Do not be coy: technological innovation will fail to solve the problem of climate change-global warming, robot-IT information

Robot is said to be the workforce will take our work, people watching TV during the day, relying on universal basic income. But the robots are weird because, those producing robots for a living tend to downplay the development of robots.

Jintianchun inheritance (Junji Tsuda) should know. His company Yaskawa Motors (Yaskawa Electric) robot sales valued at $ 3 billion annually to car manufacturers. "Robot brain is developing at an incredible speed. Biggest problem is implementation, "he said last year," hand's development like a computer shows an exponential curve, are linear and steady. ”

These robots dreams reflect a mistaken belief:" technology" rapid development, so that all the technical problem will find a solution within a reasonable time . Robot technology is developing fast, so robots will soon take over the world.

This logic is wrong. In fact, different techniques in different speeds for different reasons and development, associated with the practical realities of their work . Misunderstandings that can lead to bad economic policies, unwise investments, especially leads to complacency about how to tackle climate change.

Real breakthroughs (like the 2004 discovery of Graphene that miracle) is impossible to predict. But the steady development of existing technologies to produce "laws". Moore (Moore's law) is one of the most famous: computer chip transistor counts as well as computing power increased 1 time every two years. Other technologies have similar laws.

To illustrate just how different the speed of technological development, battery, for example. For more than a century since the battery stored energy per gram on average an annual increase of 4%. By contrast, the past 40 years or so, each annual increase in computer chip transistor counts of 38%, consistent with Moore.

Management jiefuli·fenke (Jeffrey Funk) outlines some of the basic mechanisms for technology development. Some techniques rely on the development of new materials and relies on the steady expansion of a device the size of, and some depend on steadily shrinking a device the size of. In all cases, these mechanisms for how quickly technology development has a very different effect.

Battery belongs to the first category. They look no different from 100 years ago, but they use the material slowly changed from lead to nickel to lithium. So there is reason to question the future of electric cars, and openness to the development of fuel cells.

Robots is a system, rather than technology, but their entity are similar to batteries, because their development is not a size issue. Robot arm must be of a particular size. These technologies can only become better and move forward, rather than through a larger or smaller size.

Advances in technology is the size of the second kind. The cost depends on the size of the pipe, but the transport capacity of the pipeline depends on the square of the RADIUS, so the larger, more efficient chemical factories. Airliners (essentially a large metal pipe) is the same way. Hence the 555-seat Airbus (Airbus) A380.

Wind turbine, the greater its efficiency is higher. And efforts to build many small wind turbines on land compared to investing in the development of larger models built in the sea and it may make more sense.

A third technique (for example, computer chip, optical data storage, or genome sequencing technology) progress is smaller. In simple terms, if you can put an object of length width height reduced by half, then you can be placed in the same space is 8 times the number of objects.

And computing related technologies (for example, artificial intelligence) fast-growing potential. Driverless cars as envisaged in the near future often appear on the road (primarily a computational challenge) easier, vision robot walking on the sidewalk is more difficult. Many drivers may be replaced by computers, but more difficult robot to replace the postal workers.

One lesson is that we need to calm robots. But from a policy point of view, an important lesson is that we cannot wait for innovation to save us from climate change. Solar energy, wind power, particularly battery related technologies not based on the possibility of exponential rate. We need to invest in new ideas, using carbon taxes force less efficient environmental technologies now in use.

Imagination Technologies is part of the invention of new technologies. Philip k. Dick (Philip k. Dick) in his 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of electric sheep? (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) will imagine new technologies, the novel was adapted into the film Blade Runner (Blade Runner). If is pinning its hopes on the sudden leap in technology is known, is more likely as a result of novel set after that end of the world.

