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Will Humanoid Robots Take All the Jobs by 2050?

Anonymous writes "Marshall Brain (the guy who started HowStuffWorks) has published an article claiming that robots will take half the jobs in the U.S. by 2050. Some of his predictions: real computer vision systems by 2020, computers with the CPU power and memory of the human brain by 2040, completely robotic fast food restaurants in 2030 (which then unemploy 3.5 million people), etc. It's a pretty astounding article. My question: How many people on /. think he is right (or even close - let's say he's off by 10 or 20 years)? Or is he full of it?"

3 of 1,457 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What About Instict? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Only applies to Airbus aircraft. Boeing airplanes are more conservative and will permit the pilot to override the computer. If the pilot is trying to make the airplane do something the computer thinks it shouldn't, it will increase the amount of feedback on the control column. However, if the pilot wants to, he/she can "push through" that resistance and the aircraft will obey the command.

    Airbus' on the other hand have the computer in complete control. If the pilot wants the plane to do something that exceeds the programmed flight parameters, tough. There have been several Airbus crashes that have been attributed to pilots being unable to override the computer in an emergency because the attempted maneuver would exceed the limits of what it should allow.

    In other words, the computers in control of an Airbus won't let a pilot bend the airplane. Boeing's computers take the approach that "ok, you're in charge. I don't think you should do this but if you want to bend the airplane, here you go.". An airline and a manufacturer, given the choice between bringing home a bent airplane and having to fix or scrap it or settling lawsuits over the few hundred passengers lying in pieces in a crater in a cornfield because the computer wouldn't let the pilot bend the wings and overrev the engines to pull out of a dive, I'll bet they'll take the bent airplane every time.

    It is for this difference in design philosophy that I will never fly in an Airbus. A human should always have the final say in matters of life and death and not delegate them to a machine.

    As an aside, what he talks about the article with airplanes flying themselves, they already do that and have been doing it for years. A modern airliner can fly completely automated from takeoff to landing. A Cat III blind landing is done totally by computer. Pilots are there in the event of emergencies but 80-90% of a flight made by an modern jet is flown entirely automated.

  2. Re:maybe 100 years.... by illumin8 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sorry, I can't take any of your arguments seriously until you learn basic spelling and grammar. Tords? That isn't even a word. I think you meant towards.

    I'm normally not a spelling/grammar nazi, but after reading your comment it's obvious that you haven't done very much actual reading.

    --
    "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
  3. Re:people will buy machines by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1, Troll
    If we had not opened the immigration floodgates to anyone at all back in 1968, the US would be a different place.


    I'm assuming you meant 1768, right?

    And which Native American tribe did you say you belonged to?
    --
    "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"