Quotes About Automation

If each of them creates another thousand robots, then we have a million. Then a billion. Then a trillion. In just a few generations, we can have an expanding sphere containing quadrillions of these devices, which scientists call von Neumann machines.

With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream... or truly live.

The tool produces according to human needs, the machine regardless of human needs.

The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.

There are already robotic journalists. Sure, they aren't very good, but they're getting better faster than human journalists are.

The investment we're all looking for is actually saving labor... Look at what the internet is doing to retail.

Human labor cannot compete with fixed capital - that's just a fact.

Henry Ford once wondered querulously, "Why is it that whenever I ask for a pair of hands, a brain comes attached?

The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work.

I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse.

The most relevant precursor to today's computers is the Jacquard loom,

But the economy's out of control. Money just doesn't need human beings anymore. Most of us only get in the way.

hot-rodding lasted until the 1980s when, as Matthew Crawford observes, electronic engine management made everything under the bonnet 'a little opaque'. It is hard to rod a computer.

Whatever; if there's one thing I can't stand it's machines that talk back: SILENCE!

In 2018, it's still too soon to know whether the tech revolution will kill more jobs than it creates.

Another factor that's likely to exacerbate inequality: next-generation automation. The technological revolution in the workplace has only just begun. A 2017 study published by the Institute for Spatial Economic Analysis found that nearly every major American city will see half of its current jobs replaced by robots by 2035.

I despised even more the agglomeration of routines and learning algorithms that could burrow into my life, like a tropical river worm, and make choices on my behalf.

Google, as usual, is one step ahead of everyone and provided the means where all videos on YouTube can be automatically captioned through voice-recognition technology without having to be told that it's the responsible thing to do.

Robots already perform many functions, from making cars to defusing bombs - or, more menacingly, firing missiles. Children and adults play with toy robots, while vacuum-cleaning robots are sucking up dirt in a growing number of homes and - as evidenced by YouTube videos - entertaining cats.

YouTube has a hundred engineers who are trying to get the perfect next video to play automatically. And their techniques are only going to get more and more perfect over time, and we will have to resist the perfect.

Machines can do things cheaper and better. We're very used to that in banking, for example. ATM machines are better than tellers if you want a simple transaction. They're faster, they're less trouble, they're more reliable, so they put tellers out of work.

Automation is great for profits, but it's a real potential trouble area for society.

If the world would only build temples to Machinery in the abstract then everything would be perfect. The painter and sculptor would have plenty to do, and could, in complete peace and suitably honored, pursue their trade without further trouble.

People often talk about the self-driving car and what will that do. In 32 states, the number one job is to be the driver. But remember, it's not just the driver. Let's think about the truck stops along the way. When you suddenly have a lot of other people who are dependent on those careers.