Happy St. Patty’s day-week from the land with Sean Fitzpatricks o’ plenty! This past week I’ve been thinking a lot about automation.
(Excuse me while I go on a tangent, I promise to return to the topic of EyeWire soon) With the current technological boom paving the way for computers and robots to automate most back office processes, the job market for human labor may shift. I have no idea whether automation will mean less work for humans to complete, or different work for humans to complete. Thinking about just the United States, I don’t believe that past technological booms have ever permanently decreased the job market, as today it seems most people take part in the workforce, with the unemployment rate hovering around 5%. Using this oversimplified “unemployment rate” statistic, we decide that any automation that has occurred thus far has only shifted the job market, creating jobs as it automates them.
So now, some of the jobs that were created through automation involve software engineering and computer programming. Human’s have made some pretty far out computers and robots. It almost seems we can automate anything. Well… we can’t yet because we haven’t automated neuron tracing clearly (or EyeWire would not exist). But EyeWire does use Artificial Intelligence trace neurons, it’s just that the AI makes extensive mistakes. This is where humans come in- they trace what the AI has missed. EyeWire’s AI actually uses machine learning, meaning that the computer teaches itself how to get better at coloring by looking for patterns in the way players color in EyeWire. So EyeWire’s AI, which was built by people, is now improving on its own. It is now building itself.
Woah. We’re building computers and robots that can improve themselves. And there are self-building robots out there. I think this technological revolution could actually lead to a decrease in human labor need because of this. In the not so far off future the EyeWire AI will be able to map neurons itself. Eventually AI will be able to do everything that humans can do and more. And when this happens, we’ll have more free time. And playing EyeWire is about being productive with one’s free time, and getting value from contributing to something real. I wonder where citizen science and other crowdsourcing projects will go if people have more free time because of technology. Will there be a surge in these projects, because people have so much free time to spend? Will we need to crowdsource manpower when technology is so advanced that people have this free time? Will the work of people be too obsolete to use manpower instead of AI?
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, and to be a part of the world as this plays out.
I cannot offer you photos on this post because my internet connection has been sad recently. I will go on a quest to find good internet and post SO MANY PHOTOS soon.
