Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

More Than 70% of US Fears Robots Taking Over Our Lives, Survey Finds

posted by mrpg on Friday October 06 2017, @03:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-robot-you-slave dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Silicon Valley celebrates artificial intelligence and robotics as fields that have the power to improve people's lives, through inventions like driverless cars and robot carers for the elderly.

That message isn't getting through to the rest of the country, where more than 70% of Americans express wariness or concern about a world where machines perform many of the tasks done by humans, according to Pew Research.

The findings have wide-reaching implications for technology companies working in these fields and indicates the need for greater public hand-holding.

"Ordinary Americans are very wary and concerned about the growing trend in automation and place a lot of value in human decision-making," said Aaron Smith, the author of the research, which surveyed more than 4,000 US adults. "They are not incredibly excited about machines taking over those responsibilities."

Once robots are perfected the 99% can be eliminated so they stop bumming the 1% out.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
More Than 70% of US Fears Robots Taking Over Our Lives, Survey Finds | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 72 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @11:22AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @11:22AM (#577944)

    > Human decision-making causes tens of thousands of deaths on US roads every year

    You have this upside down. Human decision making works extremely well for driving. While any deaths are very unfortunate, the system is really, really huge -- roughly 3 trillion miles driven per year in USA. And nearly everyone participates, whether they are well trained or (mostly) not. From https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pressroom/fhwa1607.cfm [dot.gov]

    WASHINGTON – New data released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) show that U.S. driving reached 3.148 trillion miles by the end of 2015, beating the previous record of 3.003 trillion miles in 2007. For a sense of scale, 3.148 trillion miles is roughly the same distance as 337 round trips from Earth to Pluto.

    You need to realize that moving at faster than a walking pace is always potentially fatal. And even walking can be fatal if you fall and hit your head the wrong way...

    Also, anyone can easily improve their chances on the road by making a couple of choices -- don't drive when drunk/distracted/otherwise_impaired. Take an advanced driving course (accident avoidance training) and understand and use the safety equipment in the car correctly. Also, avoid driving in areas and at times when other drivers are likely to be impaired.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @12:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @12:55PM (#577978)

    And for each of those Pluto round trips, you could have gone to the moon 13458 times.

    http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ratio+distance+earth+to+pluto+and+earth+to+moon [wolframalpha.com]