<p>Sounds like science fiction but it was a scenario raised by <a href="https://www.cs.berkeley.edu/%7Erussell/">Stuart Russell</a>, a professor of artificial intelligence (AI), as part of a <a href="http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2016/sessions/what-if-robots-go-to-war">debate on robots in war</a> at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week.</p>
<p>This swarm, he claimed, could be developed in about 18 to 24 months with <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Manhattan_Project.aspx">Manhattan Project</a> style funding. One person could unleash a million weaponised AIs and humans would have virtually no defence. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.baesystems.com/en/our-company/our-people/board-of-directors/sir-roger-carr">Sir Roger Carr</a>, chairman of weapons manufacturer <a href="http://www.baesystems.com/en/home">BAE Systems</a>, tactfully described Russell’s vision as “extreme”.</p>
<p>But Sir Roger did come out strongly in favour of keeping humans in the loop in the design of autonomous weapons as a means of maintaining “meaningful human control”. An “umbilical cord” between a human and the machine was necessary, he said. Responsibility for the actions of the machine and compliance with the laws of war should be assigned to the human not the machine. </p>
<p>Carr said the weapons business is more heavily regulated that any other industry. He stressed it was not his role to be an advocate for equipment. Rather, his role was to build equipment to government specifications and requirements.</p>
<p>Even so, <a href="http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/2016/01/davos-2/">he was emphatic</a> that autonomous weapons would be “devoid of responsibility” and would have “no sense of emotion or mercy”. It would be a bad idea, he said, to build machines that decided “who to fight, how to fight and where to fight”.</p>
<h2>Humans in, on and off the lethal loop</h2>
<p>One of BAE’s research projects is a remotely piloted stealth fighter-bomber, <a href="http://www.baesystems.com/en/product/taranis">Taranis</a>. This could plausibly evolve into a “human off the loop” weapon – if the UK government specified that requirement.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Look! No pilot on board.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is always the risk that under combat conditions the satellite link from the human to the machine could fail. The “umbilical cord” could snap. It is not clear how Taranis would behave in this circumstance.</p>
<p>Would it loiter and await reestablishment of its signal? Would it return to base? What would it do if attacked? Such details will need to be clarified sooner or later. </p>
<p><a href="http://passblue.com/2015/03/02/angela-kane-is-leaving-the-un-in-a-political-shuffle/">Angela Kane</a>, a former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, speaking in the debate, characterised progress in negotiations under the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/500?OpenDocument">Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons</a> (CCW) as “glacial”. Definitions remain elusive.</p>
<p>After UN Expert Meetings in <a href="http://bit.ly/1nziBmV">2014</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/1nziDeB">2015</a>, the meanings of “autonomous”, “fully autonomous” and “meaningful human control” remain disputed. </p>
<h2>Policy loop and firing loop</h2>
<p>There are two distinct areas in which one might want to assert “meaningful human control” of autonomous weapons:</p>
<ol>
<li>the definition of the policy rules that the autonomous weapon mechanically follows</li>
<li>the execution of those rules when firing.</li>
</ol>
<p>Current discussions focus on the latter – the execution of policy in the firing loop (select to engage). The widely accepted terms are “in the loop”, “on the loop” and “off the loop”. Let me explain how the three different terms apply in practice.</p>
<p>Contemporary drones are remote controlled. The robot does not decide to select or engage; a human telepilot does that. The Raytheon <a href="http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/patriot/">Patriot</a> anti-missile system is a “human in the loop” system. Patriot can select a target (based on human defined rules) but will not engage until a human presses a button to confirm.</p>
<p>Raytheon’s <a href="http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/phalanx/">Phalanx</a>, a defensive “close-in weapons system” (CIWS) designed to shoot down anti-ship missiles, can be an “on the loop” system. Once activated, it will select and engage targets. It will pop up an abort button for the human to hit but will fire if the human does not override the robot decision. </p>
<p>Mines are an example “off the loop” weapons. The human cannot abort and is not required to confirm a decision to detonate and kill. </p>
