Scary robot video.

[Flynnwood]

A relative had all the signs of Covid over a seven day period around ten days ago. Two negative PCR tests. On day five, he couldn't get through to 111 and got directed to a webpage on NHS.

He had to answer 6 or 7 questions. When he hit submit, the next page was:
"Phone 999 NOW for an ambulance. The 999 operator will ask where you are, ask for your phone number in case you get off, and the crew might arrive wearing PPE. Do NOT go to a GP or Hospital instead of calling for an ambulance."

How illogical is that? No human intervention.
Imagine if tens of thousands (or more) came across that page at the same time!
Computer said "Call an ambulance NOW" (I have a screenshot)

He didn't call one by the way.
He got through to 111 the next day, then got a call back around 6 hours later suggesting it was probably a cold type virus.

 

[Sandyn]

Did you notice the robot's suprise when he found he didn't have a pint in one hand, or a pasty in the other?

That would be nothing compared to the look of surprise the poor wee chap would have if he was dragged out of his box to find @TRITON lying seductively in bed, Large can of 3 in 1 on the bedside cabinet!!

This technology will probably get it's first outing as a *** toy.

Next up, the faked orgasm face

 

[Foggybummer]

not real.
cgi.
you can see the blurs.

This is not CGI see Ameca - Engineered Arts

 

[pils]

This is not CGI see Ameca - Engineered Arts

And one always trusts the internet. Until I see this face to face I'll lean towards doubt. :] But thank you for the links.

 

[Spectric]

We are already pushing AI and with the IOT connecting everything into one big network, then robotics's giving the virtual world arms and legs the outcome if logical will be inevitable, we will have to face the fact we are the weak link and have no further role to play. Imagine AI looking at Earths history and the human race, do you really believe that in it's conclusion would be the word intelligence. It would conclude we are needy, greedy, bad for the planet and obsessed with war and killing each other so the future would be better without us in our current form.

 

[sploo]

The bigger worry with some of the learning AI systems for me is more about error rather than deliberate malice. The way the neural networks are "evolved" means that (as far as I understand) it's essentially impossible to characterise exactly how they work (in the sense of why exactly why a certain set of inputs give a certain output) - you're just training a network, throwing away the models that don't work, and "evolving" the best ones.

End result is that unexpected edge cases can be really hard to test or fix; it's no longer a "simple" case of realising that a line of code was "if x>10" when it should have been "if x>=10".

This (Death of Elaine Herzberg - Wikipedia) unfortunate incident is a good example; if I recall correctly the manufacturer of the LIDAR system issued a press release saying that their hardware would have "seen" the cyclist, and it all seemed to go fairly quiet afterwards as to exactly why the car's AI didn't react. I wouldn't want to have been the one trying to debug that.

 

[McAldo]

How illogical is that? No human intervention.

The fact that that a form is processed by a computer of by a human changes nothing.
You are lamenting not that there was no human intervention, but rather than there was no expert consultation.
The NHS use that type of approach in general.
Dependently on the type of issue, staff are given guidelines point by point with scores.
This applies to admin staff, nurses and even doctors.
"what is your age?" "Do you have a fever?", "Any condition?" .. and so forth...
Each answer generates a score, which adds up.
If the total of the scores reaches certain tresholds, specific decisions are taken.

So, it changes nothing that the at the end of the line there was a computer.
Your wife could have talked with a human operator and she would have been asked the same things, she would have provided the same answers, and given the score the human operator would have advised her to call an ambulance.
NHS does not have the resources to do expert consutaltions as often as we would like, because that would require a specialized doctor or nurse each time, and in any case expert consultations cannot take place over the phone, without seeing the patient and relying only on the patient answers and self evaluation.

Thing is, in pretty much any dealing with NHS, computers never "tell" or "say" anything. I never understood why staff say that, suggesting the information comes out of the thin air. NHS computer software simply retrieve and display records and other things previously inputted by humans. Such as forms, designed by doctors, or lists of previously vaccinated people, inputted by admin staff at the time a vaccination was done.

There are concerns about artificial intelligence applications, of course, but of a very different nature I think.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

An algorithmic approach applied by machine may be preferable to a human. With a machine there is no expectation of emotional intelligence - answer the question, calculate, answer.

With a human at the other end there is a presumption that a response will be both emotionally intelligent and flexible.

This clearly isn't the case as my wife and I found out a couple of weeks ago following a positive Covid PCR test. The test and trace operative was clearly reading from a script. Any answer that failed to align with the expectation of a reasonable answer was met with another question.

At no point was there a normal "human" response - eg: "how are you feeling now" or "are you ok to speak" etc. My wife (more tolerant than I) spent 40 minutes on the phone with them. I told them my wife had just given all the details, then got more of the same questions she had just answered. I put the phone down on them after 2 minutes of stupidity.

