Tagged: Artificial intelligence

Robotics revolution to replace most human workers in three generations; labor class to be systematically eliminated

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

Sunday, September 29, 2013
robot
(NaturalNews) As much as seventy percent of the human race will become obsolete  within just three generations. Why? Because robotics technology is advancing at  such a rapid pace that highly-capable humanoid robots with advanced vision  recognition and motor coordination systems are going to take over most menial  labor jobs.
Supporting this conclusion, a new  study just released by Oxford scientists concludes that 47% of all jobs are  “at risk” of being replaced by automation systems and robots in just one  generation (roughly 20 years). But this is just the opening chapter of the  robotics revolution that will rapidly make human labor all but  obsolete.
In my estimation, over the next three generations (about 75  years), we will see humanoid robots take over nearly all traditional labor roles  in society, including manufacturing, agriculture, construction, firefighting,  food service and even community policing. Most of the physical work done today  by humans will be turned over to humanoid-shaped robots built much the same way  we are: two arms, two legs, two eyes and roughly the size and shape of a 5′ 9″  man.
This, in turn, will make virtually all human laborers obsolete.  There will be no more need for people to pick crops, paint houses, clean  windows, drive ambulances or even fight wars. Humanoid robots will take over  every repetitious, dangerous, disgusting or boring task that humans currently  tackle, from cleaning toilets and sweeping floors to driving taxis.
A  fascinating new book is coming out on this very topic in just a few days. It’s  called Our Final  Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era by James  Barrat. I’ve pre-ordered the book to make sure I get a copy when it’s released  on October 1. Obviously, I haven’t read the book yet, but it sounds like it  covers what I’m talking about right here: the end of an entire class of human  beings as robots rise up and displace them.

Why a future full of robots may not be as rosy as you think

To the  typical naive citizen, all this talk about robots taking over menial labor jobs  sounds futuristic and exciting. “We can all sit back and relax!” they’ll say.  “The robots will do all the  work for us!”
Except for just one thing: the only real reason laborer  populations are tolerated by the rich and powerful who really control the world  is because laborers are needed to run the economy. Someone needs to pick the  crops, sweep the floors and do the dry cleaning, in other words. Once capable  humanoid robots transition into all the jobs currently carried out by  flesh-and-blood humans, there will be no further need for a large segment of  the human population.
This, combined with the terrible cost the world  population is accruing in terms of environmental destruction and use of  dwindling resources, already has world leaders like Bill  Gates talking about population control… also called “depopulation”  solutions. Global depopulation technologies have been under development for  decades, running the gamut from mild to aggressive. Here are the three main  types of depopulation technologies that exist right now:

Depopulation technologies, from mild to aggressive

#1) Family planning –  birth control, abortions and one-child policies that reduce population over time  by limiting childbirth. This is seen by globalists as the most “humane” way to  reduce global population because it does not require the actual killing of adult  humans.
#2) Covert infertility technologies – these includes GMOs and  mercury in vaccines, both of which either cause spontaneous abortions or result  in widespread infertility. Plastics chemicals also fall into this category. The  key with these systems is that they are deployed covertly, population-wide,  through either the medical system or the food system. The global elite who are  aware of these depopulation vectors  intentionally avoid non-GMO foods, mercury-laced vaccines and non-organic food  for this very reason.
#3) Direct kill weapons – the primary weapon in  this category is bioweapons. The U.S. Army, in particular, has already  developed level IV bioweapons capable of killing 98% of those it infects. Other  direct-kill weapons include nuclear power plant sabotage, nuclear war (missiles  striking high population areas) and an intentional collapse of the global food  supply, resulting in mass starvation.
Globalist power players are  currently pushing strategy #1 very aggressively through family planning and  abortions. Strategy #2 is also well under way with mass vaccination and GMO  consumption. Strategy #3 is being held in reserve, ready to be unleashed when  the time comes to eliminate the masses and transition the global economy to a  combination of humanoid robots (the majority) run by a small minority of human  elitists.
That’s the final equation in all this: Laborers will be  replaced by robots and phased out of the human gene pool one way or another.  What the globalists want remaining is a highly-automated society with a  relatively small number of humans remaining who are high-IQ individuals capable  of focusing on technological advancement for the survival of the human race in a  cosmos full of competing civilizations. One of the primary focus areas of this  effort will be space-based weapons to defend humanity against non-terrestrial  threats. Those potential threats include widely-acknowledged things such as  asteroids as well as “top secret” things such as advanced non-terrestrial  civilizations mounting an attack against Earth.
In the cosmic scale of  things, by the way, it’s actually a very important strategy to shore up  strategic defenses of our home world, especially as we currently have no backup  plan and no colonies on other worlds. If Earth is destroyed, humanity dies with  it.

