Re: Population problem? Solved!

From: robert j. kolker (nowhere_at_nowhere.net)
Date: 03/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:22:14 -0500

Kent Paul Dolan wrote:

>
> Prove what? That you look like an idiot answering
> articles you haven't finished reading? The matter is
> self documenting, it doesn't need my help to make it
> obvious.

Where are the robots that

1. Mow lawns.
2. Do chiropract manipulation.
3. Paint houses.
4. Judge beauty contests.
5. Argue cases in court.
6. Baby sit.
7. Offer solace to the bereaved.
8. Giving home care to the sicke and elderly
9. Nursing care in hosptials that deal with acute conditions such as in
the emergency rooms.
10. Serving meals elegantly in restaurants
11. Cooking and preparing the food in an attractive manner.
12 Picking lettuce, tomatoes and beans (still done best by huamans.
becuse machines mash and damage the product).
13. Translating speech and documents. Machine translations suck lemons.
14. Proving theorems. Forty years of research in theorme provers have
result in computer programs can can only prove trivialites and cannot
decide ahead of time what is important enough to pove.
15. Inventing new stuff. Try automating that!
......

etc. etec.

The list goes on into the millions and tens of millions of tasks.

Our economy is now mostly a service economy. Many manufacuring
operations have been automated, heavily mechanized (that means a human
is still in the loop) or off-shored. What does that leave? Services that
cannot be mechanized, automated or economically off-shored. Try
off-shoring or mechanizing chiropractic for example.

Services are infinitely varied. Manufacturing involves llmited motions
and operations which is why some manufacturing is automated
economically. A robot can drill out an engine block better than a human
using a tool. But a robot cannot clean out the interior of a car, which
is why the cleaning done at car-wash establishments is done by humans.

Most services can be done better or cheaper by humans, than by robots
which is why not only are they NOT automated, they WILL NOT be automated
for it makes no economic sense to do so.

You do not automate something that can be done better or cheaper by
humans. Humans, as general purpose agents, are much more capable than
machines. Machines are dandy force multipliers but they suck at making
nuanced judgements.

Bob Kolker

>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Population problem? Solved!
    ... It's not that machines could not do it, just that they could not do it ... Try automating that! ... Off-shoring is just a tax thing. ... A robot can drill out an engine block better than a human ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: Loggin the system off at a specified time
    ... schedule the task to run at 20:45 every day: ... Since you're only automating two machines, it's much easier to do it at the ... >I work in a public setting. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.scripting)