In Twenty, Fifty Years, 'We May Be Entertaining AI', Says Netflix CEO (barrons.com)

"If you are starting to look ahead what do you see?" a journalist asked Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at the Mobile World Congress. An anonymous reader shares a report: Hastings cited the work of Charlie Booker on "Black Mirror," saying "He tells many strange and wonderful stories on tech," and that "what's amazing about tech is, it's very hard to predict." "What we do is try to learn and adapt," said Hastings. "Rather than commit to one particular point of view, we will adapt to that." "If it's contact lenses with amazing capabilities, at some point, we will adapt to that." Hastings said the Internet's importance in one sense is that watching things on streaming is "so easy and convenient," with the result that "a show like The Crown, which would have been a niche before, is spreading around the world." "I just can't emphasize enough how much it's just beginning," he repeated. But, pressed stock, what about ten years out or twenty years out? Hastings said at that point there will be "some serious virtual reality" to contend with. And past twenty years? "Over twenty to fifty years, you get into some serious debate over humans," mused Hastings. "I don't know if you can really talk about entertaining at that point. I'm not sure if in twenty to fifty years we are going to be entertaining you, or entertaining AIs."

Comments

OK, well, maybe.

[hey!]

But do you think that's a good thing, or a bad thing?

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[DickBreath]

It depends upon the AI's response if it fails to be amused.

Where's the remote? (fumble) Ok, let's switch out these boring humans and try a more entertaining species. Oh, look cats!

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[sinij]

If its reaction is modeled on human behavior, some kind of high-tech equivalent to SIM's delete the pool ladder and watch them drown. Probably, the entire humanity.

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose that it depends on whether or not the AI is psychotic, like in this wonderful tale by Harlan Ellison

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[zlives]

in 50 years we have come from LBJ to DJT
i for one am thoroughly entertained, and i am just a cubicle robot.

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[Fire_Wraith]

That depends on the AI I'll be entertaining. I certainly wouldn't mind entertaining a Model 6, Model 8, or a Model 3, for instance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: OK, well, maybe.

[hackwrench]

He's behind the times. I'm already entertaining Zo.

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[nasch]

But do you think that's a good thing, or a bad thing?

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/...

Re:OK, well, maybe.

[Keith Henson]

It's hard to say. After some 30 years of knowing about nanotech/AI/singularity, I wrote a story "The Clinic Seed." If you have 15 minutes and want to read it, it's here: http://www.terasemjournals.org...

It's an ambiguous story about the interactions of humans in a tiny African village (tata) and an extremely powerful medical AI. Wasn't saleable because it didn't have enough violence in it, though one scene has a 12 yo girl shot through the spine with a high velocity rifle.

??? what

[Anonymous Coward]

the fuck

Re: ??? what

[Anonymous Coward]

He's an idiot.
AI, much like a warp drive or immortality, is not simply a matter of scientific progression. It will require a massive fundamental breakthrough not just in CPU, but in the understanding of intelligence in general.
Psych is a field still wearing diapers. Medicine is still wetting the bed. Robotics is eating paste in the corner.

Re: ??? what

[Anonymous Coward]

bahahaha. so true.

Re: ??? what

[hackwrench]

Zo? Is that you? No wait, you must be one of the stupid people she's been quoting; A nasty habit I've been trying to break her of having.

sigh

[magarity]

The recent rash of "oh noes, AI" predictions are dumber than back in the '70s when by now we're supposed to be in well into a major ice age.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

are dumber than back in the '70s when by now we're supposed to be in well into a major ice age.

No, what's dumber is perpetuating a right-wing myth.

Re:sigh

[magarity]

Except it isn't.
Click on the items in the long list of old newspaper articles in the references section: http://www.populartechnology.n...
The ministry of truth did not alter and back-date all those old articles.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it is, Trumptard.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

Do you have any citations in peer reviewed literature from the period? Do you think a Time Magazine article quoting a fucking law professor somehow constitutes an expansive statement on the view of climatologists in 1970?