别天真：目前科技创新难以解决气候变化难题 - 全球变暖,机器人 - IT资讯

据说机器人劳动大军将夺走我们的工作，让人类在白天看着电视，靠着全民基本收入过活。但有关机器人的怪异之处在于，那些以生产机器人为生的人往往会淡化机器人的发展。

津田纯嗣(Junji Tsuda)应该了解。他的公司安川电机(Yaskawa Electric)每年向汽车厂家销售价值30亿美元的机器人。“机器人大脑正以令人难以置信的速度快速发展。最大的问题是执行工作的手，”他去年表示，“手的发展不会像电脑一样呈指数曲线，而将是线性和稳步的。”

这些机器人梦反映出一种错误的观念：“技术”快速发展，因此所有技术问题都会在合理时间内找到解决方案。机器人存在；技术正快速发展；因此机器人将很快占领世界。

这种逻辑是错误的。实际上，不同的技术是按照不同的速度且出于不同的原因发展的，与它们工作方式的实际现实相关。误解这点会导致糟糕的经济政策、不明智的投资，尤其是会导致有关如何应对气候变化的自满。

真正的突破（就像2004年发现石墨烯那种奇迹时刻）是不可能预测的。但现有技术的稳步发展足以产生“定律”。摩尔定律(Moore’s law)就是最著名的一个：电脑芯片上的晶体管数量以及运算能力每两年增加一倍。其他技术也有类似的定律。

要说明技术发展的速度有多么不一样，以电池为例吧。一个多世纪以来，每克电池存储的电量平均每年增加4%。相比之下，过去40年左右，每块电脑芯片的晶体管数量每年增加38%，这与摩尔定律相符。

管理学家杰弗里·芬克(Jeffrey Funk)为技术的发展概括了一些基本机制。一些技术依赖新材料的开发；一些依赖于稳步扩大某种设备的尺寸，还有一些依赖于稳步缩小某种设备的尺寸。在所有情况下，这些机制对于技术以多快速度发展有着截然不同的影响。

电池属于第一类。它们的外观与100年前没有什么不同，但它们使用的材料慢慢发生了变化，从铅到镍再到锂。因此有理由质疑电动汽车的未来，并对开发燃料电池持开放态度。

机器人是系统，而非技术，但它们的实体方面与电池类似，因为它们的发展不是尺寸问题。机器人手臂必须是某种特定尺寸。这些技术只能通过变得更出色而向前发展，而不是通过尺寸变大或变小。

第二类技术的进步在于尺寸变大。管道的成本取决于其半径大小，但管道的输送量取决于半径的平方，因此规模越大，化学工厂越有效率。客机（本质上是个大型金属管）也是一样的道理。因此出现了555个座位的空客(Airbus) A380。

风力涡轮越大其效率越高。与努力在陆地上建造很多小型风力涡轮相比，投资于开发更大的型号以及建在海上可能更合理。

第三种技术（例如电脑芯片、光数据存储或基因组测序技术）的进步在于尺寸缩小。简单来说，如果你可以把一个物体的长宽高缩小一半，那么你在同样空间里可放置的物体数量就是原来的8倍。

与计算相关的技术（例如人工智能）快速发展的潜力最大。设想无人驾驶汽车在不久的将来经常出现在公路上（主要是一项计算挑战）更容易，设想机器人行走在人行道上则更难。电脑可能会取代很多司机，但机器人要取代邮政工人却较为困难。

那么一个教训是我们需要冷静对待机器人。但从政策层面来看，重要的教训是，我们不能坐等创新把我们从气候变化中拯救出来。太阳能、风能、尤其是电池等相关技术没有以指数级速度发展的可能性。我们需要投资于新的创意，同时利用碳税迫使效率较低的环保技术现在投入使用。

想象新技术是发明新技术的一部分。菲利普·迪克(Philip K. Dick)在他1968年的小说《机器人会梦见电子羊吗？》(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)便想象了新技术，该小说被改编成电影《银翼杀手》(Blade Runner)。如果把希望寄托在已知技术的突然飞跃上，更可能的结果是导致小说设定的那种后末日世界。