Day: April 15, 2021

Week 11: Machines & Learning ( shafi khan)

shafi ahmmad khan

Human beings over-rely on technology to execute tasks, causing people to lose knowledge to perform certain tasks. As a result, people put their lives at risk and die due to lack of knowledge. For example, airlines rely on automation to improve efficiency and reduce pilot workload. However, over-reliance on automation over a period of time erodes the pilot’s skills. Automation only requires the pilot to input key information to the computer software program in the plane. The pilot loses the necessary skills as they become conditioned to automation over time, which causes them to make errors when confronted with unexpected events. As a result, pilots cause crashes, which claim people’s lives due to over-reliance on technology. This can be avoided by training pilots to manually fly and control the airplanes under pressure before training them auto-piloting and by encouraging pilots to fly planes manually more frequently.

Airlines use fly-by-wire technology that replaces manual flight control. The technology translates the pilot’s actions to signals, which the computers use to take control of the flight automatically. Moreover, the computer constantly monitors input to ensure the pilot inputs appropriate command signals and prevents the plane from exceeding its flight envelope, thus improving safety. Therefore, it is not a matter of improving technology as the technology is at its best, but rather improving workers’ skills. People are more likely to remember words and master how the task is done by actively saying the words or performing the task themselves. When a person actively and repeatedly executes a task, the brain develops specialized neural circuits dedicated to the activity, thus improved the generation effect. The generation effect improves later recognition memory performance, which improves workers’ skills in the workplace. Improving their skills enables them to complete the task in case the computers fail or malfunction.

Technology has led to increased job growth, especially in the information technology sector that requires high technical and analytic work.  However, it poses a threat to other sectors as it has reduced the demand for routine mechanized work as robots execute routine tasks. This technology has taken over banking, manufacturing, customer service, packaging and shipping, assembling, and even transportation. Robots are now secretaries, assemblers, customer service attendants, packagers, and carriers. An example is the use of robot technology in car factories. Initially, workers were responsible for assembling vehicles by attaching various parts before moving to the next stage. Robots have taken over this job as they can perform several tasks at once. Despite replacing human workers, technology is crucial as it results in faster and increased manufacturing. Human beings are now competing against technology, which continues to advance due to increased demand in various sectors.

Without proactive efforts, technology will take over routine jobs rendering several workers jobless. Nevertheless, future jobs will require a new set of skills to work with the emerging technologies as they will offer great opportunities. For example, the robotic industry will generate more jobs, and more workers with advanced skills will be required to build robots. Therefore, individuals should acquire technology training to understand how to work with new and advanced technologies. They can learn from online resources or attend information technology classes to increase their computer skills. The focus should be on what technology can do, how to use the available technology, the risks involved, and how to tackle them. Besides, with the increased use of robotic technology, industries will require employees who leverage technology to run big operations with a small workforce.  Therefore, workers should develop soft skills such as emotional intelligence, problem-solving, or leadership to remain competitive in the job market.

 

 

Week 11: Machines & Learning

Arianna Liang Zheng

1. I agree with what Carr said that our reliance on technology becomes stronger and stronger, technology makes it easy for people to do a lot of things, whether it’s at work, at school, at home, etc. These conveniences are what make people start to get more and more inseparable from technology, and I think most people will no longer do things that make them struggle and work hard compared to the conveniences they already enjoy, and that’s what leads to examples like the plane crash mentioned in Carr’s article, is when there are technical problems that happen, people start to panic and start to let things become unplanned and even make low-level mistakes and judgments. One way we can solve this problem is, as Carr mentions in his article, “You can put limits on the scope of automation, making sure that people working with computers perform challenging tasks rather than merely observing.”

2. I think it’s a matter of improving both technology and the skills of the workers but first of all is to improve the skills of workers, because technology is made by people, so if you want to improve technology, the first thing to do is to improve the skills of workers, the skills of immediate reaction in the face of technical problems and any skills on the job that can help and improve, skills are the one thing that really belongs to them, technology can have problems at any time. As the workers’ skills improve, then the technology will improve as well.

3. I think it is somewhat related to the concern of technology taking jobs because it is true that many jobs that used to require manual labor have been replaced by technology, so if technology advances again then more of the current jobs will be replaced by technology. I think my position is a bit wavering because I do enjoy the convenience that technology brings me but if technology replaces a lot of jobs it means I may also have a hard time finding a job in the future.

