The rise of the robots.

[robbelg]

However, I would confidently predict that at least half of teachers will be gone within a very few years

I think not below 6th form level where a large part of the job is maintaining ( some sort of ) discipline

[redsturgeon]

My son, aged 15 already seems to get most of his information/education from a machine. Basically his phone.

Whenever he comes up with some fascinating snippet of news or information or a topic for discussion and I ask him if he learned about it at school, the response is inevitably, "No I saw a video about it on youtube."

I studied psychology at university and you would think of all subjects that would be one where some attention was paid to optimise learning for the students. But no, there were two lecturers who seemed to care enough to make their lectures interesting, the rest just read from boring notes, some without any visual aids at all.

One of the interesting lecturers was a behaviourist, all that stuff about teaching rats to press levers, essentially one of the most boring topics but he made it fascinating while others who had topics like criminal psychology and mental illness were totally tedious and sleep inducing.

B F Skinner was the hero of behaviourists and he was a big proponent of the idea of machines to teach children back in the 50s. Ahead of his time.

John

[ThirdWay]

Hard to imagine teachers going any time soon.

If anyone can be easily replaced it's the overpaid tube drivers, but nobody dares stand up to them.

[Slarti]

Quotes from the BBC article:

There are also more subtle questions about online help from a robot. Would you feel the same about positive feedback if it came from a machine rather than a person?

I think most students would be perfectly happy with that. Human tutors are far more likely to let subjective issues affect their assessment of their pupils’ work - such factors as whether they like them as an individual, whether the style in which they answer questions matches the tutor's own style, or, God forbid these days, whether the tutor wants to jump into bed with them!

What do you mean, these days?

That has been going on as long as there have been tutors and students. What do you think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNIZofPB8ZM is about, based on Sting's experiences as a teacher?

Slarti

[swill453]

Honda applies self balancing technology to one of its motorcycles.

I'd always worry if it was hit hard enough it might try and right itself upside-down or something, or attempt a full eskimo roll.

Scott.

[SW10Chap]

...fully functional hyperloop pods will be fired down a 1.6km near vacuum tube specially built by SpaceX at their California headquarters...

Imagine what the acceleration and deceleration would do to your Caffe Nero.
To say nothing of getting up and staggering off to find the carriage with a WC.

[SW10Chap]

London to Edinburgh in 45 minutes

Less the 2 hours customs and immigration check, plus obligatory unmissable retail experience à la Channel Tunnel.

[TopOnePercent]

I'm not sure they will be toilets built into the finished designs - London to Edinburgh in 45 minutes - sure folk can hold their piss for that long?

You've not been on the Friday night train North before, have you?

Seriously though, anything people are sealed into for more than about 5 minutes will either have a toilet, or piss soaked cushions. It shouldn't. But it will.

[TopOnePercent]

Returning to the subject of Amazon delivery drones. No matter the height at which they transit, their delivery sequence will go something like this:
1) Arrive over destination and begin reducing height.
2) Arrive in height at which it can be vandalised or otherwise damaged.
3) Land. At a height at which it can be stolen, vandalised, or otherwise damaged.
4) Take off and return to height at which it can be vandalised or otherwise damaged.
5) Arrive at transit height and begin returning to base.

I would estimate the odds of successful transit through stages 2, 3, and 4 at slim to none in many parts of the country.

Law enforcement, however, could make very very good use of drones - follow the known scrotes around video recording everything they do - legal, justifiable, and if I recall from some such experiment (PCSOs and camcorders), effective. It's hard to commit crime when the police A) know what you did, where, when, and with home, and B) have the whole incident on video.

[Clitheroekid]

Law enforcement, however, could make very very good use of drones - follow the known scrotes around video recording everything they do

Irrespective of the sheer impracticality of such a scheme and the splendid entertainment that `Game of Drones' would provide for the said scrotes have you any idea what it would cost?

Drones can't think for themselves, so each one would have to be operated and guided by a paid employee of the police.

For the vast majority of the time scrotes aren't committing crime, but in order to track where they were the drones would need to be hovering there 24/7, presumably with lights on at night, with said employee at the far end monitoring the screen and patrolling all known exit points from the scrote's nocturnal lair.

This is effectively the same as allocating a 24/7 warden to the scrote, and depending on your exact definition of a `known scrote' would exhaust the entire Home Office budget within a few weeks.