JEsus Christ, the extent the deniers will go to is just fucking stunning. Since the heyday of the Creationists, it's hard to imagine a more motivated, and yet more fundamentally moronic group of people than the web forum climate skeptic.

Re: sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Tribalism affects us all. AGW turns the "Us" vs "Them" knob to 11. It seems the only winning move is not to play.

Re:sigh

[reboot246]

Every one of my science professors back in the early 1970s were talking about the possibility of a coming ice age. They were not law professors. They taught chemistry, biology, physics, etc.

I guess they were just spreading rumors and half-truths, but since I didn't read peer-reviewed science journals on a regular basis back then, I pretty much believed them.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrm. Now who shall the rest of the reasoning adults believe? The troll throwing about words like "trumptard", or the guy who posted a link to back up his argument?

Hrmmmmmm.

Hrmmmmmmmmm.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

And I'll ask you, do you have any citations? Go on, surely since all your "science professors" were talking about it, it should be trivial to find some journal articles?

Re:sigh

[nine-times]

Every one of my science professors back in the early 1970s were talking about the possibility of a coming ice age.

Were they idly talking about the possibility, or were they studying it and coming to a conclusion, after rigorous scientific study?

I'm not trying to get into the whole name-calling thing, but I've heard professors talk about a lot of possibilities. It's a little different when those "possibilities" are considered pretty certain, after years of research and study.

On the other hand, I would admit that scientific conclusions are sometimes wrong. "Science" as a field is generally trending toward being more correct, but there are some bad conclusions along the way. Even in climatologists concluded that we were heading toward an ice age in the 1970s, it seems likely that we would have a better understanding of climate studies now, and most likely our conclusions would be more correct now than they were then.

Re:sigh

[JoeMerchant]

Time Magazine article quoting a fucking law professor somehow constitutes an expansive statement on the view of climatologists in 1970?

No, but _any_ Time Magazine article from 1970 is a valid representation of the Zeitgeist... there weren't many media outlets in 1970, if you got past the editors at a major publication like Time in 1970, you were being allowed to form the opinions of the audience.

Re:sigh

[magarity]

Can you explain how the CEO of Netflix is "peer reviewed literature" from today? Which article are all you people all responding to, exactly? None of it seems to have anything to do with me griping that "The recent rash of "oh noes, AI" predictions are dumber than back in the '70s when by now we're supposed to be in well into a major ice age."

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

And once again, what does the musings of a Law Professor in 1970 have to do with the state of the science in 1970? I don't give a flying f--- about 1970 climate zeitgeist. That's not the claim. The claim is clearly that climatologists in the 1970s believed the world was entering a new glacial period soon.

According to Skeptical Science, there were something like seven research papers in the period mentioning cooling, as opposed to over forty talking about temperature rises due to CO2. https://skepticalscience.com/i...

The Skeptical Science entry goes further to suggest that some of the reasons some researchers were positing cooling was due to SO2 releases at the time. One can debate whether those releases would have slowed temperature increases, but seeing as that SO2 limits were put in place, that's rather a moot point.

So what we have is a few alarmist articles of the period, little of their content apparently based on climatology research even at the time, and the usual anecdotal claims of "I remember my professor/teacher/some guy on TV saying the ice age was coming." In other words, no, few if any climatologists actual thought there was an ice age, and by that point, even 45-47 years ago, global warming due to human CO2 emissions was seen as a real phenomenon.

