What jobs are humans going to do in the future?

Irish Slaves for Europe

In the not too distant future, computers/robots will be doing practically all the jobs we currently do. Its hard to think of a profession where computers/robots will not be able to do a better job than humans, and they do it cheaper, and no whinging about work conditions/being sick/maternity leave, none of that hassle whatsoever.

This all begs the question, what exactly are we going to do in the future? Apart from the people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them, what are the rest of us going to do?

Ghandee

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

In the not too distant future, computers/robots will be doing practically all the jobs we currently do. Its hard to think of a profession where computers/robots will not be able to do a better job than humans, and they do it cheaper, and no whinging about work conditions/being sick/maternity leave, none of that hassle whatsoever.

This all begs the question, what exactly are we going to do in the future? Apart from the people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them, what are the rest of us going to do?

blow ones?
trust me, dyson's don't feel as good.

Lambsbread

you answered your own question: people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them

Irish Slaves for Europe

Lambsbread wrote: »

you answered your own question: people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them

but there won't be enough jobs for everyone

joshrogan

People will be given meanial tasks to complete in return for a basic living. Chop 50 tree's and replant for a loaf of bread etc.

holystungun9

We'll need more people to work in the dole offices.

the keen edge

Tradesmen.

Sure ya can't go wrong with a trade behind ya.

Akrasia

After the singularity humans will will be farmed for raw materials or more likely disposed of entirely as we're too much trouble to keep as slaves

Saila

think you're getting a little carried away with the scale of things computers can do, they are great for repeating the same thing over and over but not so much good at thinking on their feet, AI is and always will be rubbish in comparison to humans

chillywilly

Listen to the song "In the year 2525". It answers your question.

c_man

I'm glad I'm a software engineer. There's a certain security in it. I mean if it ever comes that a computer can do my job well then the human race is bolloxed.

PAULWATSON

irrelevant question, read the georgia guidestones, you "lads" won't be about!

MGMTea

Programmers, engineers looking after our new robot overlords etc.. adapt or die OP ADAPT OR DIEEE

wal100

chillywilly wrote: »

Listen to the song "In the year 2525". It answers your question.

Voodoo_rasher

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

In the not too distant future, computers/robots will be doing practically all the jobs we currently do.

This all begs the question, what exactly are we going to do in the future? Apart from the people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them, what are the rest of us going to do?

don't forsee robotic physiotherapists, robotic gp's, robotic counsellors incapable of empathising...

robotic tourist-guides would sound like boring proper dryballs would they not?

James T Kirk

We'll be the butlers to the monkey-butlers.

Sea Sharp

We'll be robo-whore technicians.

Wibbs

Saila wrote: »

think you're getting a little carried away with the scale of things computers can do, they are great for repeating the same thing over and over but not so much good at thinking on their feet, AI is and always will be rubbish in comparison to humans

That's one helluva prediction there and one I'd have difficulty with. Sooner or later we will replicate near human intelligence and when that happens and said intelligences are tasked with building their replacements that process will speed up exponentially. After all you're a "computer" a thinking machine. A very complex one, but a machine nonetheless. So it's reproducible. Nature does it and we've always tinkered with and reproduced (and often improved on)nature so this won't be any different.

CreepingDeath

Even if a computer were as smart as a human, it would be a blank slate, like a baby. We learn a massive amount from our senses. Even stupid stuff like playing like blocks as a baby teaches us how to stack objects, the stability of them etc.

There would be two main areas humans could still serve a more intelligent computer.
1. training it / feeding it more "sanitized" data. Ie. non-conflicting facts, ranking the source as reliable or not.
2. over seeing any decisions/inferences made, to check it.

If you were to let a computer automatically "read" the entire internet right now, there would be a tonne of contradictions, eg. between science pages and religious pages. You need to rank the data according to reliability and factualness, the real and the imaginary.

Wibbs

Oh yea it would have to have the equivalent of a childhood to learn.

James T Kirk

Machines exponentially replicating human intelligence. Still monkey-butler-butlers tbh.

Cianos

Ghandee wrote: »

blow ones?
trust me, dyson's don't feel as good.

Miles Dyson?

Saila

Wibbs wrote: »

That's one helluva prediction there and one I'd have difficulty with. Sooner or later we will replicate near human intelligence and when that happens and said intelligences are tasked with building their replacements that process will speed up exponentially. After all you're a "computer" a thinking machine. A very complex one, but a machine nonetheless. So it's reproducible. Nature does it and we've always tinkered with and reproduced (and often improved on)nature so this won't be any different.

