Publish at February 14 2024 Updated February 14 2024
Is it a societal need, or an opportunism associated with increasingly sophisticated innovations? What are the effects on society, our lives and our schools? Let's start at the beginning.
Decades ago, the mass of workers did the work: the volume of workers created the volume of products; then, we set about rationalizing, optimizing to gain on production costs in addition to making margins on selling prices.
Customer satisfaction and customer relations, HR process redesign, management processes and management processes, production processes and formalization processes via digital transformation, etc.
Designing a process, determining the process flows, formalizing the process, carrying out the process, improving the process, automating the process, making the process more fluid, controlling the process implemented and having an optimized, mature process is a real challenge, enabling the company's organization and results to be optimized".
Source: Réussir Son Management
https://reussir-son-management.com/optimisation-des-processus/
Very quickly, the weakest link in the whole process appeared to be the people themselves, as they had to learn, unlearn, stay focused, even stay on task continuously, be careful not to make any mistakes, and above all, their salaries had to be included in the production costs. From this point onwards, a limit has appeared in this race towards optimization littered with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). And, between paying a salary to an employee and paying an electricity bill for a robotic arm, the balance is uneven with today's costs.
In mainland France, the robot used by Natixis Assurances is the work of Owi, a French start-up. It has the ability to read e-mails and analyze their semantic fields. In addition to its ability to assign a degree of priority to each e-mail, this robot can formulate replies. Sending the reply to the policyholder is, however, subject to the control of a human agent.
In these crucial times, when customer relations have become a major issue for companies, the importance of robotization is well established. From this point of view, a new form of management is to be expected. As AI's inability to manage everything is self-evident, the control of machines by employees placed under the supervision of managers is an imperative. Nevertheless, these managers will need training in man-machine management.
Observers have voiced a number of fears about over-automation. For example, machine malfunctions can lead to production delays and colossal losses. The example of the Tesla factory in 2017 is a clear illustration of this. Based in California and headed by its founder, billionaire Elon Musk, Tesla is an electric vehicle manufacturing plant. The company is housed in a huge 510,000 m² industrial complex. According to well-informed sources, this complex is also the most robotized site in the world. Accompanied by 3,000 human employees, Tesla's robots are capable of assembling up to 1,700 cars a week. But in 2017, a breakdown in the battery assembly line led to a record drop in production, costing the company no less than 520 million euros. This setback led to the loss of hundreds of jobs at the end of the quarter".
Source : Automation, robotics, artificial intelligence: benefits and risks
https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/sante/automatisation-robotique-intelligence-artificielle-avantages-et-risques_168043
".... We're all familiar with the test devised in 1950 by mathematician Alan Turing to assess a robot's intelligence: it's deemed to be high-level when a human can no longer discern whether he's communicating with a human or a machine - if the latter shows enough flexibility, coherence and vocabulary to resemble a Homo sapiens. We feel superior to machines, and value our unique intellectual faculties, which we try to pass on to robots, while at the same time improving their computerized performance (speed, computing power, mechanical strength, tool precision, etc.). So much so that in more and more professions, robots are replacing workers - which worries them, and delights some, who are happy to leave mechanized tasks to them...
As a result, human relations are becoming rarer in many of our communications with services and institutions, which are filling us with mechanical communications. We become so accustomed to these disembodied relationships that, as psychological studies show, we end up reproducing them with humans - as Selinger puts it: "the automatic" is increasingly replacing "the deliberative". We only exchange information, we no longer discuss, we forget dialectics and maieutics, we lose "speech", thinking through standards and programs.
Amazon employees: "We are robots".
This robotization of the mind, say the two researchers, began in the early 20th century in the world of work with Taylorism: "Taylor and his followers extolled the virtues of breaking down tasks into inputs and outputs, processes and procedures mathematically analyzed and transformed into recipes for efficient production." Now, this "scientific" organization of work continues in computerized companies (Uber, Amazon, robot workshops...), where "digital platforms" manage workers, monitor them, track them - so much so that an Amazon warehouse employee declared, in a report broadcast in 2013 by the BBC: "We're robots. We might as well plug our scanner into ourselves."