Who will be allowed to live? Those who can create

Here’s how the  globalists think: In order to shape the future in a way that conserves resources  while maximizing the technological progress of human civilization, all so-called  “useless eaters” must be eliminated, as they waste far too much food, energy and  land. The precious resources of planet Earth must be conserved for those few who  have the intelligence to know what to do with it.
Over the next century,  it will become obvious that only innovative, high-IQ individuals who can  out-think the robots have any real value to society. People who can program  the robots — or help design new ones — are extremely valuable and will be  allowed to live. People who can invent new technologies, create inspiring art,  or write original fiction will also be valued precisely because they can do the  things robots can’t.
Specialty experts like surgeons will see their roles  radically shifted. They will become strategic decision makers while their  companion robots become the mechanics who actually carry out the procedures with  extreme precision. Soldiers, too, will become in-the-field strategic decision  makers managing squads of robotic grunts. This means the number of soldiers  needed to run a war is drastically reduced, and human soldier casualties will be  drastically reduced as well. (Which creates a dangerous incentive for  imperialist nations to start more wars, thinking, “Oh, it’s only robots that are  dying, not people.”)
The roles of truck drivers, police officers, bank  tellers, fast food workers, food preparers, lawn care workers and many others  will be radically shifted as robots take over. Importantly, as each robot is purchased to do a job, it replaces a human worker who will then become  jobless.

How robots will multiply the great socioeconomic divide

Robots will  sharply divide the economic classes. Those who are replaced by robots will  become jobless and homeless. Those whose lives are enriched by the benefit of  the robots will become abundantly wealthy in the material quality of their  lives. (Although, notably, robots will not make their spiritual lives any more  meaningful, so don’t expect the robot revolution to equate to increased  happiness.)
In time, the number of people displaced by robots will become  so large and so enraged that mass riots can be expected to unfold across the  cities of first-world nations where robots enjoy widespread deployment. These  riots will reinforce the idea to the globalists that all these “useless eaters”  need to be eliminated. After all, they no longer have anything to offer society  that isn’t already accomplished more efficiently by robots.
Expect to see  accelerated efforts to find covert ways to eliminate these people through food  and medicine vectors, including “free vaccines for the poor” campaigns that  intentionally inject displaced workers with vaccines which cause medium-term  death or widespread spontaneous abortions combined with infertility. For an  historical reference to support this, note that the polio  vaccines given to nearly 100 million Americans were later found to be  contaminated with hidden cancer viruses. For decades, the CDC openly  acknowledged this, but in a recent revisionist history scheme, the  CDC scrubbed any mention of polio vaccine contamination from its website,  hoping to erase this scientific truth from society’s memory.

