On Human work and Robotic Help

On Human Work and Robotic Help

Surprising Questions

Consider this dialogue:

• Do you believe in God?
• No
• Do you believe in efficiency and technology?
• Of course I do.
• When people die, do you believe in efficiency?
• Of course not, is there anything left to do. Nothing
• An when people die, do your believe in God?
• Of course I do.

These are surprising shifts in mentality and very common today, but they go unnoticed.  Common sense is a strange “mix” or combination of old traditional and modern technological beliefs. So for the trascendental issues,  most people still believe in God, but for daily and life practical business, most people don´t care less about God, religion or transcendent matters. They might be considered speculation or simply private beliefs. Some people may even consider silly or even childish to apply religous belies in business or practcial matters. Regarding these   matters the Dalai Lama says: we are y all holy and behave properly in the temple.  This split of beliefs—the secular -- and the sacred and mysterious, is typical of modernity.  This is very interesting.

In the middle ages in Europe, most people believed in God and in saving their  souls for a better world—Heaven after life—. Actually then the reveres was true, few people did not believe in God. And if any believed in technology and science. Then, most people did not believe in technology at all, for it was scarce and far between, there weren’t many comforts like  no running water, no electricity, houses were rather primitive  by today standards and so forth. Modernity has provided all these to our daily lives.

         Most people love to be consitent, logical, rational and non contradictory, sometimes we are, some others we do miss the standards, in our in our daily lives.  In a vending machine, you press a button and get the newspaper or a coffee or a soft drink. In your car you can step on the gas pedal, and the car speeds ahead. It is a predictable, machine, simple cause and effect. No unnecessary surprises. So technology has all but conquered us with neat, stable and predictable daily life efficiency standards. Modernity has supplied us with all sorts of machines and devices.  When a machine breaks down we repair them, or may even become anoyed or even frustrated. Technology has “marketed” this fascination with certainty and predictablulty. This is why simplicity sells. Enter the fad, the gadgets:  the iPod, the Blackberries, the Smartphones, or Facebook, or even Twitter and even farm planning or plan B, when things fall apart.

But people are expensive beings for work: they become stressed, need medical leave, pension funds, get sick, need surgery, need day care centres when young, vaccines, schooling for many years; and in the end people are somewhat unpredictable.  At least for work patterns, people or shall we say humans are expensive   for big corporations. Enter the machine feature; we have been living four or five centuries in this. So enter the robot, some three decades now in Scandinavia, Japan and now America en Europe.

Building Machines

The human species has beel caleld “Hommo Faber” it means the tool builder. Many generations later, it seems, we became “Hommo Sapiens” meaning the intelligent humans. Humanity has been building machines since four to five ecneturies now. And since three to four decades engineers, corporations an   companies are building a software, computers and networks in the so called information or knowledge society. It is sad to see that we are starting to consider people as machines—efficiency and hard work, and task accomplishments. The reverse also seems true; we are increasingly treating machines as people, or as humans. The century old novel “Frankestein” them modern monster written by Mary Shelley an English writer in 1818 anonymously anticipated this more than a century ago.

Three Geenrations of Robots

We are witnessing the first generation of robots. Machines are special purpose mechanical devices to accomplish one task: cut, bend, transport, amuse, play music, press, display images like the TV, or process signals like software´s PC or the like. Robots, on the other hand, are machines that may be programable and their programs might be changed ar altered. In a way a robot (a Chec word meaning servitude and slave labor) is more flexible than a machine. But they are incapable of repairing themselves, which can be termed second generation robot

When human build second geenartion robots, “they” will be able to repair and fix themselves. This will not be the end of human work yet just the begining. Third geenartion robots will be able to reproduce themselves and have offspring (Oh! Horror, Mr. Frankestein) Fortunately I will be dead by then and won’t be around. In   the year 2010, Craig  Venter from the USA, a genetecists has claimed to have built an artificial cell. Actually it is a DNA strand, able to replicate itself from a modified bacteria gene. So we may not be that far from  smart robots some decades ahead, beign able  to repair temselves (second genartion) and reproducing themselves (third generation ones.)

Benchmarks of Efficiency

Modernity prides itself of efficient work of all types, systems and work. Briefly stated modernity could be summed as:  the age of the comfortable, the age of speed in action and the easy stuff of all complicated tasks. Manu such machines are like that: the TV, the PC, the Laptop, the remote control; in execution at least. Or maybe they are fast, better quality and cheap. Although many variations are possible, in this matters, these modernity summarize and an enormous array of experiences, systems, brands, and customs.

Limits to Efficiency

In several Muslim countries no business meetings are held on Friday in respect of tradition of Islam. In several African, Asian countries and Brazil, people celebrate festivals for several days, and of course, do not work.  Observant Hebrews do not work on the Sabbath (Saturday), in reverence to a bible held tradition of millennia.  Intelligence and spy agencies spend millions or even billions of dollars, euros or money in defense of a country and its customs, beliefs, economy, military might.  Former communist Germany (termed DDR) about half of the population   was  spied by the state intelligence agency called “Stassy” —I before the DDR collapsed in the Berlin wall in 1989.  This happens all over the world all in the name of efficiency. So efficiency --though may seem universal – is mainly a business minded logic to get things done in a reasonable time frame, with well defines money and other resources. Many complex social issues as AIDS, poverty, transportation, Internet and so forth, escape this “efficiency logic. They are much more complex.  

Short and Long Term Results

Time is like an all selecting device weather cosmic time, evolution time scales or historic time. But efficiency claims short term results, short term profits, short tem effectiveness.  Short term, is quarter driven profits, the time scale the SEC and Wall Street report losses or profits of shares. Most of modern economy is driven by this logic,   and people are organizing their lives in these short term frames. However, nature has inviolable cycles, usually the four seasons, circadian rhythms and so forth. So overwork is harming people health the world over. Henry Ford is credited to having produced massively a car for the American people. About a century later the car, a special comfortable machine to save time,  has turned into—a century later--  desperate and unavoidable  traffic jams in many cities. No one planned these inconveniences.  But they do happen.

An African proverb says:
Is you want to go fast, go alone

If you want to travel far, go with others.