Post #118,221
9/19/03 1:00:30 PM
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The absurd Progamme of Communist Party of Soviet Union
adopted in 1960s promised communism by 1980s. One of the reasons they were so optimistic was all the new technology that promised to make human labor unnecessary. They were wrong then. Are the promises any closer now?
--
One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,223
9/19/03 1:15:18 PM
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Different goals.
The stated goal of the Communist party (which they were not actually attempting to reach, but that's another story) was to guarantee that everybody would have everything they wanted.
Capitalists, on the other hand, couldn't give a damn about EVERYBODY - they just want it all for themselves. Hence, we don't have to actually have a operating system that provides for everybody, just the haves on the very top.
Kinda like Soviet Russia.
In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others?
Therin lies the true measure of a man.
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Post #118,245
9/19/03 3:52:05 PM
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The difference is in results
and I doubt the means. Khruschev expected robots to do everything for workers, so the communism will finally arive. Capitalists expect robots to do everything for workers so that they can stop paying salaries. But the rub is, robots are no more capapble of doing everything now than they were capable of it in the 60s. And, just like back then, we have the prophets that say those robots are just around the corner.
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One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,249
9/19/03 4:44:15 PM
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Except this time real advances are being made.
Quantum computing will change how a lot of computing is done - it is theorized that a good amount of our thought processes take advantage of the quantum process, which may explain to a certain extent the failure of traditional computing to truly produce "artificial" intelligence.
In addition, many advances in the understanding and reproduction of biological systems are being made - synthetic muscles that contract and expand based on electrical pulses, not mechanical systems, the increased understanding of emergent behavior (complex results from simple systems - most computerized walker technology comes from this) - there are a lot of advances these days that actually have a lot more potential than the blathering of some deluded idealogue.
Remember, the robots don't have to do enough work to keep EVERYBODY in luxury - they just have to do enough to keep the wealthy in luxury, and hang the rest of us.
In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others?
Therin lies the true measure of a man.
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Post #118,257
9/19/03 5:49:50 PM
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Perfect.
Artificial muscle and artificial brains. Just as flexible and street-smart as humans. Als just as cranky, just as error prone, just as greedy.
My firm belief is that we will achieve artificial intelligence in the quite foreceable future. And we shall see that it likes work no better than the real kind. Laziness and intelligence are intertwined.
Of course, this will pose its own set of problems. For the first time, we shall be faced with genuinly non-human truly telligent life. But that set of problem will have nothing to do with the problem that "robots" bring.
--
One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,271
9/19/03 6:29:09 PM
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Not quite true.
There's a lot of people out there who do enjoy doing their work. I believe it would be possible to build a reward system into a robot that would leave it capable of creativity and yet still be willing to work itself in all kinds of conditions that a human laborer would not.
Remember, the robot doesn't have to be as all-around perceptive as we are - all it has to have is enough intellectual capacity to do the job at hand, and follow orders. Anything above and beyond that is wasted, and hence will be ignored.
And that scares the shit out of me, because that is where "emergent behavior" is going to come back and bite us in the ass. Rise of the machines, indeed.
In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others?
Therin lies the true measure of a man.
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Post #118,342
9/20/03 7:49:34 PM
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You assume that human behaviors are simple
and can be cleably separated into job-related and not. My _belief_ is that such assumption is untrue. The entity capable of safely sweeping factory floor has to know so much about the world that it has to be raised, not mass-produced. It does not matter if it's constructed and not born. It does not matter if you call the process "raising a child" or "training a robot". The result of this process will have to know a lot of things, including the fact that "work" is something to be avoided as much as possible, the fact that his supervisor needs to be obeyed, but only to some extent, the fact that you don't step on living things unless you absolutely must and so on and so forth. Any attempt to consciously construct a set of rules ("program") for such an entity is doomed to failure. In order to be safe, it's "emergent behavior" must have already emerged by the time you introduce it into the work process. That's why children don't work in factories.
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One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,347
9/20/03 9:34:02 PM
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Children working in factories
in some countries they actually do. Get paid less than adults too.
