| Robot Society 3 |
March 5, 2018
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| He thought about a future society. Recent AI robot developments were remarkable. He could easily imagine that robots would replace blue-collar workers' jobs in more and more places. Now robots have sharper eyes (cameras), more precise hands (robot arms), firmer legs (They can run!), and a smarter brain (AI) than before. "But ...," he thought, "A robot surely defeated the Go world champion, and Go is one of the most complicated games in the world. But does it mean that robots are smarter than humans in all aspects? The game is a game, not real life. In Go, you play by placing a white stone or a black stone by turns on one of the cross points of 19 vertical and horizontal lines. "In any game, rules are fixed in advance. Robots might be stronger when the  situation is fixed. Auto driving cars run on only roads, which are already made. They run only on either the right lane or the left lane. They proceed forward. Pedestrians walk on a sidewalk. Even kids' actions are predictable on the roads. "However, in the real life, many things happen that are unpredictable. Never the same things happen in the human world. "In factories, the same products are made every day, so a robot's strength will be used to its maximum." He came up with the idea to check the number of workers for various kinds of jobs in order to think more about robots' possibilities. Here are the results: Total workers 59,600,000 [Job type and the number of workers] 1. Wholesaling, Retailing 9,800,000 2. Manufacturing 9,600,000 3. Medical, Welfare 6,100,000 4. Construction 4,500,000 5. Hotels, Restaurants 3,400,000 6. Repair shops, Security service 3,400,000 7. Transportation, Post office 3,200,000 8. Education 2,600,000 9. Agriculture, Forest, Fishing 2,400,000 10. Travel agency, Entertainment 2,200,000 11. Public Servants 2,000,000 12. Lawyers, Accountants, Advertisement 1,900,000 13. Publishing, Broadcasting 1,600,000 14. Banks, Insurance 1,500,000 15. Real estates, Rental 1,100,000 16. Others Then he started to think about the possibilities of humans being replaced by robots: The No2's manufacturing would probably be effected most by robots. He watched a video on YouTube in which 99 % of the process in a car factory was done by robots. The No1's wholesaling would also be effected by robots. All goods could be carried automatically. In the No4's construction sites and No9's agriculture farms, the jobs are similar to the jobs in factories. If robots became better at working on unstable surfaces, they could replace humans soon. On the other hand, for fishing on the sea, robots seemed at a disadvantage. As robots are made of mainly metals, which would easily get rusty and thus would need to be replaced frequently. Also, they are too heavy to swim in the case of an accident. Fisherman robots should be developed because fishermen is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and there are many casualties every year. No7's transportation. Auto drive would become normal at this speed of development. Although giving a parcel directly to a customer in person seemed to be a big hurdle. How about No1's retailing, shop clerks? Amazon's trial shop started. The no-cashiers shop. In there, you don't need to wait at the register. Many cameras follow your purchasing actions, picking up the item's motions, and goods on the shelves. You can check on your smartphone what items are in your shopping cart virtually, and after passing through the gate in the shop, the price would be withdrawn from your bank account. But he felt that this was too much. For one chocolate bar, the cameras followed it and computers continued to analyze it. What would happen if he/she returned it? Of course, it is none of their business and they might just want to gather the customers' preferences according to their identity as 'big-data' for the business. If it succeeded at the supermarkets, would other shops follow suit? Would convenience stores with no cashiers, or even book stores or department stores, appear? He imagined a department store. He passed through the gate of the store. There were no shop clerks there, only robot guards which were types to move on wheels were moving here and there. He felt an urge to take some expensive goods and run, but he stopped because maybe the guard would do something to him. A young woman was asking to another guard where the bathroom was, and the guard robot kindly led her to the nearest restroom. Following it, she looked embarrassed as the other customers were watching her. Maybe she decided not to come to this shop again. |
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*vertical :垂直の
*horizontal :水平な
*fix :固定する
*in advance :前もって
*either :どちらかの
*pedestrian :歩行者
*predictable :予想できる
*wholesale :卸売り
*retail :小売り
*welfare :福祉
*accountant :会計
*real estate :不動産
*casualty :犠牲者
*follow suit :倣う