Will AI Ever Succeed in Replacing Humans ?
History shows that any new human-replacement tech is bound to suffer massive initial setbacks as humans always feared being replaced by something far more efficient and dependable, and also a human-creation which always succeeds, eventually!
(They must have even detested those creative / inventive humans, as suicidal or self-defeating ?)
Sabotage by affected parties?
Humans first resorted to sabotage of such tech / inventions, as in the case of the Sewing Machine, the first few prototypes of which were totally destroyed by smashing them onto the streets, by the protesting Seamstresses and their supporters.
Even those earliest prototypes, built by the inventor, Barthelemy Thimonnier, were so superior, they stitched with seams (joints or stitches) stronger than the basic cloth. No wonder the seamstresses feared loss of job! They were faster too!
The Teleprinter
Then there were skillful, agile Morse Decoding operators at telegraph offices. Only to be replaced by Telex or Teleprinter (invention of Reichspost ) which directly printed the (German / English) text on to a paper issuing out of a paper roll.
We could see, in WW II movies, these early adaptations of the Typewriter machines fitted with electromechanical solenoid-like add-ons operating the typewriter keys, then known as “Teletyping”. The intelligent and ultra-fast Morse Code technicians all got replaced en masse?
Telex itself was replaced by Fax (Facsimile) machine which just transmitted the handwritten, even signed (signature-added) message, not having to dictate and manually type a message as typewriter keys inputs.
Farm mechanization
Harry Ferguson invented the land tilling / ploughing tractor and demonstrated it in the UN Assembly, as a tool to feed the millions of hungry human beings of the world, by speeding up the crop farming process. Sowing, Reaping machines, combine-harvesters followed suit.(Massey Ferguson, the collaborators of TAFE – Tractors And Farm Equipments Ltd., Chennai, India are an offshoot of this inventor-company). So, mechanization of non-intelligent, skilled labour might have been relatively easier, compared to AI.
Computers Vs Humans
When computers came, lots of clerks and qualified, experienced employees felt their worst enemy has come. Long back, at ISI (Indian Statistical Institute), Kolkata there were massive demonstrations against the IBM computer that was just arriving. That IBM Mainframe was perhaps one of the first 3 computers to be imported into India.
AI making inroads despite initial hiccups
Self-Repairing and Self-Replicating robots have already made inroads as early as the 2010s.
An MNC GCC (Global Capability Center) in India is considering , within a year, a cadre reduction of junior staff from 495 to 5 with AI adoption.
16,000 employees replaced by AI at Amazon. Menial jobs at Logistics positions in their Warehouse too are being replaced by dexterous robots. It can get more ruthless. Brace yourself.
A Tesla autonomous car, couple of years back in the USA, fatally crashed into a crossing truck at an intersection as the colour of the truck was similar to the background evening sky. Such errors are far fewer in between now as AI is fast improving.
So, AI in its present form of either Alpha or Beta version may suffer setbacks but ultimately replace “huge swathes” of skillful / expert humans. It is a fact. It may be only a matter of time?
Thank the inventor-folks — if you are an AI hater — releasing untested or unfixed (of bugs) versions hastily into the market only to face market backfire!
Thus the hopefuls of those sticking along in the job develop a false sense of superiority — even job security? — that they, being humans, can never be replaced. They are just sitting ducks.
But the Autonomous cars of today, for instance, are far more advanced. Equipped with NVIDIA high performance, high speed chips and MATLAB mathematical concepts, and myriad sensors, these cars can “see” and identify the road users (humans) and objects. The sensor-fusion LIDAR camera can identify if it is a fog, or a bush, or is it a human being ahead of it in the road. Also, from the angle between the standing person’s legs, that is, if the legs are apart, the vehicle senses that the person ahead, on the sidewalk, may move in the path of the vehicle. The vehicle even verifies if the person / pedestrian has seen the vehicle approaching or not. If he or she is unaware of the vehicle approaching, the vehicle is even more cautious, ever ready to apply the brakes. If a ball comes rolling across the road ahead, the AI of the car even expects a child chasing or following the ball. This tech is known as ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems).
Such ADAS incorporates TCS (Traction Control System), ESP (Electronic Stability Program) which integrates suspension, steering and braking systems and many others as one cohesive system to make the modern day car nearly like a living being (a 4-legged animal) with locomotion — and almost as sure-footed as a mountain-goat!
Recently, it was reported that the AI-enabled surgical robots were making mistakes due to the robot wrongly identifying some human anatomical zones / organs. But, the experts are exhorting that a mixed approach of human experts (surgeons) assisting the AI-enabled robots will be more practical, till the dependability of AI improves.
Samsung which invented the internet-enabled Refrigerator around the year 1997 is now marketing AI-enabled Fridges which suggest a cooking recipe based on the fridge contents. The rice-and-dried-fish-to-electronics-chips giant is tasting success after success.
