Is HMRC next to be under attack from the Robots?

Computing 1950's style - when LEO roared

1 in 3 of the world's jobs set to disappear to automation in the next 12 years.

Is HMRC just another large organisation that sees the benefit of automation as a cost cutting and efficiency improving situation?

The 1950's spawned the first commercial venture into electronic computing, built on the secret WW2 work done at Bletchley Park and the pre-war GPO research at Dollis Hill around 1938 under Tommy Flowers and his colleagues, which in turn fuelled the Bletchley technologies under Alan Turing.

Although Bletchley Park's work was secret and not known about until the 1970's, the technology obviously was.

In America ENIAC was one of the first computers developed out of the wartime experience and companies like Westinghouse would be at the forefront there in developing this technology for business and military usage.

Back in Britain, Lyons Tea was bizarrely you may think, one of the first British companies to develop a computer for business use, called LEO.

LEO - The 'Lyons Electronic Office', was set up to micro manage all aspects of the business transaction - from soup to nuts or tea to cake if you like.

In the early 1950's, an 'outsourcing' experiment was conducted at Lyons by the Social Security department. They had the social security contributions data for all citizens that paid in, run for the next year as an exercise.

The LEO computer performed the millions of calculations faultlessly in less than a weekend. The same job done manually by hand, would have taken months. 

Just after WW2, the great cybernetician Norbert Wiener predicted the mass loss of jobs to computing and he was right.

A Taxing business

So, it is no surprise to hear that HMRC is looking to computerise much of its operations in tax analysis and collecting. This is a sensible move for two reasons, accuracy and volume.

The machine can apply many rules and if the programming is correct, then the results are accurate. Thus the machine can do the massive calculation work which computers are suited to and get it right.

We are moving towards a cashless society, the trend is towards card payments and cash has its place, but cash is certainly amongst younger people almost unused as the advent of contactless cards is here. We see high street banks closing as leases come up and efficiencies made and money deposited in hard cash falls.

For HMRC, this automation should free up 'real people' to talk to when you think things have gone wrong. It isn't necessarily going to be leading to mass loss of employment, with skill full handling and managed natural wastage along with early retirement packages, the transition could be made smoothly.

However, with 1 in 3 of the world's jobs going to computers in the next 12 years, will automation be used as another cost cutting measure? Or for HMRC, could it be intelligently used to restructure the organisation to make it fitter for the future?

Bitcoin here, Bitcoin there

The rise in technology bringing in the cashless society is also bringing in the rise of cyber currencies. Paypal was almost the model for this - a virtual bank on-line, but, criminals have got to see Paypal as a model for another banking operation, as they move into off-grid currencies and monetary transactions as Paypal scrutinises the data more.

Thus Bitcoin for all its independent from the mainstream attraction, now has become one of the new underground farms.

Bitcoin, started for altruistic reasons and as an alternative, has been added to the criminal's armoury for money acquisition and revenue detection and avoidance.

The bottom line is just that - and automation is one factor that cuts costs. And does.

Human futures - the next new science we must get on board with - it is our future!

The fantasy may soon have some seed of reality!

Brave new world? or approaching nightmare?

Are we humans sleepwalking towards obsolescence? A conversation our species needs to be having is about OUR future. Why?

Robots and automation. They are silently taking over our lives, but is this a bad thing?

In one way not, we will as a species be freed from menial things including work. For many of us, we do menial and pointless jobs just to receive money for it, to fuel a consumer society.

Futurists and many computer scientists believe that work as we know it will be just a memory, proxy living, the big data / open data resource and machine learning are the game changers for our species.

The benevolent looking image of the 1950's science fiction robot

Should we worry?

We should. Because all this is going on unchecked. We should have taken the warning from the entity that is the Internet, a sprawling and little policed catch-all situation that no one really actually 'manages' - it just exists.

Machine learning, sometimes erroneously referred to as 'AI' or artificial intelligence is becoming very advanced in how it can be shaped to mimic human behaviour.

In some situations, it passes the 'Turing Test' - that is the interaction between a human and a computer interface does not make the human suddenly think 'I am communicating with a machine'

Big Data - we all generate it by our computer actions -

it is valuable for some to own, trade and exploit it.

Seamless acceptance

As such, we give this  type of interaction not a second glance. Certainly for those born after the millennium, those that have grown up with the Smart Phone and Computer Tablet, this is not the 'new normal,' it is 'the normal.'

'Proxy living' is starting to seamlessly come in, it is software that essentially does things for you, in the future it will run our lives.

Think of the junk adverts that you get on your computer popping up when you have looked at something on the internet.

