(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Race to replace humans with technology continues. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-02 Since the advent of the cotton gin, replacing human labor by technology has continued unimpeded and continues at an exponential pace. With the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1794, American slaveholders had the means to make cotton production significantly more profitable. The era of King Cotton was underway by the early 1800s to such an extent that. By the mid-19th century, southern slave plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton. The first Industrial Revolution had a profound effect on labor in the U.S. Companies from the era, such as the Boston Associates, would recruit thousands of New England farm girls to work in textile mills. These girls often received much lower wages than men, though the work and pay gave young women a sense of independence that they did not feel working on a farm. The First Industrial Revolution also marked the beginning of the rise of wage labor in the United States. As wage labor grew over the next century, it would go on to profoundly change American society Mine Workers suffered a lot when trying to win decent wages and working conditions. The various governments often not only sided with, but supported business owners against working people. The situation in Harlan County KY epitomized government support against miners in the 30’s. On February 16, 1931, to maximize profits, the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association cut miners' wages by 10%. Reacting to the unrest created within Harlan's impoverished labor force, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) attempted to organize the county's miners. The strikebreakers were protected by private mine guards with full county deputy privileges, who were legally able to exercise their powers with impunity outside the walls of their employers. They operated under Sheriff J. H. Blair, a man who made his allegiance to the mine owners clear. "I did all in my power to aid the operators ... there was no compromise when labor troubles swept the county and the 'Reds' came to Harlan County".[4]: 39 The citizens of Harlan, for their part, lost any illusions they may have held about impartiality in law enforcement. The Kentucky National Guard was called in. The strikers expected protection but upon replacing deputized mine guards, the National Guard broke the picket lines instead. The computer age has intensified utilizing automation to replace manpower. Perhaps the most cited advantage of automation in industry is that it is associated with faster production and cheaper labor costs. Another benefit could be that it replaces hard, physical, or monotonous work. Moreover, some studies seem to indicate that industrial automation could impose ill effects beyond operational concerns, including worker displacement due to systemic loss of employment and compounded environmental damage. Automation primarily describes machines replacing human action, but it is also loosely associated with mechanization, machines replacing human labor. The paradox of automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical. Increased automation often causes workers to feel anxious about losing their jobs as technology renders their skills or experience unnecessary. In the U.S., 47% of all current jobs have the potential to be fully automated by 2033. Even highly skilled professional jobs like a lawyer, doctor, engineer, journalist are at risk of automation. Lights-out manufacturing is a production system with no human workers, to eliminate labor costs. Lights out manufacturing grew in popularity in the U.S. when General Motors in 1982 implemented humans "hands-off" manufacturing to "replace risk-averse bureaucracy with automation and robots". Now we have artificial Intelligence. A prime aspect of the Writers’ and Actors’ strikes is to eliminate companies from using peoples images and voices through AI to create scripts and programs without compensation to the actors’ and writers’ whose images and voices are being used by artificial intelligence to create TV programs and movies. Movie extras worry they'll be replaced by AI. Hollywood is already doing body scans Dozens of other background actors were wrangled to the same site, where, one by one, they were told to step in front of a series of cameras on metal rigs behind glass. "Have your hands out. Have your hands in. Look this way. Look that way. Let us see your scared face. Let us see your surprised face," Rubalcaba, 47, recalls of the instructions she was given. Rubalcaba said the actors had their faces and bodies scanned for about 15 minutes each. Then their digital replicas were created. But here's the rub: She was never told how or if this digital avatar of herself would ever be used on screen. If it's used, she might never know. No matter what happens with it, she'll never see any payment for it. Rubalcaba, who makes the SAG-AFTRA union rate of $187 a day as a background actor, said she did not give permission for her digital replica to ever be used in the background of any scenes. "I fear that AI is eventually going to weed out background actors. They won't have any use for us anymore." The potential for artificial intelligence to replace background actors is one of the central tensions in the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike with studios, the biggest labor dispute in Hollywood since the 1960s. Now, Hospitals will be utilizing AI for health care Mercy looks to AI to relieve burden on health care workers, answer patients' questions The Mercy health system plans to roll out a series of artificial intelligence-based tools in the coming months, in partnership with Microsoft. Joe Kelly, Mercy’s executive vice president and chief transformation and business development officer, said the health system is treading carefully, with an eye toward ethical considerations like data privacy. Their efforts are still in the early stages, but if they succeed, officials believe the technology could help patients navigate the health care system, reduce burden on medical staff and monitor for errors. Dr. Lee Schwamm, professor of biomedical informatics and data sciences at Yale School of Medicine, said AI is already used in many parts of the U.S. health care system. Machine learning and automation are used widely in financial transactions. “Conversational AI,” often used in retail to monitor satisfaction during customer service calls, is beginning to spread into health care. Schwamm think’s there is potential to use AI to write clinical notes, and to offer doctors suggestions of possible diagnoses that line up with patient symptoms. We already have problems with doctors prescribing high cost medications based of patient request and due to advertisements seen on TV. So now, doctors are going to take computer suggestions instead of using their own experience? Or are insurance companies going to refuse to pay for more care than computers say is necessary? (Maybe they’re doing that now.) Kelly said these tools aren’t expected to come at the expense of jobs. In an industry struggling with staffing shortages, the hope is to reduce the time workers spend on tedious tasks, and give them more time to spend with patients. If anyone believes that, I have several bridges to sell you. It wouldn’t be Mercy’s first time adopting this type of technology. Kelly said that for about a year now, Mercy has a machine learning model that predicts roughly when a patient might be discharged, in hopes of preventing people from spending more time in the hospital than they need to. Let’s hear from people who have been discharged too early, people released too soon after having a baby, etc. (After our first child over 50 years ago, she stayed in the hospital 7 days. How long do mothers get, now? One day?) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/2/2196846/-The-Race-to-replace-humans-with-technology-continues Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/