My mother-in-law in Thailand dropped out of the sixth grade to work in a factory to help support her family. No child-labor laws there.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #118,351
9/20/03 10:33:35 PM
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Another example
India actually has labor unions where one of the criteria to be a member is being a child. When you get too old, say 18, your kicked out of the union. It's been something of a moral problem for certain liberal groups who naturally want to support a union but don't want to support child labor.
But ultimatly that is a bit of misleading point. Children are capable of learning complex tasks and dealing with a lot on their own if forced to. American children often seem hapless because they are carefully protected from learning how to cope with difficult situations until they reach college, and sometimes even after that.
Jay
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Post #118,352
9/20/03 10:52:10 PM
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Next step in chain
While computer AIs are getting smarter and smarter, I expect it will be decades if not more before ones that can adapt as easily as humans can. What I expect the next step in the chain to be is humans leading small teams of robots.
Rather then have a staff of 3 people to clean the building, the company will have 1 person who takes care of the stuff that the sweeper bot, trash bot and mop bot can't deal with.
Of course, the depends on wages staying at a resonable level. If the current downward trend in real earning continues, it might be cheaper to have people to do the work.
Not that wage collapse would not be a particularly good solution to the employment problem. Taken to the extreme, we would end up with a society with only a lower and upper class, the middle class having been wiped out by wage reduction.
Jay
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Post #118,355
9/21/03 1:01:54 AM
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I view any AI wishful thinking similarly..
I believe that the beautifully conceived -- and uttery fanciful HAL-9000 has fed suppositions and inane expectations more than any other identifiable symbol. Yeah! Let's Build One of Those.. [Hah]
The more I've talked with folks across (various fancy-named) disciplines having to do with, "how we learn" -- the less prospect I can see for machine-creations in anything 'like' Our Likeness. The incomprehensibly massive reorganization of the neurons in the infant's brain, over weeks -->> months (let alone years) post-partum is simpy a Wonder! inexpressible no matter how artfully crafted be the pseudo-scientific natterings about 'understanding' !! this Wonder.
And were the above comprehension much more realizable than I believe is possible - any idea of ethical er engrams? of the I, Robot variety; anything as addresses such a concept as 'a machine's attitude!' -- whether towards work? or Boss!! == floobydust of the same granularity IMhO. We can 'say' it - but lots of people talk to God, and think She talks back, too.
Even with threading, insofar as machine coding might go - add in neural-network pattern recognition theories: humans still think serially, ploddingly About-'thinking'! relying upon some massive parallelism magically just sorta sufficing. If we just wish hard enough.
Natch I Don't Know what breakthroughs may occur in modelling this Wonder; what I think I know today is: we are nowhere Near creating a robot capable of a shadow of the learning-curve of a human or Bonobo or __ or Any Live Humanoid Animal.
(Besides... the $$ today is in multi-channel theatre sound + video! in your new Urban Assault Vehicle: that's where bizness is ever magnetically-drawn - the max-costly toys as might soon have a hook in the mass mind. Never mind the heaped dead bodies as result from even more compelling driver distractions: we never have (minded))
Ashton Worsening Dumbth doesn't seem to be a particularly nutritious medium, anyway - for any next massive breakthroughs..
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Post #118,251
9/19/03 4:52:08 PM
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Be judicious with "never".
A lot of people in the early 60's thought it would be impossible to put a man on the moon. I have no quarrel with you that AI is not about to completely replace human efforts any time soon, but it is clear that much of the need of human labor has diminished significantly in the past 10 years. And there is no quenching of the thirst to displace workers among capitalists. Couple that with the propensity that Wall Street has for rewarding companies with big $$$'s for shutting down factories and laying off workers and you have a situation where a defined need (prerequisite for any technological development) for automation to replace workers exists. I worked for a Fortune 100 company once that included as the "bottom line" in their requests for funding of projects a blank space for "FTE's Eliminated" (that's Full Time Equivalents - full time employees). The bigger that number was, the more money for your project and more likely you were to get it approved.