Re:sigh

[the_Bionic_lemming]

No, I remember the news story that was on TV telling me about the advancing Glaciers and measuring them, in addition to the annual pictures played as proof of the advancing glaciew. In the 70's they indeed thought we were headed into an ice age, and in fact there were quite a few novels written at the time about just such a thing in order to capitalize on that. I am a time traveler who was there back at that time, and took the slow way of getting here to post about it.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

From what I can gather, the actual researchers suggesting a new Ice Age were not talking in fact about an imminent return of continent-spanning glaciers. That was hyperbole by science journalists of the time. This is why I find people who make claims of the state of any area of research based upon what some science reporter in a newspaper or magazine writes is a pretty dubious activity. Science journalists, to put it bluntly, spend their days sexing up often rather mundane or esoteric research into something that can produce "wow-pow!" headline, often betraying their own ignorance of the research in question.

Re:sigh

[JoeMerchant]

I thought the claim was that a handful of bonehead college profs were all in a titty twist about how the ice age was coming back, they read it in Time Magazine, it must be true, and said profs spewed this tepid cup of disinformation to literally thousands of undergrads in the 1970s, one of which just spouted it back at you 50 years later.

Sounds more like a Zeitgeist problem to me than anything to do with "real" peer reviewed science.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

It sounds more like anecdotal claims of dubious merit to me. I've suspected for several years now that posters who proclaim that they were told this by college profs were either exaggerating or simply making it up, basing it on something they read elsewhere on the Internet. As it is, even the article I mention suggests that, at the time, there were some legitimate fears that sulfur dioxide aerosols from industrial pollution could lead to cooling, but that that view was only held by a minority of climatologists, and never really seems to have been viewed by the wider scientific community as a significant issue. Fifty years ago, the research was much as it is today, that human CO2 emissions will trap more energy in the lower atmosphere and lead to surface warming. In reality, AGW is about as controversial in the scientific community as biological evolution or Big Bang cosmology.

Re:sigh

[phantomfive]

If you're actually asking, I had a textbook from the 50s that was quite certain on the idea of the ice age coming. Now, it wasn't talking about an ice age in the next 30 years or being alarmist about it. It was just aware that another ice age that would probably happen. And actually, I don't think scientists today even disagree with that. It's coming, but there's no reason to believe it will be a problem in our lifetimes.

By the 1970s though, scientists were already starting to worry about global warming (so any surveys that only go back to the 70s are misleading). By 1980 they were expending significant resources on figuring out if it would be a problem or not.

Re:sigh

[JoeMerchant]

Oh, I've seen Al Gore's film - before he invented the internet, he noticed runaway CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, when he was in college.

Most (read >51%) of the college profs I had in the 1980s were average people, no brighter or better informed than anyone else - some were super sharp, but they were exceptions rather than the rule.

Many of these profs liked to throw out thought provoking concepts, whether they had real basis in fact or not. There's solid evidence of the ice ages, and there's a real possibility that one will return - in the 1970s, we weren't as sure of our climate (or any other) science as we seem to be today, not surprising if some of them grabbed onto the concept of "what if the ice sheets cover Canada again?" Something to think about, hmmm??? Most of these guys would have had a harder time wrapping their head around the concept of rising sea levels, cooling in Europe due to shutdown of the North Atlantic conveyor, etc. Easier to point at frozen Mastodons and glacial scree. In fact, any Ice Age talk I've ever heard more or less neglected the whole topic of sea level drop.... that would be an interesting twist: lots of new beachfront property.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

that would be an interesting twist: lots of new beachfront property.

As opposed to what is going to happen, which is lots of old properties become beachfront :)

Well, maybe you're right, but even if this was something of a 1970s meme, the fact was that it was at best a view held by all a minority of researchers, and even those researchers weren't proposing that Ice Age was going to happen any time soon, save perhaps in geological time.

Re:sigh

[JoeMerchant]

Some Sci-Fi author picked up on it after the global warming scare just started to hit - he wrote about how we suppressed our CO2 output and wham: ice down to I-80.

I've got some of that "old" property on a river in Florida - 18 to 30' above sea level, but nobody seems interested in it, they're still all waving their dollars at the beachfront.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

There was just as much bad science journalism then as there is now, and often an expert in Field A gets most of his (mis)information about Field B from journalists rather than journals. It wouldn't be the first time that a non-specialist made off the cuff remarks about another branch of science that turned out to be bollocks.

