----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Atkins" <brian@posthuman.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 5:35 AM
Subject: Re: Teleoperation
> Emlyn O'Regan wrote:
> >
> > I'd lean toward the name "teleoperative", which connotes a professional,
> > rather than a mindless slave. There'd need to be a code of ethics,
similar
> > to that of interpreters, of impartially handling interaction for the
> > teleoperator, of confidentiality, all that stuff. For some tasks, you
might
> > get right down to the job of directing the teleoperator; maybe through a
> > heads-up displayed arrow, which tells them which way to turn their head,
> > maybe the buzzing mentioned below, whatever.
>
> Perhaps.. I think you might end up with different classes here- kinda
> like the difference between an executive personal assistant and a temp
> who only works for you for one day or a week. An executive in a company
> might have a dedicated teleoperative they could send out on things that
> were confidential. But for other things you might go with a cheaper temp
> if that's all you needed.
>
Absolutely.
I must clarify something; I see the main advantage of the teleoperation as
the ability to be present, remotely. So for instance, I cant see a big
demand for hiring someone in the same city to go do things. The idea is that
you might hire someone in another state, another country, on the other side
of the world.
I've got two major assumptions underpinning this. The first is that the
world economy is "globalising" further; trade barriers are coming down,
people are ever more receptive to the idea of international trade.
Globalised service provision in all sorts of areas, where geography is not a
limiting factor, is on the rise.
Secondly, and locked with the first assumption in a chicken/egg
relationship, is the fact that the global communications infrastructure to
make this work is also on the rise. Bandwidth, ah bandwidth, just keeps on
increasing. It's one of those measurable, continuous quantitative changes
which brings about qualititative changes as the numbers pass particular
thresholds. Like, for instance, as realtime video becomes affordable over
wireless comms, new things become possible.
So, people will be wanting to interact with other people who are far, in
increasingly complex and sophisticated ways. They will pay money to do it.
So far, knowledge work is increasingly easy to deliver at a distance, even
when it requires quite interactive communication. Thus the rise of
teleworking (including pure teleworking involving great geographical
divides).
I see that people will want to do more than communicate remotely; they will
want to interact remotely. Teleoperation will come into existence.
urg, I've drifted. I agree with your point Brian, except to say the
dedicated executive assistant teleoperative is likely to be a
low-functionality alternative; if the teleoperative is local to you, they
still have to do all the travel that the executive would have to. Still a
boon, but lacks the immediate response of using someone who is already near
the desired location.
I would predict that multinationals would have staff teleoperatives (or use
outsourcing alternatives) at all important locations. If you are in country
X, and need to go see someone in country Y, you book time with one of the
local teleoperatives (a bit like grabbing a fleet car), and get things done
immediately.
I totally agree that you would have a gammut of skill/price alternatives,
from the equivalent of a low level admin person, up to highly skilled
teleoperative professionals. It would depend on budget, and the task
required. The industry would likely become fairly complex!
> >
> > I'm interested in the state of wireless comms in the US, mainly. What's
an
> > affordable data rate (say using cellular networks), and what are the
charges
> > like? How about if money was no object; what kind of bandwidth could we
put
> > between a teleoperator on one side of the world, and a teleoperative on
the
> > other?
> >
>
> Depends on location- inside an office building or campus you can get
10mbit
> wireless. This would have to be provided by the company or location the
> teleoperative is visiting. If they are out wandering around a location
> without that capability you have to fall back to either cellular, CDPD, or
at
> most the 128kbit packet service of Metricom in a few cities. Don't expect
> usable video streaming for probably another 3 years.
>
This is a bit a trend, is it not, where buildings are wired up for high
bandwidth wireless internally? So people have one phone, which works on the
internal network when inside, and uses a telco's mobile service when
outside.
This would have great promise. After all, most things "businessy" happen
inside buildings.
Wireless comms seem to be incredibly hot stuff at the moment. I expect the
bandwidth situation will be looking much more promising in the very near
future. I think for a while the data rates will increase, but
incompatibilities between different networks and equipment will also
increase; there will be a shitfight on. It's not such a problem for a
teleworking business, actually. The focus would be on a per-city basis; for
any general location, there'd be some feasible approach to work with local
infrastructure, even if it's a bit hacked together; especially if it's a bit
hacked together. The harder it is to do, the better the viability for those
who can achieve it.
> However if the teleoperative stored the video onto tape, they could send
> the high quality video to you to look over later when they get back to
their
> HQ.
That's falls within my "low control factor" model. If I were going to set up
a business around this concept, it would start by providing low control
factor, and try to do some medium factor work, most likely within limited
criteria (for specific types of work, within confined geographical location,
for large dollars, etc). I would try to be on top of where wireless was
heading, and have the business models ready to roll as new milestones were
reached; as the competition starts to crop up at a particular level of
service, I am already beginning on the next level. I would predict that
people mostly would regard teleoperation now as implausible; that's an edge
for me. I also predict that as low control-factor is mastered, people would
not regard medium control-factors (a diverse space) as plausible; I still
have an edge. Finally, I think people will not believe high-control-factors
are plausible, even as medium factors are mastered. Still got an edge. After
that? Cash out, let other people fill in the blanks, and maybe it will be
time to start getting involved in AI research, or coding for whatever level
of nanotech is happening by then.
Emlyn
> --
> Brian Atkins
> Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
> http://www.singinst.org/
>
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