How to make sure the future needs you

If you’re a cashier, a garbage  collector, a drywall installer or any sort of ditch digger, the sobering truth  of the matter is that the future doesn’t need you. And the system will find a  way to eliminate you a few short years after your job is eliminated. After all,  the world’s powerful decision makers can’t have hundreds of millions of useless  eaters rioting in the streets interfering with progress, right? (That’s the way  they think about it, anyway…)
So the only real way to ensure the  future needs you is to invest in your education and boost your mental  skills. Learn how to do something robots will not be able to do over the next 75  years: innovate, create and communicate. Make your dreams a reality through  disciplined self-investment, entrepreneurship and action.
The more  advanced your skills and mental capabilities, the more of a buffer you’ll put  between yourself and all those who will be “soft killed” as the robots take over  the labor jobs in society.  Robots, for example, will never be public relations consultants, fashion  designers or fiction writers. They won’t be journalists, screenwriters or  psychologists. Robots do not have minds, spirits or souls, so they can never tap  into the infinite creative potential of the human mind.
Anything you can  accomplish that is creative will never be fully replicated by robots because  creativity simply cannot be programmed. It can be simulated in some ways, but a  robotic, computer-driven brain can never match the creative capacity of the  non-material mind. Thus, conscious human beings with souls and minds will always  have an edge over mechanical robots as long as they develop their unique  spiritual gifts.
Here are some of the roles robots WILL play in society,  however, as humanoid robots become increasingly affordable:

The humanoid robot rollout: a rough timeline

• The first humanoid robots  we’ll see will be soldiers. They will cost as much as $20 million each, and they  will carry special sensors (infra-red vision) and equipment (emergency first  aid) to track enemy combatants and help existing soldiers be more “effective” on  the battlefield. Over time, this will transition to robotic soldiers becoming  highly-efficient killing machines. Terminators, in other words, will soon carry  rifles, kick in doors and toss grenades at “enemy combatants.”
• As the  cost of humanoid robots comes down, they will be deployed in municipal roles.  Cities will be able to invest in robots as police officers once they approach  the $2 million price range. Expect to see these appear and function much like  the policing robots depicted in the sci-fi movie “Elysium” starring Matt Damon.  View the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIBtePb-dGY
As all  this happens, the mass production of humanoid robots for military and police  applications will bring down costs and improve reliability. This will translate  into more affordable models which will then be easily deployed in a wider range  of commercial applications:
• At the $1 million price range, humanoid  robots will be embraced by the private sector for factory jobs: product  assembly, welding, warehouse logistics and so on. While $1 million may seem  high, compared to a human worker who shows up drunk, injures himself on the job,  then files a lawsuit against the company, a million bucks is actually a cheap  investment for a worker that never whines, moans, steals or sexually assaults  fellow workers.
• Once humanoid robots reach roughly $500,000 in cost,  they will be widely adopted by agriculture. A reliable ag-robot can replace  several low-cost laborers, all while performing the job with better quality  control, fewer e.coli infections and no labor laws to worry about. Robots  don’t get sick from pesticide exposure, either, allowing the agricultural  industry to unleash extremely toxic chemicals with zero risk of lawsuits from  the workers. This chemically-contaminated food will be fed to the unemployed  masses, of course, in an effort to kill them off for reasons mentioned above.  (Upper-class citizens will insist on eating organic, non-poisoned  foods.)
• When robots reach roughly the cost of a new home ($300,000 on  average), they will become widely embraced by families and individuals. These  general-purpose robots will be sold as a hardware platform for an “entry-level”  lease price, and buyers will pay a monthly fee much like paying on a home or  vehicle.
The “base price” robot will be extremely limited in function,  most likely performing only very simple jobs such as sweeping floors, serving  drinks or providing basic watchful security. Owners who want their robots to  perform more complex functions will need to purchase additional functional  upgrades. Need your robot to do the dishes? That’s a $200 / month software  upgrade. Want it to wash your car? That’s another monthly fee. Whatever you want  the robot to do for you — take out the trash, mow the yard, feed the cat, guard  the house at night — will require paying another monthly fee. (BTW, this is a  hugely lucrative business to get into once the technology becomes available. The  first trillion-dollar company will no doubt be involved in  robotics.)
What consumers won’t be told, by the way, is that all home  robots will be spying on homeowners for the NSA, providing direct visual  feeds that are archived in the government’s secret archives. Robots will also  overhear all conversations and they will be programmed to “red flag” anyone who  talks about freedom, or liberty, or other “illicit” activities which may even  include buying and selling heirloom seeds.
In summary, robots will, over  time, transition from extremely expensive, high-end government soldiers to  affordable, mass-produced consumer household helpers that also function as spy  portals for the government to keep tabs on the population. Robots will also play  a huge role in hospitals and health care during all this. One of the driving  forces behind robotics R&D in Japan, it turns out, is the need for home care  robots to aid Japan’s aging population.

