Initial research for my project

1. Factual Research
Kieran Beal

2. Will robots take our jobs?• A YouTube channel which calls themselves '2Veratasium'
discussed in a brief 10 minute vlog the idea of robots taking
over the more physically demanding jobs of humans that are
very much straight forward and don't require much innovation
to complete, this however makes up the majoriy of jobs that
people still work to this day, a study out of Oxford university in
2013 estimated that around half of all jobs operated by humans
now will be fully automated within next few decades alone.
They also brought up the point that this is not a new concept, in
the early 1800's textile workers in Britain were being replaced
by the new line of machines, as a result they revolted and
vandalised the machines replacing them, these people were
called luddites and while it's used as a more insulting phrase
today, to describe someone who is opposed to technology and
progress, 2Vertasium argues this isn't the case as the fears of
these people were very much real. An excellent example of this
fear becoming reality can be seen in the images on the right, he
went to a restaurant with a nearly fully automated front of
house requiring only one member of staff supervising
everything, perhaps even replacing the chefs in the kitchen, this
is an excellent example of the labor being cut out, the investors
profiting and the working class losing out.
• They argued that the best way to prepare people for this
kind of future would be to follow the example of Joseph E. Aoun
the president of Northeastern university, who wrote a book
discussing this exact issue, the book is called 'Robot proof'.
According to Joseph the 3 major points that universities need to
understand to prepare students for this new world are the
following: First they should encourage the skills that machines
just aren't very good and are uniquely human such as creativity
and entrepreneurship, the second is that they need to offer
students to have the opportunity to work in professional
settings not just in the classroom, and the final point is that
universities need to be places of lifelong learning, in that you
would have the ability to go back later on in life to learn the
new skills that will become an essential part of our future.

3. CNBC international
• CNBC international is a primary news outlet in America,
who took a more broad overlook at the issue but also stressed
the issue of people already working, they argued that while it is
likely new jobs would arise from robots taking current ones, for
instance advanced technical service and IT and computing, what
about the people who are already working? For them they
argued it wouldn't be as easy, people already working in jobs
such as food production and logistics would not be able to train
for the new jobs and so if robots took their jobs it is argued that
unemployment rate would skyrocket in the next few decades.

4. David Autor
• David Autor is an American economist and professor of
economics at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT).
He argues that robots will not take away the importance of
human interaction in the workplace and he did this through two
arguments, the first he called the O-ring, the idea that
the increased robotic activity in the workplace will only increase
the need for human creativity, expertise and judgement. The
second argument he states is the insatiable desire for humans
to innovate and want more no matter what so there will always
be new work to do, while also arguing that that despite the
argument of work falling it hasn't stopped mankind before, and
history shows that we continued to prosper no matter what.

5. BBC Click
• The BBC click is documentary discussing the developments
of technology an the potential threat this has to the human
population, the argue similar facts however they argue tat
different types of artificial intelligence are good at processing
data, such as the super computer 'Watson' which was an
artificial intelligence that won the game of jeopardy in a
landslide victory, and other robots are better at doing the
physically demanding tasks but don't have much processing
power and therefore can only do very simple tasks. The
argument they had though of was to take the advantages that
robots already have, and then combine them with the skills that
they can't develop and are unique to humans, with that in mind
they hope that we could create jobs in which humans and
robots could work together and in doing so not create a gap in
the rich and poor, creating another luddite scenario.

6. Research summaryThe main conclusion that can be drawn from the data the I have collected from various sources is that they all believe that robots and artificial intelligence
are without a doubt a part of our future and that they will become much more intergrated into the workplace, however their solutions to this were
that universities should encourage skills like creativity that robots can't do, vary low paid physical jobs so that they require both humans and robots to
complete, simply to leave it alone as history has proven to us time and time again that humans always find solution to this paradox (industrial revolution)
and finally to specialise more people in jobs such as advanced computing and higher grade jobs so that they will be safe from losing their job to a robot with
lower computing capacity.
This research has proven to be incredibly useful to me as I can now summarise in my brief video the scenario which I am discussing, the problem that is
being called to attention and the potential solutions being proposed by various experts quickly. This will be important because it is a complicated subject that
is not neccesarily of interest to a broad audience, however if I can compress this issue down into a short video it will still inform them quickly enough so that
they don't lose interest, I believe this is important to do because I see this as a very real problem that could happen in the future and it is a problem that
more people should know the potential solutions to. I have no reason to believe that any of the information that I gathered from these sources was in any
way unreliable. Each one was either from a credible source that is well known for reliable information or took information from different locations in which
case I double checked the facts it was displaying to me from the sources mentioned and they checked out as true.

