Tag Archives: robots

Watch AI

A short time ago I wrote about AI (artificial intelligence) and it seems as though it has expanded greatly since then. To mankind, it is great to have something to aid mankind, but I can see a hindrance that has a potential to really harm mankind in the long run. AI is a good thing but (as in some sci-fi movies) can be a bad thing.

               It’s good in medicine. At Duke University there is a machine that is aiding medicine and can outperform the doctors when predicting medical conditions, knowing all the medical jargons, and giving possible cures for something. I haven’t heard much about it recently, but it would be great if most hospitals have this type of mechanical brain. Cancer and all other conditions will be diagnosed quicker as well as more accurately. Why not put it into the labs to make newer medicine and bring down the cost of medicine?

               Transportation is booming with self-driving, self-parking, etc. vehicles. In the blog I mentioned, I wrote about a self-driving truck that took a load of ore from a self-mining mine to a self-operating factory and made other robots witho0ut a human hand doing anything. That can be done with almost anything, anywhere, at any time, with today’s automation.  Think about it; there are automated cars, trucks, trains, ships, planes, and the list goes on and on. Humans do not have to touch the controls.

               I only know about a small fraction of what the military has. I was in the air force (security, law enforcement, K-9) and I see a lot that have happened since I retired. In K-9, for instance, there are robotic perimeter guards that are like dogs (the machines walk on four legs). I guess me and my dog would be replaced at considerable cost. I can only imagine what is going on in the control room (CSC?) (Central Security Control). Back in the early ‘80s I flew on a plane that the pilot was telling me, as the plane was circling the Pyramids on its own, how the plane could taxi, take off, fly to its mission, return, and land on its own.

               Now that you have a little background about AI and our daily life, I now wonder what we are to do with ourselves if AI completely takes over our daily life. This is what I mean. AI is into farming by doing everything remotely and robotically therefore there is not a need for workers in the field. This has a domino effect that is attached to it. AI doing the work in the factories means there is no need for employees. When people are jobless, they cannot buy food, transportation, lodging, go on vacation, buy fuel for the vehicle that they have (electric vehicles cost more but without a job they can not afford to buy one), and anything else that a human would need to live. And it goes on, and on, and on.

               As you see, the domino effect, caused by AI, can affect living a minimal life. Like in the sci-fi movies, AI can take over and us humans will have to take a backseat and suffer. We are already suffering but it, maybe, will get much worse. I am not against AI; I am asking for caution and tighter controls. I remember an article I read, some time ago, that these scientists put two computers together to see what would happen. They had to unplug them when the computers started talking to each other in a language the scientists did not understand. Bad things, accidents, can and will happen. Watch AI as AI watches us.

              

Watson

Looking back, I can see many things that were, years ago, thought to be either science-fiction or someone’s imagination or just plain entertainment because it was considered an impossibility. To give an example (young people don’t know about this) just look at Dick Tracy from the comic strips. He had a wrist watch that he could not only talk into and hear but he could see the person he contacted and the person could see him. I was always fascinated then and can see all of it now. For those of you that can’t remember when Dick Tracy was printed, try the 1950’s and ’60’s.

Quite a few things have come from the original Star Trek Series (Capt. James Kirk, Mr. Spock, etc) that, at the time, had my head spinning. There is so much that have come from the imagination of others that wanted to entertain us but, instead, were ahead of the world they were in. They jumped to another sphere. A sphere that no one, not even them, could have seen without a crystal ball into the future. And the then future is still coming, little by little.

We seniors, if you think a little, can see things that came about when we were young that boggled the mind, but, were thought about years before that. The people that were proposing those things were said to be crazy or were completely ignored. And, just think, the not so imaginary things are still coming about. Remember Lost In Space? Remember the robot in Lost In Space?

There is a lot of work being done on AI (Artificial Intelligence). That is the project being done on robots and making them super intelligent. They are making robots that can think, never forget and get smarter on it’s own. Also, they are making robots that are making robots. I can still remember watching Lost In Space on a black and white television and saying to myself that it was impossible for a robot to do the things that it did.

The computer that was on Jeopardy and won the game (named Watson) was a hit for quite some time. Watson is still around. Wrap your head around this; Watson is being used in a hospital diagnosing ailments and proposing a course of action. Watson has read everything there is to read about medicine and every medical journal that comes out. A doctor can not do that nor remember the entire written material. Watson can and did. Watson not only reads written material, it can also look at x-rays, MRI’s and all the other things. I remember reading comic books about that back in the early sixties.

I also remember reading, and seeing movies, about computers going amok, taking over the world and treating humans as slaves. There are scientists who are now thinking the same thing and is getting a lot of resistance to that idea. As a senior citizen, I don’t have to worry about that. I don’t have that much longer in this world and robots aren’t developing that fast. Or are they?

Some people are saying robots are not around them (I guess they are thinking about machines running around doing things) but I beg to differ. I’ll name a few things and, believe me, there are so, so many more things I could name. There are self driving vehicles, cell phones, television (broadcasting units and viewing apparatus’), all sorts of computers, and to put things into a nut shell, everything that is anything has some type of electronics in it. These things can or almost can operate on it’s own or remotely, by another human or by another computer.

All of us at Imperial Plaza utilize some sort of computer (robot) each and every day, from the time we awaken (does a robot (alarm clock) awaken you) to the moment we go to sleep (does the computerized TV or radio put you to sleep), whether we realize it or not. It is a beautiful thing. Or is it? Will the robots take over Imperial Plaza? Will they take over the world? Time will tell. More time than I have left.

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