The key technologies still needed for humanoid robots to become  feasible

Right now, robots do not exist that can perform all these  functions. Today’s humanoid robots are lucky to be able to walk up a flight of  stairs without falling over. Portable power is also extremely limiting right now  and may be the primary challenge for the commercialization of humanoid  robots.
Here are some of the challenges that need to be overcome for  robots to become commercially viable:
• On-board power: current batteries  are lousy sources of power. This is why most robots you see in online videos are  tethered to an external power source.
• Vision recognition and on-board  computing. Currently vision recognition algorithms are slow and exhibit poor  accuracy. The seemingly simple act of recognizing objects in a given space  remains highly elusive to robotics software developers.
• Motor  coordination, actuation and strength. This is one of the big ones we humans take  for granted. How, exactly, do you design and build a robot that can pick up your  pet dog without breaking its neck accidentally? It’s a tremendously complicated  endeavor, and today’s robots are nowhere near the level of sophistication needed  in this area.
• Behavioral limits and robot safety. How do you teach a  robot not to accidentally harm a living creature such as the family dog or a  human baby? This will be required before robots can be sold into homes, yet this  is also a highly complex area of R&D that actually requires the engineering  of a deep “moral code” of robotics. The programming of moral codes is  extraordinarily difficult because it requires the development of an entire  curriculum of life that must be taught to the robot brain. For example, robots  will need to be programmed with some sort of “compassion mirroring” circuit that  help the robot “feel” what others are feeling around it, so that if it  accidentally steps on someone’s toe and hears that person say, “Ouch!” the robot  actually feels a sort of mirror-image “pain” in its own brain, and thereby  learns not to harm other humans.
Most human beings already have this  capacity, by the way. Those who do not have this so-called “empathy circuit” are  called sociopaths. They tend to become high-level politicians and corporate  CEOs because both positions are much easier to achieve if you have absolutely no  compassion for fellow human beings.
One other aspect of all this is that  robots will need to be taught rules for self-preservation. This also implies  that robots will need to be taught the highly complex realm of “cause and  reaction.” This furthermore implies that robots must be taught the laws of  physics so that it can, for example, anticipate how a falling object might harm  its own body or the body of its owner. While such things appear simple to a  human mind, they are wildly challenging problems for software developers dealing  with physical robotic hardware operating in a three-dimensional  space.
Even the simple act of picking a strawberry requires astonishing  coordination between vision, brain interpretation, muscle coordination, timing  and so on. How do you program a robot to avoid crushing the strawberry while  gripping it firmly enough to pull it free from its stem? How do you program a  bipedal robot to walk through strawberry fields without crushing plants and  smashing the fruit? These are extremely complex problems, and it will take  decades to solve them.

The bottom line

The upshot of all this is that even though robotics is  still a long way from achieving the level of sophistication required to see  humanoid robots deployed in military, commercial and household applications, the  day is coming that robots will replace most human laborers.
When that day  comes, unskilled laborers will have no (commercial) value to society. Robotics  will expand the divide between the ultra-wealthy and the homeless, jobless  masses. The global elite will deploy means of depopulation or population control  to eliminate the “useless eaters” and drastically reduce human population on the  planet.
The only humans “allowed” to remain alive will be those who  possess valuable intelligence, skills or creativity that robots cannot  replicate. People with creative skills will always be valued, even in a highly  automated society.
The best way to protect your future and avoid becoming  obsolete is to invest in developing your own creative skills so that you are  always able to offer something to society which robots cannot. This will ensure  your continued value.
If you have children, guiding them toward the  development of creative skills is the best way to ensure their long-term  survival in a society that’s transitioning into robotics  automation.