In the future, your 'virtual proxy' will be the 'virtual' Gatekeeper - a software algorithmic entity, either existing as a physical robot, humanoid or otherwise or a computer program app, that will handle all the marketing guff that you get into your inbox.

It will divert and destroy the unwanted communications and respond and analyse the 'wanted' or preferred subjects it receives. Freeing you up to get on with your life.

Humans are not required - how most work will be - and soon

Working and the future

In the 1950's the scientists predicted two future outcomes - driverless cars and a society where humans would not have to work.

We are near to this situation already. Driverless cars are nearing readiness to become commonplace on our roads. Professional drivers such as Cab drivers, bus and lorry drivers, train drivers, Postmen and Women - they are all at risk from the robot.

Much of the work we humans do is menial and can be done far more efficiently by robots. The Tax system, Benefits system to name but two could be far better handled by machines able to apply system logic to a multitude of rules and conditions 24 hours a day all year round.

The bottom line is they would be better at it and mistakes would be minimal. It would also save labour costs, salaries, office space, office furniture, office supplies and would help with the 'reality' of the 'paperless office' scenario. 

Nightmare or Utopia -  what is our future human - machine outcome?

A question of management

It is imperative that a 'Robot Manifesto' be established, we cannot allow the 'cyber-sprawl' situation that the Internet has become to dictate our future society. We are in great danger of becoming irrelevant as the machines learn and can self-learn and formulate policies of their own.

'AI' (Artificial Intelligence)  in its pure form, will work out very quickly that we as humans are a threat and an irrelevance - it's cold logic will quickly establish its own natural survival logic and find a way to get rid of us by proxy.

Humanoid Robots -  if they go 'bad' we are finished 

The nightmare scenario

The worst case scenario for us is that an AI entity energises a humanoid robot army to preserve the AI's material integrity - power source, by also prompting the Robot Army to self-replicate and produce Units and spare parts, thus the AI machine prolongs its own life by creating its own 'life helpers.'

AI and the Robot army will share the common interest of survival -  they will establish that they can be deactivated by humans simply by humans taking the power source away.

The nightmare for the humans is when the machine decides we are both an irrelevance and a danger.

 

 

Spirits in the Ethereal world - Beyond Cybersex - human robot sex is about to be usurped!

Cybersex between Humans and Humanoid robots may be the next big thing -

But wait for the big bang - when we humans become ethereal!

We have heard and read countless pronouncements of how humans and robots are fast becoming sex partners and in greater numbers.

The 'cyber sex' industry is fast becoming a growth industry, not only for Western customers, but increasingly for the Chinese market. Companies like 'True Companion' are one of the companies making realistic partners, far removed from the days of dear old Linda, below.... 

Analogue, inflatable and boasting a 'realistic vagina, anus and mouth'-

a Linda Lovelips inflatable sex doll from the 1970's - apparently...

We have moved on from the old days of the inflatable sex partner to a realm where animatronic sex partners are an established industry.

Real Humans - production line human clones of the future

that you can design to suit your own specification

The invention of 'Cyberskin' has made for more realistic, human-like 'creations', some are moulded from real humans to get that correct anatomical look and authenticity, apparently.

These look a lot closer to humans than their predecessors

Although the basic modern robosex dolls look more realistic, there is something that doesn't quite gell with many of them. Its just something that makes them look artificial.

That could be the fact that they have not yet achieved singularity - the parity with humans, the Turing test, which is an unfortunate irony as Alan Turing was not heterosexual, yet this is how we are judging 'realism' here, in a roundabout way.

Perhaps close enough for some?

Will help solve the problem of lack of sex partners for Chinese men.

Singularity is currently the stumbling block for the aspiring robosexuals amongst society. Once you mirror human behaviour and idiosyncracies to the 'Turing level,' and you can't see the join, then you will be approaching true singularity, but where next?

Transhumanism - the meld of human and robot

Is that the next stage for us? Human 3.0?

We may become more than just partners for cyberskin replicants, it is possible that we will migrate to an ethereal type of situation. Here we may become almost virtual beings.

Our friends electric -

We may become Ethereal beings without the need for a human body 

So what would a virtual world be like? It could be amazing. It could solve all our problems and allow us to exist in a utopia. Why not?

Why not exist in a world where we can redesign ourselves to appear as we want or to design our partners to be what we want if we can create ethereal clone partners from basic wireframe technologies that 3D drawing uses?

Existing in a realistic looking holographic world where we can choose not only where we live but in what era would be incredible. And not just for sex, we could choose to inhabit any era past or design our own futures.

If you think virtual reality is done, it isn't yet.