techno fascismo @techno-fascismo - Tumblr Blog

prototype fully autonomous fruitpicker robot

As the name implies, Mercedes doesn't see its hardware entering production for roughly a decade. However, that's definitely a realistic goal; some of the underlying technology is already in the 2014 S-Class sedan. Future Truck isn't as ambitious as something like Google's fully automated car, but it could make life much easier for transportation pros who'd rather not spend most of their day gripping a steering wheel.

#driverless cars #automation

There will be a small, almost separate, society of people in rapport with the advanced computers. These cyberneticians will have established a relationship with their machines that cannot be shared with the average man any more than the average man today can understand the problems of molecular biology, nuclear physics, or neuropsychiatry. Indeed, many scholars will not have the capacity to share their knowledge or feeling about this new man-machine relationship. Those with the talent for the work probably will have to develop it from childhood and will be trained as intensively as the classical ballerina.

#automation #robots #basic income

new-aesthetic

A Hong Kong VC fund has just appointed an algorithm to its board. Deep Knowledge Ventures, a firm that focuses on age-related disease drugs and regenerative medicine projects, says the program, called VITAL, can make investment recommendations about life sciences firms by poring over large amounts of data. Just like other members of the board, the algorithm gets to vote on whether the firm makes an investment in a specific company or not. The program will be the sixth member of DKV’s board.

VITAL Named To Board - Business Insider (via new-aesthetic)

Corporations can be thought of as information-processing feedback loops. They propose products, introduce them into the marketplace, learn from the performance of the products, and adjust. They do this while trying to maximize some value function, typically profit.

So why can’t they be completely automated? I mean that literally. Could we have software that carries out all those functions?

#automation

scottsantens

1776

Thomas Jefferson

In 1776, while serving as a delegate to the Virginia legislature, Thomas Jefferson proposed giving 50 acres of public land to any propertyless individual willing to farm it. That was the first homestead program, subsequently copied by other states, and probably the first...

“We are beginning to witness a paradox at the heart of capitalism … enables an emerging collaborative commons to flourish alongside the capitalist market,” argues Jeremy Rifkin in the New York Times. And: “What should happen if and when the continuous production of surpluses stops being desirable or even necessary? The point, if you will, when capital becomes excessive to humanity’s needs?” asks, of all publications, theFinancial Times.

#basic income #technology

Tracking the march of the robot economy

#robots #automation #economics

But if it’s been so financially sensible for Apple (and other firms) to make their products in China and ship them thousands of miles back to the US—then, Foxconn’s new plan signals something powerful is changing the cost equation.

What is that something? Robots, of course. Increasingly affordable robot labor is taking the cost advantage (and PR risk) of operating in less regulated countries and throwing it out the window.

You can work robots as hard as you want—and wake them in the middle of the night without tea and biscuits—and you can do it anywhere in the world.

The cost of human labor varies with local laws and regulations, but robot labor is apolitical and therefore more consistently and predictably priced. Because of that fact, it makes more sense to locate your factories in your biggest markets whenever possible.

Now, to be clear, robots have long been a part of manufacturing. What’s changed, and continues to change at a rapid pace, is the cost and competency of those robots.

Thanks to computer vision and machine learning algorithms, robots, once consigned to carefully controlled tasks, can now function more like human workers. And due to cheap sensors and chips, they’re more powerful per dollar. Not all manufacturing has been automated, but it’s headed in that direction.

#robots #automation #foxconn

American Airlines has tested self-tagging of bags in Boston, Austin, and Orlando http://boardingarea.com/aadvantagegeek/2012/11/14/american-airlines-orlando-mco-self-tagging-tag-bag-luggage-system-check-i/

Qantas has permanent bag tags that work with RFID readers at the airport, you check in online and drop your bag at the bag drop and leave. This works for their Australian domestic flights. (I do have a “Q Bag Tag”) http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/q-bag-tag/global/en

British Airways is trialing an end to paper tags, they began with Microsoft employees in Seattle this past fall http://boardingarea.com/viewfromthewing/2013/11/07/british-airways-new-electronic-baggage-tags/

Brussels Airlines on intra-European flights departing Brussels http://brusselsairlines.prezly.com/brussels-airport-and-brussels-airlines-test-automated-self-baggage-drop-off-

BWI is working on their baggage systems to accommodate self-checking of bags http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/general_assembly/bwi-moving-forward-with-new-hotel-self-bag-check-in/

#automation #robots #airlines

In 1955, Walter Reuther, head of the US car workers’ union, told of a visit to a new automatically operated Ford plant. Pointing to all the robots, his host asked: “How are you going to collect union dues from those guys?” Mr Reuther replied: “And how are you going to get them to buy Fords?”

#basic income #automation #robots

And they play ping pong....

#robots

U.S. Army convoys will soon be able to roll into even the roughest of unfriendly foreign urban areas and combat zones without the worry of loss of life, thanks to new technology that will make large vehicles fully autonomous.

"Specifically, the Committee proposes providing a basic income of around $4,700 per adult and around $2,900 per child. So, for a family of four, it would be around $15,200 per year (all figures adjusted for inflation). This basic income program would be coupled with a 50% marginal tax rate for a family's market income up to double the basic income amount, after which point the tax rate would fall down. So, in essence, each family would receive the $15,200 income floor, and then they would make 50 cents on the dollar for their market incomes until the basic income amount was "paid back." Those who did not make double the income floor or more (i.e. the poor) would wind up as net beneficiaries, and no family would make less than $15,200 per year."

This was proposed in 1969. It seems unimaginable today.

#basic income #1969

For the first time, a robotic system has made a novel scientific discovery with virtually no human intellectual input. Scientists designed “Adam” to carry out the entire scientific process on its own: formulating hypotheses, designing and running experiments, analyzing data, ...

#robots #science

A few links on post-work, UBI, etc.

#Frase #basic income #post-work

A GBI [Guaranteed Basic Income] helps people by giving them money, obviously. It also serves as a kind of de facto minimum wage, since if people can earn money doing nothing, in practice you're going to need to offer them higher pay to get them to work. But it's much more flexible than a minimum wage. In a GBI world, an employer has to make work somehow appealing enough to get employees even though everyone's guaranteed a basic minimum whether they work or not. But that "appealing" factor could be high wages, could be valuable skills and training, could just be a pleasant work atmosphere, or could be some combination of the three. Current minimum wage policies sort of try to achieve these goals by having exemptions for educationally rewarding internships or vocational programs. But these exemptions manage to be simultaneously too prone to abuse and too inflexible to capture the full range of possible scenarios that arise in human life.

"When I'm dictator, people will get paid to do this."

#yglesias

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

techno fascismo