Robotic Nation Evidence

With the development of Watson, IBM showed the world what computers can do with vast text databases like Wikipedia. In Watson's case, the goal was to win at Jeopardy. Now that same kind of technology is being deployed to win at science:

Scientists are developing a computer that can read vast amounts of scientific literature, make connections between facts and develop hypotheses

At the heart of CRAB, the development of which was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Swedish Research Council among others, is a taxonomy that specifies scientific evidence used in cancer risk assessment, including key events that may result in cancer formation. The system takes the textual content of each relevant MEDLINE abstract and classifies it according to the taxonomy. At the press of a button, a profile is rapidly built for any particular chemical using all of the available literature, describing highly specific patterns of connections between chemicals and toxicity.

“Although still under development, the system can be used to make connections that would be difficult to find, even if it had been possible to read all the documents,” added Dr. Korhonen. “In a recent experiment, we studied a group of chemicals with unknown mode of action and used the CRAB tool to suggest a new hypothesis that might explain their male-specific carcinogenicity in the pancreas.”

Imagine a vast network of robots tracking license plates. Once the network is complete, robots will know the location every car on the road:

License plate readers: A useful tool for police comes with privacy concerns

The plate readers are different from red-light or speed cameras, which issue traffic tickets and are tools for deterrence and enforcement. The readers are an investigative tool, capturing a picture of every license plate that passes by and instantly analyzing them against a database filled with cars wanted by police.

Police can also plug any license plate number into the database and, as long as it passed a camera, determine where that vehicle has been and when. Detectives also can enter a be-on-the-lookout into the database, and the moment that license plate passes a detector, they get an alert.

It’s that precision and the growing ubiquity of the technology that has libertarians worried. In Northern Virginia recently, a man reported his wife missing, prompting police to enter her plate number into the system.

They got a hit at an apartment complex, and when they got there, officers spotted her car and a note on her windshield that said, in essence, “Don’t tow, I’m visiting apartment 3C.” Officers knocked on the door of that apartment, and she came out of the bedroom. They advised her to call her husband.

Computer more accurate than human doctor at breast cancer diagnosis

Computer scientists and pathologists at Stanford University now have a computer system that can look a tissue sample and diagnose breast cancer more accurately than a human doctor. The computer system, called C-Path (Computational Pathologist), even went one step further and identified previously-undiscovered cellular structures that can be used by computers and humans alike to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer patients in the future.

How long before computers are better than human doctors at all forms of doctoring? The computer looks at symptoms, orders an optimized set of tests, discovers the illness and prescribes the optimal treatment.

Asimo is new and improved, with the ability to run, jump, open things with his hands, communicate in sign language and avoid obstacles. This video catalogs the latest abilities:

Asimo video

One day in the not too distant future robots like those will be seen walking down the street...

Police forces are in the process of turning from civilian organizations into military organizations, as explained here:

Cops With Machine Guns: How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police

The most serious consequence of the rapid militarization of American police forces, however, is the subtle evolution in the mentality of the "men in blue" from "peace officer" to soldier. This development is absolutely critical and represents a fundamental change in the nature of law enforcement. The primary mission of a police officer traditionally has been to "keep the peace." Those whom an officer suspects to have committed a crime are treated as just that - suspects. Police officers are expected, under the rule of law, to protect the civil liberties of all citizens, even the "bad guys." For domestic law enforcement, a suspect in custody remains innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, police officers operate among a largely friendly population and have traditionally been trained to solve problems using a complex legal system; the deployment of lethal violence is an absolute last resort.

Soldiers, by contrast, are trained to identify people they encounter as belonging to one of two groups -- the enemy and the non-enemy -- and they often reach this decision while surrounded by a population that considers the soldier an occupying force. Once this identification is made, a soldier's mission is stark and simple: kill the enemy, "try" not to kill the non-enemy. Indeed, the Soldier's Creed declares, "I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat." This is a far cry from the peace officer's creed that expects its adherents "to protect and serve."

What is the next step? The military uses robots and drones. Therefore we would expect police forces to use robots and drones. Imagine a protest. Imagine how a civilian police force would manage the situation. Then imagine how a military police force would manage it. Then imagine how robots with the ability to deploy lethal force would approach it. There are two possibilities:

1) If programmed aggressively, the robots incapacitate or kill the protesters.

2) If programmed rationally, the robots might be better at the job than militarized police because robots would execute the rules of engagement perfectly. A peaceful protest would be allowed to proceed. Any unruly members in the protest would be isolated and contained so the remaining protesters are free to go about their business.

The outcome depends on who gets to program the robots.

This article shows that trucks drivers could be near-term victims of robotic replacement:

Rio Tinto boosts number of driverless trucks

Rio Tinto says worker shortages contributed to a decision to boost the number of driverless trucks at its WA iron ore mines from ten to 150.

The trucks will be used at the company's Pilbara mine sites, controlled remotely from its operation centre in Perth, 1,500 kilometres away.

Rio Tinto says the purchase makes it the owner of the largest fleet of driverless trucks in the world.

Given that Google has been test-driving robot-controlled vehicles for over 100,000 miles without incident, it is easy to imagine robot-driven trucks making their appearance in the not-too-distant future.

Does information technology destroy or create jobs? Debate heats up

In the latest edition of MIT Technology Review, David Talbot reviewed Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s new book: Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, and pulls out the observation that the digital economy may be favoring that 1% at the top of the pyramid while sapping opportunities at lower levels of the economy.

The first decade of the 2000s was a time of accelerating technology, accompanied by stagnant employment growth, the authors point out. Employment fell by 1% during the past decade, compared to 20% growth in the 1980s and 1990s. This is no coincidence, Brynjolfsson and McAfee say. For example, increasing automation has dramatically reduced the need for customer service workers across many industries, such as airline reservations or directory assistance, the authors point out. MacAfee also points out that “certain kinds of document examination once done by armies of lawyers—can now be done competently by scanning technologies and software.”

A sobering article... People at every level of the economy are subject to robotic replacement.