UPDATED: 10/13/22
About a year ago Elon Musk revealed the Tesla robot for AI day as a new project. When I saw the robot reveal the points he made about the robot’s main purpose was to eliminate “dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks.” I saw this but did not think much of it. AI day 2022 happened about 1 week ago and we got to see the first prototype of the robot, to be honest, I was not impressed. Other companies such as Boston Dynamics, Sony, Honda, and even college students at Purdue university have a better human-like movement that flows better than the Tesla robot. But it did get me thinking about how the future of the world would look like and how secure our are jobs going to be. When I was in elementary school, I vividly remember being in a robotics class with the NAO Robot in which we were able to program it to walk and do a little dance, since then robots have been getting increasingly smarter, better, and stronger.
So, with this research, I hope to find an estimated year in which robots will take the jobs of certain areas in the work field, such as surgeons/doctors, receptionists, transportation, and retail service. When you start to think about the future of the work field. Why pay someone $20,000 per year when a Tesla robot is about $20,000 one-time purchase which will save you money and assist companies with getting rid of unskilled labor? And to me that is just not acceptable we will be leaving so many people without jobs and the future will depend on robots if they get to the point where they are capable of doing so. The Tesla bot aims to perform working tasks which means it will be very good at it, better than humans so again it’s only a matter of time before they do and leave people without a job.
If I find information that goes completely against what I had expected to find during my extensive research and my thoughts. I do not see the point in starting over or throwing the idea out. I still think I will continue to write about it because it is an issue of when will it happen and how soon it does get to the point where machine learning and AI get good at identifying real-world problems and solving them with a computer algorithm in minutes or even seconds. Robots at the moment are designed to perform one specific task, which is why they are really good at it. But what happens when a robot then gets the illusion of free will? can it start to think for itself and perform tasks it “feels” will best benefit them? Will we refer to robots as equal or higher-ups? We truly are living in a dystopian world.
OLD VERSION: 10/11/22
About a year ago Elon Musk revealed the Tesla robot for their AI day as a new project. When I saw the robot reveal the points he made about the robot’s main purpose was to eliminate “dangerous, repetitive, and boring tasks.” I saw this but did not think much of it. AI day 2022 happened about 1 week ago and we got to see the first prototype of the robot, to be honest I was not impressed. Other companies such as Boston Dynamics, Sony, Honda, and even college students at Purdue university have better human like movement that flows better than the Tesla robot. But it did get me thinking about the future of the world that includes jobs and humanity. When I was in elementary school, I vividly remember being in a robotics class with the NAO Robot in which we were able to program it to walk and do a little dance, since then robots have been getting increasingly smarter, better, and stronger. So, with this research I hope to find an estimated year in which robots will take the jobs of certain areas in the work field, because when you start to think about the future of the work field. Why pay someone $20,000 per year when a Tesla robot is about $20,000 one-time purchase which will save you money and assist companies with getting rid of unskilled labor. The Tesla bot aims to perform working tasks which means they will be very good at it, better than humans so again it’s only a matter of time before they do and leave people without a job. If I find information that goes completely against what I had expected to find during my extensive research and my thoughts. I do not see the point in starting over or throwing the idea out. I still think I will continue to write about it because it is an issue of when will it happen and how soon it does get to the point where machine learning and AI get good at identifying real world problems and solving them with a computer algorithm in minutes or even seconds. Robots at the moment are designed to perform one specific task, which is why they are really good at it. But when a robot then gets the illusion of free will, it can start to think for itself and perform tasks it “feels” will best benefit them. And it’s hard to not think that we truly are living in a dystopian world.
Thanks Brandon for sharing these thoughts — I particularly like how you contextualize your interest in the topic both in terms of recent developments in the field of robotics / AI and your own (deep past) educational experiences with robots / programming.
This topic is almost ready for approval (so close!), but a little more refining / clarity is needed in this still relatively broad area of inquiry. For example, your question focuses on a particular point in time at which AI will replace human jobs. But … what kinds of jobs are these looking to replace (I imagine the timelines are different from different industries / positions)? Is this desirable? What are the consequences–both positive and negative–of this replacement (aside from a potential cost savings for employers)? Aside from the economic, are there social, ethical, political, ideological (perhaps even affective — related to mood / well-being) implications of this shift? What about that last part of your discussion, in which you point to potential ability of AI to feel / think on their own (and then override their human “masters”)? [You don’t have to answer all these questions, of course, but they are helpful to think through as you work on your revision]
I’m looking forward to seeing a more focused and fully-fleshed out revision. You can edit this post and put the revision — clearly titled “Revision as of DATE” at the top of the post, so we that it is easy to see this new version alongside the original draft (please make sure to post a comment here too to let me know when the revision is there — otherwise, I won’t have a way to know).
Also, offering a Pro tip!
Breaking your post up into separate paragraphs help readers to more easily follow your train of thought.
Good afternoon, this post has been updated. If there are any more improvements to be done please let me know. Thank you.
Thanks Brandon for the revision. However, in order to provide meaningful feedback (on the success of this updated version), I need to see the two versions side-by-side for comparison. Please go in and edit the post to include, as requested, both the original and new version (include the version name– original or revision– + date to distinguish between the two).
Good afternoon, I have added the original version and the updated version together.
Thanks Brandon! The specifics you’ve added strengthen the proposal (though a bit more holistic revision for the final draft will be helpful, rather than just adding a sentence here and there). I’m sure as you’re researching you’re continuing to refine your area of inquiry even further, and I look forward to seeing the project develop. Topic approved!
I think this is a really interesting topic. Seeing that a lot of robots nowadays are getting smarter, I think that they would begin replacing us. However, I don’t think that jobs that directly involve interacting with conscious people will really suit robots. There’s a level of trust between a person and a doctor that I don’t think a robot can replace. Sure, surgeons may get replaced but that’s mainly because robots are more precise and don’t need to interact with the patient verbally as they would be under anesthesia. Furthermore, making a robot seem too human-like is really uncanny. It’s very interesting to witness what’s called the “un-canny valley” were you get creeped out by things that look and talk like humans but aren’t. In any case, it is true that the labor-intensive jobs may get replaced with robots. This, however, makes cybersecurity far more important than it ever was before considering a group of robots could possibly cause catastrophic damage if hacked.
I think that this is a very important topic. I remember reading about this in a 6th-grade scholastic magazine. This definitely interested me as a kid because I remember the debate on whether or not robots and machines would replace humans. Ultimately, we all knew the answers as well as the cons that follow, but there are very good opposing points that are lesser known and I think that you can definitely expose those points through research
Based on robots and their Future overall I think this may be a good topic because for future purposes I think that robots would be way smarter than us in a way in terms of how the environment in society is changing I mean their”s alot of benefits that can come from robots and how their programed to do certain things we as humans probably can’t. I feel like robots would change society in a more better environment from where us humans left off.