Amazon Set to Produce AI Generated Novels

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Self driving trucks. What could possibly go wrong?

"A truck, navigating rush hour traffic in Boston, crashed into 48 cars and took out the supports of a bridge when the Windows 10 OS decided to do an update and shut down the onboard computer ... News at 11."

And when all these "relatively high paying jobs" are replaced by robots, whose going to be able to buy the products the self-driving trucks deliver?

1- The self driving trucks are not intended for crowded city centers but rather the open interstates. The plans are for depot to depot routing, typically on the outskirts of metro areas.

2- Don't know about your area but in my region, human driven trucks overturning or crashing is a regular occurrence, invariably due to error or fatigue. Those 14 hour shifts/11 continuous hours at the wheel. Robots don't get tired or fall asleep.

3- Robots trucks are remotely overseen by humans. As I said, they're more like drones, except one human can oversee a dozen trucks on the interstate.

4- There is a *shortage* of drivers. To the tune of 50,000-plus. It is not a cushy white collar job but rather has more in common with mining and warehouse work. The shortage will only grow as railroads keep degrading and clean electrics hit the market.

5- Given the legal restrictions on the job a single robot truck can replace two drivers, so the 50,000 driver shortfall could be filled by 25,000 robotrucks without *anybody* losing their job. Trucking is freaking huge! Each of those *manual* trucks is expensive, in the $100-200,000 range, and the robotrucks won't be any cheaper. All that adds up to a $25-50 Billion dollar market.

Don't let luddite politicking muddy the issues: robotrucks are no danger to the labor market and won't be for a couple genetations. They will however be good for the economy, the standard of living, and will create a few thousand safe and high paying jobs for the remote monitors. On top of the truck factory workers.

Robotrucks will happen and soon. They make too much sense in too many ways for misinformation to stop it.

[DiapDealer]

I'd much rather share the road with AI driven vehicles than the crop of inept meatware morons I currently share it with.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Don't let luddite politicking muddy the issues: robotrucks are no danger to the labor market and won't be for a couple genetations. They will however be good for the economy, the standard of living, and will create a few thousand safe and high paying jobs for the remote monitors. On top of the truck factory workers.

Indeed. I'd liken it to the replacement of assembly-line workers by robots in car assembly plants. The result is much better-built cars, and the creation of highly-paid jobs to oversee those robots (at the expense of production-line jobs, certainly). You can't fight technological change. Just as blacksmiths had to become car mechanics in the early 20th-century, so truck drivers will need to re-skill in the 21st century.

[mike_bike_kite]

I actually don't think it would be hard to produce AI generated novels, the problem though would be to find people willing to read them.

[Pizza_Cant_Read]

There isn't even a need for original content as younger people would be less desensitized to common themes that have already been done a billion times. And sometimes the predictability lends itself to the youngest audiences because they know everything will work out and thus there is nothing to worry about.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Self driving trucks. What could possibly go wrong?

Forty-five years ago or so, Stephen King wrote a short story about self driving trucks. As you can imagine, the world became a utopia

And when all these "relatively high paying jobs" are replaced by robots, whose going to be able to buy the products the self-driving trucks deliver?

Of course, you could say the same about any advance that replace old technology with new technology.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

I actually don't think it would be hard to produce AI generated novels, the problem though would be to find people willing to read them.

Robot readers.

Problem solved.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'd much rather share the road with AI driven vehicles than the crop of inept meatware morons I currently share it with.

+100.
Tales of woeful drivers abound.

I dread the cities where the "genius" urban planners replaced simple intersections with circles. Round and round they go, missing the exit and switching lanes at the wrong time.
So far I've survived but it's gotten iffy at times. Especially with the tourist in DC.
By all means, let's turn that over to the 'bots.
At least they always know where they are.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Robot readers.

Problem solved.

There you go.
Robot writers, robot readers, and robot critics.
And humans go play XBOX.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Robotrucks will happen and soon. They make too much sense in too many ways for misinformation to stop it.

I would much rather a human being was in the truck, then AI. AI fails. AI is designed by human beings — and usually human engineers who have no experience doing the job they're trying to replace. Too many unexpected things can happen on the road. Humans are better at "winging it."

But I'm not that worried about "robotrucks" taking over the road any time soon. I've found that announcements on how soon this kind of technology will be ready are almost always way too optimistic.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I would much rather a human being was in the truck, then AI. AI fails. AI is designed by human beings — and usually human engineers who have no experience doing the job they're trying to replace. Too many unexpected things can happen on the road. Humans are better at "winging it."

But I'm not that worried about "robotrucks" taking over the road any time soon. I've found that announcements on how soon this kind of technology will be ready are almost always way too optimistic.

There will be humans in there...via telepresence.

As for how likely the tech is to manifesting:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...riving-trucks/

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

+100.
I dread the cities where the "genius" urban planners replaced simple intersections with circles. Round and round they go, missing the exit and switching lanes at the wrong time.
So far I've survived but it's gotten iffy at times. Especially with the tourist in DC.
By all means, let's turn that over to the 'bots.
At least they always know where they are.

Do you mean roundabouts? What on Earth do you have against them? They’re the norm at busy road junctions in the UK (particular in places where multiple roads meet) and are vastly more efficient at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you mean roundabouts? What on Earth do you have against them? They’re the norm at busy road junctions in the UK (particular in places where multiple roads meet) and are vastly more efficient at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights.

I think it's familiarity. I know my uncle used to visit from Canada a number of years ago and he struggled with roundabouts here simply because there were very few, if any, where he lived. Personally, it's surely better to be able to cross a roundabout immediately when there's no cross traffic than wait at an unnecessary red light.

The one thing that I did like about driving in Canada and America was it being legal to turn right on certain red lights if it was safe to do so (that would be left in the UK, obviously).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I think it's familiarity. I know my uncle used to visit from Canada a number of years ago and he struggled with roundabouts here simply because there were very few, if any, where he lived. Personally, it's surely better to be able to cross a roundabout immediately when there's no cross traffic than wait at an unnecessary red light.

Hmmm. I really don’t see what’s difficult about a roundabout. You enter it exactly as if you were at a junction waiting to turn left (right in the US) - ie the traffic on the roundabout has priority over that waiting to enter it. Once you’re on it, you turn left (right) off it like any normal left (right) turn.

Yes, they’re far better than traffic lights because there’s no delay when the road is quiet.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Hmmm. I really don’t see what’s difficult about a roundabout. You enter it exactly as if you were at a junction waiting to turn left (right in the US) - ie the traffic on the roundabout has priority over that waiting to enter it. Once you’re on it, you turn left (right) off it like any normal left (right) turn.

Yes, they’re far better than traffic lights because there’s no delay when the road is quiet.

Are they so easy with four parallel lanes and bumper to bumper traffic where you have to spiral inwards and then outwards?