My father-in-law (a retired Fortune 100 Exec) and I recently had an interesting talk about this. We agreed that what had changed in America was that in his time (he retired 13 years ago) we looked at the businesses that were opening new plants and hiring people as successful. Now, it is the businesses that are shutting down plants and laying off workers that are deemed successful. Automation aids that process - it's what we want. Lifetime unemployable people.
bcnu, Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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Post #118,261
9/19/03 6:03:32 PM
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I wonder if we'll have reverse immigration soon
US seems to be specializing in production of information. Anything from stock analysis to books/movies to programs to industrial design. Sizable portion of the population is not very capable in that area. But all the "real" work producing material objects is abroad. Shall people emigrate to India, where their skills can be used? Also, how sustainable is such "information economy" is geopolitically? On the one hand, all US missiles are manufactured in China. On the other hand, China realizes that if they start war with US, they will be cut off from the information flow that we generate. I wonder how the balance works out.
And yes, if it reminds you about morloks and eloi, you got it right.
--
One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,265
9/19/03 6:09:50 PM
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Now?
Too lazy (read: intelligent :) to look it up, but some one here posted a story about Indians here going back to India to find jobs.
bcnu, Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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Post #118,285
9/19/03 7:54:08 PM
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Won't work
India has laws, you can visit there, but you cannot work there. They don't want US Citizens working there, many have found this out when applying for jobs that moved over there. Or so I have heard.
Our government and businesses don't have that kind of laws or rules. We let anyone who wants to work to work regardless of what citizenship they hold in what country.
Thailand has laws that say a Non-Thai person cannot own land or property there. Only Buddists are allowed in Government. Anything imported, like a car, gets a pretty steep import tax as high as 300%.
You have to see what laws apply to what country you want to work at. You may hit an Immigration tax, or be unable to own property, or not be allowed to work, or only allowed to work if you become a citizen there and swear off US Citizen status.
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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Post #118,308
9/20/03 3:31:33 AM
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Already here
Reproduced here to keep it from disappearing - had to pull it from Google's cache.
[link|http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:5s8Vc5OX-9oJ:www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%25257E23827%25257E1571352,00.html+Yusuf+Hussain&hl=en&ie=UTF-8|http://216.239.53.10...in&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]
Article Published: Friday, August 15, 2003
Seeking a fortune elsewhere Boom in China, India lures emigrants home By Jennifer Beauprez, Denver Post Business Writer After spending seven years in Colorado, Yusuf Hussain packed up the contents of his three-bedroom Littleton home last week in search of a better life. He says he will find it in Pakistan.
The 39-year-old executive came here from Pakistan just as the U.S. tech economy was taking off in 1996. Today, he is being lured back by what he can't find here: jobs, wealth and economic activity.
Many foreign nationals no longer view America as the land of opportunity. Economists, business people and other experts say growing numbers of immigrants are moving back to their home countries of Pakistan, India, China, Singapore and Vietnam - countries with job and economic growth sometimes double or triple that of the United States.
The U.S. government hasn't kept numbers on emigration for several decades. But economists and immigrants say the anecdotal evidence of the trend is real.
"I get calls from friends left and right saying they are packing up and going back to China," said Hai Yan Zhang, a Boulder-based Chinese business consultant who travels to China five times a year.
"I go to China and see people's eyes sparkling," Zhang said. "It's full of life and vitality there, in contrast to the U.S., where we're reaching a plateau, perhaps going down."
Economists say the exodus could hurt the U.S. economy because America is losing some of the world's smartest and most entrepreneurial people.
And it most likely will feed a controversial trend by U.S. companies to create jobs or move existing jobs offshore. The companies, facing competitive pressures, want cheaper and faster software development, manufacturing or customer service.
"Those people will have the talent to do the work in their home country, and they have the relationships with the companies they used to deal with," said Rich Wobbekind, an economist with the University of Colorado. "It's going to be easier for them to set up facilities in other countries."
Indeed, that's what lured Hussain back to Pakistan.
