The summary was easy for this one. I've "quoted" the whole strip. There are two other comic strips I read every day, and Dilbert is probably my favourite, hence, the only one to make it onto my list of suggested reading. This one isn't as subtle as some, but I like the way Scott Adams, the creator of these wonderful strips, manages to address what is often a serious issue, such as job loss and other social changes as a result of rapid technological development, in a way that is often very humorous. And as with most reading, the pleasure improves with the familiarity that comes with practise. So, if you were looking for an excuse to read more comics, I hope I've helped.
You've probably also noticed the cartoon on page 98 of Quest (Hartmann & Blass, 2007). I like it, but with the recent headlines that Bitcoins has been making everywhere, from technology magazines to staid and serious financial journals, I thought that my revised version of question 5 might be both a lot more topical and a bit more academic.
Back on the Dilbert topic of human redundancy resulting from technological advance, our machines have a massive advantage over us: under our guidance, they are evolving at an every accelerating rate that leaves their creators in the dust, and when one day, in our lifetime according to experts such as Ray Kurzweil who has recently joined a Google venture to work on precisely this, they become conscious and start making their own decisions ... Armageddon or Eden?
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Reference
Hartmann, P., & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Peter F AUA. (2013, May 3). Disrupting government control: Bitcoins for PayPal? Class Blog - AEP at AUA. Retrieved May 3, 2013 from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2013/05/disrupting-government-control-bitcoins.html
In present, I used to see many kinds of robots such as rescue robots, football robots that they play football. These robot usually have their annual competitions that many countries joined in and last year the team from Thailand won the rescue robot competition; However, the robots still are under control by human behinding the sences. because the robot still cannot learn and make decision by themselves so, they need human to teach them. The teaching process required much time to do a fully automatically robots that can make decision by themselves.
ReplyDeleteAlthough robots still are under control by human, the Mars Rover that NASA send to Mars fully automatically land on the Mars by themselves and it can do their job sucessfully. these are a big step that human sucessed to create the fully automatically robot.
Maybe in next decade, I believed that we might see rebot automaticly doing some work instead of human.
Self-driving cars? Already licensed for testing on the roads in the states of Nevada, California and Florida ("Look, No Hands", 2013).
DeleteBas raises good points. Are self-driving cars making decisions? Are they under anyone's control? Would you "drive" one? Sit in one?
Reference
Look, no hands. (2013, April 20). The Economist. Retrieved May 4, 2013 from http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21576224-one-day-every-car-may-come-invisible-chauffeur-look-no-hands
Yes, I agree that they make decisions to control the car by themselves. However, they still have been taught by human and any their decisions are based on their trained experience. I wonder if they were in the situation such as in accidents or robberies that they do not familiar with,what they are gonna do? They might let human to override their control as the auto pilot machine do in airplanes.
DeleteThe self-driving car is not a new idea because I had used to do one of them before since I was in high school. It's just only the small one, I mean the robots that can follow the line which I called them as self-driving robot too. There were a lot of coding that I had to code to let them follow the line and they had to have at lease one sensor.
The car that it can drive itself is one of humans' dream. I think that robots can do many jobs that human dont't want to do from cleanning house to get rid off the IED(Improvised explosive device) bombing on the road in Iraq.
As Bas's idea that the robot makes a decision based on what it is taught or trained experience, I think that the robot cannot make its own decision. It just does as the program is set. In other words, it may be programmed in many different scenarios in order to match any one that may occur.
DeleteAre Peace and Bas right?
DeleteIs the self-driving car doing something significantly different to what an ordinary human driver, such as a student driving to AUA, does? Or it the human car driver "merely" responding to the program running in her head in the same way that the self-driving robo-car responds to the programming?
Is there a nice essay question here?
DeleteI used to read cartoons in Bangkok Post when I was in high school. But I've already gave up since I hardly understood what cartoonist was trying to say, so I prefer their illustrations instead. I can't understand the implied meaning, although I can read every word. Like Peter's cartoon example, I, honestly, don't know what is the meaning in the third box. What is the links between hammer and furniture? I guess after I re-read many times, hammer can be part of robot's body. I wish I was right.
ReplyDeleteLike more academic reading, reading cartoons, especially intelligent, socially critical ones like Dilbert, probably improves with practice, and some familiarity.
DeleteI think that if the workforce were replaced by a robot, it would be good only in term of productivity. But, as humans are social animals, we need to interact with other people rather than a robot without feeling.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that that human beings need contact, but need that contact be with other human beings? Might something else work well enough? Might some non-human person, of the robot type, not of the ET type, work just as well?
DeleteAnd in many (most?) industries, people are being replaced. I used self-driving cars in the discussion here with Bas, but cars are increasingly made by robots, which certainly boosts productivity in that industry. Would it matter if the factories were run 100% by robots, perhaps under the control of a small group human managers at head office?
I still can't even imagine that robot will replace human all job since human can decision ,make progression, and do something out of the program that set we have to do. (Except Viki in iRobot2004 movie)
ReplyDeleteA job that immediately pop in my mind, Lawyer, such a complex and difficult job that need to deal with complex problem which full with the quarrel.