[Dean's World] Dave Price: Singularity Update

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Singularity Update
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1148063242.shtml


   A robot surgeon has [1]apparently performed a complex surgical
   proceduure without human assistance:

     MILAN, Italy, May 18 (UPI) -- For the first time, a robot surgeon
     in Italy has carried out a long-distance heart operation by itself.
     The 50-minute surgery, which took place in a Milan hospital, was
     carried out on a 34-year-old patient suffering from atrial
     fibrillation. Dozens of heart specialists attending an
     international congress on arrhythmia in Boston also watched.
     "It has learned to do the job thanks to experience gathered from
     operations on 10,000 patients," Pappone said, pointing out that the
     robot carries the expertise of several human surgeons used to boost
     its software.

   I have to admit, I didn't think this was possible yet.
   It also makes me wonder if this trend will impact the immigration
   situation, particularly migrant laborers. Japan is facing a
   demographic decline and, because they are such an insular culture that
   immigration is a political nonstarter, is planning to fill the gap
   with robotic labor (seriously). Seems likely they could do a lot of
   those "jobs no American is willing to do" as well.
   The implications of an increasinlgy human-labor-less economy are also
   fairly interesting. Presumably productivity goes through the roof,
   wages go down... and limited socialism becomes much more practical
   (i.e., affordable). I think we're probably looking at a society like
   those described in the [2]Animatrix short "The Second Revolution" or
   John Barnes' "[3]The Armies of Memory" in which artificial
   intelligences do nearly all the work, such that people are only
   required to work a few hours a day for a few years (which employment,
   of course, they still complain about bitterly).

References

   1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20060518-16332100-bc-italy-robotsurgeon.xml
   2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008LDPU/qid=1148062365/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1588774-1248820?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130
   3. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765303302/qid=1148062403/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-1588774-1248820?s=books&v=glance&n=283155