7. Initial Ideas

8. Idea 11

9. Idea 1 evaluationThe primary reason I didn't choose this option to research further is because while it is certainly from a subjective standpoint; the most interesting and
burning question in the minds of philsophers to this day, it is by far the most complicated and perplexing question to which there is no easy answer, not only
do we need to first figure out what conciousness even is and why we have it, but also whether or not an AI could develop it and if so to what extent? This is
simply a topic that cannot be covered in such brief length of time nor given the level of attention it demands. As a result as interesting as this topic is, I
believed it would be better to pick a topic that would be easier to research and can also be backed up with facts and projections already made so that it
would have some amount of informational backing and not be totally based on speculation and theory. This however doesn't mean to say that it would not be
touched upon, purely from an artistic standpoint I would mention that this is a series on AI and robots despite this not being the case, I would then possibly
mention towards the end of the video the potential of robots handling jobs such as councelling, which would then act as a segway into the 'next' video.

10. Idea 2

11. Idea 2 evaluationI originally came up with the idea for this project based off of my passion for videogames to begin with and my exapansive knowledge on the industry, so at
face value it seemed as though that this was certainly the right choice to use, however while I could have easily made an informative video on the video
game industry, I'm not so certain at the meaning it would have behind it, it would be informative sure but what would it be trying to say to the audience?
This the question that I simply couldn't give a justifiable answer to, and as result I felt it would be a waste of my time trying to make a video on the gaming
industry, this doesn't mean to say that it would have been impossible however, as seen from the mind map in the previous slide there are plenty of points
to be covered about the industry as it has an incredibly rich history that involves cultures from all backgrounds.
This means that since there is plenty to discuss about the industry, it is certainly a topic that can't be covered in such a short video, with regards to the
meaning of the video the best I could do was to think of a question that could asked about it, for instance 'would videogames become the new main
passtime of the global population? If so what does that mean for the overall health of people when they become so idle?' And while this is a valid question,
at this current point in time it doesn't have a possible answer and so carries little meaning to it, so I decided to not cover the videogame industry in my
video.

12. Idea 3

13. Idea 3 evaluation
I decided that this topic would the most valid to cover due to it's clear meaning and possible solutions, robots replacing people in the workplace is something
that we are already beginning to see in the world today but hasn't quite yet become modern practice and so it is a more pressing concern that needs to be
answered, as opposed to AI becoming self aware which as far as we know could be centuries off and may not even happen at all, however robots replacing
humans in varied places of work isn't a matter of if it will happen but when it will happen. As a result I believe that this is a subject that requires further study,
in addition to this it is also a subject that can more easily be summarised in a brief video, as it is founded in knowledge we already possess and as a result can
be based more on facts rather than speculation.
It's true that whole point of philosophy is to speculate about things currently beyond our realm of comprehension and so it can be argued that this isn't
philosophy at all, however with that in mind my goal is to create a video with a point and purpose behind it with a meaning, and I believe that pure
speculation won't allow me to reach that goal, it is also for this reason that I believe it is a better idea than a video on the video games industry, because
unlike that idea I believe this one can be made with a more clear meaning behind it, (as I have mentioned previously) in addition to this, robots replacing
humans is a pressing concern in real life, and many are worried that we are facing another industrial revolution type scenario, this time the era of robotics,
and to that end I believe that this topic is going to be able to hit a wider audience as it's an issue that could affect every single person in the future, so
therefore I have chosen to do my video on the advancement in robotics and AI, and the threat this poses to humanity in the next few decades.