Humans, robots and values

TLDR: In this article, the authors look at how ideas derived from informatics allow us a more precise view of what differentiates us from robots and on the other hand, how information science can give us a deeper insight into the nature of human labour.

About: This article is published in Technology in Society.The article was published on 2016-05-01 and is currently open access. It has received 21 citations till now.

Figures

Figure 1: The CLOPEMA cloth-folding robot recognising and folding a towel. The chasis of this robot is typically a Motoman industrial unit, but it has been fitted with advanced sensing: stereo vision, touch sensitive grippers, close range cameras on its arms, force sensors in its wrists.

Figure 2: The rate of return on capital in Japan where robots are widely used has fallen very low. The dashed line is the empirically measured rate of return, and the solid line the equilibrium rate of return predicted by the labour theory of value, that is to say the center of gravitation for the empirical rate. Graph by Tamerlan Tadjadinov, http: //compbio.dcs.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/profits/home.cgi

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Humans, robots and values" ?

In this paper the authors examine what is fundamental in the distinction between human and robotic work by reflecting on the work of the classical political economists and engineers. The authors examine the relationship between the ideas of machine work and human work on the part of Marx and Watt as well as their role in the creation of economic value. The authors examine the extent to which artificial power sources could feasibly substitute for human effort in their arguments. The authors go on to examine the differing views of Smith and Marx with respect to the economic effort contributed by animals and consider whether the philosophical distinction made between human and non-human work can be sustained in the light of modern biological research. The authors emphasise the non-universal character of animal work before going on to discuss the ideas of universal machines in Capek and Turing giving as a counter example a cloth-folding robot being developed in their School. The authors then return to Watt and discuss the development of thermodynamics and information theory. The authors show how recent research has led to a unification not only of these fields but also a unitary understanding of the labour process and the value-creation process. For this the authors draw on the work of von Neumann not only on computers but also in economics to point to the real threat posed by robots. 

Q2. What have the authors stated for future works in "Humans, robots and values" ?

N. S. Clayton, T. J. Bussey, A. Dickinson, Can animals recall the past and plan for the future ?, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4 ( 8 ) ( 2003 ) 685–691. [ 18 ] 

Q3. What did Watt do to improve the efficiency of steam engines?

Watt already realised that heat was being converted to work, and that the more efficient your conversion of heat into work, the more efficient the steam engine. 

Q4. How many bits did you have to send to the laser printer?

With the first generation of laser-printers you had to send every bit to the laser-printer at 300 dots per inch: you had to switch the print head on and off, on and off, on and off. 

Q5. What would you find if you took the definition of a barrel oil?

If you took that definition, you would find that after one attempt at your calculations the value of a barrel oil is not one full barrel, but maybe a third of a barrel of oil has to be used to make a barrel of oil, so that the value of everything would have suddenly dropped by a third. 

Q6. What is the argument for robots leading to a low rate of return?

The whole argument for robots leading to a high capital labour ratio and thus a low rate of return is the presumption that human labour remains an essential input to every industry. 

Q7. What did he think of the situation where the labourer is paid?

Marx pondered how you could have a situation where it appears that the labourer is paid a fair price for his labour, which is the price, according to Ricardo [6], that is necessary to maintain and reproduce the labouring class, and at the same time there is profit and exploitation. 

Q8. What is the reason why workers are cheated of the value of their labour?

One explanation could be that workers are cheated of the value of the labour: they are only paid part of the value of their labour because the market is rigged in such a way that they can never sell it for the full value. 

Q9. What is the industry which has had the biggest improvement?

The industry which has had the hugest improvement, the semiconductor industry, is essentially a printing industry — a micro printing industry. 

Q10. What was the idea of random numbers in Russia?

In Russia, at the same time, Kolmogorov [42] also came up with the idea that a number is random if there is no formula shorter than that which the authors can generate that sequence of numbers. 

Q11. What was the impact of Von Neumann’s model of self reproducing machines?

More significantly his model of self reproducing machines which contain software instructing them to make more copies of themselves was hugely influential in the modern understanding of the living cell and the role of the genetic code in the cell. 

Q12. What has been the tendency to blame the latest communication technology?

Ever since Hyndman blamed the severity of a crash on the telegraph [75], there has been a tendancy to blame the latest communication technology.