I was talking to my daughter, trying to explain to her what the big fuss was about the Toyota case hearings in congress.I explained to her that one of the things that determined our departure from the animal kingdom was the use of tools and how the history of human kind and the advancement of technology and science are closely intertwined.
We started using tools as a way of enhancing our physical abilities.
We used them to develop agriculture and manufacturing and then at the beginning of the 19th century something unusual happened: The first industrial revolution.
Tools not only enhanced our human abilities; tools started replacing humans all together.
For the first time in the human history machines took jobs away from the humans.
Then the “electronic” revolution took place.
Machines start performing mental task that once were reserved only for humans.
We are again being replaced by the machines in controlling all aspects of our life.
But there was a “holy” grail reserved only for humans: The decision making
Although the machines with their lightning speed and almost unlimited computation powers were doing all the number crunching, ultimately we were the ones that took the final decisions and kept everything under control... until now.
Toyota is saying that the computer had a glitch but don’t let the news full you.
The computer did not malfunction. The computer did exactly what was programmed to do; run the car at optimum performance.
It was the human that couldn’t keep up with the technology
Things are changing again. But this time is different. This time the machines are replacing us in the decision making process.
Basically we are not needed anymore. We humans have become obsolete.
Remember 2010: - They have drawn the first blood…
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10 comments:
Nice article,
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it.
God Bless you.
You are touching on a very relevant point here BOH, so I made a blogpost concerning these matters of human-robot relations. For some additional information, check out the following:
PW Singer on military robots and the future of war
SETI Radio - Robots Call the Shots
SETI Radio - When Machines Rule
Free Chaos Will
Zuzanna, hello from Japan and thank you for all your blogs. In Japan I have visited factories where there is not one human anywhere - the production floor is entirely run and managed by robots. You might be surprised at the ultra-sophisticated robot technology that has been developed here. On the other hand, there are humans who behave like more like soul-less robots .... Please visit my latest blog post about the shelling of Mount Fuji. Warm wishes from Japan - Catrien Ross.
did BOH achieve Nirvanna or something?
Here's for BOH - Star of Existance
"computers are very clever idiots - tell them to kill you and you have to be pretty quick to change your mind"
Will our creations out evolve us? Maybe - we're a long way off from computers that can do more than obey a series of instructions, albiet complex but if we'd been intended to fly then they wouldn't have invented Air Traffic Control...or something like that!
Equally we may see a reversion of computers taking human jobs as the earth's resources run out and we are forced back to primitive times. Opposable digits guys, that and banging the rocks together is all that seperates us from our ancestors
I really liked your blog and very informative
A popsci article reported on a robot that learned to play pool. This was awesome I thought. Now all we have to do is sit back and watch the robots play pool instead of us. But better than that, what if we programmed some more robots to watch the game of pool for us as well!
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