[ExI] self driving truck

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of John Clark



 

​>…It's not just those with low IQs whose jobs will be eliminated by AI, this will effect everyone, and if the computer revolution has taught us anything it's that our intuition about what tasks are easy and what tasks are difficult is completely wrong…

 

 

Ja.  I have lived to witness the science of aerodynamics become completely encoded; so much theory became obsolete.  Humans do not need to master the intricacies of the science.  Correct aerodynamic calculations can be done by people who know not what a shock wave is or why a shock wave can reflect off of an oblique wave.  A person with a solid high school education can set up the model and run it.

 

I was drawn to controls engineering because it has such cool theory, takes years to master even a subset of it, and oh the mathematical simultaneous ugliness and beauty of that field is astonishing.  But classical control practice is becoming extinct, no longer needed, because we have Matlab and Simulink.  A good code jockey can set up a good feedback model and run a jillion cases overnight, figure out the proper gradients, find a control system that is close to optimal, done.  They need not know how a root locus plot works or why, a Nichols chart isn’t worth five cents to them.  Nyquist schmyquist, it’s all in the past.

 

 

>… It turns out that it takes much more brainpower to tell the difference between a picture of a dog and a picture of a cat than it does to play a good game of chess…

 

Ja.  So much engineering is analogous to chess.

 

>… Hedge fund managers will be replaced before car repair mechanics…

 

Hmmm, car repair has changed a lot too.  Now they plug in a diagnostic computer, the software tells the mechanic exactly which subsystem needs replacing, done.  Experiment, go to the local repair shop at the end of the workday and notice the mechanic: she is mostly clean.  If you meant repair after a fender-bender, sure.  Replacing wheel bearings and all that: have you noticed how durable bearings have become?  That used to be a troublesome job we shade-tree mechanics needed to do every few years.  No more: bearings are sealed now, and I don’t know what the heck they did in materials science to make them so durable they never seem to wear out.  Steel is amazing stuff, when you put in a little of this and a little of that.   

 

 

>…and vice-presidents of Fortune 500 corporations will be replaced before watchsmiths…

 

Indeed?  Define this term “watchsmith” please?

 

 

>… One of the last professions to be replaced will probably be care of the elderly, a job few would want even if the pay were better…

 

We can do that better with automation too, not changing diapers but being software companions.  This is still heavy on my mind, and my progress to date has been dismal.

 

 

​>…Yes and it's only a matter of ​

​time before ​everybody is unemployable. Pure libertarian dogma has no answer to this problem, at least none I've seen, that's why I dared to utter the dreaded words "nanny state". If somebody has a better idea I'm all ears…John K Clark

 

My best guess would be to replace nanny-state with nanny-county and nanny-city.  Emphasize working with the unemployed, distribute power widely to reduce temptation for corruption.  The higher the central charity or redistribution goes, the more it becomes a cherry-red target for the corrupt.

 

spike

 

 

 

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