On Wednesday, October 9, 2013 10:18:12 AM UTC-4, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote: > > Citeren Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be <javascript:>>: > > > > > On 08 Oct 2013, at 22:22, smi...@zonnet.nl <javascript:> wrote: > > > >> Citeren Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>>: > >> > >>> > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303492504579115310362925246.html > > >>> > >>> *Humans 1, Robots 0* > >>> Cashiers Trump Self-Checkout Machines at the Grocery Store > >>> > >>> Computers seem to be replacing humans across many industries, and > >>> we're all > >>> getting very nervous. > >>> > >>> But if you want some reason for optimism, visit your local > >>> supermarket. See > >>> that self-checkout machine? It doesn't hold a candle to the > >>> humans-- and its > >>> deficiencies neatly illustrate the limits of computers' abilities to > mimic > >>> human skills. > >>> > >>> The human supermarket checker is superior to the self-checkout > machine in > >>> almost every way. The human is faster. The human has a more pleasing, > less > >>> buggy interface. The human doesn't expect me to remember or look up > codes > >>> for produce, she bags my groceries, and unlike the machine, she isn't > on > >>> hair-trigger alert for any sign that I might be trying to steal > toilet > >>> paper. Best of all, the human does all the work while I'm allowed to > stand > >>> there and stupidly stare at my phone, which is my natural state of > being. > >>> > >>> There is only one problem with human checkers: They're in short > supply. At > >>> my neighborhood big-box suburban supermarket, the lines for human > checkers > >>> are often three or four deep, while the self-checkout queue is > usually > >>> sparse. Customers who are new to self-checkout might take their > >>> short lines > >>> to mean that the machines are more efficient than the humans, but > that > >>> would be a gross misunderstanding. > >>> > >>> As far as I can tell, the self-checkout lines are short only because > the > >>> machines aren't very good. > >>> > >>> They work well enough in a pinch--when you want to check out just a > >>> handful > >>> of items, when you don't have much produce, when you aren't loaded > down > >>> with coupons. But for any standard order, they're a big pain. > Perversely, > >>> then, self-checkout machines' shortcomings are their best feature: > because > >>> they're useless for most orders, their lines are shorter, making the > >>> machines seem faster than humans. > >>> > >>> In most instances where I'm presented with a machine instead of a > human, I > >>> rejoice. I prefer an ATM to a flesh-and-blood banker, and I find > airport > >>> check-in machines more efficient than the unsmiling guy at the desk. > But > >>> both these tasks--along with more routine computerized skills like > robotic > >>> assembly lines--share a common feature: They're very narrow, > specific, > >>> repeatable problems, ones that require little physical labor and not > much > >>> cognitive flexibility. > >>> > >>> Supermarket checkout--a low-wage job that doesn't require much > >>> training--sounds like it should be similarly vulnerable to robotic > >>> invasion. > >>> But it turns out that checking out groceries requires just enough > >>> mental-processing skills to be a prohibitive challenge for computers. > In > >>> that way, supermarket checkout represents a class of jobs that > computers > >>> can't yet match because, for now, they're just not very good > substituting > >>> key human abilities. > >>> > >>> What's so cognitively demanding about supermarket checkout? I spoke > to > >>> several former checkout people, and they all pointed to the same > skill: > >>> Identifying fruits and vegetables. Some supermarket produce is tagged > with > >>> small stickers carrying product-lookup codes, but a lot of stuff > isn't. > >>> It's the human checker's job to tell the difference between green > leaf > >>> lettuce and green bell peppers, and then to remember the proper code. > >>> > >>> "It took me about three or four weeks to get to the point where I > wouldn't > >>> have to look up most items that came by," said Sam Orme, a 30-year- > >>> old grad > >>> student who worked as a checker when he was a teenager. > >>> > >>> Another one-time checker, Ken Haskell, explained that even after > months of > >>> doing the job, he would often get stumped. "Every once in a while > >>> I'd get a > >>> papaya or a mango and I'd have to reach for the book," he said. > >>> > >>> In a recent research paper called "Dancing With Robots," the > economists > >>> Frank Levy and Richard Murnane point out that computers replace human > >>> workers only when machines meet two key conditions. First, the > information > >>> necessary to carry out the task must be put in a form that computers > can > >>> understand, and second, the job must be routine enough that it can be > >>> expressed in a series of rules. > >>> > >>> Supermarket checkout machines meet the second of these conditions, > >>> but they > >>> fail on the first. They lack proper information to do the job a > >>> human would > >>> do. To put it another way: They can't tell shiitakes from Shinola. > Instead > >>> of identifying your produce, the machine asks you, the customer, to > >>> type in > >>> a code for every leafy green in your cart. Many times you'll have to > look > >>> up the code in an on-screen