Robotic Future News: 2006-08-13

Link

http://communistrobot.com/index.php?page=&nav=1&article=4

Unemployment

Some people are predicting up to a 99% unemployment rate, 4 times worse than the Great Depression.

Robotic Vision

"One of the key capabilities limiting robotic expansion at the moment is image processing -- the ability of robots to look at a scene like a human does and detect all the objects in the scene. Without general, flexible vision algorthms, it is hard for a robot to do much. For example, it is hard for a blind robot to clean a bathroom or drive a car. Part of the problem is raw CPU power, but that problem will be solved over the next 20 to 30 years because of Moore's law. The other part is a software problem. We don't have really good algorithms yet. My prediction is that we will see significant progress in the image processing field over the next 20 years.
Think about the changes that will take place once basic research in image processing yields the algorithms we need. Suddenly it will be easy for robots to walk around and manipulate objects in any human environment.

Robotic cars and trucks are one obvious application for vision systems. There are more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. every year because of car accidents. Human negligence causes most of these accidents. With robots doing all the driving, the number of accidents will go way down and we will eliminate one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Unfortunately, robotic vehicles will also leave every taxi driver, bus driver, truck driver, etc. out of work.
Robots with vision systems will be able to do all the cleaning in every hotel, store, airport and restaurant. Things will be spotless, but that will unemploy perhaps five million people.
Robots with vision can stack brick, lay tile, paint and put on roofs all day and all night. Five million more people will be out of work.
Robots with vision can easily stock shelves in stores. Think of all the workers stocking shelves, restocking merchandise, taking inventory, directing customers and manning cash resisters in places like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, BJ's, Sam's Club, Toys R Us, Sears, J.C. Penny's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, Kroger's, Winn-Dixie, Pet Depot and on and on and on. More than 10 million employees will be on the street.
Armies of robots with built-in night vision will be able to provide security and policing unlike anything we can imagine today.
And so on.
A single research area -- computer vision -- will have a tremendous impact once it reaches its goal of general, flexible image processing algorithms.
This is analogous to the development of airplanes. Nothing happened in the field of aviation until the Wright Brothers made the breakthrough that got the first airplane off the ground. 44 short years after the breakthrough, supersonic flight was possible. Once robots have flexible, accurate vision systems, the pace of change will be unbelievably rapid and unstoppable."

Robotic Vision

http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/4/wa/EngrStoryDetails?ArticleID=9985

"If Higgins has his way, at least some of the first steps toward [his robotic vision goal] will be achieved in the next ten to 20 years through neuromorphic engineering, a discipline that combines biology and electronics."

"Computer gets top job at fast food joint"

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33583

"A computer has been appointed manager of a US fast-food restaurant chain."

"The AI computer system takes orders and gives them to staff working at each restaurant.

It uses robotic vision to count the cars in the parking lot, gathers feedback from employees and collects point-of-sale information in real time.

From a management view it can look at historical data to learn about each restaurant and can work out when each one needs staff and other resources. Employees are told how much of which foods to cook and when the food is ready, they tell the computer."

South Korea: A Robot in Every Home By 2015-2020

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/02/business/robots.php

"Networked robots that are scheduled to enter mass production by [2007], for example, will relay messages to parents or teach children English and sing and dance for them when they get bored. Outside the home, they are expected to guide customers at post offices or patrol public areas, searching for intruders and transmitting images to monitoring center."

"Robots will be in every South Korean household by 2015-20."

"'My personal goal is to put a robot in every home by 2010,' said Oh Sang Rok, manager of the ministry's intelligent service robot project."

Quote

"The big change following the Great Depression was that the government became a huge employer."
-A blogger

Japan

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/business/news/20060817p2g00m0bu029000c.html

"Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to begin assisting the development of next-generation intelligence robots in fiscal 2007 with the aim of commercializing them in 2015."

"The ministry is set to seek 2.1 billion yen in related funds as part of its budget request for the fiscal year that starts next April, and will assist the development of basic technologies in the next five years."

"The robots will include "cleaning robots" that, equipped with the plan of a building, will be able to choose the most appropriate routes to reach areas that need cleaning, and "guide robots" capable of communicating with humans through advanced voice and image processing technologies."

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Institute_for_Artificial_Intelligence

"The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) is a non-profit organization with the goal of developing a theory of Friendly artificial intelligence and implementing that theory as a software system. This goal is implied by a belief that a technological singularity is likely to occur and that the outcome of such an event is heavily dependent on the structure of the first AI to exceed human-level intelligence. The organisation was founded in 2000 and has the secondary goal of facilitating a broader discussion and understanding of Moral, Strong Artificial Intelligence."

Growth in Supercomputer Power

Countdown to the Singularity

Robots

"There is, of course, the possibility that the use of robots may induce some technological unemployment. But John Maynard Keynes, in his essay on "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," predicted in 1930 that such unemployment would be "only a temporary phase of maladjustment." He foresaw that, in the end, the new machines would so enhance our productive capacity that mankind would eventually solve the fundamental economic problem of scarcity. Then, Keynes said, people would have to worry only about how to use their leisure. Keynes clearly did not foresee the advent of video games!

Perhaps Keynes took too blithe a view. But the characters in Capek's play, along with the arguments of Smith, Marx and Keynes, all make one fact abundantly clear. The attitude we take toward our metal workers depends very much on our mental framework. Rather than attack robots for making work impossible, why not welcome them for making it unnecessary? Instead of being doomed to engage in endless drudgery, men and women have become increasingly free to cultivate their artistic talents and enjoy more and more of what we call the "finer things in life.""

"...Profit - which Marx called "surplus" and which he believed rightfully belonged to workers - was spent by capitalists to acquire more and more equipment. It would inevitably be used, Marx forecast, to replace labor, so it engendered a growing "reserve army of unemployed" which spelled capitalism's doom. Marx predicted that the exploited, alienated, and unemployed workers would rise up to overthrow the system."

"President Mitterrand of France addressed concerns about technological displacement at an economic summit at Versailles. And Hobart Rowen, economics writer for the Washington Post, has stressed the "need for governments to play a major role in integrating new technology with the working population and society in general."

Technocracy

http://www.technocracyvan.ca/

Robotic Gardeners

A very low tech version of the Australia Project (which would be in the U.S. according to a technocracy organization) would be to have some land and a robotic gardener/farmer. People used to live just from a farm.

Robotic Gardener

2002-
"Want a robot for yardwork? You can already get a Robomower for about $500. I'd like a robot gardener that precisely waters all my plants and rakes up dead leaves, too."

Africa

I don't think robots are going to have an impact in the middle of Africa anywhere around 2020 though, but that's about the lowest tech inhabited place.