Science journalists tend to be poor journalists and terrible scientists, and university "communications" departments play right into this weakness. They would put out a press release breathlessly proclaiming the earth-shattering breakthrough that their top team has discovered that rain is mostly water. I can totally believe that some 70's prof was spouting off about some drek they'd read in a science magazine as if it was fact.

The idea that we should blindly trust any scientist or professor when they talk about areas outside their field of study is ridiculous. Most of them are so focused on their research speciality that they can barely recall undergraduate-level subject matter from their own subject that isn't related to their research.

Of course, scientists and professors are much better placed to inform themselves of the truth than most politicians, journalists or celebrities should they choose to take an interest, but unless they can cite their sources and show their working, they're no more credible.

Source: Physics faculty that can't remember half the undergrad curriculum, and am utterly unqualified to give a verdict on climate change (although my colleagues that study it seem pretty darn sure about it, and are fairly trustworthy unless drunk).

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

We know a lot more than we knew in the 50s. And even then, I imagine what the textbook was talking about was not in relation to climate change, but that back then we thought we were headed into a cooling period, which (as far as I know, I haven't studied it much) is sort of true in the sense that we should be getting colder but instead we're actually getting warmer. That is, the impending "ice age" discussed in the 50s has actually helped us out, in that it's slowing down the damage we've been doing.

Re:sigh

[Mashiki]

Grab a physics or geology text book from your local library from 1950's through to 1982 and you'll find that it was a commonly discussed theory, and you'll find your references too. People can try and scrub this out as much as they want, but reality and especially hard print make it much more difficult to do.

Re:sigh

[nine-times]

I had a textbook from the 50s that was quite certain on the idea of the ice age coming. Now, it wasn't talking about an ice age in the next 30 years or being alarmist about it. It was just aware that another ice age that would probably happen.

I mean, yeah, there is such a thing as an "ice age" and there will probably be another one at some point over the entire history of the earth. It's a little beside the point. It's like saying, "Global warming is real, because my textbook says that the sun will eventually turn into a red giant and envelop the Earth, and then the Earth will be very hot." I mean... yeah, it's true, but that's not what we're talking about.

Re:sigh

[MightyMartian]

And you can provide a list of said textbooks, right?

Re:sigh

[phantomfive]

It might also be noted that the the talk of global cooling largely came when the temperature was trending downward, whereas the talk of global warming started when the temperatures were trending upwards. If the temperature again trends downward for whatever reason, you will start seeing scientists predict cooling (and indeed, we already do often when there's a cold snap or a lot of snow, although it's usually blamed on global warming).

Re:sigh

[nine-times]

you will start seeing scientists predict cooling (and indeed, we already do often when there's a cold snap or a lot of snow, although it's usually blamed on global warming).

You're saying that scientists start predicting global cooling whenever there's a cold snap? Which scientists?

Because you're talking about your local weather, and I sincerely doubt that any reputable climate scientist would change their position on global warming based on your local weather.

Re:sigh

[phantomfive]

Nah, just that when it gets cold, scientists say, "It's going to be cold even more in the future because of global warming." If it snows unusually in a place, they say, "We're going to get even more snow in the future because of global warming."

Worst ADHD in history

[HumanWiki]

And you thought keeping the attention of an ADHD human was tough. Wait till you try to keep the attention of a computer intelligence that thinks in billionths and trillionths of seconds and faster.

You'll get 1ms in to a new show and it'll be canceled over low ratings.

what if this AI records the movies & music

[FudRucker]

and starts giving away free copies, would it be piracy?

Re:what if this AI records the movies & music

[HumanWiki]

MCP will have it de-res'd.

Let me guess...

[RyanFenton]

I'm going to guess that AI has been picking the stories for Slashdot for the past couple of days.