 

[TRITON]

That would be nothing compared to the look of surprise the poor wee chap would have if he was dragged out of his box to find @TRITON lying seductively in bed, Large can of 3 in 1 on the bedside cabinet!!

Ho you thats enough of that.

i'm more a GT85 man myself gets into all the crevices

 

[baldkev]

But whats the end game? Lets take the tesla bot. I believe it is to be aimed at doing menial tasks so we dont have to. Lets say a tesla bot cost 30k, obviously most of us won't buy one, but tesco could buy a few thousand and replace checkout staff completely.... more jobless people. No more loo scrubbing. No more bus drivers. No more general cleaners. Eventually, no more carpenters! But then what to do with the jobless? Who pays for them? Who feeds them? How are we supposed to support our population?
I wont get into the war scenario, but terminator 1 and 2 were cool

Then theres the faces, actually. You cant for instance make a chinese looking robot clean the loo, that'd be an offront to the chinese etc ( thats just an example, im not bashing chinese ) so the world needs to adopt a.i .p.c rules

 

[Flynnwood]

The fact that that a form is processed by a computer of by a human changes nothing.
You are lamenting not that there was no human intervention, but rather than there was no expert consultation.
The NHS use that type of approach in general.
Dependently on the type of issue, staff are given guidelines point by point with scores.
This applies to admin staff, nurses and even doctors.
"what is your age?" "Do you have a fever?", "Any condition?" .. and so forth...
Each answer generates a score, which adds up.
If the total of the scores reaches certain tresholds, specific decisions are taken.

So, it changes nothing that the at the end of the line there was a computer.
Your wife could have talked with a human operator and she would have been asked the same things, she would have provided the same answers, and given the score the human operator would have advised her to call an ambulance.
NHS does not have the resources to do expert consutaltions as often as we would like, because that would require a specialized doctor or nurse each time, and in any case expert consultations cannot take place over the phone, without seeing the patient and relying only on the patient answers and self evaluation.

Thing is, in pretty much any dealing with NHS, computers never "tell" or "say" anything. I never understood why staff say that, suggesting the information comes out of the thin air. NHS computer software simply retrieve and display records and other things previously inputted by humans. Such as forms, designed by doctors, or lists of previously vaccinated people, inputted by admin staff at the time a vaccination was done.

There are concerns about artificial intelligence applications, of course, but of a very different nature I think.

1. I have no idea why you refer to my wife above.
2. In a prior part of life, I designed relational databases.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Isaac Asimov famously proposed three laws for robots:

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

We have largely engineered existing robots to ignore these laws - military drones are designed to (1) independently identify, engage and kill "enemy" human beings, and (2) act on the orders of other human beings.

We humans are physically less able (weaker, slower), less knowledgeable (we need an intelligent internet to function), less able to quickly resolve complex equations to make choices etc.

As popularised in science fiction it is entirely plausible that robots will conclude that **** sapiens are the greatest threat to stability assured by compliance with the three laws and eliminate us. Worrying isn't it!

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

But whats the end game? Lets take the tesla bot. I believe it is to be aimed at doing menial tasks so we dont have to. Lets say a tesla bot cost 30k, obviously most of us won't buy one, but tesco could buy a few thousand and replace checkout staff completely.... more jobless people. No more loo scrubbing. No more bus drivers. No more general cleaners. Eventually, no more carpenters! But then what to do with the jobless? Who pays for them? Who feeds them? How are we supposed to support our population?

It's worth looking at what happened the previous times this was predicted. In practice, as dangerous and menial work is automated, other jobs emerge.

 

[Foggybummer]

And one always trusts the internet. Until I see this face to face I'll lean towards doubt. :] But thank you for the links.

I also am a sceptic however in this case the evidence is there, looks like you have only given the site a cursory glance. you could see Ameca in Falmouth or see it at CES 2022.

 

[Stevekane]

But whats the end game? Lets take the tesla bot. I believe it is to be aimed at doing menial tasks so we dont have to. Lets say a tesla bot cost 30k, obviously most of us won't buy one, but tesco could buy a few thousand and replace checkout staff completely.... more jobless people. No more loo scrubbing. No more bus drivers. No more general cleaners. Eventually, no more carpenters! But then what to do with the jobless? Who pays for them? Who feeds them? How are we supposed to support our population?
I wont get into the war scenario, but terminator 1 and 2 were cool

Then theres the faces, actually. You cant for instance make a chinese looking robot clean the loo, that'd be an offront to the chinese etc ( thats just an example, im not bashing chinese ) so the world needs to adopt a.i .p.c rules

