Robot.edu

A recurring theme to some of my dreams since my arrest in 2005 has been having a job and being at work but not knowing what my job is. This usually involves some strange variation of the job I had when I was living in Fargo working for Invie Consulting as a computer programmer while attending college part-time for several years leading up to shortly before my arrest. But in that job I always had a good sense of what my job was, while in my dreams I never know what I'm being paid to do or even if I'm getting paid at all (in real life I was earning $18 per hour with full benefits).

But, the night before last I think this recurring theme finally resolved itself. In the dream I had I was hired by an eccentric millionaire to work for his high-tech company in a posh modern office building. Like other dreams following this theme I wasn't clear about what my job was even though I assumed I had been hired because of my unique skills and qualifications of the high-tech sort. In real life I have always been highly skilled and qualified as a computer programmer, but in dreams like this one I can never seem to apply those skills, apparently for the same reason that I cannot perform other complex intellectual tasks, like reading or writing more than one or two words at a time.

So, I wondered around the office building, looking for someplace to fit in I suppose. I ended up in a foyer with the rich man who had hired me. Usually in dreams like this I am distinctly reluctant to question anyone about what my job is supposed to be lest I expose the fact that I'm not needed and end up losing the job altogether. But in this dream for some reason I felt emboldened to ask the boss man himself what he expected me to do.

He explained to me that he had formed the company with plenty of capital but no clear business objective. The idea was to hire a bunch of really smart people and then let them decide what the business should be, banking on the assumption that whatever idea the new employees came up with would be profitable. So, he and I, and a small group of other new employees, began discussing our skills and other resources. The actual discussion was a blur, at least as I recalled upon awakening from the dream, but the outcome was distinct and clear.

We would form a company called "Robot.edu". It would be a company that provided the massive data sets necessary for modern computer programs to "learn". After I woke up and thought about this idea it made a lot of sense to me. In fact, I would not be surprised at all if such companies already exist. As "learning systems" become more and more prevalent there will be a corresponding demand for the highly specified data sets that the systems need in order to learn.

I also realized after thinking about it some more that these systems will by necessity start "learning" independent of each other. The assumption that once a system learns a specific lesson, such as how to diagnose medical conditions, this "knowledge" can then be uploaded by another learning system. But that's not how they work. The lesson must be learned by a specific system an unless another system is exactly the same --- i.e. has already "learned" all the exact same lessons under the exact same hardware and software conditions --- then the lesson cannot be transferred or shared simply by uploading the data. Each system must "learn" according to its ability and what it already "knows", just like real people.

Thus, companies like "Robot.edu" will become necessary as millions upon millions of these unique systems seek out the data sets they need in order to learn according to their unique specs. Even if you make an exact copy of a system as soon as one copy "learns" something that the other copy does not learn they will no longer be able to learn simply by uploading the "lesson" per se. They must each learn by "studying" data sets, just as humans do.

So, my dream seems to have hit on a very likely possible future business that might even already exist in some form. More importantly, I felt a clear shift in my dream from not knowing what my job was to not only knowing my job, but actually defining it as well. So now maybe this recurring theme will end.

[J.D. December 7, 2019]

Update:

It seems the above dream may very well have changed the "theme" after all. I have had at least two more dreams since the one I described above where I not only am employed, but I was a highly valued and skilled employee, in direct contrast with the old recurring theme. For example, just this morning (after breakfast) I dreamed that I was a highly skilled astronaut working with an exploratory team on another planet --- like in a science fiction movie, yet not like any movie I ever remember seeing --- my job was troubleshooting complex problems as they arose, and in the dream was the most valuable team member, or "asset" on the mission.

I like this sort of dream job a lot better!

[J.D. December 12, 2019]