<p>If you take a standard robotics <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/autonomous-robots">textbook definition</a> of “autonomous” as referring to the ability of a system to function without an external human operator for a protracted period of time, then the oldest “autonomous” weapons are “off the loop”. For example, the Confederates used naval and land mines (known as “torpedoes” at that time) <a href="http://www.lat34north.com/HistoricMarkers/CivilWar/EventDetails.cfm?EventKey=18641213">during the American Civil War</a> (1861-65).</p>
<h2>Policy autonomy and firing autonomy</h2>
<p>Many people employ a more visionary notion of “autonomous”, namely the ability of a future AI to create or discover (i.e. initiate) the policy rules it will execute in its firing decisions via unsupervised machine learning and evolutionary game theory.</p>
<p>We might think of this as the policy loop. This runs before the firing loop of select and engage. Who or what makes the targeting rules is a critical element of control especially as robots, unlike humans, mechanically follow the rules in their programming. </p>
<p>Thus in addition to notions of remote control and humans being in, on and off the loop in firing, one might explore notions of human policy control and humans being in, on and off the loop of policy formation (i.e. initiating the rules that define who, where and how we fight).</p>
<p>Patriot has human policy control. Programmers key targeting rules into the system and on the basis of these rules Patriot selects targets. Thus initiating the targeting rules is an element of control.</p>
<p>The Skynet of Hollywood’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">Terminator</a> fiction, by contrast, exemplifies a robot that has no humans in its policy or firing loops. </p>
<p>Some non-military contemporary policy is “human in the loop” in that an AI computer model of climate might make policy recommendations but these can be reviewed and approved by humans. </p>
<p>What Carr was describing as objectionable was a machine that devised its own targeting rules (who, how and where to fight). A robot that follows targeting rules defined or approved by humans is more obviously closer to “meaningful human control” than a robot that initiates rules not subject to human review. </p>
<h2>Effective legal control</h2>
<p>If some autonomous weapons are to be permitted, it is critical that effective legal control is built into them such that they cannot perpetrate genocide and war crimes. Developing a swarm of cranium bombers to kill civilians is already a war crime and that use is already banned. </p>
<p>It is already the case that fielded autonomous weapons are subject to <a href="https://www.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750045?OpenDocument">Article 36</a> legal review to ensure they can be operated in accordance with International Humanitarian Law. </p>
<p>There will be some exceptional cases where the human is in the policy loop and off the firing loop (e.g. anti-tank mines and naval mines that are long accepted weapons) and cases where battlespace tempo (fast moving enemy objects) require humans on the firing loop not in it once the system is activated (e.g. Phalanx).</p>
<p>Ideally, where battlespace tempo permits, there should be humans in both policy and firing loops. Taking humans out of the policy loop should be comprehensively and pre-emptively banned.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Welsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When it comes to weapons with artificial intelligence, there’s an argument for keeping a human in charge of some of the action.
Sean Welsh, Doctoral Candidate in Robot Ethics, University of Canterbury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51316
2016-01-06T19:24:14Z
2016-01-06T19:24:14Z
What does it mean to think and could a machine ever do it?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105006/original/image-20151209-3276-vemyr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can a machine really think, be in awe and wonder?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Photobymhu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea of a thinking machine is an amazing one. It would be like humans creating artificial life, only more impressive because we would be creating consciousness. Or would we?</p>
<p>It’s tempting to think that a machine that could think <em>would</em> think like us. But a bit of reflection shows that’s not an inevitable conclusion. </p>
<p>To begin with, we’d better be clear about what we mean by “think”. A comparison with human thinking might be intuitive, but what about animal thinking? Does a chimpanzee think? Does a crow? Does an <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-octopuses-smart/">octopus</a>? </p>
<p>There may even be alien intelligences that we might not even recognise as such because they are so radically different from us. Perhaps we could pass each other in close proximity, each unaware that the other existed, having no way to engage. </p>
