SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
The kitchen assistant, known as 'Flippy', was designed by a startup called Miso Robotics which specializes in "technology that assists and empowers chefs to make food consistently and perfectly, at prices everyone can afford."
[...] Flippy uses feedback-loops that reinforce its good behavior so it gets better with each flip of the burger. Unlike an assembly line robot that needs to have everything positioned in an exact ordered pattern, Flippy's machine learning algorithms allow it to pick uncooked burgers from a stack or flip those already on the grill. Hardware like cameras helps Flippy see and navigate its surroundings while sensors inform the robot when a burger is ready or still raw. Meanwhile, an integrated system that sends orders from the counter back to the kitchen informs Flippy just how many raw burgers it should be prepping.
Source: http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/burger-robot-flipping-meat-0432432/
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday September 15 2017, @07:02PM (23 children)
I find it interesting that you equate deliberate actions taken by humans with uncontrollable natural disasters. And there lies the difference. Yellowstone blowing it's top is a natural disaster, and it would tend to have consequences. It cannot be "held responsible" for it's actions nor punished for deliberately causing harm.
Unlike Yellowstone, economic activity is a creation of man and so can be expected to serve man.
I would consider this to be a fatal flaw in your argument.
It is also quite revealing. Indeed, in spite of the lot of it being entirely under the control of man, you sit around with your thumbs up your butt as if we are powerless in this matter and furthermore, would have the rest of us join you.
When the light goes out, you can either sit and lament that there are dark days ahead or you can get off your ass and change the bulb.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 15 2017, @10:14PM (22 children)
Who are you going to punish for overpopulation or global poverty? And that sentiment works against you as well. Raising taxes on the rich, a commonly advocated tactic harms the rich. What should the punishment be? Protectionism and other related economic barriers harms a variety of parties, both those targeted and those who receive those services. What should the punishment be?
Most of what we do economically harms someone, just due to the opportunity costs. Shopping at one store harms all the other stores that we didn't shop at. What should the punishment be?
Just because we are harmed by the actions of others doesn't mean that punishment is an appropriate response. Macroeconomics is all about large scale human behavior which often has no intent and often little direction either.
I'll note here two things. First, we don't have a lot of control here. One of the more notorious lessons of economics is the tendency of control systems to have various sorts of blowback and unintended consequences. And second, sitting around with thumbs up butts is a surprisingly effective economic strategy. Just look at this story.
Burger flipping robot devised, thousands of burger-flipping jobs imperiled, oh dear! But then when we look at the details, we find that there are already better robotics out there for flipping burgers (those jobs didn't go away, oddly enough); huge unanswered questions about maintaining the robot in a hostile environment (while the problem is licked for humans); and a limited machine that can't do much else other than flip burgers (And similar manipulations on a grill).
So as a replacement for existing human labor, it is a bust. However, it might eventually be useful as a helping hand to a human in an isolated environment such as a food cart or by itself in a food kiosk. That is, delivering more edible food in an environment where people are in a particular hurry and space is at a premium, such as a crowded public space (airport, train terminal, university plaza, etc).
In other words, it doesn't do much right now and could in the near future increase slightly the number of human jobs while providing better food in certain difficult to service areas with lots of potentially hungry people. In all, as usual for this sort of thing, it's a net benefit which leads to a laissez-faire strategy as the appropriate response.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 16 2017, @01:14AM (21 children)
First two rules of water rescue. Don't dive in to conditions you can't handle and under no circumstances let the victim drag you under with them.
Overpopulation is not a problem in the 1st world. Nor is global poverty. (yes, there's far too much local poverty, but by definition not global poverty). Don't you get tired hauling the goalpost around like that?
I suppose in some sense, all of us failing to give 100% of our wealth to Joe Blow "harms" or "punishes" Joe, but that doesn't mean giving him all our wealth is somehow the fair thing to do. All that is just you trying to introduce a sense of problem solving paralysis (that is, an excuse to sit with our thumbs up our butts, your answer to everything).
