Rise of the Robots [Book Reviews]
Created by W.Langdon from
gp-bibliography.bib Revision:1.7954
- @Article{Stayton:2016:ieeeTechSoc,
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author = "E. Stayton",
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journal = "IEEE Technology and Society Magazine",
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title = "Rise of the Robots [Book Reviews]",
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year = "2016",
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volume = "35",
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number = "2",
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pages = "18--20",
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abstract = "The book is laudable as a trade book about emerging
technologies. It presents a broad, sweeping overview of
the issues at hand for the modern labourer in the
increasingly automated economy. From manufacturing to
the service sector, from elder care to intelligent
tutoring, myriad applications of artificial
intelligence are addressed - enough that, if one
accepts the author's claims about the impacts of
increasing automation, there is no conceivable
alternate economic sector in which those job losses can
be offset. This multiple-industry focus distinguishes
his book from those focused specifically on
manufacturing or commercial robotics, and aligns it
more closely with contemporary works like Brynjolfsson
and McAffee's Second Machine Age, though the author is
ultimately less optimistic about the future. Also key
to this work's approach, the author fuses the
technical, including approachable descriptions of
technologies like artificial neural networks and
genetic programming, with economic and political
information and critique. The book uses descriptions of
advancing AI technology to set up its punchline: the
economy must be restructured to avoid total collapse.
To this end, the author provides a number of insightful
and productive re-framings of salient economic issues.
Off-shoring becomes virtual immigration, since remote
workers profit from the economy and the infrastructure
of a nation without directly contributing to its
economy. Similarly, the author asks if decades of
public investment in information technology (via DARPA,
NSF, and other organizations) should give citizens a
claim on the ownership of society's accumulated
technological capital that is otherwise at risk of
being captured by a small, elite minority. The economy,
according to the author, can be likewise reinterpreted
as a resource in which all citizens have a stake, and
therefore can be used to rationalize a guaranteed
minimum income. Overall, the- book is well-constructed,
aimed at a popular audience that knows little about the
underlying automation technologies or the social and
economic realities of competing with automation. For a
technologist, the coverage of the robots themselves is
not particularly novel or insightful beyond what a
consistent reader of Wired, Technology Review, and
other technology-focused publications would already be
familiar with. And for someone who attends to debates
in contemporary economics or public policy, much of the
economic and policy information is unlikely to be
ground breaking. But while little of Ford's book is on
the cutting edge of any one sub-field, Rise of the
Robots is a competent, approachable, and a well-written
synthesis of information across many areas, and
provides a valuable, coherent picture of automation's
socio-economic interact ions.",
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keywords = "genetic algorithms, genetic programming, Automation,
Human factors, Manufacturing processes, Production
engineering, Robots, Technology",
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DOI = "doi:10.1109/MTS.2016.2554705",
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ISSN = "0278-0097",
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month = jun,
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notes = "Also known as \cite{7484828}",
- }
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