For Frischmann and Selinger, robotization hasn't just taken over the employees and the company. Each of us, bound up in social networks, is permanently identified, geolocated, digitized, modeled, evaluated by algorithms, transformed into data for Big Data. Our ways of being and thinking are influenced by the fact that we are surrounded by "weapons of mathematical destruction". The expression comes from American mathematician Cathy O'Neil, a finance expert turned Occupy Wall Street activist after the subprime crisis, author in 2016 of Weapons of Math Destruction (Crown Books, untranslated)."
Source : Shouldn't we be afraid of having our minds robotized, dehumanized by living and working with robots?
https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/fredericjoignot/2018/02/12/ne-faut-il-pas-craindre-davoir-lesprit-robotise-plus-que-les-robots-eux-memes
Artificial intelligence is largely regulated by algorithms, management and decision-making models. Can they really replace human intelligence? It's hard to believe. Because regulation and mechanization create finite worlds. Perfect as they are, they don't ask you to create anything other than what they themselves are. Are they really compatible with human beings?
"Why resist? The very term 'resist' implies that algorithms are fundamentally bad. Algorithmic science is not Manichean. Let's not forget that algorithms are neither sexist, nor racist, nor guilty of any wrongdoing; the only ones responsible are those who design them and feed them with their data through their sometimes biased uses...
In practice, you should systematically ask yourself the following questions when using a tool for the first time: what kind of algorithms are running on this tool (for suggesting content, personalizing a service...), and what data is being collected and analyzed (my behavioral data, my static profile data, my geolocation...). Next will come more specific questions that demonstrate an ongoing construction of the user's critical thinking skills to navigate this increasingly algorithmized world."
The world has been invaded by algorithms for the past 10 years, and it's only getting more powerful, with almost no limits. We're starting to see regulatory initiatives left and right, and texts that are often ill-adapted because they're made by politicians who don't always understand the technologies, the limits and the real impact of their choices. But can we blame them for what the founders of these technologies are themselves unable to see?
Source : Aurélie Jean: "Algorithms are not to blame; the only ones responsible are those who design them".
https://start.lesechos.fr/innovations-startups/tech-futur/aurelie-jean-les-algorithmes-ne-sont-pas-coupables-les-seuls-responsables-sont-ceux-qui-les-concoivent-1357204
... are the main qualities to be developed, and which will make active rather than passive human beings, as the masses are taking shape.
"In the educational context, there are three concrete pedagogical applications of robotics:
- learning about robotics,
- learning with robotics and
- learning through robotics.
The educational aim of the latter is the acquisition of mathematical, scientific and technological knowledge and skills, but also the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills and the development of students' cognitive, metacognitive and social faculties. The pedagogical value of this robotic technology is illustrated here by an example of collaboration between teachers and researchers recently carried out in an elementary school in France.
Interest in robotics has risen sharply in recent years. In particular, interest in robotic kits that can be built and programmed for educational contexts is driven by their dimension as a "tool with which to think" (Resnick, et al., 1996). This tool can be adapted to different pedagogical objectives and encourage different types of learning. In fact, from the outset, robotics in education has been thought of in this way, and not just as a technology to be mastered. In France, the "plan pour le numérique à l'école" (plan for digital education at school), which aims to introduce students to computer coding from the start of the 2015 school year, places great faith in the potential offered by this technology for tackling computing concepts, facilitating the development of skills (e.g. problem-solving), modernizing teaching and helping to combat school failure. The integration and acceptance of any innovative educational technology in teaching are crucial issues, especially as technology-supported educational practices are implemented by teachers...
Research into pedagogical approaches compatible with the "learning through robotics" paradigm is currently an active area of study within Educational Robotics (Alimisis, 2013; Gaudiello, 2015): this was the focus of the European Pri-Sci-Net project between 2011 and 2014, combining researchers in Educational Sciences and Psychology. In this context, pedagogical activities using robotic technologies for science learning were designed and tested. The workshops took place in an elementary school with 25 CM1-CM2 pupils, and focused on activities developed following a pedagogical approach called IBL (Inquiry Based Learning), which, applied to Science, becomes IBSE (Inquiry Based Science Education). The aim of these workshops was to test the potential benefits of combining robotics and IBSE.
