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Tyler Cowen reviews Geoff Calvin's new book Humans are Underrated in an article at the Washington Post:
"Humans Are Underrated" serves up two different books in one, each interesting in its own right. The first offers an overview of recent developments in smart software and artificial intelligence. The reader learns about the bright future of driverless cars; IBM's Watson and its skills at "Jeopardy" and medical diagnosis; and the software of Narrative Science, which can write up stories and, in some cases, cover events as well as a human journalist. The overall message is a sobering one: The machines are now able to copy or even improve on a lot of human skills, and thus they are encroaching on jobs. We won't all have to join the bread line, but not everyone will prosper in this new world. That material is well argued, and those stories are becoming increasingly familiar ground.
The second and more original message is a take on which human abilities will remain important in light of growing computer efficacy. In a nutshell, those abilities are empathy, interpersonal skills and who we are rather than what we do. This is ultimately a book about how human beings can make a difference and how that capability will never go away. It's both a description of the likely future and a prescription for how you or your children will be able to stand out in the world to come.
Here is another bit from the review:
My favorite parts of the book are about the military, an area where most other popular authors on automation and smart software have hesitated to tread. In this book you can read about how much of America's military prowess comes from superior human performance and not just from technology. Future gains will result from how combat participants are trained, motivated, and taught to work together and trust each other, and from better after-action performance reviews. Militaries are inevitably hierarchical, but when they process and admit their mistakes, they can become rapidly more efficient.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @05:54AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:06AM
Sounded like a parody of kind of criticism we can expect to hear from the spectrum-inclined hereabouts.
(Score: 1) by jamestrexx on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:08AM
That's the thing about machine control. Who says it's better or worse than human control?
Looking at the news this morning and the atrocities caused by man I still ain't convinced mankind is underrated. Might as well give the machines a shot at running the world. Technological achievements are great, but if we still can't treat each other with respect we have a long way to go before being a species to be proud of.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:24AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by jamestrexx on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:46AM
It's not a focus on negatives exclusively. It's nice to be able to reach people from all over the world, even better if we can support them, but if the only time the wealthy countries interfere with bad behaviour is when it comes to financial interests, what good is communicating with underpriviliged people?
Like I said, technology is nice and all, but when there are still so much more important issues in the world, the focus should be on fixing that and then feeling good about ourselves. How many man hours have been invested in that?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:03AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @10:51PM
I believe that is the ever-popular fallacy of relative privation. The fact that there are "more important issues" does not discount all that we have accomplished.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:07AM
> Might as well give the machines a shot at running the world.
Machines will never run the world. It will always be the people who program the machines that actually run the world. The machines will just be manifestations of all their biases and assumptions. Just like the way it is now, except you can at least argue with a person and maybe convince them to change their mind. Putting it in hands of machines would just solidify the worst parts of humanity because there would be no recourse.
By definition you can not automate good judgment, but you certainly can entrench bad judgment.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:18AM
Reminds me of a saying:
“I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man: It is we.” ― Konrad Lorenz
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:15AM
No. I am asking why would softskills matter in a hypothetical world where the majority of humans are being replaced by machines. What value is swinging an axe to a modern lumbermill owner? What good is it to learn oil-based painting techniques for a web 2.0 graphic designer? Why would anyone care about skill in human interaction when there are no humans to interact with?
Per the summary:
Machines become a dominant force, ergo being able to interact with machines would readily trump being able to interact with people in the unemployment line.
This is a legitimate question and certainly not flamebait nor anything to do with how people should behave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:37AM
Because the point of life is to interact with life, not robots. We design machines to make our lives easier not the other way around.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @10:09AM
No, there is no point in life. Life is nothing more than a complicated set of chemical and physical reactions.
You can invent your own point if you like, but it will only apply to those that choose to apply it to themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @10:54PM
There's no point to anything then, so what's your point? Or really, everything has meaning because life gives it meaning. Without an observer, the universe basically can't exist.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:05AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:07AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bill Evans on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:40AM
Actually, your words evoked the image of customer support people glued to flypaper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:13AM
Clearly you are not a network admin. Many machines only interact with other machines on a day-to-day basis. Do you expect a telephone pole to be able to interact emphatically with humans merely because it was made to do something for humans?
There just is no point to your post other than to say you like humans. That is all well and good, but your preference is irrelevant to the fact that machines do not act like humans and those that work with them do not need to treat them like humans, therefore softskills are irrelevant is such scenarios.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday August 15 2015, @10:23AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