I haven't posted anything for a while, mainly because there hasn't been a lot of newsworthy stuff happening in the autonomous arena.
So I am going to do something a little different - sort of.
Feedback may not be considered to be something that people pay a lot of attention to but it is critical to virtually everything.
Consider autonomous cars. Without feedback you could program a car to go from A to B easily and set it off but it would never get there and probably kill anything that got in its way.
It relies on sensors to provide feedback in the form of data that tells it what to avoid. Without that it is straight programming, IE go straight 100 metres turn right 90 degrees go straight 100 metres etc. This would be OK in a closed controlled environment but not on a public road where circumstances change from second to second.
A computer arm in a factory needs feedback even if it does repetitive tasks. Consider if something that it needs to pick up is off centre. The arm could come to pick it up, have the edge of its gripper over the top rather than at the side of the object, and when it moves down to grip it actually applies force to the top. this could result in damage to the arm or the goods.
Feedback can take many different forms, for location in determining where something is, as well as feedback on the pressure applied to an object.
Consider when you pick up a mug of coffee, the grip force is very different to what is required to pick up a crystal wine glass. Therefore there has to be sensing of location in relation to the object as well as identification of the object to determine the appropriate force of grip.
In life we use the same criteria.
When faced with a situation we have to input data to determine a course of action. That may require a number of people with different skills and experience to determine the correct approach.
But what happens when the leader is very much his own man and refuses to involves others because of an unshakable belief in their own abilities despite constant feedback to the contrary?
Like a robot that decides the crystal wine glass is a coffee mug despite the evidence and treats it accordingly.
At what point do you decide to shut it down?
Hopefully before its actions causes irreparable damage.
As I have said before, repeatedly, we are on the cusp of change in so many different areas, all primarily due to the development of computing.
The fact that computers can do so much more now and so much faster has spread the effects further afield.
Pure research now has advanced as we can run many "what if "scenarios and get results back in a decent time frame.
Automation is now reaching into all areas including medicine.
This automated process means that the patient is under for far less time and the human error element is removed.
Even in sport you can't get away from Technology.
Being an Australian I love the America's Cup. Apart from the technology, three of the yachts have Aussie skippers and many crew members are ours a well.
I live in Perth where the cup was held back in 1988 and was there to watch it.
It has come a long way since these boats used to sail along at a snail pace and everything was manually controlled.
Now it's foiling catamarans with wings that fly (literally) through the water at multiples of the wind speed, hitting up to 100K per hour.
One yacht has even reached 130 Kph
Meanwhile as mentioned before, what happens when all this automation increases to the point where there are few jobs?
Unemployed people don't have the money to be consumers so who will buy the cheaper faster produced items?
One solution that has been getting a lot of attention and should be looked at professionally is a universal basic wage.
Politicians are still 20th century thinking that we can bring back the jobs from Asia and rebuild our industries to have jobs so everyone can have a unicorn in their own yard.
These jobs aren't in Asia anymore, they are at home and being automated to compete with Asia.
They are not coming back people, not ever.
The feedback on jobs is not getting through to politicians, they have their own agenda and don't want feedback that contradicts that.
We do need to seriously look at alternatives, even if it turns out they don't work the research could point to another direction.
At least we have to be looking at options even if the alternatives don't jibe with the politicians aims.
Feedback is essential to any process, but to work it has to be accepted.
Ignore it and we end up with shards of glass not wine.
