Scary / “AI” Advances

hank

Hope not too far afield. With OT on the rocks, I’m sharing something under investing that was aired on Bloomberg Business today. Since the video linked below is from 2018, the robots Bloomberg featured today are even more advanced.

Following the video I’ve linked a couple stories related to Elon Musk. The first (from CNBC) discuss his worries about the dangers posed by AI. The second is biographical, but covers the several businesses Musk has started or invested in. Not sure how many people even know that he was the founder of PayPal.


(Video Caption): “Most Advanced Robots have evolved to walk in the Snow.
Terminator Dogs Run !! The Evolution of AI Android robots is getting scary, watch this video to the end and be shocked as New Robots Walk, Jump, open doors and Climb Stairs”



Elon Musk: “AI is more dangerous than nuclear weapons“ https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/13/elon-musk-at-sxsw-a-i-is-more-dangerous-than-nuclear-weapons.html

Biographical information on Elon Musk, innovations and investments he has made over the years: https://www.biography.com/business-figure/elon-musk

MikeM

Agree with the scary. Sci-fi becoming a reality.

Sven

This is part of tech advancement. Cars are built today by robots on assembly lines. Still it requires human to programming and maintenance of the robots. Machine learning helps to speed up the iterative development process for manufacturing. I can see they would be helpful for dangerous jobs such as mining and space exploration.

hank

Sven said:

This is part of tech advancement. Cars are built today by robots on assembly lines. Still it requires human to programming and maintenance of the robots. Machine learning helps to speed up the iterative development process for manufacturing. I can see they would be helpful for dangerous jobs such as mining and space exploration.

@Sven - Thanks for keeping my post “legal“. The implications for manufacturing are enormous.

What I’m thinking though ..... Picture a U.S. combat Marine, maybe 25 years from now, encountering one of these variants on the battlefield. Musk, I hear, has some pretty automated cars. And, you can’t deny the brilliance of those picture-perfect booster landings (science fiction when I was a kid). Sure, he’s a bit of a “flake,” but I’d take his premonitions in this area seriously.

Graust

Good topic.....one of the bright posters that used to be on M* forums used to talk about the dislocation of jobs by AI/robotics as (sometime in the future) that would lead to millions of people losing their jobs, and the unrest/unhappiness that would ensue from this.

This is definitely Sci-Fi-ish stuff that has a possibility of coming.

There IS a company called “Skynet” FYI....

(I had a more cogent comment in mind when I started .....then got sidetracked in real life.....and now left with this poor excuse of a post haha)

Sven

SkyNet was in the movie "The Terminator" 20 years ago.

SkyNet, or Titan[1], is a highly-advanced computer system possessing artificial intelligence. Once it became self-aware, it saw humanity as a threat to its existence due to the attempts of the Cyberdyne scientists to deactivate it once it had gained self-awareness. Hence, Skynet decided to trigger the nuclear holocaust: Judgment Day. Later, it would wage the War against the humanity by developing and deploying an army of Hunter-Killers and Terminators. The survivors had formed a group called the "Resistance" under the leadership of John Connor.

https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/Skynet

The concept of self-awareness was revealed in the movie, I, Robot starring Wil Smith and Bridget Moynahan.

Unmanned vehicles are developed to go places where human cannot. For example, deep sea exploration today are often performed with Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) to depth well beyond conventional submarines. Hopefully these robots are being used to benefit mankind instead for destructive purposes.

Graust

Actually, google “Skynet”....it appears to be an NSA program that used AI/computers to gather various intelligence.

There’s also a real Cyberdyne.

Anyways.....just mildly humorous/potentially scary aside to the great topic started by hank! Sorry for the distraction

WABAC

Cyberdine.

You can buy shares. Actually, I don't know if they're listed on any US exchanges. But this post is still investment related. ;-).

Their website announces that HAL is now available for home use. Would that be the 9000 version?

Considering what they're making, their sense of humor is way past quirky. Remember the working suit Sigourney Weaver climbed into in one of the Alien movies?

Sven

For sure the NSA and the intelligence community's AIs are much more sophisticated. For now we are all using the simple ones Google, Bing, Siri and etc. As I stated earlier, technology can be used to benefit mankind as well as for the opposite purposes.