Hussain, chief executive of Denver software firm Cressoft Inc., plans to open a facility in Pakistan to provide software development for U.S. companies.
"Offshore in my mind is the most high-growth prospect for the foreseeable future," Hussain said.
He also sees climbing real estate values and an improving stock market in Pakistan, although economists still view it as highly volatile nation.
But almost all countries in Southeast Asia have higher economic growth rates than the United States. Much of that activity is fueled by U.S. companies outsourcing work there.
China is experiencing the fastest economic growth of any country, expanding at 8 percent a year, according to CIA statistics. By comparison, the U.S. economy grew just 2.45 percent last year.
China has become a key manufacturing center for companies across the globe, making everything from washing machines and clocks to chemical fertilizers and sugar.
India's economy ranks No. 2, growing 4.3 percent last year. With its highly educated, English-speaking workforce, India has become a prime spot for affordable customer-support call centers, software development houses and, more recently, technical support centers.
"I know a lot of Indians who are going back to India," said Zafar Khan, a Denver lawyer and accountant who speaks six languages and has lived in five countries.
Khan said he is considering moving back to his native Pakistan to join Hussain's software venture.
"I'm toying with it," he said. "I'm an international guy. I can move anywhere there is opportunity."
Multiple forces may pull immigrants back home, said Bahman Paul Ebrahimi, a global business professor at Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.
Some people arrived here a few years ago to meet demand from companies that desperately needed talented computer scientists to keep up with the booming economy. Today, their work visas have expired, and they're forced to go home because they can't find an employer to sponsor them, he said.
Ebrahimi said he also knows of foreign students who came for school but now are leaving because they couldn't find work after graduating.
Ebrahimi, who moved here from Iran decades ago, said he also perceives an anti-immigrant feeling here and a deep resentment from jobless Americans.
"No matter how long you live here, people will consider you a foreigner," Ebrahimi said. "There's a social stigma and backlash in this country. Sometimes there's subtle, even overt, hostility."
Others, such as Hussain, crave being close to family and cultural roots.
"It's very work-oriented here," Hussain said. In Pakistan, he said, there's a slower pace of life in which people focus more on family and relaxation.
"You can get into a deep discussion with anyone about religion and philosophy," he said. "It's the time you're able to spend with your family, the warmth of people. They savor different aspects of life."
Yet there's a tradeoff, said Zhang, the Chinese consultant. She warns that many people who have spent enough time in America suffer from what she calls "re-entry shock" when they return home.
In China, houses typically are cramped. Corporations are bureaucratic, offering little room for advancement or personal initiative, Zhang said.
And in India, simple things such as getting phone service can take a week, or standing in line for banking can take hours.
"Customer service is a phrase that didn't exist in India for a long time," said Hemal Jhaveri, a native of India and chief executive of Denver software firm SofTec Solutions Inc. "You take a lot of things for granted."
As more immigrants leave, fewer come to the United States on temporary work visas these days.
Outside of retail pharmacies and health care employers, job-slashing corporations no longer salivate over foreign nationals as they did a few years.
Plus, the government has tightened restrictions on immigration because of homeland-security concerns, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration.
Requests to receive H-1B temporary work visas fell 41 percent from October 2001 to June 2002, according to Economy.com. And the number of those visas actually doled out dropped 53 percent to 60,500 over the same period.
"I think it's a loss for the long run," said Wobbekind, the economist. "Over the centuries, that's what made our country great, having a melting pot of different cultures and talents. We're accidentally exporting some smart people who could easily compete with us."
Java is a joke, only it's not funny.
--Alan Lovejoy
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Post #118,345
9/20/03 7:56:42 PM
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That's different .
Immigrants returning is one thing. Mr. John Worker going to China to work in a factory is quite another.
--
One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
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Post #118,531
9/23/03 9:16:40 AM
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Americans will never do that.
They don't know where any other country is, and I suspect many of them don't think any other countries exist. ;0)
bcnu, Mikem
The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice and always has been...We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.
- Mark Twain, "Monarchical and Republican Patriotism"
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