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Are machines going to take over jobs? Yes. A quick look at what TSMC and Waymo are doing in Arizona prove it.
APS uses drones and infrared cameras for fire prevention inspections
Arizona Public Service crews conduct fire prevention inspections on Oak Creek power lines with drones and infrared cameras.
Provided by Arizona Public Service
While you sleep at night, cameras that can see the world in ways the human eye cannot are on the job 24/7 monitoring Arizona forests for wildfires.
These machine eyes are connected simultaneously to an array of ultra high-definition cameras that use infrared sensors and satellite imagery to spot forest fires in their early beginnings, increasing the potential to extinguish them before they grow more menacing.
In his story about major Arizona utilities turning to artificial intelligence systems to help aid firefighting, Arizona Republic reporter Russ Wiles has a couple of particularly telling paragraphs:
“APS, working with officials from the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, and the U.S. Forest Service, still relies on humans to interpret signs of smoke on the horizon. That includes people manning watchtowers to scan the horizons.
“That won’t change, and these individuals aren’t expected to be replaced by AI cameras, Ward said.”
People are still controlling the AI, we’re told
There it is. The obligatory qualifier by official sources that is essentially saying, “Fear not, human beings, you are not yet expendable.”
You see these cautions everywhere now.
In a Wall Street Journal story on Pano, the San Francisco company that Arizona Public Service turns to for AI fire-alert assistance, comes a similar qualifier.
“Firefighter unions generally support AI cameras, but worry about other AI uses, like pilotless helicopter drones being developed for water drops. That could endanger human-piloted aircraft that fight fires, said Tim Edwards, president of Cal Fire Local 2881, the union representing the agency’s firefighters.
“‘If you get too many aircraft in an area that is not controlled, you have accidents,’ Edwards said.”
Then there is this:
“There’s always gonna be a person … ,” said (UC San Diego professor Falko) Kuester, standing before a live-camera feed of multiple forests. “The AI will never be like, ‘Send three engines.’”
If AI can make better decisions, we’ll let it
Never? Are you sure of that?
It will probably happen if machines can do that more safely, more accurately, more quickly and more efficiently than human beings.
Technologically, we’ve probably already crossed that threshold.
In Germany, a company called Silvanet is using solar-powered gas sensors connected to trees and a wireless network to detect fires almost from their first flickers.
This “electronic nose” can detect the “smoldering stage” with sensors that can pick up and process levels of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and other gases.
The system runs on AI that learns as it goes. When it detects a fire, it notifies authorities “long before any camera or satellite-based system can,” according to promotional materials.
The authorities then send drones with infrared and other imaging technology to confirm the fire.
Bill Gates says most of us are replaceable
It’s not a far leap to imagine that one day sensors in the forests could call out the drones, which would then call out the firefighters.
All of this has special resonance after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates created a blaze of his own — a prairie fire across the internet.
When late-night talk host Jimmy Fallon asked Gates if we will need humans in the future, he responded, “Not for most things.”
Gates went on to explain that while we still rely on our “great doctor” or “great teacher,” they will be replaced.
It is hard to know if all the talk about AI is hype or hard analysis. The industry producing AI surely has an interest in fanning the enthusiasm, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose writes.
Roose said he identifies with the skeptics, because he has long been one. But in an extraordinary column on March 14, he delivered a sort of mea culpa.
“I’ve come to believe that I was wrong. A few things have persuaded me to take A.I. progress more seriously.”
“Every week, I meet engineers and entrepreneurs working on A.I. who tell me that change — big change, world-shaking change, the kind of transformation we’ve never seen before — is just around the corner.
“.. today, the people with the best information about A.I. progress — the people building powerful A.I., who have access to more-advanced systems than the general public sees — are telling us that big change is near.”
Waymo, TSMC offer a glimpse of our future
Roose wrote that Dario Amodei, chief executive of AI-startup Anthropic, told him in February that he believes the technology is 1 to 2 years from “a very large number of A.I. systems that are much smarter than humans at almost everything.”
Look around and you see AI becoming ubiquitous. Phoenix is one the most advanced test markets for autonomous vehicles. It’s now common for any of us to spot Waymo cars on the road.
I was once at an intersection in northeast Phoenix when I spotted three driverless Waymo cars in my vicinity. I’m guessing that’s not uncommon.
Are machines going to take over jobs? Yes. They already are.
An example is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Some are criticizing the corporation for building expensive new factories in Arizona, a $165 billion investment. It is far more costly to manufacture microchips in the United States than in Asia.
However, G. Dan Hutcheson of TechInsights pushed back last week, saying today’s fab plants are “so automated” that “labor accounts for less than 2% of total costs.”
AI is coming. Nobody really understands its dimensions.
You can go back and look at early reports on the ATM to see our myopia.
The first ATMs were called “TV banking” and required a teller talking to you on two-way TV screens, taking your check by vacuum tube and then sending you back your money.
Today, of course, that seems funny.
There is no teller.
Phil Boas is an editorial page columnist at The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.