directory. If a human checker asked you > to > >>> remind him what that bunch of the oblong yellow fruit in your basket > was, > >>> you'd ask to see his boss. > >>> > >>> This deficiency extends far beyond the checkout lane. > >>> > >>> "In the '60s people assumed you'd be reading X-rays and CT scans by > >>> computers within years," Mr. Levy said. "But it's nowhere near > anything > >>> like that. You have certain computerized enhancements for simple > images, > >>> but nothing like a real CT scan can be read by a computer--and the > same > >>> thing would be true trying to separate arugula from everything else." > >>> > >>> You could imagine certain ways to make the identification process > easier > >>> for supermarket computers. For example, we could tag every produce > item > >>> with an electronic identification tag. But that would be an enormous > >>> infrastructural challenge for a dubious return. > >>> > >>> A representative for NCR, the world's largest self-checkout vendor, > >>> pointed > >>> me to a company-sponsored survey that shows that customers believe > >>> self-checkout systems are faster than cashier lanes. But I doubt > those > >>> perceptions. When you actually watch self-checkout lanes matched up > >>> against > >>> cashiers, the cashiers come out significantly faster--read this > >>> Ph.D. thesis > >>> for proof, or go to your local store and marvel at how speedy the > humans > >>> are. > >>> > >>> Can computers beat them? Perhaps one day, but I doubt it will be > soon. And > >>> that gets to the other issue: Unless the store gives me an explicit > price > >>> break for scanning my stuff, why, exactly, should I be rejoicing > about > >>> doing more work? > >>> > >>> > _________________________________________________________________________________________________ > > > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> A lot of what I am always talking about is in there...computers don't > >>> understand produce because they have no aesthetic sensibility. A > >>> mechanical > >>> description of a function is not the same thing as participating in > an > >>> experience. > >>> > >>> Craig > >>> > >> > >> > >> You can't expect a machine with the computational capabilities of > >> less than an insect brain to the job most people do. It's actually > >> amazing that such machines can do quite a lot, but some tasks we > >> perform are the result of a significant part of our brain power. > > > > Craig, like xenophobes, do this repeatedly. To generalize invalidly > > from particular cases. That some x is stupid does not entail that all > > x have to be stupid. > > > > Bruno > > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > What also plays a role here is that people tend to underestimate just > how complex the human brain is. We are confronted on a daily basis with > the misleading fact that simple devices like calculators can outperform > us. > > We don't realize just how much preprocesing the brain does at the > subconscious level. Also when we try to do mental airthmetic like > 12*53, then we do that in an enormously inefficient way. It's like > using a pc that only has a word processor installed and you then do > that calculation by using the word count facility. But just to run that > word processor requires way more complex manipulations than evaluating > 12*53. >
True, but that does not explain why a word processor would even exist if words were ultimate only computational tokens used by one computer to talk to another. Why not just talk to other computers in the universal language of computation? > > I've had similar discussions with people who believe in paranormal > phenomena. Some people can be quite good at using their intuition to > sense things. But when testing under rigorous controlled circumstances > they fail. But the believers will still argue that there must be some > paranormal effect here because "they can't see how he/she comes up with > that information". You don't have to be a believer to be able to consider that since consciousness seems to involve the translation of the immeasurable to the measurable (and vice versa), measurement itself might alter the effect.The unintended consequences of testing under rigorous controlled circumstances should not be dismissed, any more than the placebo effect can be dismissed. Conditions which are rigorously controlled are not neutral conditions where consciousness is concerned, since control is one of the primary features of consciousness. > But then if you could give a simple formal > explanation that explains this, e.g. how to look at someone's face to > extract the desired information, then you could also do this task using > a programmable calculator, which means that an insect should in > principle also be able to perform that task. But we obviously don't > have a vastly larger brain than that of an insect for nothing. > But insects can tell the difference between okra and oranges too. There are plankton with eyes made of two cells who have no brain at all. Try as we might, there is no justification to be found for why computers would use qualia, or how they could specifically conjure them out of numbers. Numbers have no flavor or color, computations do not get dizzy or feel sad. Computation is automation and automation is what consciousness uses to offload its burden of feeling and doing. Craig > > Saibal > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
