We are soon gonna be replaced. Latest from Boston Dynamics...

[retrolefty]

Still somewhat geriatric compared to this...

Then try doing that yourself?

 LOL, a robot doesn't have to be as good as our best athletes, it only needs to be as good as
the vast majority of us are(n't).

[retrolefty]

The big question is, how do we cope with technology making it possible to do almost everything with machines?

I don't think a race to the bottom-giving all the jobs to the cheapest workers, so that wages plummet everywhere, is the answer.
Thats likely to turn into an ugly situation that gets blamed on its victims more than anybody.

 If a machine can replace the job field you choose to strived for within your own likeable lifetime then you choose poorly.   

 

[Kjelt]

A machine repeats the same steps, time after time, never varying beyond hard-coded limits.  In my view, a robot learns or adapts to its environment.  A robot's behavior may not be entirely deterministic.  There probably isn't a hard-coded state machine at its core.

That is not the definition of a robot.

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.

See wiki, robot

[Mr. Scram]

This "Newtonian" position is quite dangerous, through central in transhumanism. In physics we have seen that reality has many layers and quite a few not yet open to our understanding. Much the same in biology. Making decisions based on our current mechanistic view will lead to giving to robots citizenship and rights. Already playing with it:
http://fortune.com/2017/10/26/robot-citizen-sophia-saudi-arabia/
Govt will love it - easy to tax work they do. Owners also - property is better protected and maybe has even right to defend itself. Consumers cannot really object because think that themselves are essentially pooping type of robot. There are many ways for owners to exploit situation.

It's not so much a view, but our current understanding of the universe. Maybe quantum physics can shake things up, but so far it seems to be coherent with out findings.

I'm not worrying about the implications it will have on politics. Science and physics aren't based on what's desirable.

[Mr. Scram]

I have been thinking about how I view the difference between a machine (complex or not) and a 'robot' and I guess it gets down to the ability to learn or improve.

A machine repeats the same steps, time after time, never varying beyond hard-coded limits.  In my view, a robot learns or adapts to its environment.  A robot's behavior may not be entirely deterministic.  There probably isn't a hard-coded state machine at its core.

There has to be a difference, in my view, between a machine and a robot.  Most of the stuff called robots are really just machines.  There may be a lot of sensors, certain behaviors pre-programmed, whatever.   It's still just a machine.  My drill press is a machine.  So is my CNC mill.  Clearly there are orders of magnitude differences in complexity and capability but they're still just machines.

I don't know that I have ever seen a robot, using my definition.

Fair enough, though that's a rather different definition than most people have and dictionaries indicate.

[Cyberdragon]

In my definition they don't even need electricity.

[Mjolinor]

I have been thinking about how I view the difference between a machine (complex or not) and a 'robot' and I guess it gets down to the ability to learn or improve.

A machine repeats the same steps, time after time, never varying beyond hard-coded limits.  In my view, a robot learns or adapts to its environment.  A robot's behavior may not be entirely deterministic.  There probably isn't a hard-coded state machine at its core.

There has to be a difference, in my view, between a machine and a robot.  Most of the stuff called robots are really just machines.  There may be a lot of sensors, certain behaviors pre-programmed, whatever.   It's still just a machine.  My drill press is a machine.  So is my CNC mill.  Clearly there are orders of magnitude differences in complexity and capability but they're still just machines.

I don't know that I have ever seen a robot, using my definition.

By your definition your car is then a robot and not a machine.as it has the ability to change the pre-programmed behaviour to suit your driving style.

[cdev]

For decades software has been available to catch exceptions in processes and learn from them. That is one major difference between machine learning and simple scripting. The goal of people developing automation is often something like automate the most common 90% of user interactions and leave the most difficult 10% for people, maybe catch them on the next iteration.

[bd139]

This just popped into my head for some reason.

https://youtu.be/oCW2-HaNQlg