Is the talk of AI ( Artificial intelligence) really new ?

Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

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1913 
Farming The terms “technology” and “mechanization” bring to mind images of great auto assembly plants or oil refineries or an army of robots doing man's work. Actually, however ... Today, only 1 worker in 12 makes his living from farming, either as a farm owner or as a laborer. ... Moreover, the replacement of horses and mules by tractors and trucks in both the city and on the farm has freed millions of acres for the production of food for human beings instead of for livestock
cally or more accurately by automated equipment will restruc• tured; many Of them will upgraded or disappear. However. until reccntly. relatively few Precision xssernbly jobs have eliminated by automation. The need for precision, independent judgment. and knowledge has placed many jobs tryond the capabilities of robots. Because much precision assernbly work is done in difficult-to-reach l«ations unsuited for robots—inside airplane fuselages or inside gear boxes. for example—replacement of these workers by automated pro- cesses will be slower and less comprehensive than replacement Of welders and painters.

1913
Farming The terms “technology” and “mechanization” bring to mind images of great auto assembly plants or oil refineries or an army of robots doing man's work. Actually, however ... Today, only 1 worker in 12 makes his living from farming, either as a farm owner or as a laborer. ... Moreover, the replacement of horses and mules by tractors and trucks in both the city and on the farm has freed millions of acres for the production of food for human beings instead of for livestockArtificial intelligence is being heralded as one Of the breakthroughs in computer uses that will drastically change edu- cation and research. and the nature of work. Artificial intelligence defined in electronic terms is called "behavior by a machine which, if performed by a human being, would be called intel- Ijgent." A special project sponsored by Science and Education at USDA set Purdue University scientists to the task of determining the potential ap- plications of expert systems for agri- culture and the costs and benefits Of widespread usage in agriculture production. Three subsystems have been iden- tified as having specific potential for agriculture: knowledge systems (es- pecially expert systems), robotics, and natural language processing.

Page count:336

Published:1995

Publisher:U.S. Department of Agriculture

Original from:the University of California

Digitized:April 21, 2016

Contributor:United States. Department of Agriculture

Estimated Househow
Penetration
Product
of y..r.End 1984)
All Television
Color TV
Monochrome TV
Projection TV
VCR
Programmable Video Garnes
Home Computers
Audio Systems
• Compact
• Component
Console
Telephone Answering Devices
Cordless Telephones
Home Radios
98%
91%
2%
1%
25%
13%
87%
51%
38%
23%
5%
10%
98%

UTAH/MIT hand With four fingers (4 degrees of freedom in each finger)

HARVARD two-finger manipulator

SANDLA National Laboratories hand With three fingers
STANFORD autonomms platform

HERMLES autonomous moving

USC hand With two finge.rs
OHIO robot leg
NOMAD moving robot With Six legs
LEHIGH arm (seven Dgrees of freedom)
TURTLE—l moving With four legs
DARM—2 arm (seven degees of  freedom)

Sugarman (72al predicß that tlr near future of tyr intelligent robots are not too auspicious, due to their high üXt, small numbers available, and their insufficient application space. Ferreira [72bl gives a different picture In predicts that intelligent rot»ts Can replace human workers in the industrial environment, resulting in increased productivity and improved product quality while reducing production costS. His major premise that work for an extensive, performing at efficiency. Figure 1 shows future predictions for the robots market and their available number in the near future [72]. An additional factor in support of Ferreira 's is that the mcst healthy industrial coqx'rations have already their own robots the market comy*tition is t*ginning rotx»tic projects. Moreover, Bhanu 1331 asserts that sales of industrial roboß reached SOS billion in 1986, are to reach SS.8 billion by 1995. A summari&d sales forecast by the of Manuåcturing Engineers Delphi (Ta-



Forecasted Robot Characteristic 
vc'pm 
1990 Sales of Robots having the 
Forecasted Characteristics (%) 
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
Robots cornE»sed Of modular standard cornrX)nentS 
Use Of general purpcse hand 
robots 
ReFtability less than or equal to 0,001 inch 
Use of integral Sensors 
Use of pattern recognition and 
Use Of vision 
Robots that can be programmed 
63 
20 
15 
93 
60 
22 
25 
20 
Source: From Ref- 57. 
ble 1) supports this extrapolation. It is estimated that more than half of the increase in U.S. 
productivity (defined as the Output ofthe goods or services produced unit of labor input) 
results from technological improvernents, combined With improved management 
and employee training [571. Recently, Schenker [541 has propcsed new research goals of 

NASA in telerobos (Table 2). 

Forecasted Robot Characteristic 

vc'pm 

1990 Sales of Robots having the 

Forecasted Characteristics (%) 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

Robots cornE»sed Of modular standard cornrX)nentS 

Use Of general purpcse hand 

robots 

ReFtability less than or equal to 0,001 inch 

Use of integral Sensors 

Use of pattern recognition and 

Use Of vision 

Robots that can be programmed 

63 

20 

15 

93 

60 

22 

25 

20 

Source: From Ref- 57. 

ble 1) supports this extrapolation. It is estimated that more than half of the increase in U.S. 

productivity (defined as the Output ofthe goods or services produced unit of labor input) 

results from technological improvernents, combined With improved management 

and employee training [571. Recently, Schenker [541 has propcsed new research goals of 

NASA in telerobos (Table 2). 

fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov.44 Perhaps the most fundamental question of all is, Do we really need to replace humans by intelligent machines? Do the demands for productivity require that smart computers of some description replace thousands of workers? Should we, say, re- place typists With scanning machines that recognize different handwrit- ing? The counterargument may be best represented by an anecdote. A union leader looking over a quarry Site bemoans the fate of his workers. He approaches the quarry owner and says, "lf it wasn't for those steam shovels, we'd be employing 500 men With shovels." The owner replies, "And if it wasn't for your 500 men With shovels, we'd be employing 10,000 men With thimbles." Perhaps the message of this anecdote is not just that technological change demands changes in the nature of work, but that work can also be dangerous, dirty, and degrading to human beings. In that case, perhaps the design of work for human beings in conjunction With intelligent technology is What we require. Beyond that, the job-reducing potential of technology needs to be managed more effectively by the provision of training programs, incentive schemes, and appropriate government policies.