As for the burger flipper, you don't really expect the fields of robotics and automation to come to a screeching halt today, do you? Your advice for more thumb sitting suggests so. Of course, I note you couldn't wait to shout about that non-news item when you thought it might somehow support your usual do-nothingnon-answer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @04:05AM (20 children)
So there are situations that can't be controlled. Let's move on to the next.
Your problems aren't my problems either. If we're going to go subjective here, I'll note that I simply don't care about a bunch of your supposed concerns. Neither do a lot of other people. And let's not let spurious accusations dirty your roll here.
In the absence of any sort of reason, any decision is equally valid, including decision paralysis, laissez-faire, or giving it all to Joe Blow. And did you miss the implications of your "drowning victim" story? There are situations you can't control or your attempt to control backfires badly. Economics is chock full of those situations.
What I don't expect is for the fields of robotics and automation to somehow make human labor less valuable. But I can see futile attempts to save peoples' jobs from the machines can backfire badly by inhibiting our ability to learn how to make human labor more valuable with the machines we create.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 16 2017, @02:40PM (19 children)
Sure, but when you allow prudence to become cowardice, people die unnecessarily. The rest or part two to that advice was drag them ashore by the hair if necessary, the armpit hair if available. It allows you to control the rescue and saving their life is sufficient reason. Cowardice is really good at finding excuses for inaction.
There was nothing subjective in my statement. Not sure why you developed a need to go subjective out of the blue. If you don't care about the well being of the country ans society you live in, perhaps you should just get out of the way and go live on an island alone somewhere.
Decision paralysis [google.com] is a disease of the mind. If you embrace disease, it's no wonder you spout such nonsense. Meanwhile, I would consider the well-being of the society we live in to be sufficient reason. If you don't care for that, then again, I recommend you go isolate yourself somewhere and get out of the way. If you truly advocate total surrender of control, I suppose you should advocate for the dissolution of all federal state and local governments forthwith. Or, as I suggested, just leave.
As for the rest, I do not advocate that we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by saving people's menial jobs from automation. I advocate that we make adjustments so that the people displaced need not suffer for our progress. For example, by implementing the basic income. If, as you claim, human labor will go up so much in value, people will continue to be enticed into working anyway based on market value for work. If not, the changes in the employment market will push employers to become more flexible so the existing labor can be spread more evenly in the population. Change is already in play. Your decision paralysis and thumb sitting is already out the window unless we want to sit in our own squalor.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:18PM (18 children)
Let's not do that then. I'll note that envy, greed, fear, etc seem to be common drivers of the attempts to save human labor. For example, the fear of human labor being replaced outright by machine labor is driving a variety of policies that incentivize replacing human labor with machines. Oops.
Yes, it was a quite objective opinion of your personal viewpoint where your observation that local poverty (local being a common indication of subjective viewpoint) is not global poverty was an implication that you are more concerned about local poverty than the other.
We can nip this in the bud by noting I choose inaction as the optimal choice of what's been presented so far not because I was wavering between two or more choices. Thus, my laissez-faire approach is not decision paralysis. The outcomes are the same, the causes are not.
I don't believe that is a good idea since obsessing about suffering in the present creates greater suffering in the future.
I have mixed feelings about basic income. I think it can be implemented in a way that unites us towards a common, better society, but I also don't see basic income advocates addressing this at all. Just paying people money creates a conflict of interest between them and the future of the society because those recipients can always vote for more money. This is never talked about by supporters. We never have a discussion about how to fix the glaring flaw of the approach.
There are a number of dangerous outcomes that can happen, such as runaway inflation, a zillion people deciding not to work (and becoming quite incompetent and useless in the process - most people aren't going to become DIY prodigies or other useful laymen), and people taking from the wealthier because they can.
There are also a number of positive aspects such as a safety cushion for everyone. I believe there is research indicating that even small amounts of cash flow at critical times can greatly improve a number of near bankruptcy situations which would be helpful for a good portion of society.
I would like to see basic income advocates address the big problems with the concept.
