Tuesday, January 12, 2016

B1: Group E - Eduardo Borja

Sociology (China Wants to Replace Millions of Workers with Robots) – This article discusses China’s desire to automate manufacturing processes. They want to replace low-paid workers with machines that will do the same process more efficiently. The manufacturing sector will be the one that will mostly benefit from this change. China produces everything and having automated machines work efficiently without even a need for sleep, it is evident that China will become one of the largest if not the largest manufacturing powers. After reading the article some advantages as well as some disadvantages came to mind. Regarding the advantages, the machines could be calibrated to do some really sophisticated detail and processes, some which would represent extensive time and costs if a human carried out the process. Regarding the disadvantages, maybe robots will replace more jobs than offering more jobs. A machine will eventually do all these processes done by humans, and the workforce of a company could be comprised solely machines. Where do does all of the replaced humans go work now if a machine can do its job quicker and resulting with the same product? Certainly this replacement will offer different jobs but I do think it will take away more jobs than provide jobs (1).
Future (Mark Zuckerberg is About to Get a Smart-Home Headache) – This article is basically a response to what Mark Zuckerberg proposed as his new years challenge. Zuckerberg looks to create an artificially intelligent home parallel to Iron Man’s Jarvis. This is a really interesting idea, being able to interact with your home as if your home were a person would definitely be something remarkable. We see homes labeled as “smart homes” where a tablet controls various settings in the house such as temperature, lights, and sound but nothing in the magnitude of interacting with a home. Interestingly enough, this article states Zuckerberg will have a tough time with this new self imposed challenge because of the complexity of various devices trying to communicate with each other, and of course due to glitches. (2)
Network (Cyber-Espionage Case Reveals the Shabby State of Online Security) – This article comments on a specific case of cyber-espionage on U.S. Steel where the company claims they stole names for 1,700 servers that controlled access to the company’s network. Also, U.S. Steel’s vice president for trade claimed other important company information was stolen such as business strategies, pricing, among other confidential information. Cyber-Espionage is something that occurs on a daily basis, definitely not to the extent of stealing confidential information but for example ads pop up in websites based on your recent searches. It’s not to the extent of cyber-espionage but it is still in a certain way accessing your personal searches and learning what your interests are. There is an interesting solution to the problem of cyber-espionage that this articles gives and that is “occasionally go offline”. This creates more work and waste of time but if it keeps important information safe it might be a good solution. (3)


Comments:

Laura Hill: Overall I seemed to read some similar articles. In regards to the Network article you read, there was one other solution proposed in another article, which stated that the only way to keep information secure from hackers would be to keep it offline. Does PrivaTegrity deal only with online communications? Also, regarding the article about Smart Home, I read an article about Mark Zuckerbergs challenge to create a smart home similar to Iron Man’s Jarvis. It would certainly be remarkable if a global smart home is created.


Mohammed Alqallaf: Your last statement takes me to the article I read in which China wants to replace workers with Robots. It is astonishing how technology evolves to the point where robots are performing tasks that before only humans were capable of doing. Also, I had the same thought on how the robot era might affect the job industry. Robots being able to do processes that are complex in less time than a human will certainly have a big effect on the job industry.

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