Aspiring Post Graduate Students are banking on Chat GPT/Gemini for the SOP (Statement Of Purpose) for admission into elite universities of USA. It will be only a matter of time before they find out what the selecting Professor likes in a prospect student and infuse those into the Report. Such AI tools are triumphantly used by students for the Project Work, doctoral thesis also.
The likely Forerunners of AI
In the late 1970s, Alfred Teves GmbH of Germany, (now Conti tech), developed car Disc Brakes with Disc wear (Dashboard) indicators which are just an electric circuit-completing terminal embedded into each Brake Pad. Then the Brake Fluid level indicators of the Fluid Reservoirs followed. For dual brakes, there was a tiny piston, in parallel, which was balanced by equal fluid pressure on both ends and the loss of pressure by brake fluid leak of any one brake circuit will push this piston to activate a micro-switch for Dashboard Alert. This warned the driver of the partial brake failure and that the stopping distance will be nearly double. Such primitive pure electro-mechanical sensing devices in-built into mechanical assemblies might have inspired the embedded systems which came later. These have morphed into advanced sensors and actuators of today.
Bertram Raphael of SRI (Stanford Research Institute), Author of the book, The Thinking Computer, used to research on AI Robots and Machine Vision as far back as 1968.
Why the successful advent of AI is certain?
There are now scientific ways to accurately capture, collate the knowledge of thousands of experts, like lawyers, brain or kidney, or heart surgeons, and organize them in an orderly fashion for assimilation by machines / artificial systems for designing the algorithms.
Statistics and Probability Sciences, high speed Processors, and entrepreneurs willing to invest in these abound. Aided by cash-rich corporations which suffer at the hands of unionised highly skilled labour, AI sweep is now imminent with the advent of advancements of Data Sciences.
First it was Parallel Processing of Supercomputers, then High Speed Processing, then High Performance Computing but now it is Quantum Computing using Cloud.
According to a Readers’ Digest article, the more diverse or varied are the subjects a human brain holds, the more creative and imaginative the brain becomes. But, even the most advanced brain is not as good as an artificial chip which can capture the intelligence of thousands of Subject Matter (Domain) Experts as an AI System.
We have seen Cyborgs, Sci-Fi Terminator movies, and now, even the brain thought process has been mapped. Ethical questions apart, AI is certainly the future. The extreme electric power and cooling water thirst of AI Supercomputers will also need to be addressed by the society.
Biomimicry
Right from the bats which inspired the RADAR and SONAR and the honeybees which made men invent the DuPont Nomex honeycomb panels of Aircrafts and Satellites, Nature has been inspiring (non-materialistic) Intelligence also. Thank God, they don’t sue us for Copyright Infringement!
Did we say, we can gather the knowledge of thousands of experts? We were wrong! We should have said that not only thousand of human experts but also from Mother Nature. That is, from all living creatures, and also non-living matter — their survival tactics, behaviours, communication and reproduction methods, self-preservation strategies, proliferation, extreme tenacity, thriving in adverse conditions — like the strange organism / bacteria which survives on nuclear reactor cores, how they mitigate risks, etc. Man has to just look at Nature for exceptional, effective solutions for his managerial, financial, family, engineering, emotional problems. The solutions for millions of problems of humankind are already staring at man, from Nature. Already analogies among Nature, Universe, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Hydraulics Engineering can be seen and studied / compared against each other.
Quest for excellence – a Triumph of Life?
The more are the failures encountered by AI experts, the more determined they are driven to perfect and excel in their outputs. Be it heavier-than-air flight, Space Research, vaccines, or Defence Tech, the humans thrive on challenges.
Human civilization always stands on the shoulders of the discoveries, inventions, patents and the ensuing advancements of the (primitive) previous generations, to reach for the sky and the capabilities and potential of the culmination of the diverse knowledge domains of today — which reinforce each other exponentially in effect, and their myriad combinations are infinite.
Already there’s a massive chips shortage, experienced in the automotive, home appliances sectors, driven by the surge in AI Systems demands.
Those who are adamant in not unlearning their outdated knowledge and unwilling to adapt to the changing times – by re skilling / Up Skilling – will be the losers?
About the Author :
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan
CTO & Director – Technical Expertise and Experience,
eMachineShop
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan is a Production Engineering graduate from NIT, Trichy with 44 years of expertise.
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan has worked on R & D of Air (ZF-WABCO) & Hydraulic Brakes, Disc Brakes, Clutches (Maruti Suzuki), Supply Chain Management, Reverse Engineering of Steel Plant parts (Vizag Steel), Quality Management Systems at G-Plast & Janatics.
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan was Principal Consultant at TCS Global Sourcing Department, Project Manager for Daimler India Heavy Duty Truck Prototype build and SME (Subject Matter Expert) for Indian Offset Partner (Axis Cades Aerospace) of Thales for the IAF Mirage 2000 fleet Mid Life Upgrade Project.
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan is an ISI Certified Six Sigma Black Belt and an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer.
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan is a classic member of SAE and a Life member of Aeronautical Society of India.
Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan interests include AR, Drones and 3D Printing.
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Also Read Mr. Mohan Kalaiyappan Earlier Articles :