IBSE advocates learning based on research and experimentation, and draws its philosophy from the founding principles of constructivist theory. Constructivist theory advocates progressive, active learning, in which students construct their knowledge by alternating phases of practical activity and abstract thought, enabling them to organize new knowledge into the mental schemas that are essential for an awareness of their own learning. With this approach, students are confronted with open-ended questions or challenges, whose answers and solutions involve the acquisition of empirical, collaborative and transferable knowledge (Bell, 2010). The IBSE approach makes it possible to structure pedagogical activities in stages, from the formulation of questions by students on the subject proposed by the teacher, to the resolution of the problem posed, while encouraging active class participation...
Finally, interviews with teachers reveal that the robotics educational activities supported by the IBSE approach also have an impact on student attitudes. Teachers describe students as curious, eager to express their point of view, attentive to their peers, and steadfast in their commitment to the project. For their part, the teachers testify that the way they conceive teaching changes in this type of pedagogical environment: the active participation of the class and the success of the project have, in their opinion, given an important impetus to the implementation of new projects. Overall, these results appear consistent with those of the theoretical and experimental literature on the benefits of educational robotics in schools, particularly when supported by the IBSE approach (e.g., Eguchi & Uribe, 2012)."
Source: The use of robotics in schools
https://www.reseau-canope.fr/agence-des-usages/lusage-de-la-robotique-a-lecole.html
Do new technologies create the method, or does the method make sense with new technologies? The question can legitimately be asked. But does it really matter? What matters is that it works.
If our decade has taught us anything, it's that human beings change, and that today's young people are not like yesterday's young people. They don't have the same motivations, and fortunately, the Nordic countries dare to innovate.
Originating primarily in the Nordic, Slavic and Anglo-Saxon countries, the method known as Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) is usually translated into French as démarche d'investigation. In mathematics, it's not easy to distinguish IBL from problem solving. In this forward-looking text, we propose to look at how the problem-solving and/or investigative approach is approached in the most recent primary and lower secondary school mathematics programs in France and French-speaking Switzerland. We then review various research studies in mathematics didactics and action research, mainly in French-speaking countries, on these methods, and look at more international work on modeling and the relationship with other disciplines. We conclude with a few suggestions for teacher training".
Source: La démarche d'investigation en classe de mathématiques - Jean-Luc Dorier
https://plone.unige.ch/aref2010/symposiums-longs/coordinateurs-en-c/les-demarches-d2019investigation-dans-les-disciplines-scientifiques-et-technologiques/La%20demarche%20dinvestigation.pdf
They're everywhere, from agriculture and schools to logistics and care for the elderly. Should they be modeled on humans or not? It's a philosophical question, as well as a practical and operational one, given the number of companies developing in the field.
"Despite their differences, one thing is certain: in healthcare, hospitality, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and even in our homes, robots have the potential to transform the way we live and work. In fact, some of them already are.
Here are some of the cutting-edge robotics labs and start-ups I'm excited about:...
For farmers in some wealthy countries, around 40% of costs can come from labor, with workers spending whole days under the scorching sun and stopping at night. But given the labor shortage in agriculture, farms often have to throw away fruit that isn't harvested on time. That's why Tel Aviv-based Tevel has created autonomous flying robots capable of scanning tree tops and picking ripe apples and stone fruit around the clock, while collecting comprehensive harvest data in real time...
AI in the field
Some robots don't just need a good "body", they also need a good brain. That's what Field AI, a Southern California-based robotics company that doesn't build robots, is trying to create. Instead of focusing on the hardware of these machines, Field AI develops AI software for other companies' robots, enabling them to perceive their environment, navigate without GPS (on land, water or in the air) and even communicate with each other."
Source : Bill Gates - LinkedIn - Fev 2024 - The start-ups making robots a reality
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/start-ups-making-robots-reality-bill-gates-q65uc
What will these new applications and fields look like tomorrow? They will undoubtedly be surprising, with positive or negative impacts that will certainly be mixed. But we'll either adapt to them or imagine them. The second solution is more pleasant, but will probably only be of interest to less than 10% of communities. The others will follow. Our world is changing skin, and we need to make sure that it goes well, and for this, school is a fundamental medium for accompanying the transition.
Image source - Pixabay TheDigitalArtiste
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