Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Garbage Trucks Show Us the Robos Are Coming

There are many articles on Ithaka about different aspects of the coming Age of Robos and probably many are dismissed as stoner sci fi.  Reading the articles will remove that thinking quickly but that thinking is persistent, likely because people really don't want to believe.  It struck me there's one persistent example which comes around once a week and this may not be true where you are but it's been happening for years here in Fort Worth.

Traditionally, garbage trucks would be accompanied by a crew of multiple men.  In my experience usually they were black but we're not going to make a huge point out of that.  The fact is they were part of the crew and it took all of them to hoist the contents of the street's garbage cans into the garbage truck's gaping maw.

The newer style garbage trucks only require one man and I have no idea of his race since we usually don't see him because he never gets out of the truck.  He's driving a truck with robo loader apparatus and it's not intelligent robo gear but it easily could be.  Somehow he aligns the truck with the can and the mechanical claws lift it over the truck to spill the contents inside.

Note:  all garbage cans in Fort Worth are required to meet the same standard and all come from the city as far as I can tell.

Ed:  how do you know the driver of the truck is not a woman?

I don't and maybe she is.


That's hardly the breathtaking example of robo intelligence but surely you see it presaging the future when we see robos drive cars and trucks better than humans since they're not allowed to make any mistakes ever.  If there is one then they go back for redesign until it doesn't do that anymore.  Robos are held to a far higher standard than humans for whom we blow off car crashes as accidents.

We don't believe in accidents in cars but we strongly believe in idiots and yo' daddy was telling you about defensive driving before you ever took the wheel.  There's a good chance any motorcycle rider has generally that same opinion.  If you're going to die it will probably happen because of some idiot in a cage so don't let them kill you.

Ed:  that's not the way the actual First Biker Law reads, is it?

Well, the actual expression is rather more eloquent but that would freak the schoolmarms right out.  Well it might freak them since, what do you know, they drive cages.  We watch out for them just the same since, schoolmarm or no, if she makes a mistake then Biker Boy pays the price for it and it's usually the highest price possible.

Ed:  how do you know the schoolmarm is a woman?

Today there's no telling but the Wild West days were when they called them schoolmarms and I never saw a movie in which the schoolmarm was played anyone other than a woman.


There's not a convenient link but I presented an article previously with a high-level white paper on the Age or Robos and that was sticking to the general mantra of not for fifty years.  I did not read every word of it but my general perception was the primary focus was on the delta (i.e. the change between point A (now) and point B (fifty years from now)) but there seemed little attention to the effect of acceleration which we almost invariably see on increasing acceptance of anything.

We still view such estimations as extremely conservative and probably not realistic.


The reason for endlessly hammering this is the need for fixing the educational systems so kids can be adequately prepared for dramatic change.  The problem with Betty DeVos for Secretary of Education is obvious insofar as she has no significant qualifications and only brings God to the classroom but she overlooks the fact it's illegal.

We need someone with a much more comprehensive vision than that.  Religion isn't dying in America and never was.  We get flogged with the idea some evil force killing it but we have seen no particular threat other than complacence.

As has been reviewed quite a bit lately, there are many being enticed with the idea of a golden future but they must go to university to get it.  Not surprisingly, there has been a tremendous inflation of costs, crooks, and complete financial wreckage behind the plans of many incipient college students who really didn't have a need for it in the first place.


There's some determined thinking universities should be some type of vocation schools but they're not and they're also not the problem since many need vocational schools and such education carries just as much weight as a university degree if it's appropriate to the student's talents and abilities.  There was an article within the last week or so regarding the importance of 'ability grouping' in education to further reinforce that thinking.  The general topic is regarding gifted students but the concept is wider than that.  (Ithaka:  Dealing with Gifted Students in More Realistic Ways - Science)

There is no one-size-fits-all answer and attempts to legislate conformity have altogether failed.  We need some radical thinking about education and I have seen Lotho is willing so I wonder how many others are ready to get it done as well.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Universities should stay Universities. Tech schools should stay tech schools.
The attempts to legislate conformity have been very successful.
Why Congress thinks they can educate children is beyond me.
The new process in public schools is to eliminate homework. What a ridiculous notion. Why the nation refuses to use the private school methods as a roadmap dumbfounds me. It works so much better. Why they try to make every school the same and teach every school the same is another ridiculous notion.
Solving the entire system at once is also ridiculous. It is solved one student at a time one school at a time. Since we only employ teachers who barely made it out of teachers college that is going to be a long slow task. Any teacher who is worthwhile teaches at upscale publuc schools or switches to private schools.
The dept of education is pointless send the money and the power to the state or better county levels.
Then there is actual accountability for what is done and how it is done.

