The Human Resistance Report

In a report recently aired on CNBC with Maria Bartiromo, the issue of  a workforce  in the future was the topic. Their discussion was basically asking  “how are people are going to find employment in the future when so many jobs are becoming automated?”

There was  a lot of interesting concepts, but they concluded essentially that those with education in mathematics and engineering are the most likely to succeed in such a future.  This got me to thinking about what jobs exist right now that can be automated or replaced by machines.  My last article discussed the possibility of   replacing police with artifical intelligence, facial recognitions, cameras, UAV s and modifying social behaviors with ultra invasive tracking networks.  Sounds  a little paranoid come to think of it,  but now I am asking the question  – how many other jobs can replaced? As it turns out , after some research – there are quite a few . I will start with the most visible jobs and build up from there.

Cashiers

So far, many stores have already started experimenting with automated cashiers. You’ve  seen it at Walmart  and Home Depot,  now picture them everywhere you shop.  Bank tellers have long been replaced by ATMs for years and now many newer start-up banks do not even bother to have physical locations!  With the popularity of do-it-yourself- check out systems , you could end up seeing all major food chains offering the same service – as a matter of fact, it is already quite popular in China other countries with dense populations.  Although it would be pretty easy to have customers  punch in their order on  a touch screen -  more than likely , you will build an order on your  iPhone  and it will already have your favorite meal cued up – then just beam it to the automated cashier  while a cook in the back complete the orders.

Eventually we could see all stores using automated tellers and cashiers. It will save the company  money and reduce employee mistakes/theft,  and lower insurance  and wage taxes.  As a result, our already declining level of customer service will reduce even further as we are forced to serve ourselves  – think it won’t happen? when was the last time a service attendant came out and pumped your gas for you?

Taxi / Limo / Bus drivers

The taxi of the future already on display

At some point, vehicles will be self driven using built in GPS and collision detection,  so there’s no reason why the majority of cars won’t be driving themselves and you around someday.  So why would you pay a driver to steer your taxi around town when it can just as easily do it on it’s own.  Safety they will tell you -   After all ,  your car will be able to communicate and  have a dialog with  on-board systems from other vehicles and will be able to monitor speed and braking with precision – a slight upgrade from today’s typical communication protocols witch include honking, flips-offs, and the word “joikof”.

Pilots

UAVs continue getting larger and more sophisticated

OK , lets apply the same concept to airplanes. After all , they can already fly by themselves  good enough to go to another country , snap photos, do flybys, oh … drop bombs on stuff. Lets face it , these things know their way around the sky and with all of the recent press about airline pilots and drinking incidents, its just a matter of time before people starting putting two and two together to realize that they might be better off in a precision piloted aircraft.

Nurses

As it is , many of the devices hospitals are using are already self monitoring and automated.  Still however, we need somebody to attach that stuff to us. It’s nice  getting served our food and medicine while incapacitated, but many hospitals have realized that many of these tasks can be accomplished by a roving robotic nurse. Using automated bots for simple things like delivering medication to a patients room or serving  food can free up nurses to tend to more immediate emergencies – like resetting the robotic surgeon in the other room.

Surgeons

Remote surgery is already common

There have already been several examples of  doctors operating remotely using robotic arms to perform surgeries considered to require extreme fine precision. As object recognition evolves into real world applications, it will become possible for robots with cameras to recognize and map out human organs and blood vessels, allowing them to perform complex procedures using real time data. It’s likely that we can see some of these remote surgeries performed entirely by machines with assistants on standby.  The only problem is, they wont make for very interesting soap operas.

Teachers

Can Smarter Classroom Lead to Smarter Students?

Speculation has always been at the forefront of human story telling. Ever since we thought we figured out how mankind crawled out of the sludge and starting hunting for mammoths, we’ve been trying to retell the story. And if that doesn’t satisfy your yearning for enlightenment, we have  movies going even beyond our meager beginnings and foretelling the direction that evolution will continue in the future.  So here it is, the story of mankind from start to finish through the following five movies.

1. Walking with Cavemen (2003)

Walking with CaveMan

Here we see man at his earliest stage of life, discovering fire, learning how to use tools, inventing language, and perfecting hunting practices. It sets the pace as a good starting point for man. Here man’s challenges are documented as pre-evolutionary species of ancestors are cast aside until homosapiens emerge, conquering the world as the dominant species.  It is speculated in the film that our most prominent competitor was the Cro-Magnums and that they they were physically superior to Homo Sapiens.  The battle for supremacy however was won with brains, not brawn and eventually the Cro-Mangnums died off leaving behind a species that continues to use intelligence to tame the world around us.

 2. Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane was really about William Randolf Hearst

Thousands of years have passed and man has made much progress on the planet, but very little in the way of evolving physically. We seem to have evolved as much as we needed to adapt to life on this planet. So we  evolved the way we do things. Citizen Kane is great because it give a birds-eye view of what the modern world has become and takes place in a time when mankind is embracing media , and communications are becoming global, shrinking the world as we formerly knew it. Even more compelling is that  we see for the first time, the power of the media and the especially explosive power of media and money. The ability to manipulate world events with cameras sets the pace for a new society.  This important step in evolution is a prerequisite to the architecture that will allow those with enough money to rewrite history and influence the future of society.

3. Enemy of the state(1998)

Enemy of the State .. so real its scary!

In a world where surveillance cameras, information sharing, and satellite communications is normal and insignificant,  humans have become desensitized to big brother’s watchful eye. Given in to the idea that our safety requires no less, we are blind and blissful of how much of our world is being scrutinized under the watchful eye of the world’s computer data banks.  So volumes of personal data are gathered, and used in a variety of ways to extend the influence of those who access to the information.  Enemy of the State depicts a world that is exactly as it is today from a technological standpoint ( or at least it was in 1998). This is what makes this movie so scary and brilliant at the same time. The way that personal data, satellites, cameras and computers are used to profile, demonize, and politically assassinate anyone in its target is downright bone chilling. It highlights how easily a person can be tracked electronically,  shut out of financial assets,  lose credibility by use of  “out of context “video feeds, and basically leave you as a shut out , on the run from society in general . With the media spoon feeding us everything we want to believe and computers infallibly keeping track of everything we do, people are being reduced to pieces of information that can depicted anyway the media sees fit. With all of the world’s databases coming together and sharing data, all it takes is a few keystrokes to turn John Q. Public in to Jailbird Jimin the eyes of the public.

4. Minority Report

Think NATAL will be this cool?

The evolution of man continues as nuero drug experiements lead the ability to forsee  future events and an impresssive array of technology with which to prevent these future crimes from happening.  In this world , life is more cerebral, and experiences happen more in the mind than anything else. From drug use, to jail time, to sex orgies and fantasies – all of it happens in the minds of citizens under tightly controlled circumstances in a world were transparency is the norm.  This could be the first steps to a world where we have no use for our outer extremities, as we learn to experience more of life inside our own heads. Perhaps someday we will just give our minds over to the machines and let them take care of us…..which brings us to our last movie.

5. The Matrix

Daycare in the Matrix

Finally we have evolved to a higher level of existence. The machines, in performing their ultimate goal are taking care of our every need. The machines keep us alive and monitor our health, feed us with nutrients, dispose of any waste and even provide our mind a life program to keep us occupied. What more could one ask for from our future overlords? The matrix ask us to question whether or not we even exist or if we are simply living  out a program feed to our brains. Some philosophers ask “is this such a bad thing?”  I say yes, because if this is nothing but a program than I want to be able to change the channel when I want! In any case, this movie a prime example of how man supposes we could evolve  someday. In classic mankind style, we will fight it to the death before finally accepting it.