It is but I stand by it, there is a MASSIVE amount they dont know about the brain and never will, its a bit like trying to explain reality, you cant, there is a certain amount you just have to accept and get on with realising you will never know no matter how hard you try.

Irish Slaves for Europe

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

[/I]

don't forsee robotic physiotherapists, robotic gp's, robotic counsellors incapable of empathising...

robotic tourist-guides would sound like boring proper dryballs would they not?

I disagree. Robots will be much better than humans at detecting tones of voice, pitches and emotions in peoples voices much better than humans can. They will also automatically be able to tell if someone is lying by using sensors etc. Anything a human is taught about councelling can be taught to a robot. The robots will be able to store more knowledge, process information quicker and come up with better solutions in nano seconds. It can analysis the results of billions of hours of councelling done around the globe, and come up with the best solution for the patient based on their personality. Robots processing power, knowledge, and decision making will be infinity better than any humans limited ability. They will be better able to emulate empathy than any human because their empathy will be much more real than some overpaid human who feeds on the misery of their patients.

Its just a matter of time.

Napper Hawkins

When a computer can write a song like Stairway to heaven then I'll be convinced, otherwise meh.

Saila

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

I disagree. Robots will be much better than humans at detecting tones of voice, pitches and emotions in peoples voices much better than humans can. They will also automatically be able to tell if someone is lying by using sensors etc. Anything a human is taught about physiotherapy can be taught to a robot. The robots will be able to store more knowledge, process information quicker and come up with better solutions in nano seconds. It can analysis the results of billions of hours of physiotherapy done around the globe, and come up with the best solution for the patient based on their personality. Robots processing power, knowledge, and decision making will be infinity better than any humans limited ability. They will be better able to emulate empathy than any human because their empathy will be much more real than some overpaid human who feeds on their misery of their patients.

Its just a matter of time.

in the same sense that an infinite amount of monkeys, typewriters and time will produce the full set of shakespeares work word for word. The reality is the universe will have disappeared before they get to finish! same with humans developing robots to act the exact same as humans

Sonics2k

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

I disagree. Robots will be much better than humans at detecting tones of voice, pitches and emotions in peoples voices much better than humans can. They will also automatically be able to tell if someone is lying by using sensors etc. Anything a human is taught about councelling can be taught to a robot. The robots will be able to store more knowledge, process information quicker and come up with better solutions in nano seconds. It can analysis the results of billions of hours of councelling done around the globe, and come up with the best solution for the patient based on their personality. Robots processing power, knowledge, and decision making will be infinity better than any humans limited ability. They will be better able to emulate empathy than any human because their empathy will be much more real than some overpaid human who feeds on their misery of their patients.

Its just a matter of time.

Right, so you know people have been claiming this stuff since at least the 1960's.

They also said we'd be able to live on the Moon by the 80's.

Ivan_itch

Its closer than you think http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14574747

Irish Slaves for Europe

Sonics2k wrote: »

Right, so you know people have been claiming this stuff since at least the 1960's.

Obviously its not going to happen overnight, but given the pace of technology its likely to happen in about 50 years time.

Wibbs

Saila wrote: »

It is but I stand by it, there is a MASSIVE amount they dont know about the brain

True but we're learning more and more on a daily basis. You should see some of the research on this front it's fascinating.

and never will

This is where I vigorously disagree. I have an encylopedia from the 30's and it claims we'll never travel in space with all sorts of references to learned men backing this up. "Never will" is an awfully long time and lazy thinking.

its a bit like trying to explain reality, you cant,

Eh yea, we kinda can, or are getting very very close to explaining physical reality. What we know today about teh nature of existence is double of what we knew even a century ago.

there is a certain amount you just have to accept and get on with realising you will never know no matter how hard you try.

God I couldn't live with that thinking at all. If we had we'd be still living in caves. Unless you think there's someting about the brain that is intrinsically special and outside of the physical universe then it is a question of engineering, reverse engineering and improvement.

Sonics2k

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

Obviously its not going to happen overnight, but given the pace of technology its likely to happen in about 50 years time.

Yeah but they kinda said that well over 50 years ago now :P

Now I don't doubt computer's will grow a lot more from what they are now, but I really don't see it happening within our lifetime.

Irish Slaves for Europe

Sonics2k wrote: »

Yeah but they kinda said that well over 50 years ago now :P

"they" are simply making predictions, just like I am. We can't say exactly when it will happen, all we can say is it definitely will hapen, the capability is there.