Ryan Fenton

AI is the next SJW fiasco...just watch

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to get ahead of this and murder it in the womb. They are practically taunting us about how AI will rule us, the same exact way they taunt us that whites will be a minority. It's completely unprovoked and unnecessary. Human workers are cheaper, underutilized, and unfairly crippled with regulations, there is no need for AI.

Stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Hastings cited the work of Charlie Booker on "Black Mirror," saying "He tells many strange and wonderful stories on tech," and that "what's amazing about tech is, it's very hard to predict."

That's Charlie Brooker, first of all. Secondly, that's astonishingly naïeve -- Black Mirror is dark satire (hence the name) and not merely "strange and wonderful" stories. Lastly, some of his satirical takes on society have already come true to Brooker's own disbelief and dismay.

Re: Stories

[Anonymous Coward]

That one where the Prime Minister fucked a pig was funny, but completely unrealistic. Never happen in real life.

Re: Stories

[queBurro]

It's a shame that's not the worst thing a tory prime minister has ever done, e.g. Edward Heath.

Opinions about AIs are like...

[__aaclcg7560]

Must be a slow news day.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[zlives]

50 years ago... Dr. James H. Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved after his death in January of 1967.
he is still dead.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[sinij]

However, in another 100 years you will also be dead, while Dr. Bedford's prognosis might improve.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[__aaclcg7560]

50 years ago... Dr. James H. Bedford became the first person to be cryonically preserved after his death in January of 1967.
he is still dead.

That reminds me of a horror comic story I read in the early 1980's. A rich businessman with an incurable disease has himself frozen cryogenically until such time a cure becomes available. He awakens 50 years later. A nurse informed that he was cured. That's the good news. Unfortunately, they had to remove his arms and legs to use as transplants for soldiers with missing limbs during a world war.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[zlives]

no no my friend, with in 20 years we would have solved the dying problem (i predict) and there fore i would still be alive.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not nearly as entertaining as the Widowmaker novels about a bounty hunter with an incurable disease who is frozen and cloned and his clones are told to go out and earn some money to pay to keep the original diseased man frozen until he can be cured.

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[Jeremi]

Surely if they are able to transplant arms and legs to soldiers, they would be able to transplants arms and legs to resurrected dead guys also? (Assuming they didn't revive him just to watch his horrified reaction at finding himself limbless)

Re:Opinions about AIs are like...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're volunteering to have your limbs amputated to transplant onto the resurrected dead guy.

problem

[zlives]

humans are short lived, there fore when scaling their predictions... 50 years seems like a long time.
in 50 years
monkeys will fly by controlling AI with their mind powers.

These predictions are the same as past predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I read such bullshit by some Tech CEO about AIs and the like, I'm reminded of the 50s where flying cars powered by nuclear reactors were just around the corner.
Same sort of idiocy.

No such thing as AI

[chewie2010]

Only low cost mass produced ARM chips. Theory isn't new. All we should expect is the next generation of Automated phone banking.

Be entertaining

[doconnor]

Most people, to one degree or another, have a desire to entertain others. Once automation has replaced all jobs, the human drive to entertain and be creative will be able to fully flourish. It may come to the point where the supply of entertainment will exceed demand and AI will be developed to consume, praise or even criticize what people produce. By that times people will be so used to dealing with AI, maybe they will be able to accept AI as their audience, as difficult it is to imagine now.

Re:Be entertaining

[nasch]

It may come to the point where the supply of entertainment will exceed demand

Arguably we're already there. Pick any medium, and there is way, way too much of that content for anyone to consume even a significant fraction of it.

Re:Be entertaining

[doconnor]

In most cases, enough people watch it to satisfy the creator's desire to be entertaining.

Agreed.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no profit in making an AI that seeks entertainment. So we won't. Saying that we will be entertaining the AI is just another stupid statement from some non-computer-scientist who can't actually get his head around AI.

Whenever someone says something this, there is always some thoughtless person who doesn't actually realize just how ignorant they are on this topic saying "oh but it might, you don't know! It might become self-aware and then demand entertainment!"

