Friday, February 8, 2013

Humans will merge with computers

When I heard about the robot that made 360 burgers per hour, it got me worrying about the implications. Will the same sort of obsolescence overtake me and my children? It overtook the the blacksmith, the weaver and many other tradesmen of the past. It is overtaking the cashier, printer, and now maybe the short order cook. Accountants, stock brokers, managers, salespeople, teachers, and other "white collar" workers are certainly not immune. If we extrapolate this trend into the future, it might seem as if the demand for any and all human labor will go to zero. But labor can't go extinct. It can only evolve, though we may not be able to say the same for humans.

Every new technology: printing press, steam engine, locomotive, plane, or computer, eliminates the need for human labor. The mere invention of a stocking-making machine in the late 1800's put 50,000 stocking knitters out of work. And for a more extreme example, the work being done by steam engines in 1887 was equivalent to that of 1 billion men. And yet, every time, though there is an initial shock of unemployment in the affected industries, the long-term result is usually more jobs. As for the English stocking knitters, Hazlitt writes that "before the end of the nineteenth century the stocking industry was employing at least 100 men for every man it employed at the beginning of the century." And obviously the steam engine did not displace 1 billion workers. There were only a third as many alive on the Earth at the time.
There are a few reasons technology doesn't drive employment to zero. Rising population creates increasing demand, and while technology saves labor in one area, it often requires new labor in another. Steam engines require people to build them and mine the iron and coal, for example. But more importantly, labor is a natural outgrowth of human creativity and desire. If it were about meeting the basic needs of a static population, technology could, it seems to me, eliminate the need for human labor. But though human needs may be static, human desires are not, and as new technologies eliminate the need for old vocations, humans find new things to do.

Human productivity is like a tree. A new idea is a new bud, sprouting from a branch as resources and labor are brought into play, drawn up from branches, trunk, and roots below to fill a new niche in the canopy of the tree. And each new twig, at first costing labor and resources, eventually becomes part of a greater foundation, supporting further growth and exploration of the undiscovered potential of the universe. And just as the twigs and leaves multiply to fill endless new niches and expand the canopy upwards and outwards to catch the sunlight, so the ideas of humankind multiply without end. And so there can be no end to labor, because the the world of ideas is infinite.

But the nature labor changes, and this may be cause for some concern. Demand for hands, shoulders and backs decreases, and demand for computer programming and creative ideas increases. It is an evolutionary process, and it seems clear where it's headed. Automation, even artificial intelligence, supports the expansion of human activities, but what happens when computers can do every part of the process, from initial idea, to invention, development, and production, when our technology begins to compete with us in the canopy of the tree of ideas?

This coincides with the technological singularity, a concept made popular by inventor Ray Kurzweil, who believes it is coming soon. He bases his belief on the demonstrably exponential growth of technology over the last few centuries. Kurzweil predicts machines will rapidly exceed human intelligence, since they will be able to build new machines unconstrained by the limits of the organic human brain. Sci-fi? Maybe. But science fiction has often become reality. It was not long ago we watched Captain Kirk open his "flip phone" to communicate with the Enterprise. And how far is it, really, from cleverbot (if you haven't played with cleverbot.com, do it now) to a "human" computer, especially considering Moore's Law?

It seems to me this event would bring about one of two things:

1) Humans are out-competed by machines, just as the lower branches of the tree die off for want of sunlight as the tree grows taller. (Perhaps the machines would keep us as nice pets, or maybe we'd just go extinct.)

2) We merge with the machines, as Kurzweil predicts.

I lean toward option 2, since it seems to me it's already taking place. Calculators have changed the way we do math, and Google may already be changing our brains.  What's the difference if the technology physically moves inside our skulls. If that's what we need to do to survive in the market of the (near) future, then we do it. We adapt or we die, just like our ancestors did when they abandoned the stick for the stone and the stone for the iron, the horse for the car and the pencil for the calculator.

Either way, the tree grows ever on and on. The only question is, will we be a part of it or not. And while this may seem like sci-fi speculation, these changes could be right around the corner: 2045, according to Kurzweil. I'll be 73. And right now, every day, we are faced with similar choices regarding technology. Compete or merge. Recoil from burger-flipping robots and self-checkout isles, or embrace them. Shun calculators, GPS, cell phones, Kindles and the internet, or learn to use them effectively until they become a part of the trunk of a more successful, effective and fulfilled life.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The new Starbucks: Yerba Mate

I had this great drink for the first time this summer in Manitou Springs, CO (great town!). It was at The Mate Factor. They had hot and iced mate in plain or fruit flavors. I had an iced mate, and it was delicious... and nutritious... and loaded with caffeine. So a few weeks ago I ordered a pound of loose leaf Yerba Mate from Amazon to make at home in our French press.

Yerba Mate is a traditional South American herbal tea with a natural caffeine content comparable to coffee (80 mg per serving), rich in nutrients and anti-oxidants. The folks down there drink it from gourds, but it was just fine iced in a plastic cup and is great out of our French press.

The place in Manitou Springs had a Starbucks kind of feel, though even more earthy and eco-friendy, and less upitty-feeling.  And I think this can work on a larger scale. I'm almost getting tired of coffee, and I don't think I'm alone. I think there's room for a new beverage on the block, and I'm not talking just yogurt smoothies (a trend I predicted several years ago).

I'm seeing mate shops on street corners across America.