Dawn of the age of robots

GL2 said:

tom said:

And as for "free market education," one question: who are the customers?

Disillusioned kids on government loans who show up at school to find it's out of business and they owe 50K...in other words, the logical ending to for-profit schools.  And at K-12 levels, governments and their schools "in business" with testing companies who sell books, training, tests, coaches, etc. Capitalism at work. Sucking the taxpayers' collective teat and calling it business.

 How does this capitalist system work with the government loans?

The market will fill lower cost high quality needs. Nice to run across an example on this very board When it doesn't, you can bet there is government intervention like guaranteed loans for secondary education.

tom said:

The New York Times did a survey a few years ago and found the average cost of private school tuition, nationwide, was $18,000 a year. Is there any conservative plan floating out there that would provide that level of financial assistance? It would need to be re-evaluated annually because increased demand would lead to higher prices.

I think you are the first person to call Whole Foods "lower cost.'

I note a substantial thread drift away from robots and robotics and employment. Anyway, in the vain attempt to bring some discussion back to robotics and kindred subjects and what we can do here, in MSO, to prepare the next generation for the world they will live in, I submit the following.

First, there is no turning back on the impact and influence of technology in the society we live in, for better or worse. The trends are so entrenched now that it may be impossible, short of an apocalypse, to reverse them. Look around:

* smartphones/iphones,

* the Internet,

* robots in commercial and industrial settings

* autonomous vehicles (cars, trucks, planes, buses, taxis),

* biomedical engineering (see the iGEM site cited earlier),

* personal robots (see what the Japanese are doing with robots that look human, including -- yes -- sex robots) like Jibo (www.jibo.com for the video; MrsT bought one for our home to be delivered in December) and many, many more to follow that will change daily life for seniors, invalids, kids home with serious illnesses (and that is just at the start; wait 20 years and see what these will be like),

* replacement by Watson-like computers of a number of more skilled positions like: imaging technicians and interpreters (eg CAT, PET, X-Ray, etc), emergency room check-in (symptoms reporting, referrals), entry level law clerks reviewing civil litigation documents revealed under discovery and many other tasks that now require training well beyond high school (see IBM's program and the book written a couple of years ago by IBM-ers who take care of the Watson computer line: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Machines-Cognitive-Computing-Publishing/dp/023116856X )

* more futuristic is how some companies are imaging the future home -- for one far out look, watch this video from Corning (maker of fiber optics among other products): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0 This is just one video of several from Corning. Whether you and I want to live in that world, that remains to be seen, but make no mistake if Corning and others can make these products a reality then these products will start to be used and over time they will become part and parcel of daily life, first for the tech people and relatively wealthy people and then the rest of the masses not unlike the evolution of cell phone technology penetration to the point where most people have some kind of device.

* military apps -- drones with hellfire missiles are only a small part of how the military is adapting technology. Active discussion within the military includes when -- if ever - we have autonomous robotic soldiers and drones that can take lethal action (see The Atlantic Magazine's Defense One web site --excellent source for what is happening inside the military -- http://www.defenseone.com/technology/?oref=d-nav -- http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/the-military-wants-to-teach-robots-right-from-wrong/370855/   And there are many articles on robotics use in the military and the military's long-range plans for robotics.

Just some of the ways the world our kids will move into will change. So how do we go about educating them for this world??