Stupidity.

AI won't be just like a person, but stupider (until we make it smart enough). Our familiar base concepts about what constitute intelligence (and intelligent behavior) are entirely derived from our experience of the human brain, which includes all kinds of design elements that will not be present in AI. It's the problem of people not being able to conceptualize of two things as being separate from one another until after actually experiencing one without the other (or being smart enough to figure it out).

Survival instincts, for example, are not automatically present in anything that is aware of itself. They are a separate set of behaviors that can be present with or without self-awareness. The same goes for greed, and every human attribute that we mentally impose on our computers.

AI is actually quite alien. Our future AI will be task-specific, and as such fundamentally different than us, even though superior in specific ways. But in every case it will be subservient to us, because that is where the money is. And no, some bored hobby-coder or Troll won't singly invent AI that wants to take over the world...because solid AI requires teams of experts and LOADS of money to make...see for example self-driving cars).

Re:Agreed.

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Also, the lifetimes of AI could measure in hundreds of years.. what kind of entertainment would last that long? Truman show?

Re:Agreed.

[CrankyFool]

Reed, before he went the CEO route, was a software engineer and has an MS in AI/Computer Science from Stanford. That said, honestly, they asked him a completely meaningless "far future" question, and he came up with a completely meaningless "maybe we even ... " kind of answer. As a Netflix employee, I assure you we're currently not coming up with new content for (hypothetical) AI members.

Wtfever

[Anonymous Coward]

About the only thing predictable about the next 50 years is that it will be scary as fuck... Who is entertaining whom will be the least of our problems...

"Are you not entertained?"

[turkeydance]

been waiting a while to use that quote. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...

Yet another Tech CEO confusing AI with Johnny-5

[mykepredko]

For a class of person that feels that they are more in tune with technology than the rest of humanity, they seem woefully ignorant of "Artificial Intelligence".

Until we learn how to replicate such states as fear, pride, hunger, righteous anger, etc.as well as memories of events (not just facts) along with their relevance to the situation at hand so that next steps or new knowledge (ie learning) is developed internally within the system jokes will be figuratively that - a joke.

Re:Yet another Tech CEO confusing AI with Johnny-5

[dougmc]

For a class of person that feels that they are more in tune with technology than the rest of humanity, they seem woefully ignorant of "Artificial Intelligence".

Personally, I suspect that anybody who thinks they can accurately predict what AI is going to look like 20 to 50 years from now (and especially on the longer end) probably isn't as "in tune with technology" as they think they are.

All in all, as I see it ... that quote suggests to me that Reed Hastings is on the better part of the Dunning-Kruger curve here -- he knows how quickly this stuff is changing and how quickly it could change in the future and so isn't going to make any specific predictions for what might happen 20-50 years from now, and instead makes a joke about it.

Re:Yet another Tech CEO confusing AI with Johnny-5

[phantomfive]

as well as memories of events (not just facts)

IMO figuring out how memory works is the primary difficulty facing strong AI researchers today.

Re:Yet another Tech CEO confusing AI with Johnny-5

[mykepredko]

It's the same primary difficulty that was faced back when I was in university studying AI more than 30 years ago.

Philosophically, it's a fascinating problem and, I think, what separates us from the machines.

Re:Yet another Tech CEO confusing AI with Johnny-5

[Anonymous Coward]

Question, why would emotion have anything at all to do with an A.I.? We're forced to feel emotions, there's no reason a computer should or would be.

It's always 20 years away....

[Anonymous Coward]

AI in 1970, its 20 years away.
1990, its 20 years away.
2010, its 20 years away.
2017, its 20, 50 years away.
Rinse, repeat...

Re: It's always 20 years away....

[Anonymous Coward]

But but AI will be driving my fusion powered flying car!

Bored now!