Back to the drawing board.

[TopOnePercent]

Law enforcement, however, could make very very good use of drones - follow the known scrotes around video recording everything they do

Irrespective of the sheer impracticality of such a scheme and the splendid entertainment that `Game of Drones' would provide for the said scrotes have you any idea what it would cost?

Drones can't think for themselves, so each one would have to be operated and guided by a paid employee of the police.

I was planning on having an AI do the work. Once Amazon start knocking out drones in the millions the cost will be peanuts.

For the vast majority of the time scrotes aren't committing crime, but in order to track where they were the drones would need to be hovering there 24/7, presumably with lights on at night, with said employee at the far end monitoring the screen and patrolling all known exit points from the scrote's nocturnal lair.

AI + Night Vision camera. The cost of the component parts falls year on year. I'm not suggesting we do this now, today, but it should be technically and fiscally feasible around the time the Amazon drones are ready to make deliveries. The software required to identify and track a single target is likely to be simpler than that required by a self driving car.

Mr Musk is driving battery tech forward faster than it has done for years, so flight times should increase to something useable, and we could always have the drones run in shifts. A drone with a 1 hour flight time and night vision camera will, I think, cost less than £500 by 2020. All it needs is a fairly simple AI to fly it. Instead of CCTV watching everyone, we could have mobile CCTV that watches known criminals.... it might even need fewer humans than what we have already.

https://www.conranshop.co.uk/simtoo-dro ... AnUp8P8HAQ

Something like that, the first link I got on google, just needs a better battery life and a connection to an AI. Yours today for £500 quid. Yours in 2020 for probably £200.

[redsturgeon]

It is not a great leap of the imagination to think of a future where everyone has their own personal drone that follows them around outdoors.

Indoors of course all rooms will be watched over by the latest Alexa model, all for your own safety and security of course.

A nightmarish dystopian view that I'm sure some SF writer must have captured already.

John

[Slarti]

Seriously though, anything people are sealed into for more than about 5 minutes will either have a toilet, or piss soaked cushions. It shouldn't. But it will.

Metro trains/tubes?
Taxis?
Buses?
Cars on motorways?

Those are mostly free from piss soaked seats.

Slarti

[TopOnePercent]

Seriously though, anything people are sealed into for more than about 5 minutes will either have a toilet, or piss soaked cushions. It shouldn't. But it will.

Metro trains/tubes?
Taxis?
Buses?
Cars on motorways?

Those are mostly free from piss soaked seats.

Slarti

Trains have toilets, taxis tend to be short journeys, busses have plenty of dry piss in the seats, and most of those in the car have an ownership stake in it and it will stop at the next services when someone has to go.

[Slarti]

Seriously though, anything people are sealed into for more than about 5 minutes will either have a toilet, or piss soaked cushions. It shouldn't. But it will.

Metro trains/tubes?
Taxis?
Buses?
Cars on motorways?

Those are mostly free from piss soaked seats.

Slarti

Trains have toilets, taxis tend to be short journeys, busses have plenty of dry piss in the seats, and most of those in the car have an ownership stake in it and it will stop at the next services when someone has to go.

Metro trains such as the tube don't and the journeys can be easily be over an hour.

It is a while since I was a regular user of buses, but I don't remember that many stains of the seats.

It is usually much more than 5 minutes between motorway services, ownership stake or not.

Slarti

[sunnyjoe]

SpaceX chose great names for their spaceport drone ships i.e. the MV "Just Read the Instructions" and the MV "Of Course I Still Love You"

http://www.space.com/28445-spacex-elon- ... names.html

[redsturgeon]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... bot-google

So much for robots struggling with stairs!

John

[AleisterCrowley]

Maybe the 'manned' one will be unmanned too - just like in Capricorn 1....

[bungeejumper]

Fingers crossed it might be James Corden.

D'you think we could afford a seat for Donald Trump if we all saved up? And maybe organise a short space walk too?

"I'm sorry, Donald, I'm afraid I can't do that...."

Ah well, a man can dream.

BJ

[UncleEbenezer]

D'you think we could afford a seat for Donald Trump if we all saved up? And maybe organise a short space walk too?
BJ

I'll chip in for his lady friend with the special relationship to hold his hand.