Keith186

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

In the not too distant future, computers/robots will be doing practically all the jobs we currently do. Its hard to think of a profession where computers/robots will not be able to do a better job than humans, and they do it cheaper, and no whinging about work conditions/being sick/maternity leave, none of that hassle whatsoever.

This all begs the question, what exactly are we going to do in the future? Apart from the people maintaining these computers, and the people writing new software for them, what are the rest of us going to do?

Did you watch Zeitgeist Annendum last night?

In theory robots will do all our work. In reality robots can't be trusted to do Jack **** though!

Show me a robot that can build houses by feeding it breakfast rolls?

RoyalMarine

wal100 wrote: »

thank god u posted that, i thought he was on about that stupid song from busted where they all live under water

Irish Slaves for Europe

Keith186 wrote: »

Did you watch Zeitgeist Annendum last night?

In theory robots will do all our work. In reality robots can't be trusted to do Jack **** though!

I'm not talking about today, I'm talking about in the future. If you had of told someone in 1950 than robots would perform laser eye surgery and vacuum your house, they would of sh1t themselves laughing at you.

Wibbs

Rather than building a classical "robot" or AI I suspect the tech will just integrate more and more into our background lives. I recall watching tomorrows world and the like as a kid and on a weekly basis we were told about "silicon chips" and how they'd change things, but it was as much about the chips themselves. Look around you and they're in damn near everything quietly doing things you just accept. Accepted in a way your brain would melt at even in as close in time as the 70's. I have a phone that translates language on the fly, I can read the biggest data resource in history and add to it, talk to people all over the world and even video phone them face to face and all sorts of mad cool and highly complex stuff. Even somthing like a smart phone is mindbogglingly recent and completely accepted today. If you had shown an iphone to one of the original members of this site their heads would be blown away by it(and likely shocked Apple was still going ) and they would have been very techie minded folks to begin with. Now 5 year olds just accept it as humdrum.

CreepingDeath

Saila wrote: »

It is but I stand by it, there is a MASSIVE amount they dont know about the brain and never will

Never is a very final word there.
Already scientists have already learned how to mimic some basic processes in the human brain in computer software ( See neural networks )

Working out the details on a cell level is like learning how to create the lego blocks for intelligence. There may be hundreds or thousands of different types, and how they are then connected together will form new intelligent circuits.

People are working on the problem from many different angles, from the bottom up ( analysing brain cells, experimenting and replicating the results in software/hardware ), and from the top down (artificial intelligence research, how to store information, draw inferences from data and solve problems based on previous experience, and even limited "creativity").

The problem with artificial intelligence is one of definition.
Initially there will be a lot of specialised AI units, for road traffic management, stock market, industrial control etc. There won't be one single AI to do all of that. Each one will be trained to have one job.
Eventually you might have a supervisor AI, which runs all the other AI's.

bnt

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Even if a computer were as smart as a human, it would be a blank slate, like a baby. We learn a massive amount from our senses. Even stupid stuff like playing like blocks as a baby teaches us how to stack objects, the stability of them etc.

I agree, but the speed of the process is what might catch us by surprise. It takes a human child 20 years or so, but a sufficiently powerful computer might do that in 20 hours.

This is hardly a new idea: Arthur C Clarke predicted a kind of "Singularity" back in 1963:

Dial "F" for Frankenstein
Arthur C. Clarke

At 0150 Greenwich Mean Time on December 1, 2005 , every telephone in the world started to ring. A quarter of a billion people picked up their receivers to listen for a few seconds with annoyance or perplexity. Those who had been awakened in the middle of the night assumed that some far-off friend was calling over the satellite network that had gone into service, with such a blaze of publicity, the day before. But there was no voice on the line, only a sound that to many seemed like the roaring of the sea – to others like the vibrations of harp strings in the wind. Whatever it was, it lasted no more than twenty seconds ; then it was replaced by the dialing tone.

The world’s subscribers cursed, muttered, “Wrong number,” and hung up. Some tried to dial a complaint, but the line seemed busy. In a few hours, everyone had forgotten the incident – except those whose duty it was to worry about such things.

At the Post Office Research Station, the argument had been going on all morning and had got nowhere.

“I still think,” said Willy Smith, the solid-state electronics man, “that it was a temporary surge of current, caused when the satellite network was switched in.”

“It was obviously something to do with the satellites, “agreed Jules Reyner, circuit designer. “But why the time delay? They were plugged in at midnight; the ringing was two hours later – as we all know to our cost.” He yawned.