4. The only alternative I can think of is to make a clear distinction between the work that technology can do and people, to give people a strong sense of what skills they need to have and what skills technology cannot replace, to have a clear understanding of what they are doing, and be convinced that technology is not perfect either and that people cannot rely on it completely, especially in the face of something that has security risks.

Bonus: I am very reliant on technology, especially during this epidemic period where I can’t live without it as I need to use the internet daily for online classes, doing homework, taking exams, etc. Also, I like to watch TV shows, videos, read novels and listen to music online in my free time. 

Week 11: Machines and Learning (Vicky Chen)

Vicky Chen
  1. I agree with Carr when he addresses how as time progresses, our reliance on technology becomes stronger and stronger. In Carr’s article, he mentions, “A National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded that the cause of the accident was pilot error. The captain’s response to the stall warning, the investigators reported, “should have been automatic, but this improper flight control inputs were inconsistent with his training”…pilots seemed to lack “situational awareness” as the emergency unfolded.” These tragic incidents of plane crashes may have been avoidable if pilots were taught better in a way that they didn’t fully depend on today’s technology. We can fix this by not only bring more awareness to the situation but implying it in the classes that pilot’s are required to take.
  2. I believe that it is a matter of improving the skills of the workers. Technology has shown to do amazing things for us but it isn’t 100% reliable. When we improve as workers, we can also improve technology. It always good to have a back up plan.
  3. I believe that this can relate to the concern of technology taking jobs. There is a big controversy about this situation. In my opinion, technology is definitely capable of taking people’s jobs. Many fast food chains has installed kiosks for people to order food. This is minimizing the need for cashiers. Technology will not take away all jobs but it is capable of taking away many.
  4. One alternative approach that I can think of for technology being a part of our lives without completely taking over is not fully depending on it. Humans should take control over technology instead of technology taking control of humans. We can utilize  technology in a way that would benefit us instead of harm us.

Bonus: I am pretty reliant on technology as I use it everyday. I interact with technology from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. There will be days that I spend less time on technology compared to other days. I find technology to be both useful and harmful to me. There are pros and cons to it depending on how it is being used. It can be useful in terms of using it to get work done, contacting people, and having easy access to the internet but it can also be harmful in terms of spending hours at a time lost in your phone or computer doing nothing productive.

Week 11 (Yailene Rodriguez)

Yailene Rodriguez

1. I agree that technology has made humans unlearn and rely on technology a lot. Jobs are more about learning how to use a machine than how to do it yourself. Although technology helps do things faster and easier, society is forgetting to remember to teach themselves how to do it manually and how to remember things without needing the internet. The tragic incidents could have been avoided if the pilots did not trust the auto-pilot so much and if the pilot knew what to do in an emergency. This could have been fixed if the pilot was alert the whole time believing that the best person to fly the plane is him, not the autopilot. Another way of fixing this is making sure that each pilot knows how to actually fly the plane on its own and how to land the plane safely when the engine is not working.
2. I think that it is a matter of improving the skills of the workers because I believe that we can not trust technology to perform perfectly every time. After all, technology was created by humans and we should be able to understand how to reprogram and how to manually do the task that it is assigned. I also believe that depending on technology too much will cause humans to become what the movie WALL-E was showcasing. The movie showed that Earth was too polluted and humans couldn’t even walk on their own and spent the whole day being taken care of by technology. I think we should stop advancing on technology before we get to this state because although it makes life easier, it intern makes humans dumber.
3. I think that the creation of autopilot and other technologies is taking away jobs. For example, self-driving taxis are already in creation which can take the job away from taxi drivers, bus workers, delivery drivers, etc. I hope that this isn’t the case because I do not trust putting my life into technology that can malfunction, discharge or need a random update. I believe that technology can help the human driver but I do not think that this world should become a technology-only place. I think that society won’t adapt to the idea of trusting technology alone.
4. An alternative approach to technology advancing is to make sure that technology always depends on humans and that the human is the one needed to operate it, not the other way around. I also believe that unnecessary technology should not be made so that there’s a need for things and for people.