Should politicians' jobs not also be replaced by robots? We hear so much about factory floor workers and other jobs being replaced by robots (both now and in the future) but what about the job that influences entire countries, investments, industries, fossil fuel, etc? We like to think this must be a human's job as people's futures are at stake and it takes a social empathy to deal with this. But do politicians the world around really make their decisions based on human empathy or the environment? In fact what do they really base their decisions on? In some places voting is being done electronically (replacing many election counting officials) but what of politicians? We may think it is a "human job" but in many cases people can "identify" as well with a machine (consider Joseph Weizenbaum's book "Computer Power and Human Reason" where this was demonstrated during psychotherapy sessions - often people want to be heard, and may even prefer to confide in machines over humans). Certainly the speech recognition is ready (in many more languages than most politicians understand) and the algorithms are also now extremely advanced (think of Google search algorithms or the use of Siri, Google Home, Amazon Echo). The big question is on what would the algorithms be based as these determine the responses and the decisionmaking ability. Well that answer is quite simple really.... they get based on International Human Rights Treaties and Conventions subscribed to by a country, a country's own Constitution, all its laws and case law, and the political manifesto (seems we just automated the courts too!). Imagine any politician really using their political manifesto to guide their decisions instead of listening to their donors or lobby groups? It's a scary thought... you getting what you voted for in an election. The thought came to me whilst reading an article such as the one at http://ift.tt/2ise4DG http://bit.ly/2iQ04UW
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