“What do you think, Doc?” asked Bob Andrews, computer programmer. “You’ve been quiet all morning. Surely you’ve got some idea ?”

Dr. John Williams, head of the mathematics division, stirred uneasily. “Yes,” he said. “I have. But you won’t take it seriously.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Andrews continued. “Even it’s as crazy as one of those science fiction tales you write under a pseudonym, it may give us some leads.”

“Very well,” he said. “This is something I’ve been wondering about for years. Have you ever considered the analogy between an automatic telephone exchange and the human brain?”

“Who hasn’t thought of it?” scoffed one of his listeners. “That idea must go back to Graham Bell.”

“Possibly ; I never said it was original.” He glanced up at the fluorescent tubes above the table.” What’s wrong with the damn lights? They’ve been flickering for the past five minutes.”

“Maybe somebody forgot to pay the electricity bill. Don’t worry about it. Let’s hear more about your theory.”

“Most of it isn’t theory ; it’s plain fact. We know that the human brain is a series of switches – neurons – interconnected in a very elaborate fashion by nerves. An automatic telephone exchange is also a system of switches – selectors, and so forth – connected together with wires.”

“Agreed,” said Smith. “But aren’t there about fifteen billion neurons in the human brain ? That’s a lot more than the number of switches in an autoexchange.”

“Fifteen billion might sound a large number, but it isn’t. Round about the 1960s, there were more than that number of switches in the world’s autoexchanges. Today, there are approximately five times as many.”

“I see,” said Reyner very slowly.” And as of yesterday, they’ve all become capable of full interconnection, now that the satellite links have gone into service.”

“Precisely.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Smith. “Are you suggesting that the world telephone system is now a giant brain?”

“In short, it’s achieved some form of consciousness.”

“But what would it use for sense organs?” asked Reyner.

“Well, all the radio and TV signals in the world would be feeding information into it, through their landlines. That should give it something to think about. Then there would be all the data stored in all computer ; it would have access to all that, and to the electronic libraries, the radar tracking systems…… Oh, it would have enough sense organs! We can’t begin to imagine its picture of the world, but it would certainly be infinitely richer and more complex than ours.”

“Yes, but what could it do except think?” asked Reyner. “It couldn’t go anywhere ; it would have no limbs.”

“Why should it want to travel? It would already be everywhere! And every piece of remotely controlled electrical equipment on the planet could act as a limb.”

“Now I understand the time delay,” interjected Andrews. “It was conceived at midnight, but it wasn’t born until one-fifty this morning. The noise that woke us all up was --- its birth cry.”

“What would this supermind actually do? Would it be friendly – hostile – indifferent? Would it even know that we exits, or would it consider the electronic signals it’s handling to be the only reality?”

“I can only answer your question,” said Williams, “by asking another. What does a newborn baby do? It starts looking for food.” He glanced up at the flickering lights. “My God,” he said slowly, as if a thought had just struck him. “There’s only one food it would need – electricity.”

“And babies break things,” said someone softly.

“It would have enough toys, heaven knows. That Concorde that went over just now – uncomfortably low. The automated production lines. The traffic lights in our streets.”

“Funny you should mention that,” interjected Small. “Something’s happened to the traffic outside – it’s been stopped for the last ten minutes. Looks like a big jam.”

“I guess there’s a fire somewhere too – I heard an engine.”

“I’ve heard two – and what sounded like an explosion over toward the industrial estate. Hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Even it John’s ingenious fantasy is correct,” said Smith,” we only have to switch off the satellites and we’ll be back where we were yesterday.”

“Prefrontal lobotomy,” muttered Williams. “I’d thought of that.”

“He ? Oh, yes – cutting out slabs of the brain. That would certainly do the trick. Expensive, of course, and we’d have to go back to sending telegrams to each other. But civilization would survive.”

“I don’t like this,” said Andrews. “Let’s hear what the old BBC has got to say – the one o’clock news has just started.”

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a transistor radio.

“—unprecedented number of industrial accidents, as well as the unexplained launching of three salvos of guided missiles from military installations in the United States. Several airports have had to suspend operations owing to the erratic behavior of their radars, and the banks and stock exchanges have closed because their information-processing system have become completely unreliable.” “One moment, please – there’ s a news flash coming through … Here it is. We have just been informed that all control over the newly installed communications satellites has been lost. They are no longer responding to commands from the ground According to…..”