On the lighter side, don't you want robot dogs to deliver pizza and grocery to your house during this pandemic? My kids have fun talking with Siri on their phones. Siri is pretty good that it ables to learn the speaker's accent over time and answer questions more intelligently. My friend's Scottish accent is still challenging for Siri and he stills get wrong answers.

orage

Life imitates art imitating life: Years ago IBM had an IBM 9000 computer, made by its IBM Instruments division in Danbury, CT. ["HAL" is "IBM" with a one-letter shift.]

Observant1

orage said:

Life imitates art imitating life: Years ago IBM had an IBM 9000 computer, made by its IBM Instruments division in Danbury, CT. ["HAL" is "IBM" with a one-letter shift.]

There is a book about the rise and fall of IBM Instruments.
I haven't read it but it seems interesting.
Link

WABAC

Robots are delivering food at ASU.

The robots are provided by Starship Technologies. The units look more like rolling coolers than starships.

hank

WABAC said:

Robots are delivering food at ASU.

The robots are provided by Starship Technologies. The units look more like rolling coolers than starships.

If I were a pizza delivery boy I’d be very worried.

Also - How much should you “tip” a robot?

WABAC

hank said:

WABAC said:

Robots are delivering food at ASU.

The robots are provided by Starship Technologies. The units look more like rolling coolers than starships.

If I were a pizza delivery boy I’d be very worried.

Also - How much should you “tip” a robot?

Pizza dudes are probably looking over their shoulders at an army of unemployed people from the restaurant and hospitality sectors.

Any job that can be done by a robot will be done by a robot. What will people do?

Sven

Robots need human maintenance. People need to learn computer programming and mechanical engineering so they can maintain the entire fleet of robots. He/she will be well compensated and above all those skillsets will be in constant demand. Manual labor work will even tougher in the future as more service will be automated.

WABAC

Sven said:

Robots need human maintenance. People need to learn computer programming and mechanical engineering so they can maintain the entire fleet of robots. He/she will be well compensated and above all those skillsets will be in constant demand. Manual labor work will even tougher in the future as more service will be automated.

I'm trying to imagine this ratio of human maintenance workers to robots that manages to keep very many people employed.

And I'm wondering why robots won't learn to take care of robots.

royal4

Welcome to the future and universal basic income. Maybe not my lifetime but it's coming. 20 hour work weeks then Star Trek-ish.... no money. Let me in HAL

Sven

And I'm wondering why robots won't learn to take care of robots.

Robots are only as smarter as the person who programs them and optimize the algorithms. So I think programming jobs will continue to be in demand. For now they are very useful to do many repetitive tasks such as welding unibody for cars and oil exploration in deep oceans. one day, when machine learning becomes more mature, robots can diagnosis another robots just like in Sci-fi movies. The movie, I, Robots is almost too real.

Old_Joe

How much should you “tip” a robot?

Not too much or it will fall over.

Anna

@Old_Joe

Kaspa

@Old_Joe That is lateral thinking

Old_Joe

@Kaspa- Aw, shucks. And here I thought that it was just literal thinking.

hank

This all might have been avoided had @Old_Joe understood transitive and intransitive verbs better. Obviously, “tipping“ as intended in my query is an intransitive use of the root word “tip.” Unfortunately, Old Joe thought it was a transitive use of the word with the delivery person (or robot) receiving the action and being knocked over. Similarity, in a sentence like “Harry emailed Sally” one would with reasonable confidence assume that Sally wasn’t chopped into bits and bytes and sent out over the internet. So, emailed here is an intransitive verb.

Short lesson I think OJ would be able to comprehend:

Anna

Of course the "tip" might have been so heavy that the robot tipped over when it grabbed it.

But what would a robot want for a tip? I think something like a new pair of hands with gecko capabilities, extra lightweight legs, flight capability, etc.

Old_Joe

Wow. I'm always being accused of being insensitive. Now somebody piles on with intransitive on top of that. Next it will be intransigent. Jeeze!

hank

Sorry to pile on. (Probably well deserved though.)

Actually, it occurred to me later in the day that in the “grammar lesson” above the “teach” managed to misspell bytes (as bites). So I’ve returned to the scene of the crime to correct my error. Nobody’s perfect. Humbling indeed.