Friday, July 10, 2020

Moravec's Paradox


What Companies Tend to Get Wrong About AI | INSEAD Knowledge

 
The roboticist, Hans Moravec, observed that it is relatively easy to get computers to achieve feats of higher cognition, but, difficult to get them to achieve feats of perception and mobility. 

Paradox: “Contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but, low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources. (1)

Counterintuitively, and perhaps ironically, certain IT engineers and analysts face higher risk of being displaced than do gardeners, cooks, and receptionists.  

Note also that it's easier to build specialized, single purpose robots than it is to build general purpose robots. Thus, jobs that require multitasking through layers of sensory, motor, cognitive, communication, and decision oriented skills are particularly resilient to automation. 
 
Many jobs that we consider “routine" involve a deceptively wide range of tasks.  For example, at first glance a receptionist job seems fairly specific—a single purpose role.   Yet, receptionists do more than answer phones and field questions on predefined topics.  They straighten magazines, sign for packages and interact with the delivery people, direct visitors to parking lots, wave and smile at guests across the lobby, schedule elevator repairs, leave notes for the security guards, water plants, screen unscheduled solicitors, and, in the course of a normal day, make dozens of decisions on an assortment of topics.  These are exactly the nuanced, layered sensorimotor skills that are difficult to automate.  
 
If anything, AI and robotics serve to make the human role more critical. With advancing technology we can automate more and more of our business processes; yet we rarely outsource entire processes.  Humans stubbornly remain in the loop.  We need humans to sort uncertain conditions, make decisions, and interact with other people.   Naturally, there will always be displacement in some jobs; and naturally, skill demands will shift.  But overall, people in multi-faceted roles—in particular those who lean on what we euphemistically call “soft” skills—will ride out the technology waves quite well.  

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Reference: 
(1) The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, page 29

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