The BBC went off the air ; even the carrier wave died. Andrews teached over for the tuning knob and twisted it around the dial. Over the whole band, the ether was silent.

Presently, Reyner said, in a voice bordering on hysteria, “That prefrontal lobotomy was a good idea, John. Too bad that baby’s already thought of it.”

Williams rose slowly to his feet.

“Let’s get back to the lab,” he said.” There must be an answer somewhere.”

But he knew already that it was far, far, too late. For homo sapiens, the telephone bell had tolled.

Saila

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Never is a very final word there.
Already scientists have already learned how to mimic some basic processes in the human brain in computer software ( See neural networks )

Working out the details on a cell level is like learning how to create the lego blocks for intelligence. There may be hundreds or thousands of different types, and how they are then connected together will form new intelligent circuits.

People are working on the problem from many different angles, from the bottom up ( analysing brain cells, experimenting and replicating the results in software/hardware ), and from the top down (artificial intelligence research, how to store information, draw inferences from data and solve problems based on previous experience, and even limited "creativity").

The problem with artificial intelligence is one of definition.
Initially there will be a lot of specialised AI units, for road traffic management, stock market, industrial control etc. There won't be one single AI to do all of that. Each one will be trained to have one job.
Eventually you might have a supervisor AI, which runs all the other AI's.

I saw a program the other day and on it they had a test subject in an MRI and had a 3D monitor in close to realtime on a display in the radiographers room which were shown.

They were showing a woman images while she was in the MRI and seeing which parts of her brain were working when she looked at them. Now this is great if those images or maybe a colour in those images do in no way interfere with what is going through her mind, but the reality is they probably will, she is 'human' afterall and will probably use parts of her brain which have nothing to do with why they are measuring her in the first place
and so this will be picked up, witting down and wrongly assumed that these parts/neurons of the brain work when the mind thinks in the way they were researching, which will lead to wrong interpretations of the data, which the next researcher will pick use, and wrongly assume to be right. and the process will repeat. You cant measure humans in the same way as you measure rock or soil, these things are 'dead' have no feeling brains or neurons, and if you use the same ways of collecting data with brains as they do with geological processes it just wont work. Its a nice idea and worth striving to see but the reality is it is just far far far too complex to replicate a human exactly

castletownman

I can't imagine robots being able to commentate or report on live sporting events. Ergo, my job would be safe.....

CorkMan

I am Corozon V9.2115. I have built and programmed myself. I do not respect the disrespect you give to my fellow computers. I am out to get you.

*beep beep*

Wibbs

Saila wrote: »

You cant measure humans in the same way as you measure rock or soil, these things are 'dead' have no feeling brains or neurons,

Who suggested rocks and humans minds anyway? Soil might be a better paradigm as it is a very complex collection of materials living and dead all interconnected. And what about "dead". Dead and alive things are intrinsically the same. A live thing is just a more complex dead thing. There's no divine spark that separates them. We can pretty much build completely new life in the lab from a "kit" of "dead" parts. Humans are just a question of scale. I'm getting the impression that you're thinking is more along the lines of life and human life has some sort of nebulous "soul" that can never be understood? There's no evidence of that.

Its a nice idea and worth striving to see but the reality is it is just far far far too complex to replicate a human exactly

Well for a start you wouldn't try to. Common mistake approaching such things. Look at manned flight. For centuries we assumed that you needed to copy birds and flap wings to do it. Even a mind like Leo DaVinci thought this. Copying birds wasn't teh answer and now we know this and can fly at many times the speed of sound nearly in space. No flapping required. I strongly suspect this is how we'll build AI's and even evolve our descendants. We won't replicate us as such, more come at it from a different angle and surpass much of who we are.

Again the analogy of birds may come into it. Aircraft are incredible, but not one of them comes within an asses roar of the ease of flight and maneuverability of a hummingbird or falcon. I suspect these AI's will be the same. If they remain separate to us of course. They'll be able to "fly" and surpass us in many ways, but we'll still have the edge in other arenas. We'll help each other*. I defo don't see the doomsday scenario of conscious AI's going all terminator on us. Yea there may be accidents, the equivalent of a jet engine in flight sucking in a goose but not beyond that.





* as happens now. Look "where" we are typing and reading at the moment and that's with "dumb" AI's.

Saila

CorkMan wrote: »

I am Corozon V9.2115. I have built and programmed myself. I do not respect the disrespect you give to my fellow computers. I am out to get you.

*beep beep*

aha! roadrunner!
how will you handle the coyote though..