Unknown said...

We agree on just about all of it but I'm not a fan of state mgmt of things since I don't see them doing things any better than the Fed.

I suspect a part of the problem is few are really sure what they're trying to accomplish beyond spending enormous amounts of money and consumers aren't really sure what they want either as you mentioned with those trying to acquire degrees for no apparent reason. I was lucky, for many reasons, as I wanted to absorb as much as I could and I still do but for others it's not so clear.

Anonymous said...

The closer you get the decision makers to the problem the better the results will be, too close though and you lose the diversity that you need to help everyone equally. I dont mean the same as equal means to the need not the desire.

PS those garbage trucks have been around for decades
If you agree why are vouchers to move kids from public to private so evil

Unknown said...

The vouchers aren't evil but I'm not convinced they will solve the problem when my perception is there's too much commercialization of education already. I don't mean to second guess your good experiences with private schools but I question what happens if they become such big business as the college education since we saw how well that went.

Anonymous said...

I dont want them to become big business just small localized schools with schools administrators that not only know the parents but listen and respond to them
This is not meant as a solution for everyone but it will work for the majority who actually want to learn. The is a large percentage that do not care about thier kids education and just use schools as daycare. We do need to be able to educate students even if thier parents dont help. These are the hardest to reach. These are the ones we should care about. The ones with caring parents will always have a chance to succeed. The tech school kids already have a route to take. But the kids that have loser parents should be the focus.
And vouchers to send them to private schools could certainly be a positive move for them.

Unknown said...

I do see the concept and understand but still the concern exists when we have seen what happened elsewhere. I'm sure you're clear I want this fixed as much as you but I'm not so convinced of the best way to do it but now painfully clear to just about everyone is that doing nothing about it just doesn't work.

I don't know what would motivate or demotivate a parent on a kid's education whether drink, drugs, or personal damage of some other kind but that aspect is difficult to understand.

Do kids in private schools have to do the Pledge of Allegiance as that would be a consideration for me if I were a parent since I would want my kid educated and not indoctrinated.

Unknown said...

This aspect is teeny tiny but I don't recall robo garbage trucks in Rhode Island. It may be I just never noticed.

Anonymous said...

Private schools come with many different philosophies in regard to both morals and educational style.
If the Pledge of Allegiance is an issue, that is a question to ask before choosing a particular school. Just as I would invsetigate educational style, moral, religious, athletic components of the school. This cant be done at a public school as it is one size fits all. Not to mention the bureaucracy that fills public schools is beyond ridiculous ie a kindergarten child suspend for bringing a plastic knife to school to use at lunch or a child suspend for playing in the playground and using his hand as a gun. These are just a few of many where the system is massively broken. This is why the rules need to be made by the parents and teachers and administrators involved with the children not some idealists with an agenda in an office which no comnection to the schools

Unknown said...

The Pledge aspect is something which seemed mandatory in some way so it's a revelation that some places may not require that. The point goes back to legislating conformity, etc.

Trump has a billionaire brainiac for Education Secretary and she reveals no qualifications at all but there's a tiny hope she has an insight into systems. She's going to piss me off if she's just pounding a Bible since you know as well the situation needs much more than that.

Anonymous said...

The Bible isnt tbe answer but some discipline might help

Unknown said...

You mentioned previously how parents need to get behind this too and all the more for the discipline. I look back and see a large part of my discipline problem in high school was it wasn't challenging me and I suspect that's true for quite a few people. That goes back to the problem with one-size-fits-all solutions.

I have no experience how it goes in modern schools in enforcing discipline but I suspect not well. In my own life, I remember the cane in Australia and that bitch would hurt you. I never encountered any abusive use of it and it damn sure put the fear of the Lord into me. (That's only a figure of speech as they did not push anything of that nature. I had done some stupid thing or another and it was time to pay up. Crack!)