While that was about basic income, this is a common theme with other social programs. Little thought is given to the negative consequences of the programs. Some of these programs are so bad that they are worse than if they never existed (public pension funds being a classic example of this as well as of several of the concerns I spoke about earlier).
I don't believe that we are better served by undermining our future to assuage vague fears of the future. At some point, you have to take risks, you have to allow current suffering, etc. You have to do things that people don't like now in order to have a future that they can be proud of.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:10PM (17 children)
Unless you advocate abolishing democracy, there is always the chance that people will try voting themselves more money (and a pony too). That they haven't so far suggests that it's a false problem.
If we've managed not to have runaway inflation by giving banks carte blanche to print money, it seems likely we can manage a basic income. We could also eliminate most of those other programs and their problems in favor of a much simpler system.
But talk about vague fears of the future, you just trotted out a fair handful of those yourself in an effort to talk yourself and others into not taking needed action. Agreed, let's not let prudence become cowardice.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:25AM (16 children)
Name the democratic country, I'll point out the ponies that they've already voted for. For example, in the US, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare are classic examples. Few people seemed to care that future generations would have to deal with the liabilities generated by these programs. Public health care systems and public pension funds are typical landmines in every developed world country.
What needed action? The only countries that are having problems with automation today are the countries that discourage employment. Maybe we should look at the causes rather than the convenient blame targets?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @04:03AM (15 children)
And yet, we're still here. SS itself is working fine, the only problem there is that the program was forced to loan out all the money it needed in reserve to fund useless wars and tax cuts for the rich. As for medicare and medicaid, would you prefer that the people needing it die in the streets or become an unfunded mandate for hospitals? Perhaps you could at least do the humane thing and shoot them in the head rather than making them suffer before they die of completely treatable disease? Perhaps you'd like to do that in front of their grandkids so they learn what happens when you're not a highly productive worker unit? Or perhaps you misspoke when you called that a pony?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @10:24AM (9 children)
SS never had money in reserve. It was always transferred via the virtual bond mechanism to the general fund and spent immediately. And we can see from the "useless wars and tax cuts to the rich" that you don't believe that a good portion of the resulting spending was an investment either.
Would you? Medicare and Medicaid are not sustainable in the long term because their costs grow much faster than the economy does and are projected [washingtonpost.com] to continue to do so as far as the eye can see.
Over the same period, GDP is expected [cbo.gov] to grow a little over 2% per year. Dying in the streets and whatnot will be one of the consequences IMHO of these programs if we do give up on the programs later rather than sooner.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @04:20PM (8 children)
I thought you said there are no problems and that sitting with our thumbs up our asses is a virtue? Now you tell me we're heading for people dying in the streets if we don't take action? Gee, which one is it?
You seem confused. Or like you've argued yourself into a corner and would sincerely like for me to ignore the man behind the curtain.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @10:58PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:49PM (6 children)
But it's there now. Inaction didn't give us control over fire either.
I'm not convinced those are a problem. You claim there are no problems, but in the next breath complain that those are problems. You seem confused again. Also besieged by decision paralysis.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @04:34AM (5 children)
You still playing games here. Social Security is not a one time interference with society, but an eighty year old interference with society. Laissez faire strategy would remove Social Security.
So what? The problems are there whether or not you are convinced. US budgets and demographics is not weather prediction.
I think there's a simpler explanation. You ran out of ammunition. Now we're to the perfunctory, ad hominem, pop psychology stage of the argument. So sounds like time for a review of this sprawling thread.
We first start with your nostalgic post about the vapid promises [soylentnews.org] of youth and those mean regressions with their horrible mental failwaves who are toiling hard to hold you back. This would be excellent troll material BTW should you ever go that route.
I guess from that starting point, it's really hard to have a serious discussion here. My message to take home is that economics is not wish fulfillment. It's not magically generating ponies for everyone. It's not preserving 1964 for all time. It's not vapid promises that you'll never have to exert yourself in the future. When we do try to use economics to create these fantasies we quickly find there are consequences. Even the rather minimal, ongoing interventions of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid has resulted in massive liabilities that the US will either pay or more likely, renege on, without a benefit of corresponding stature.