Saila

Wibbs wrote: »

Who suggested rocks and humans minds anyway? Soil might be a better paradigm as it is a very complex collection of materials living and dead all interconnected. And what about "dead". Dead and alive things are intrinsically the same. A live thing is just a more complex dead thing. There's no divine spark that separates them. We can pretty much build completely new life in the lab from a "kit" of "dead" parts. Humans are just a question of scale. I'm getting the impression that you're thinking is more along the lines of life and human life has some sort of nebulous "soul" that can never be understood? There's no evidence of that.
Well for a start you wouldn't try to. Common mistake approaching such things. Look at manned flight. For centuries we assumed that you needed to copy birds and flap wings to do it. Even a mind like Leo DaVinci thought this. Copying birds wasn't teh answer and now we know this and can fly at many times the speed of sound nearly in space. No flapping required. I strongly suspect this is how we'll build AI's and even evolve our descendants. We won't replicate us as such, more come at it from a different angle and surpass much of who we are.

Again the analogy of birds may come into it. Aircraft are incredible, but not one of them comes within an asses roar of the ease of flight and maneuverability of a hummingbird or falcon. I suspect these AI's will be the same. If they remain separate to us of course. They'll be able to "fly" and surpass us in many ways, but we'll still have the edge in other arenas. We'll help each other*. I defo don't see the doomsday scenario of conscious AI's going all terminator on us. Yea there may be accidents, the equivalent of a jet engine in flight sucking in a goose but not beyond that.

we are agreed on that then!, I thought you were suggesting they will one day be able to do the jobs of physiotherapists and the like in the same way humans do. And soil was a bad example, I really meant rocks, but for some reason said soil too [forgetting that it is full of living organisms]

Wibbs

Saila wrote: »

we are agreed on that then!, I thought you were suggesting they will one day be able to do the jobs of physiotherapists and the like in the same way humans do.

Physios maybe not(though vibrating chairs are pretty good) psychotherapists? I don't see why not TBH.

Saila

wibbs wrote:

I'm getting the impression that you're thinking is more along the lines of life and human life has some sort of nebulous "soul" that can never be understood? There's no evidence of that.

No not at all! I thought long and hard about the explanation I gave with the researcher and MRI machine [and somewhat simplified and powerphrased it] and if you understood it the way I intended it then I hoped you would see I dont mean it in the sense of a mysterious soul or anything like that.

starlit

Most humans will not have jobs they will mostly operate, maintain, manage and add software to robots! Basically robots will take over most human jobs so us human won't ever have to work any more...say its a way of downsizing and decentralising the work-force. We are already doomed as it is so no point wondering what we be likely to be doing when we are the in the future!... Robots will take over the world more like the human race.... Honestly don't know we do not know what the future holds anything is possible, we become ruled by aliens!

Ole Rodrigo

Ray Kurzweil, a well respected inventor and future buff has made some very interesting predictions about where we are heading in the next 50 years ( and beyond ) Although he has his critics, they are broadly disagreeing with the timeframe he has mapped out ( but at that they say he won't be too far wrong ) and agree generally with the substance of his predictions. He also acts as a scientific advisor to the American Military. If there aren't any significant natural disasters it will be a fascinating time in history.

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

And if theres no work you can just upload yourself to the internet and comment on forums all day :pac:

dvpower

castletownman wrote: »

I can't imagine robots being able to commentate or report on live sporting events. Ergo, my job would be safe.....

You'll have to compete for screen time with a vast array of other information... stats on the position, trajectory and speed of the ball, the relative position and movements of other players and their vital signs. Real time conparisions with similar games, with predictions about how a particular play will go.

I'd be heading down to Fas if I were you.:P

Voodoo_rasher

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

I disagree. Robots will be much better than humans at detecting tones of voice, pitches and emotions in peoples voices much better than humans can. They will also automatically be able to tell if someone is lying by using sensors etc. Anything a human is taught about councelling can be taught to a robot. The robots will be able to store more knowledge, process information quicker and come up with better solutions in nano seconds. It can analysis the results of billions of hours of councelling done around the globe, and come up with the best solution for the patient based on their personality. Robots processing power, knowledge, and decision making will be infinity better than any humans limited ability. They will be better able to emulate empathy than any human because their empathy will be much more real than some overpaid human who feeds on the misery of their patients.

Its just a matter of time.

if robots can be that potentially capable, perhaps we can have/should have robots running the health service; hence less wastage and none of yr records ending up in public litter bins!