Dear Reader,
As my "auld" acquaintance, it has been awhile since we last talked. However, I'm here to wish you a happy new year! One of my resolutions is to write at least twice a month, which means I must find topics or ideas at the same rate. Luckily, today's topic was an easy choice based on a conversation I had with Lauren over the holiday break.
Lauren and I flew home to Pennsylvania to visit her family, which was a delight. On our returning flight, she asked me to help her prepare for an interview for graduate school. We looked at the possible interview questions for a particular school and went to work. The first questions were simply inquiring about her past, her family and her interests; it was small talk. The questions became more specific when they shifted to her reasons for attending graduate school and her motives for wanting to be an occupational therapist. She mentioned her desire to help other people. This tied into another question about the attributes of a good occupational therapist. She answered that those attributes include compassion, kindness, discipline, patience and a happy demeanor.
That's when it hit me. We have attributes that make us different than machines. It is an odd thought to have during this conversation, but hear me out.
In our world of automation, machines and computers, we often wonder if certain jobs or careers will disappear or become obsolete. The question comes up a lot in my translation classes when we talk about machine translation like Google Translate, Babylon or other automated translation systems. Translators, occupational therapists, bank tellers or even McDonald's servers wonder whether their jobs will be necessary in the future when this automation further permeates human societies.
When questions of future technology and automation come up in my classes, we often say, "Machine translation and computer-assisted translation (CAT) will never replace translators, but translators that use machine translation and CAT will replace those translators that don't use it." It became clear in my interview with Lauren that humans will never be replaced by machines because we still need to develop attributes that these computers will never have: compassion, kindness, discipline, patience and a happy demeanor. Computers and machines are only capable of doing what a user tells them to do. We as humans can consider so many other factors.
God wanted us to come to earth to become better people and for us to learn. Though machines and computers can learn, they can only learn what we tell them to learn. We as humans can learn anything with our discipline and critical thinking. God planned out our existence here on the earth so we could learn everything that a computer cannot do. He wants us to develop kindness, charity, compassion. He wants us to be able to work with others. Although machines and computers will get better and better at that as time goes on, they will never be able to do by themselves nor think outside the box.
So, my old friend, we should definitely keep working and improving our technological advances, but we should never forget our "auld" acquaintance, our brother or the charity we can feel towards them.
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| Photo Credit: English-SpanishTranslator.com |
As my "auld" acquaintance, it has been awhile since we last talked. However, I'm here to wish you a happy new year! One of my resolutions is to write at least twice a month, which means I must find topics or ideas at the same rate. Luckily, today's topic was an easy choice based on a conversation I had with Lauren over the holiday break.
Lauren and I flew home to Pennsylvania to visit her family, which was a delight. On our returning flight, she asked me to help her prepare for an interview for graduate school. We looked at the possible interview questions for a particular school and went to work. The first questions were simply inquiring about her past, her family and her interests; it was small talk. The questions became more specific when they shifted to her reasons for attending graduate school and her motives for wanting to be an occupational therapist. She mentioned her desire to help other people. This tied into another question about the attributes of a good occupational therapist. She answered that those attributes include compassion, kindness, discipline, patience and a happy demeanor.
That's when it hit me. We have attributes that make us different than machines. It is an odd thought to have during this conversation, but hear me out.
In our world of automation, machines and computers, we often wonder if certain jobs or careers will disappear or become obsolete. The question comes up a lot in my translation classes when we talk about machine translation like Google Translate, Babylon or other automated translation systems. Translators, occupational therapists, bank tellers or even McDonald's servers wonder whether their jobs will be necessary in the future when this automation further permeates human societies.
When questions of future technology and automation come up in my classes, we often say, "Machine translation and computer-assisted translation (CAT) will never replace translators, but translators that use machine translation and CAT will replace those translators that don't use it." It became clear in my interview with Lauren that humans will never be replaced by machines because we still need to develop attributes that these computers will never have: compassion, kindness, discipline, patience and a happy demeanor. Computers and machines are only capable of doing what a user tells them to do. We as humans can consider so many other factors.
God wanted us to come to earth to become better people and for us to learn. Though machines and computers can learn, they can only learn what we tell them to learn. We as humans can learn anything with our discipline and critical thinking. God planned out our existence here on the earth so we could learn everything that a computer cannot do. He wants us to develop kindness, charity, compassion. He wants us to be able to work with others. Although machines and computers will get better and better at that as time goes on, they will never be able to do by themselves nor think outside the box.
So, my old friend, we should definitely keep working and improving our technological advances, but we should never forget our "auld" acquaintance, our brother or the charity we can feel towards them.
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