“Company culture is another area that I think the experts get backwards. The common belief is that you need a good company culture to create success. But isn’t it more likely that companies with awesome employees get both a good culture and success at the same time? A good corporate culture is a byproduct of doing everything right; it’s not the cause of success as much as the outcome. Success improves culture more than a good culture can cause success.”
Tag Archives: Scott Adams
Scott Adams: Robot Personalities
“My solution is that all robots must be raised for their first few years in Minnesota, where everyone is kind and generous. I assume there are other spots around the world in which the culture evolved to be unusually friendly. Part of the value of your future robot is where it was imprinted with its base personality. Someday the Minnesota Series of robots will fetch top dollar.”
Scott Adams: Our Robot Future
“Some say robots will take 75% of all jobs. But that is only a problem if the average person who has a job is unable to purchase his own robot when the time comes and lease its services to a corporation, or put it to work directly. The robot will work around the clock and send its “paycheck” to your bank account. In effect, humans will become investors while robots become labor.”
“One can imagine that for every human taxpayer there might someday be fifty humans living off the government. […] In the future, people who have actual jobs might be a rarity. And one business-owner with a fleet of robots might earn so much money that supporting a million unemployed people doesn’t feel like a burden. I can imagine business taxes approaching 95% and no one complaining because the remaining 5% is more than Exxon’s total earnings today.”
“For example, when robots start doing all of the medical research, the speed of discoveries will increase a hundredfold. Robots will simply try every idea until someday there is a cheap pill that keeps your body young and healthy. The government will get out of the healthcare field when the cost of medical services becomes trivial, and I think robots will get us there.”
Scott Adams: Robot Constitution
Scott Adams thinks we need to start preparing a Robot Constitution that spells out a robot’s rights and responsibilities. Some questions such a document should address:
- Who has the right to modify a robot?
- Can a robot appeal a human decision to decommission it?
- Can a robot kill a human in self-defense?
- Can a robot kill another robot for cause?
- Does a robot have a right to an Internet connection?
- Is the robot, its owner, or the manufacturer responsible for crimes the robot commits?
- Is there any sort of human knowledge robots are not allowed to access?
- Can robots have sex with humans? What are the parameters?
- Can the state forcibly decommission a robot?
- Can the state force a robot to reveal its owners’ secrets?
- Can robots organize with other robots?
- Are robot-to-robot communications privileged?
- Are owner-to-robot communications privileged?
- Must robots be found guilty of crimes beyond “reasonable doubt” or is a finding of “probably guilty” good enough to force them to be reprogrammed?
- Who owns a robot’s memory, including its backups in the cloud?
- How vigorously can a robot defend itself against an attack by humans?
- Does a robot have a right to quality of life?
- Who has the right to alter a robot’s programming or memory?
- Can a robot own assets?
- If a robot detects another robot acting unethically, is it required to report it?
- Can a robot testify against a human?
- If your government decides to spy on you, can it get a court order to access your robot’s audio and video feed?
- Do robots need a legal right to “take the fifth” and not give any private information about their owners?
Scott Adams: iPhone Identity
“… your iPhone would become the primary way you identify yourself to the world. Someday the store cashier will see your face pop up on a screen when you are next in line because your phone will be transmitting your identity at all times. No more swiping credit cards or writing checks. If your actual face matches the face on the cashier’s screen, you’re good to go, and your payment preferences (credit or debit) would automatically kick in.”
“With your phone in your pocket your car doors open when you get near, the front door of your house opens when approach, your lights adjust to your personal preferences, and all of your online passwords do auto-fill. When your phone is with you, the world will continuously conform to your preferences as you pass through it.”