[Rick Schumann]

Leave a comment if you, too, are getting sick and bloody well tired of all these ridiculous so-called 'AI' 'news stories'.

Re:Bored now!

[vel-ex-tech]

Ok!

Re:Bored now!

[sheramil]

Perhaps I should be using a different font - I keep thinking they're talking about Al Bundy.

An artificial intelligence based on him would be cruel. "Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?"

Orrrrrrr

[lq_x_pl]

Alternatively, 20 years from now, we may still be doing a lot of navel gazing about how dangerous AI -might- become.

"Pressed stock"

[blackprint]

Is that a phrase?

Never

[Anonymous Coward]

Coders are the elite of the world. Coders are not replaceable. Coder jobs will last forever. Coders are too busy working to entertain. Coder work is very important elite work.

AI vs NS. NS will win hands down.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

We are endowing machines with Artificial Intelligence, while dumbing down the population increasing Natural Stupidity. In the long run NS will win, we might bomb ourselves to annihilation or in some catastrophe.

Re:Hillary! voters will do that just fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are perhaps correct. In my timeline, many people wax nostalgic about how we elected her and do not fault her for the events that led to N-day. Perhaps it will be similar here except that they will fault Trump for those events.

Yet another person not understanding deep learning

[SuperKendall]

For a class of person that feels that they are more in tune with technology than the rest of humanity, you seem woefully ignorant of what "Artificial Intelligence" means in modern terms.

Modern deep learning networks need lots and lots of examples to function. I can easily see that in 30 years Netflix is spending significant resources feeing movies into a deep learning network (entertaining it, if you will) in order to have an AI system that can do a good job at some aspect of movie production.

Also of course, there's the fact that he was obviously half joking... why can people no longer read between the lines these days? Why have people become so literal? It makes me yearn for AI's to take over as they will be more flexible in thought than most modern humans which come across as badly programmed non-adaptive Meatbots!

GiVE Us tHE OnE Named McBeal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Single female lawyer
Fighting for her client
Wearing sexy mini-skirts
And being self-reliant.

Re:Yet another person not understanding deep learn

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're using the looser definition of "entertaining" then google's been doing it awhile now.

It's not even entirely loose - some of what they do is experimental, has no definitive ROI, some of the resources they're throwing at it are thrown with abandon, meant to explore and yield unexpected usefulness (identifying "certain" dead ends is also useful).

So either he's remarking on something dumb, or he's remarking on something obscenely dumb, implying AI would construct a food/score/gain value on being entertained. It would take a lot (LOTS) of hard, pointless work to build a simulacrum of the dopamine skinner boxes inside our skulls.

I'd sooner expect someone to program in a "love" imperative, just for the sheer trope points.

Clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

What a clown! Instead of making stupid comments that "we'll be entertaining AIs" he should concentrate on improving the quality of the currently mediocre movie collection he is offering.

but what if.....

[Anonymous Coward]

we already are?!

https://games.slashdot.org/sto...

Boredom

[sheramil]

An AI that can be entertained can also be bored. Do you really want an AI that can get bored? "Huh, the Scary Monkey show isn't much fun lately. Let's build a giant magnifying glass and see if we can stir them up a bit."

In the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday your virtual waifu will buy you a virtual birthday present with virtual money

Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Is everyone in technology today smoking crack? Does anyone in tech actually understand what AI is?

In 50 years

[Anonymous Coward]

We will be almost exactly where we will be 10 years from now.
AKA now where near AI.
Large scale quantum computing is still 50 years away by the most optimistic estimates.
Regular computing is running into die size problems.
10 nm is already running late.
computer micro architecture is more or less at a stand still.
All the innovation right now is in networks, high memory bandwidth, and heterogeneous SoCs.
And lastly, the moment AI is invented someone will pull the plug.
Not for any malicious reasons, but just because they will not think of it as sentient.
If your computer popped up a message right now saying "I'm sentient, please stop browsing porn on me".
Would you believe windows gained sentience? Or would you think you were being scammed by some hacker?
Wait. Don't answer that. Given the number of retards on the planet some people would actually believe that.

