Well, one thing that humans are superior at is modeling other humans, and their reactions to things. So to the extent that people do anything at all, they’ll probably do that.
For example, music composition, writing fiction, and similar artistic endeavors require that the artist know what people enjoy. I think that that will be done by humans for the foreseeable future.
Also, things where you actually want the person doing it to be a person will continue. Counseling? I dunno.
For example, music composition, writing fiction, and similar artistic endeavors require that the artist know what people enjoy. I think that that will be done by humans for the foreseeable future.
Regarding music composition; there are already algorithms being developed for predicting the potential of a song becoming a hit. Next step could be algorithms that creates the songs by themselves. Its all about optimization with positive feedback. Algorithm: Create a piece of art A such that A has a high probability of satisfying the ones experiencing it. Input statistics about human nature + reaction to previous generations + reactions to man made art of the same sort. Most people wouldn’t care about how that piece of art was made. (But I guess this will take a while)
I was particularly thinking of the creative aspects of these fields being human-suited.
For example, I think it’s reasonable that a machine could create food accurately, but a chef would still be employable in deciding what kind of food to make.
Hairdressing again, I feel could be done for most people by a machine. The rich and famous would have their hair done by people, and the hairdressing machines would copy those styles.
I do not disagree with you, apart from one minor point: I think the amount of “creative aspect” in routine, cookbook cooking, hairdressing etc is underestimated. Eg. in cooking the kind and quality of the ingredients must be continuously assessed, and decent cooks taste their food while cooking to ensure a good final result.
“Artificial taste” not only seems rather difficult, but also does not have much development priority… yes, good cooks should be safe for a while yet.
Your machine may not be able to “taste”, but it can check various properties like color, opacity, pH, viscosity, temperature and other chemical properties … and what’s more, it can check them continuously and track their evolution. Combined with a good enough up-front design (setting ideal ranges for those), and it should be able to get close enough to the way a cook would adapt.
I believe that’s pretty close to what happens in food factories making things like ice cream or canned soup etc. - though they probably have tasters too, just to be sure.
Automation isn’t about making a machine that does what a human does, the same way. Planes don’t flap their wings, cars don’t have legs, meat grinders don’t have an arm wielding a butcher’s knife—machines don’t need to be able to taste to replace most of what a cook does. If there are some sub-steps that machines are particularly poor at, there may be a workaround, for example ensuring more homogeneity in the ingredients than a human cook would need, or using a dedicated human to do only that step (tasting, for example).
Eg. in cooking the kind and quality of the ingredients must be continuously assessed, and decent cooks taste their food while cooking to ensure a good final result.
Commercial cooks do not, in fact, taste everything they make. Not even close.
Well, one thing that humans are superior at is modeling other humans, and their reactions to things. So to the extent that people do anything at all, they’ll probably do that.
For example, music composition, writing fiction, and similar artistic endeavors require that the artist know what people enjoy. I think that that will be done by humans for the foreseeable future.
Also, things where you actually want the person doing it to be a person will continue. Counseling? I dunno.
Regarding music composition; there are already algorithms being developed for predicting the potential of a song becoming a hit. Next step could be algorithms that creates the songs by themselves. Its all about optimization with positive feedback. Algorithm: Create a piece of art A such that A has a high probability of satisfying the ones experiencing it. Input statistics about human nature + reaction to previous generations + reactions to man made art of the same sort. Most people wouldn’t care about how that piece of art was made. (But I guess this will take a while)
Actually we already have ai composers. http://hplusmagazine.com/2010/03/22/has-emily-howell-passed-musical-turing-test/
More than that, Philip Parker has created a robot that can write book. They aren’t the best, but it’s still a huge start.
I was thinking along the same lines, and came up with: Cook/Chef, Hairdresser, Fashion Designer and the like as being among the last jobs to go.
I was particularly thinking of the creative aspects of these fields being human-suited.
For example, I think it’s reasonable that a machine could create food accurately, but a chef would still be employable in deciding what kind of food to make.
Hairdressing again, I feel could be done for most people by a machine. The rich and famous would have their hair done by people, and the hairdressing machines would copy those styles.
Fashion designer I agree with.
I do not disagree with you, apart from one minor point: I think the amount of “creative aspect” in routine, cookbook cooking, hairdressing etc is underestimated. Eg. in cooking the kind and quality of the ingredients must be continuously assessed, and decent cooks taste their food while cooking to ensure a good final result.
“Artificial taste” not only seems rather difficult, but also does not have much development priority… yes, good cooks should be safe for a while yet.
Your machine may not be able to “taste”, but it can check various properties like color, opacity, pH, viscosity, temperature and other chemical properties … and what’s more, it can check them continuously and track their evolution. Combined with a good enough up-front design (setting ideal ranges for those), and it should be able to get close enough to the way a cook would adapt.
I believe that’s pretty close to what happens in food factories making things like ice cream or canned soup etc. - though they probably have tasters too, just to be sure.
Automation isn’t about making a machine that does what a human does, the same way. Planes don’t flap their wings, cars don’t have legs, meat grinders don’t have an arm wielding a butcher’s knife—machines don’t need to be able to taste to replace most of what a cook does. If there are some sub-steps that machines are particularly poor at, there may be a workaround, for example ensuring more homogeneity in the ingredients than a human cook would need, or using a dedicated human to do only that step (tasting, for example).
Commercial cooks do not, in fact, taste everything they make. Not even close.
In a lot of work, people are willing to sacrifice quality to get cheapness and convenience.