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  Bank tellers have long been replaced by ATMs for years and now many newer start-up banks do not even bother to have physical locations!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?

Peace Officer of the Future?

No, I’m  not talking about Robocop –  but with all the advances in  facial recognition, artificial inteligence, chaos theory, biometrics,  remote access , UAVs, etc.  isnt it feasible to imagine that technology someday may be used to prevent the types of crimes that require police intervention to begin with at all.  With the advent of exponentialy more powerful  technology, we may even be able to modify behavior to prevent people from even trying to commit crimes.  But is this a good thing or not?  When society gets locked down by a network  capable of tracking and apprehending people quickly and effeciently - citizens  will not be so quick break the law.

 Currently, if you have a warrant, you have to get picked up or stopped by the police before you go to jail.  People commit crimes right in broad daylight, confident that no one saw them or could identify them.  People can steal a car and drive it away.  These are all things that could change in the not too distant future.  However, crime will never go away and as consumers and younger generations become more tech savy – they are more likely to be commiting computer crimes than crimes against humanity. 

For example, lets step into the future for just a moment say maybe 25 years or so ….and lets say that a known fugitive is on the run, but every lightpost on the street is a camera that ties to a database with facial recognition, much like London is today.

Could this be a peek into our future?

In our future, computers can use the camera network to retrace his steps and even makes predictions as to where he is most likely headed.  If he gets into a vehicle, then the network could communicate with the vehicle via a system just like OnStar. Locking the fugitive in the car, it can now drive him to jail – as self driving cars have been all the rage for the last 10 years. 

If someone carjacks a person, the car itself would rationalize and use artifical intellengece to recognize  the robbery just as plaintly as you yourself realize you are being robbed, – your car is smart enough to figure it out too.  It is stubborn though , and doesn’t like to drive carhjackers around. It can lock itself and wait for authorization from the owner before proceeding.  It will either be unauthorized or it will drive itself to the police station. (noticing a pattern here?)  This would lead to a sever drop in car theft if cars could recognize a crime being commited againt them. They could capture a video  as a suivenier for court.  

As artificial intellegence becomes available to the public, we will see smart appliances that that are a whole lot smarter than we ever thought they could be.  Suddenly everything will be built with intelligence and reasoning. Your house will know it is being robbed just as obviously as you would know you were being held up.  The house sees it all.. knows it been broken into and can even outsmart the crooks somehow.. perhaps luring them into a panic room.. ….

  “NO dont let them into the office — thats where my jewlery collection is..” then when they’re in the office it closes them in, untill a UAV can arrive and escort  them to the nearest unmanned patrol vehicle  waiting to – you guessed it , drive them to jail.  If your not home, your house could twitter you to let you know your getting sacked – but no prob – its handled the situation.

As we get away from using cash, there will be less reason to rob people on the street except for jewelry and shoes.  But remember, all our appliances are smart… and precious metals are especially important to us – so all jewelry has microchip RFID chips built into them. In fact everything we own ha  RFID chips built into them now - the fun part is that they are so microscopic it is very hard to locate and discard them. 

 You want to track and find all of the stuff you have RFID chips in? no prob – theres an app for that. Everybody will be walking around with virtual crime labs in their pockets as mobile devices hold more and productive applications they may be able scan fingerprints, do chemical analysis, video/audio playback, spectral graphs, and whole other array of things we dont even know well be using yet. 

If your stuff is stolen  just whip out your iPhone or Blackberry and you will find it flashing like a beacon – since it can communicate with things around it , it can tell the camera at starbucks to take a photo of its location and then send that to you – this of course will give your picture of the assailent – which Google FacePro has already indexed the name as well as known social networking sites or affiliations.  Its very hard to escape attention in this world. It looks fast , cold , like no care, like no one is watching … but thats just because everything is watching. In this society, people will become conditioned to living their lives in a fishbowl and offenders of the law will be detained with a swiftness that would create a state of fear based conformity.

As the population grows, the need for more law enforcement is going to increase. As it is now, police cannot even keep up with the amount of crime happening today. By sending out droves of UAVs , law enforcement can free up street police to handle more personlized issues among the people. Meanwhile, those who are breaking or running from the law will be tracked down by UAVs and ‘asked’  to surrender themselves. Those who dont play nice will feel the fulll wrath of what a precision mounted taser leash can feel like as it ’s walking you to a patrol car.

Check fraud will be a thing of the past as there will be no more checks or paper money.  With so much of society going electronic, all of our tasks will end up being automated , allowing us to experience more cerebral endeavors.

If your a decent citizen , but suddenly have awarrant, you my be notified by a freindly email – an animation from a virtual peace officer , asking you to please report to jail to turn yourself in or schedule an appointment for when you will turn yourself in.  Jail time can be served at home as leg devices track every movement and prevent you from leaving your parameter without attracting the immediate attention of a local roving drone.

  As the gap between the haves and have-not grows wider, you will see two societies – one that has all the advantages of  scientific breakthoughs and lifestyle the reflects the most advanced level of existance. The other society will be the one that live off their leftovers.  They will still be plagued with crime as none of their devices will be able to tattle. Their squabbles amongst themselves will barley raise the attention of the local police who will just send in drones to quiet them and keep the peace again. Typical of society, they will send in the machines to do the work of man, to clean up the bad neiborhoods with dismissive wave of drones.