I think its already been recognised that it will become necessary to tax the robots, up untill now mechanisation has often meant higher productivity and higher profits but at the cost of some jobs, mass mechanisation, ie Lorry and taxi Drivers which are already in the sights of the self driving developers like Uber, cannot just result in bigger profits, esp as much of the profits are channeled through offshore banks to avoid even that element of tax, and like it or not we have to pay tax to maintain society.
So it will become nessesary to apply taxes to the machines and to start paying a universal wage to everyone regardless,,and if you can find a job or create/make a bit extra by making things or running classes then that will be just extra income with benefits to your community.
Sounds pie in the sky,,but its already been trialed and the last Bank of England govener (Mark Carney) said it was somthing we needed to look at, it will no longer be possible to just call people dole scroungers when there are few jobs and he recognised that the end result of a few people with vast wealth and the majority with very little will result in the breakdown of society.
Were living in very interesting times thats for sure.
Steve.

 

[IZZY]

But whats the end game? Lets take the tesla bot. I believe it is to be aimed at doing menial tasks so we dont have to. Lets say a tesla bot cost 30k, obviously most of us won't buy one, but tesco could buy a few thousand and replace checkout staff completely.... more jobless people. No more loo scrubbing. No more bus drivers. No more general cleaners. Eventually, no more carpenters! But then what to do with the jobless? Who pays for them? Who feeds them? How are we supposed to support our population?
I wont get into the war scenario, but terminator 1 and 2 were cool

Then theres the faces, actually. You cant for instance make a chinese looking robot clean the loo, that'd be an offront to the chinese etc ( thats just an example, im not bashing chinese ) so the world needs to adopt a.i .p.c rules

I've been saying that since I attended a lecture on Micro Miniaturisation in 1965 when we were introduced to transistors . The guy said this will eventually do the work of 10 men to which I asked who will be able to buy those products as they will all be out of work. A simplistic question but I was only 18 at the time so what did I know.

 

[Spectric]

AI could become super inteligent and the dominant species on planet earth but it will not have human emotions to cloud it's decision making process which would be a logical outcome based on input data, albeit it may use thousands of data streams in the process. So no bias, no favouritism or corruption just plain old logic, so yes you need to worry because everything will be black and white, the good points outweighed by the bad. Think about this, you go to your AI doctor who can analyse you in seconds and at the same time access and interpret huge amounts of data to decide on the course of action, first decision would be repair, recycle for parts or just scrap depending on an algorithm based on age, ability, career, value to society and cost to repair, you may even end up part robotic to add value to justify repair so you can deliver more value to society long term.

 

[Stevekane]

Its certainly fasinating stuff, one thing I wondered, will it be possible in the distant future to download our brain,,I believe its just a collection of electrical signals/connections? and then install that in one of these super realistic robots,,is that a concept for eternal life?
Steve.

 

[Terrytpot]

Whenever I see something like this I’m reminded of all the obvious links to stuff like Asimovs stories, the Terminator films and all the other sources of sci-fi I’ve eagerly consumed although when I try and think of the genuine practical and useful to society uses I can’t help thinking that the primary use, and no doubt driving force in evolving this technology, is the “Defense Industry” where it longs to weaponise the tech. in a bid to make conflict and its resolution more “cost efficient”. On a more poignant note, the families of the individual’s who volunteered to re-enter the Fukushima power station to work in area’s that they knew would be fatal to them are probably at the fore of those regretting that this technology wasn’t fully mature back in March 2011.
If I can add a request though for a sci-fi innovation to be realised it would be an eye replacement that has full data capture and instant replay modes…the amount of time that could save me doesn’t bear thinking about

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There has been concerned for the future of jobs and livelihoods due to automation since the industrial revolution (and probably before). Over time most of these have been ill-founded.

In my adult lifetime a huge range of jobs and industries forming the foundation of the UK economy have disappearded - steel, manufacturing, coal mining, agriculture, secretarial, book-keeping, milkmen, joiners, etc etc.

This created temporary peaks in unemployment, but offset by reduced working hours, increased holidays, and new jobs in IT, media, marketing, advertising, services etc.

Over 5 decades quite possibly 5-10m jobs have disappeared, and perhaps 10-15m created as more women joined the labour force. As of today unemployment is low.

The proposition that jobs have been "dumbed down" to create an underclass of low paid is largely untrue. The skills rewarded by society have changed (rightly or wrongly) to benefit lawyers, bankers, accountants, creatives, etc. Inevitably there are losers.

So more sophisticated intelligent robots may not rapidly displace humans - possibly over time just alter the nature of human endeavour. Robots may have a mechanical and data processing advantage but (as yet) no emotional intelligence needed to (say) compose a piece of music, or create a work of art without clear "rules" programmed by humans.