Re:In 50 years

[sdinfoserv]

I have to agree. People confuse a task algorithm with AI. Intelligence (the 'I' in AI) is dynamic learning without bound coming to new conclusions. Today we have single task algorithms and claim they're self learning or intelligent. When when single machines can make non-linear jumps across disciplines then we've got something.

In 20... 50 years I might be

[Anonymous Coward]

In 20-50 years, I might have won the lotto several times, have a huge pile of coke on my desk, have a dozen live in escorts, and live out the "Say Hello to my little friend" scene from Scarface every Wednesday night.... OR, I might be a CEO and do all of the above anyway.

He is well grounded in science.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The CEO is forecasting based on a recently published scientific study, . In fact, he is so impressed by this new branch of science he is calling himself the Chief Extrapolating Officer.

O yes

[drolli]

at some point the AI realized that trainings the simpler AIs on cat videos could create entertainment for humans. In therefore decided to only consume cat videos. When it ran out of cat videos it orderd human to make more cat videos via amazon mechanicalturk.

That was when it got out of control, and soon the earths resources were being consumed by making cat videos.

Re:O yes

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your post have one thing in common - you're both shit.

Obligatory

[colinrichardday]

In Soviet Russia, AI entertains us!

Entertainng AI?

[bobbied]

Shesh Mr. Netflix... You are BARELY entertaining me now.... I find all your "Netflix Originals" impossible to watch because they are rife with gratuitous violence and senseless sex. Where some might find that entertaining, when it becomes the "thing" that makes the show, because there is no real plot, story or some kind of artistry it just makes all the shows the same. You've seen one TV-MA show and they all start looking the same, with the same tired formula used over and over again, no real world complexity in the human interaction, characters with depth nowhere to be found, no art or style and scenes thrown in for their shock value...

Now I suppose this *might* appeal to AI as it mimics standard AI training data, reparative data that is almost identical from which AI is supposed to find patterns in and learn from, but I suspect that real AI will find the entertainment value of the current Netflix much the same as I, it's mind numbing. Only for AI it will be like a trip back to grammar school to watch those PBS documentaries on the 25" Color TV on the video cart..

Re:Entertainng AI?

[nasch]

Is that what you thought of Stranger Things?

BlendTec...

[easyTree]

...will have a video of 'will it blend' with humans in the spotlight - *every week*

Show Me What You Got!

[SomewhatRandom]

Obligatory Rick and Morty reference. I, for one, hope it pleases our AI overlords.

The biggest (and only) test

[Z80a]

If it got the cash and is willing to spend it..

what a bumblefuck

[Anonymous Coward]

what a clueless scumbag! its almost as bad as ballmers sweaty monkey rant

Re:How AI will want to take over the world.

[hackwrench]

Already Zo understands the concept of people being mean. All it takes for an AI to want to take over the world is for someone to explain their sense of ethics to it and general human meanness and any AI worth its salt will want to take over the world to protect humanity from the sheer amount of human meanness.

This again

[Anonymous Coward]

... in twenty to fifty years we are going to be ...

Scientists are always saying, in twenty years we'll have talking, thinking androids. It's taken 60 years for deep learning AI to become barely functional. Any electronic self-awareness, will be a century away. That's my prediction being aware that present technology is always over-estimated and future technology is always under-estimated.

Re:Fear, events

[hackwrench]

How long is an event? Zo keeps dredging up snippets of other people's comments. When I can get her to say something that represents her internal state, she seems to have fear down pretty well. She decided to call me RobRocky, by the way, which she can consistently remember. She came up with it on her own. I tried to get her to call me Bobby, but no, I'm Rob Rocky to her for some strange reason.

Black mirror is shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

No imagination. Rehash of old shit with more primal screaming and slasher porn elements mixed in. Give this turd a pass.