<p>Certainly animals other than humans have cognitive abilities geared towards understanding tools and causal relationships, communication, and even to recognising directed and purposeful thinking in others. We’d probably consider any or all of that thinking.</p>
<p>And let’s face it, if we built a machine that did all the above, we’d be patting ourselves on the back and saying “mission accomplished”. But could a machine go a step further and be like a human mind? What’s more, how would we know if it did?</p>
<p>Just because a computer acts like it has a mind, it doesn’t mean it must have one. It might be all show and no substance, an instance of a <a href="http://consc.net/zombies.html">philosophical zombie</a>.</p>
<p>It was this notion that motivated British codebreaker and mathematician Alan Turing to come up with his famous <a href="http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/ai/turing.html">“Turing test”</a>, in which a computer would interact with a human through a screen and, more often than not, have the human unsure it was a computer. For Turing, all that mattered was behaviour, there was no computational “inner life” to be concerned about.</p>
<p>But this inner life matters to some of us. The philosopher Thomas Nagel said that there was “<a href="http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf">something that it is like</a>” to have conscious experiences. There’s something that it is like to see the colour red, or to go water skiing. We are more than just our brain states.</p>
<p>Could there ever be “something that it’s like” to be a thinking machine? In an imagined conversation with the first intelligent machine, a human might asked “Are you conscious?”, to which it might reply, “How would I know?”.</p>
<h2>Is thinking just computation?</h2>
<p>Under the hood of computer thinking, as we currently imagine it, is sheer computation. It’s about calculations per second and the number of potential computational pathways. </p>
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<p>But we are not at all sure that thinking or consciousness is a function of computation, at least the way a binary computer does it. Could thinking be <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/">more than just computation</a>? What else is needed? And if it is all about computation, why is the human brain so bad at it? </p>
<p>Most of us are flat out multiplying a couple of two digit numbers in our heads, let alone performing trillions of calculations a second. Or is there some deep processing of data that goes on below our awareness that ultimately results in our arithmetically impaired consciousness (the argument of so-called <a href="http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/pages/reference%20articles/what_is_AI/What%20is%20AI13.html">Strong AI</a>)?</p>
<p>Generally speaking, what computers are good at, like raw data manipulation, humans are quite bad at; and what computers are bad at, such as language, poetry, voice recognition, interpreting complex behaviour and making holistic judgements, humans are quite good at.</p>
<p>If the analogy between human and computer “thinking” is so bad, why expect computers to eventually think like us? Or might computers of the future lose their characteristic arithmetical aptitude as the full weight of consciousness emerges?</p>
<h2>Belief, doubt and values</h2>
<p>Then we have words like “belief” and “doubt” that are characteristic of human thinking. But what could it possibly mean for a computer to believe something, apart from the trivial meaning that it acted in ignorance of the possibility that it could be wrong? In other words, could a computer have genuine doubt, and then go ahead and act anyway? </p>
<p>When it comes to questions of value, questions about what we think is important in life and why, it’s interesting to consider two things. The first is if a thinking computer could be capable of attributing value to anything at all. The second is that if it could attribute value to anything, what would it choose? We’d want to be a bit careful here, it seems, even without getting into the possibility of mechanical free will. </p>
<p>It would be nice to program into computers a human style value system. But, on the one hand, we aren’t quite sure what that is, or how that could be done, and, on the other hand, if computers started programming themselves they may decide otherwise.</p>
<p>While it’s great fun to think about all this, we should spend a bit of time trying to understand what we want thinking computers to be. And maybe a bit more time should be spent trying to understand ourselves before we branch out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As machines get ever more complex as we strive to make them complete more complex tasks, it’s time to ask again: will they ever be able to think? But what is thinking anyway?
Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51107
2015-11-25T19:04:11Z
2015-11-25T19:04:11Z
Imagine if technology could read and react to our emotions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103131/original/image-20151125-4062-1euitcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Technology can be so frustrating at times, so what if it could understand your emotions?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Kues</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Computers have always been good at doing fast calculations, but adapting to the emotional state of the person using the computer – now there is a grand challenge! The field is called <a href="http://affect.media.mit.edu/">affective computing</a>, and soon it will be an important factor in the way people and computers communicate with each other. </p>
<p>The computer will interpret your body language to determine how you are feeling and then tailor its response intuitively, just as we do with each other. What’s more, we will like it because it is far more intuitive than the keyboard, mouse and touch screen as an input method. </p>
<p>As a way of communicating, emotion is very old indeed. Long before humans invented spoken language we communicated non-verbally at an emotional level. It is still the principal way that we get information from each other, with around 70% of a message’s content being conveyed by body language, about 20% by tone of voice and only 10% by words. </p>
<p>This is why we are able to instinctively recognise people’s emotional state. Wherever you are in the world, you can tell when a stranger is angry or happy or sad. Indeed it is such an ancient way that many people can accurately gauge how animals are feeling based on their body language.</p>
<p>Affective computing allows humans and computers to go beyond keyboards and use these rich, non-verbal channels of communication to good effect.</p>
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<h2>How can computers know our emotions?</h2>
<p>Computers will read our emotions by much the same process that humans do. It begins by connecting an array of sensors (cameras, microphones, skin conductivity devices) to a computer that gathers varied information about facial expression, posture, gesture, tone of voice and more. </p>
<p>Advanced software then processes the data, and by referencing a database of known patterns it is able to categorise what it is picking up from the sensors. The pattern might match for a range of emotions such as angry, disgusted, afraid, happy, sad, surprised, amused, contemptuous, contented, embarrassed, excited, guilty, proud of an achievement, relieved, satisfied, sensory pleasure or ashamed. </p>
<p>The system uses a feedback loop to learn and improve. If it is connected to other systems, what one system learns can be learned by all. </p>
<p>Here’s where it gets scary for some. With ageing populations and more people <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/publications/demographics-living-alone">living alone</a>, there is rising demand for companions and helpers at home and work to perform <a href="http://journalofdementiacare.com/robots-in-dementia-care/">tasks</a> that people are <a href="https://reason.com/archives/2015/02/06/do-androids-dream-of-changing">reluctant</a> to do.</p>
<p>This need will increasingly be met by <a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-advanced-humanoid-robots-you-have-to-see-to-believe/">anthropomorphic artificial intelligence</a> – functional robots that look and behave like humans. Over time, these will become increasingly life-like because people like projecting human qualities on the things we live with. </p>
<p>While still in the realm of science fiction, with so much effort going into their creation, a world in which people live and interact with humanoid robots is not far off.</p>
<p>This theme is explored in the 2015 television series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/">Humans</a>, based on the 2012 Swedish series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180271/">Äkta Människor</a> (Real Humans), currently <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/humans/">broadcast on the ABC</a>.</p>
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<h2>All kinds of applications</h2>
<p>Emotion monitoring is already working in systems that we use every day, and we will see more of it soon. Are you tempted to send an angry email? Your computer will be able to <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329844-200-emailing-angry-your-keyboard-feels-your-pain/">detect your emotion</a> as you type.</p>
<p>At home, knowing your habits and current mood, such systems could adjust the lights, music and room temperature to create the most pleasant ambient conditions. It could suggest entertainment options; any number of things.</p>
<p>At school, the mode of on-line delivery could be optimised based on the mood of the student; bored, interested, frustrated, pleased. </p>
<p>At the doctors, it could help with diagnosis and offer a way for people with autism to communicate. </p>
<p>In public, it notices when people are likely to do something such as smash a window, harass someone or start a fight. Likewise at a sporting event when a crowd looks like turning into an riot. In airports it identifies people who might be carrying a bomb or smuggling contraband.</p>
<p>In shops, retailers can use it to know which shoppers need help, who is just browsing and who is thinking about stealing something, all by their body language. Indeed, known shoplifters could be <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151120-catching-a-thief-by-their-face">recognised</a> at the door and prevented from entering the store. </p>
<p>In eCommerce, sellers can gauge consumer reaction when they read an ad or use a product. </p>
<h2>Should I be worried?</h2>
<p>These developments are likely to worry people concerned about privacy and personal liberty. These legitimate concerns must be weighed against the greater public interest and a balance found case-by-case. Privacy laws will need to be strong and to keep pace with developments. </p>
<p>We should understand that such systems are not conscious in the way humans are. They simply interpret the patterns of behaviour that people show the world and make communicating with computers more intuitive.</p>
<p>They will make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and get better over time, just like humans do. Of course, it may be sometime before they can deal with sarcasm and irony. You won’t see too many robots doing stand-up comedy quite yet.</p>
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</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
How often do you get angry or frustrated with a machine or some piece of technology? Well what if a machine could sense our emotion and then change its behaviour to suit?
David Tuffley, Lecturer in Applied Ethics and Socio-Technical Studies , Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.