Author Archives: SmellsLikeLavender

In class recently we have spent a lot of time discussing the singularity and this idea that technology will advance to the point it could overrun humanity as the dominate life form on earth. But this assumes technology develops into greater than human intellect, while its not hard to be smarter than some humans (see jackass ripoffs on YouTube, not the actual jackass people since they are all rich and thus not dumb), for a computer to be smarter than the average child that would be quite difficult and it could take a long time. I’m more worried about computers ruining my future than technology killing my grand kids after the singularity.

By ruining my future I mean ruining my future job opportunities, or the economy of my country. In this article it is pointed out that software has been harming the job market for years. Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer or engineer thus more common jobs like secretaries, factory workers, and even house maids (Roomba!!!) are being replaced by technology. Soon the vast majority of middle to lower class jobs will be replaced by software or robots. An entire team of construction workers will be replaced by one guy who can run multiple machines on a computer who will then be replaced by a piece of smart software that can manage the machines for him. Bars will be filled with alcoholic drink machines instead of bartenders. Software could replace all repetitive or “easier” jobs long before it goes terminator on the human race.

If every thing goes to plan in my life and in the lives of most of the people in this course who will read this, we wont be construction workers or bartenders. We all will hopefully be the ones creating this software. But the problems it could cause others raises a very difficult question: should we look to replace jobs and tasks with software?

Creating this software would probably make this individual very rich, but it would also cost hundreds or even tens of thousands of jobs. Under any utilitarian view, the unhappiness of hundreds or thousands of unemployed people would outweigh the couple dozen programmers. But even if you evaluated it from a greedy standpoint, if thousands lose jobs the economy suffers. If the economy suffers then it would effect everyone including the now rich programmer. There is a different level of loss for the programmer compared to the now unemployed construction worker but no one truly wins.

Others would argue that it would cause people to become better educated so they don’t need construction jobs and can be engineers, doctors, or businessmen  There can only be so many people doing certain jobs and still be successful. There is a supply and demand effect in the job market too.

So what does everyone think? do we create smart software that could replace workers like bartenders or construction workers? Or is it better to restrict the creation of software to save jobs and not replace people?

This is just a small post about something awesome i found. the first BIONIC EYEBALL. How awesome is that? Apparently it has a small camera on a set of glasses that records video, then sends those images to a small chip implanted in the blind eye that sends electronic signals into your brain. Since I’m blind in my right eye, this seems as cool as it gets when it comes to the medical field and computers. Is anyone else excited for bionic people? I personally want giant metal arms like Jax from mortal combat Annihilation.

We all know the internet is full of bad things and bad people that were created in some awful dark corner of the planet. This being a school blog, I wont bring those up here. But its odd that this class has introduced me to a completely new kind of low and pathetic. By low and pathetic I of course mean patent trolls. From what I have learned so far, patent trolls are a premium example of how to get rich by doing nothing. I hate the idea of a patent troll, someone who buys the right to others work and gets money from what they did while doing nothing themselves. It seems to go against how I was raised. Being from a small farm town I have a more blue color view of the world than some I guess. But that is why i was very happy to find this article which could be an answer to the trolls.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF has proposed a way to stop or at least slow down the trolls. By forcing them to submit code with there patents and if the patent is granted then it should just be limited to the invention claimed. At the very least making patents have code attached would force trolls to do a little more work. But at its best, this idea could stop trolls from just suing everyone. As described in the article directly from EFF, if you make them attach a solution to the patent, they cant sue anyone under the sun for coming up with a similar solution that is created in a different way. EFF does a better job than describing this than I do so I hope you read there article also.

Does anyone see a positive of a patent troll? Or how they are useful to society? Or do you see flaws in the EFF’s proposal?