For me, history is a guide to what will happen with these calls to "do something" about automation, globalism, etc. They will eventually fail in a way that threatens society just as these past programs have done for US society. I certainly don't trust you or anyone who favors your viewpoint to manage a successful basic income scheme, for example. It'll just be another screw up in a long lineage of screw ups. At the very least, some consideration of how to prevent failure should be baked into the system from the start.
For example, there's going to be more voters who would directly benefit from raising a basic income arbitrarily than not. That in turn would lead to a lot of harmful economic destruction which is completely ignored by proponents of basic income. I don't want a system that pays people to destroy society by voting themselves more money without limit.
So to conclude, I don't want to hear about how people with different opinions are holding you back or how the economy should be about supporting your magic assumptions. I want to hear how you're going to deal with the inevitable problems that come from taking stuff from some people and giving it to others in order that we're supporting society (particularly its future!) rather than creates a destructive positive feedback loop of economic cannibalism. It's a reasonable thing to ask!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @04:52AM (4 children)
I did not go ad hominem. I pointed out an inconsistency IN YOUR ARGUMENT. That is completely fair and in bounds for debate. You made two diametrically opposed claims. You, however did go ad-hominem rather than attempt to defend either position. Very telling.
You like sitting in shit with your thumbs up[ your butt, so kindly go off into a corner and do just that with the other degenerates.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @05:38AM (3 children)
And saying something doesn't make it so. I corrected your misimpression by pointing out that my view was not inconsistent. Laissez faire doesn't not presuppose that active interference continues. Thus, it's not out of the ordinary for a laissez faire strategy to involve removal of active interference.
The ad hominem is in "You seem confused again. Also besieged by decision paralysis." Consider in particular the latter accusation. What are the choices that I'm alleged to be paralyzed about? You have yet to come up with it.
Strong indication you aren't ready to think about these things. Perhaps later?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @07:15AM (2 children)
You claimed at one point that things are fine as they are (not as they would be if we undid things) and then claimed we have a problem that requires an action. That certainly seems confused, and such wishing and washing is common to decision paralysis. Your walk-back above really doesn't explain that at all.
If you're going to start using alternative definitions of words, there's no point in talking at all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @11:33AM (1 child)
Context. I was speaking of different things - for example global labor markets versus unintended consequences of some US feelgood initiatives of the past 80 years.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday September 18 2017, @03:14PM
Nope, my memory is better than that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @12:25PM (4 children)
Let us also note that Social Security is expected [cbo.gov] under current law to exhaust its imaginary trust funds by 2030. By then, it'll be spending about 30% more than it takes in revenue. That's less than 15 years.
Nor is this something out of the blue. People have been warning about the coming default of SS for decades. For example, we have this bit from the 1936 Republican Party platform:
Wow, a bunch of political hacks from 1936 were able to figure out one of Social Security's little flaws. If only someone had been paying attention over the past 80 years to fix that. Let's add to your list of economic illiteracies, the inability to think 15 years ahead.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @07:27PM (3 children)
Now isn't the first time we've had a republican dominated congress with a republican president, yet somehow the issue never got addressed?
We could easily solve it inflation free by ordering banks to up their reserve to 20% and as they "unprint" money, the treasury re-prints it and pays it to retirees.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:00PM (2 children)
That would only work once, if it works at all. Then you'd be back there again in a decade or two. Cutting benefits is the only long term solution.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 17 2017, @11:46PM (1 child)
Nope, after that, we'll be past the population bubble that was the boomers and we'll have foreigners paying in but not elligable to take out later. Or, we could scrap SS entirely once the basic income is in place.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @03:44AM
Get them to pay for Trump's Wall while you're at it.
Let us keep in mind the key reason I brought up SS in the first place. That it exhibits a bunch of problems that a basic income scheme would have to surmount in order to be viable in the long run.