Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
And if it's surface mount, it's not clear a human even *can* solder it
in place, without a huge amount of effort. Easy for the robots, though.
Yup. Like Lasik eye surgery, only a robot can do it.
When computers & robots were first invented they were seen as
one-for-one replacements for people, but it soon became apparent that
they can do things people could never do. I predict we will see a
dramatic increase in things that only computers can do, in the near
future. It is commonly noted in manufacturing today, and obviously in
communications -- with the Internet. It is starting to have a large
impact on things like surgery, and agriculture, where they use robot
and GPS guides with tractors to allocate fertilizer more carefully.
The Roomba robot carpet sweepers are borderline practical today, but
better ones will follow. I expect there will be robot assistance in
cooking. The Japanese are pushing ahead with robot aided driving, as
a way of reducing automobile accidents.
Robots and computers will eventually be ubiquitous and this will
eliminate the need for human labor just about everywhere in the
economy. There will be no point to off-shoring manufacturing when
production lines are just about fully automated anyway, except for
setup and troubleshooting. I am sure that computers will eventually
do many "thinking" jobs that we assume call for human intelligence
and creativity, such as composing music. See:
http://www.slate.com/id/2254232
"I'll Be Bach
A computer program is writing great, original works of classical
music. Will human composers soon be obsolete? . . ."
Answer: Yes, they will. Humans everywhere will be obsolete. Work will
be obsolete. We are going to re-think how we live, and how economics
work, because right now, both capitalism and communism are predicated
on the idea that most people must work and exchange their labor for
wealth. When human labor is worth nothing, those systems will collapse.
- Jed
